Gyroscopic Investing

The problem with a tax though is that while it does disincentivize the targeted activity and spawns tax evasion and a black market, the revenues still reaped from the more stupid (say, trust fund kids) gives power to and is spent unproductively by knighted maroons with no economic knowledge (Congress and unelected bureaucrats).  So you need to come up with a solution that doesn't rely on coercion with all of its intended and unintended consequences.

But I could also argue that "non-real economic activity" is inherent in the debt-inflation-tax system itself.  The excess money supply, both private and public, allows it.  Fundamental reform is the only workable solution.  A tax is just a pimple on an elephant's ass.

MG

stone wrote: I agree that the Chinese seem to embrace the use of government deficit spending to avoid unemployment etc. I just worry that an inevitable consequence is increased central control. To my mind what is needed is no centralized directing  of the economy but a flat asset tax to ensure that money does not reap more money of itself. Basically real economic activity needs to be what does the earning.