Halloween Special: Death and Taxes

Boo To The Unthinking Toadies!

This Sunday's paper (the Quincy Herald-Whig, 10/30/11) carries our local Ag columnist's opinion on the logic of the Estate Tax.

We learn that "Agriculture" is pushing a plan to completely do away with a tax which brings in tens of billions of dollars a year. Tax chop enthusiasts speak the language of the Bush Tax Cuts of ten years ago; that tax cutting will spur so much growth in the economy that just taxing that new bonanza will outstrip foresaken revenues.

Except..., this time supply-side economics will really work!

Not only is our friendly Ag columnist spouting the party line, one that we tried and found wanting (Did the Bush Tax Cuts spur the economy? No. Instead, they piled debt up to the ceiling--just look at how our economy flat-lined after those enormous cuts), but if most farmers knew the facts, they'd likely think twice.

Take a look at who pays the tax and you come away with little sympathy for whoever it is behind the movement to change the law. From Mother Jones magazine we learn:

"According to the Tax Policy Center, even under the rather generous 2009 estate tax parameters, only" 1 in every 500 deaths "will incur the estate tax. In fact, only 100 farms in the entire country" were likely "slapped with an estate tax, and family-owned farms already receive special considerations. For example, they're allowed to evaluate their property at its "current-use value, rather than its fair market value," a reduction allowed up to $1 million.... The few farms that do have to pay the estate tax only have to pay interest for the first five years, then can pay the rest in 10 yearly installments. The exemptions are so extensive that only a quarter of the farms that qualify for the tax actually have to pay it."

Uh, sorry, but I really don't think owners of the 100 largest farms in the country are in need of our sympathy.

Think of it this way. Contrary to the language used by our local Ag columnist, eliminating the tax will not do much of anything for local economies. Most likely, it would instead hurt rural America. That's because the current trend is toward Ag consolidation. That means that instead of a dozen farmers and their families living on the land, we're talking about fewer still. Fewer families and fewer churches, schools, shops, pretty soon small villages wither away and die. And meanwhile, huge farms take their place. Are these larger farms run by good people? Probably no different from smaller farms.

The estate tax, though, is one of the few tools we have to put the brakes on big farms. And whether big farm organizations have the money to throw around in the political arena shouldn't mean we have to say 'Amen' to their arguments.

Working On A Dream

Dedication

There is nothing more certain than a lover's enthusiasm; every waking hour spent focused in on fulfillment.

The same can be said for artists, drinking the heady fruit of their craft, the transformative energy that makes a task the most delightful activity imaginable.

But what about dedication driven by need? One sees images of farm workers picking vegetables, for example. Their skills seem effortless, fluid, dance-like.

As someone who used to be a farm worker, I've followed the recent news about 'regular' Americans trying to fill in on Alabama farms now without their regular farm workers thanks to a new crack-down on the undocumented. What surprises me is how no one seems to understand what it's like to do physical labor, all day, day after day. Of course new workers don't last, they aren't being given a fair chance. Nobody, be they Hispanic from Mexico or native-born without experience in a farm field, is going to be able to take physical punishment without a gradual introduction. It's not a matter of lazy, rich city-dwellers who, even when receiving Unemployment Benefits, won't do work below their station. It's a matter of allowing the body to gradually build the muscle sets needed to hoist 20-pound buckets all day, let alone bend over for hours on end.

What's likely is that the stereotypes are too easy to avoid. Lazy Americans. Mexicans who will do anything to support their families. And so the farmers say they 'need' cheap labor, and it has to be Hispanic, because only they are willing to dedicate themselves sufficiently to the task.

Exactly how one could arrange the work so that new hires are given at least a week or so to grow accustomed to it, I don't know. But crops rotting in the field, which seems to be what happened at the end of this year's growing season, points to a problem that has cost growers much more than taking a few steps towards accommodating green farmhands would have.

Hell's Bells -- 24 Hour Edition

Modernity's Fate-Worse-Than-Death ?

The review of former Vice-President Cheney's recent book, found in a New Yorker magazine a ways back, was not afraid to offend. And I imagine the former Veep gets a lot of that these days. Which raises the question: If Cheney was in any way responsible for torture, say, and he seems eager to make that a 'yes', shouldn't he be charged with breaking the law?

I don't intend to make the case for (loss of US prestige; putting our troops in harms way; setting a precedent for future law-breakers; unable to call others to account; and serious doubts about its effectiveness) or against (would be terribly divisive, etc.). My interest isn't in whether Cheney and his ilk should suffer for what they've wrought, but instead, whether the modern world with its bright lights and 'everybody watching' sense of being in the public eye has in any way altered the need for punishment.

First off, I should say that I believe in Hell-on-Earth and fates worse than death; and that those afflicted by same can never be mentally healthy again. Our minds, in order to avoid ill-health, depend on positive feedback. And in each human being's brain there is an objective seer who takes all experience in and metes out reward and punishment without prejudice. There is no avoiding this feedback loop. There is only suppression of said wonder. And with suppression comes banality, loss of direction, imitative self-abuse and all that dulls the senses.

Finding oneself judged by others makes hiding from and suppressing one's inner conscience all but impossible, as one is constantly reminded of wrong-doing. Thus, retiring to a self-selected community of toadies, as one might do in ages past isn't likely anymore. What used to be rumors of bad behavior that wouldn't be allowed inside a community of like minds is now splashed all over media outlets; television, radio, internet can't be avoided. Increasingly in our modern world, there is no escape.

Might this insight, assuming the existential impulse is valid, have implications for criminal justice, for example? I think so. If society became mostly concerned with connecting humans with their own Central Justice System, as one might call it, the need for punishment, while always remaining, would be secondary.

Fantasy

My Desert Isle

Just relaxing this afternoon and I got to thinking about an invention I read about recently.

Seems a Texan named Terry LeBleu has invented a $500 machine, called the Drought Master, that collects water from air. The condensed water, pulled from the surrounding air, accumulates at the rate of about 5-7 gallons a day.

This got me thinking. While the machine plugs into a standard household outlet, what if one were to combine it with off-the-grid electricity, say solar power. Essentially, one would be creating a small drip on one's property. Which doesn't sound all that exciting until you realize that yet another modern invention, drip irrigation, could be added to the mix and suddenly things get interesting.

With perhaps just a half dozen machines ($3,000), a person could, given plenty of sunshine, grow most of her edibles and thus have little or no need for a connection to the outside world, ... even in an arid locale. Which is what may be the greatest insight I've had for a long time. Arid landscapes that lack water, even those near or on the coast, are usually uninhabitable. But no longer. In fact, entire villages could sprout up on even the most isolated, dry, barren soil.

So, here's my fantasy: Along with perhaps a few dozen pioneers, I buy a remote, isolated desert coastline (Baja California, maybe, or better yet, a fresh-water-starved Pacific island). There's a 50 foot cliff down to an isolated, sandy beach. On the cliff we begin to turn the rocky, dry soil into productive gardens with walkways that bend with the hills. We are periodically supplied by boat, ordering supplies by internet. Soon, we've created a lush paradise that gradually encompasses the entire island.

What an accomplishment that would be. What satisfaction.