Get Ready To Start Paying These Taxes Too
by Simon Black
ZeroHedge.com
11/09/2011
In the pre-dawn darkness of a chilly LA morning, my day started off with a chuckle. A friend in the reforestation business sent me an email detailing the US Department of Agriculture’s new ‘Christmas Tree’ tax that was approved yesterday. I thought it was a joke. It wasn’t.
One can only laugh at the absurdity of the government getting involved in such a matter. But it’s happening more and more.
You see, the United States is on a one-way collision course with its financial judgment day; the country long ago passed the historical point of no return– the point at which it has to start borrowing money simply to pay interest on the money it has already borrowed.
Throughout history, countries that passed this point of no return soon defaulted on their debts, entered into extended periods of severe inflation, or both. This is nothing new– the idea of a government going bankrupt is practically as old as the concept of government itself.
Along the way as they slide down the slippery slope of economic calamity, governments typically hit the accelerator by resorting to financial repression; rather than making the economy open and attractive to talented people and investment capital, they instead confiscate, inflate, and overregulate.
These tactics include oldies but goodies like civil asset forfeiture, capital controls, and a host of whacky new taxes. Like a Christmas Tree tax, for example.
The Rest…HERE
