MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. PRESIDENT - YOU ARE A DESERVING MAN

Hardiest congratulations President Obama. You've put up with alot and have been facing alot. You've achieved changes in the tax code that no one else could accomplish. You have put best practices before politics and the results should work in your favor.

You took action in health care; whether its good, bad or indifferent, you did something. You took action in taxation policy; no matter whether its good, bad or indifferent, you did something. You took action in our wars; no matter whether its good, bad or indifferent, you did something.

Now I hope you will find the extra educational resources that the underprivileged need to bring their academic levels up to the levels of the most privileged students.

"IT'S TIME TO RETHINK" WHO WRITES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

According to an editorial in the New York Times titled "It's time to Rethink The Charity Deduction" Professor Thaler states "If someone in the 36 percent tax bracket gives $1,000 to charity and deducts if from his income tax, the donation costs him only $640. The government picks up the rest." Professor claims that's a subsidy, but it's not.

The government is giving us an incentive, not a subsidy, in order to make a charitable donation. The person that makes no donation has more money after taxes than the person who makes a donation.

The 2011 tax bill is meant to be an incentive to help people buy, hire and expand. It's been government practice to achieve public policy goals through the use of tax changes. That's what I call incentive.

THEY ARE AT IT AGAIN

The New York Times is at it again. In an editorial written by Paul Krugman titled "Wall Street Whitewash" Mr. Krugman criticizes Spencer Bachus, the incoming G.O.P. chairman of the White House Financial Services Committee for saying that "Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."

I'm sure Mr. Bachus meant that there are millions of people employed at banks and in effect meant they are there to serve the working people of America, in this case the ones that work at banks.

His comments didn't suggest anything immoral, illegal, or nefarious. It certainly didn't mean there should be no regulation. It just plain old means the New York Times should stop letting it's editorial writers interpret things in such a way that they are trouble-making, out of context and not the underlying meaning of what the Chairman meant to say.

Senator Bachus should be applauded and hopefully he will respond and put these statements into meaningful context.

THE GOVERNMENT DOES IT AGAIN

Yesterday, without naming the people, their political affiliations or their educational background, the government released a report concerning the electronic payment companies.

The immediate result was a $15 Billion dollar reduction in the value of the major companies in that business. Those major companies are a part of the critical infrastructure of the entire business payment system.

To top it all off, they are American companies, not Chinese or made somewhere else. $15 Billion dollars was taken out of the value of the institutional funds, pensions funds and other similar fund values.

Why are the people of the government not held accountable for, at the very least, their atrocious mishandling of the public relation aspects of their suggestions?

The whole idea that this is a release from the Federal Reserve is just plain wrong. This is a release written by some people who probably didn't think about the impact of their process on America's savings.

In theory, someone will be responsible to make up for the $15 Billion dollars, especially in the pension funds.

There's something wrong somewhere.

IS THE ESTATE TAX REALLY AN ATTACK ON SUCCESS?

The New York Times is at it again. They published an editorial titled "Give Up On The Estate Tax" written by Ray Madoff. I thought it was worthy of funny commentary, critical review, etc. It starts off with the words congressional democrats but there are no names mentioned. Ms. Madoff then offers the brilliant insight to drop the estate tax and then just tax it as income to the recipient.

Ms. Madoff quotes Justice Brandeis as saying concentrated wealth and democracy can't go hand in hand. I believe there is no such thing as concentration of wealth. For the third time in my blogs I repeat that wealth is either spent or invested, it goes round and round in the system. The only problem with this country is that there isn't enough wealth. Think about that and analyze it.

She makes the statement that our greater dispersal of wealth was responsible for a strong middle class with absolutely no backup for that claim. It just doesn't matter how much wealth anyone owns, as long as they keep it flowing through the economy. Asking the question, what level of taxes is appropriate for heirs is like asking the question how much is a professor at Boston College Law School worth? (Ray D. Mafoff is a professor at Boston College Law School). There is a heck of alot of lawyers in this country. Maybe there are too many people being taught law and not enough people being taught how to make things. Why do people like Ms. Madoff talk about nothing but tax, tax, tax?

Here's a new idea. How about imposing an education tax. For example, someone like Ms. Madoff has all this education, that means she has an advantage over other people. Therefore, for every upgrade you get in education, your tax rate should go up, despite your income level. We can call it the "EDUCATION TAX" which can serve to even the playing field.

How about the person who spends all their money and has no estate and the other saves all their money and has an estate - get the point? The estate tax is no significant percentage of total government tax receipts. What motivates so many people to be so concerned about collecting that money? A lot of people write a lot of things about what should happen to other people's money. From my experience, most of these people aren't too charitable.

By the way, I decided to watch Michael Moore's film on Capitalism. It's just plain wrong throughout almost it's entire length and is out of context to what really has happened to this country.

IT AIN’T EASY BEING THE PRESIDENT

Monetary and fiscal policies have to result in a generalized return of confidence to considerably reduce unemployment. Presidents Bush and Obama have both pursued proper economic policies to stabilize the economy and help confidence return.

President Obama’s compromises with the Republican Party on tax policy would normally be the right steps towards increasing confidence amongst consumers and employers. Paradoxically, his political rhetoric continues to be left-winged and counterproductive towards his own economic goals.

You can’t measure the confidence reducing effect of President Obama’s political rhetoric verses the confidence building actions of his tax policy. President Obama still has an opportunity for greatness, but for some reason his priorities are not single focused on solving the unemployment problem, which would require him to stick to economics, not politics.