The injustice of it all
Via Henry, I must say that I heartily agree with Ben Stein that there is something fundamentally wrong and unfair about a world in which he pays higher rate tax.
(irregular readers may wonder who the fuck this guy is, as I do occasionally myself. He's a curious character, whose activities have been documented ably by Felix. In his mind, Ben Stein is an economist and stock market commentator. In reality, he's the guy who said "anyone? Bueller? anyone?".
"So, in the midst of a severe recession, I am to have my taxes raised dramatically.
ReplyDeleteI am not quite sure what my sin is."
I don't much about his economics, but I'm glad he's never considered himself an expert on logic. Is that an example of chutzpah, narcissism, or insanity?
No, just whining.
ReplyDeleteI know what his sin is. For ten years, he's had a tax cut predicated on the notion that he (and all his friends) do something so productive with the money that we'd come out ahead, or at least break even. They didn't. Experiment over.
ReplyDeleteOr, to more correctly summarize the actual content of the legislation, "what part of 'we had a fucking deal' do you not understand?"
ReplyDeleteI do genuinely wonder how much of his career can be ascribed to his repeatedly being confused with Benn Steil at the Council on Foreign Relations, who is a serious character with a proper job.
ReplyDeleteDid Benn Steil have a game show?
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Win_Ben_Stein%27s_Money
AlanB: Probably not very much. Stein was a high-level aide to Presidents Nixon and Ford, and he's been a semi-prominent conservative pundit for 40 years.
ReplyDeleteThat must be corrected.
ReplyDeleteI am not quite sure what my sin is.
ReplyDeleteLet me count the ways...
@weserei: Until he started hosting a silly game show, wrote and starred in a bizarre anti-evolution movie and was then fired by the NYT for conflict of interest after shilling for a repellent credit agency, after all of which he is probably owes a debt of gratitude to misidentification as Steil to keep his name out of the gutter.
ReplyDeleteYes, "there is something fundamentally wrong and unfair about a world in which he pays higher rate tax." In a fair world he would have no income to tax.
ReplyDeleteweserei said: Stein was a high-level aide to Presidents Nixon and Ford, and he's been a semi-prominent conservative pundit for 40 years.
ReplyDeleteHerb Stein was the high level aide, Ben Stein is his son. Stein pere is probably most famous for Stein's Law, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."
marcel
Marcel beat me to mentioning Herb Stein's relationship to Ben and his Law (which makes it hard to explain Ben Stein, by the way).
ReplyDelete