WHY ACTRESS JENNIFER LAWRENCE WORKS AS AN ACTRESS AND NOT AN INVESTMENT BANKER

Actress Jennifer Lawrence tried to boost her image through a feminist pandering diatribe back on October 13, 2015, titled Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co‑Stars? Suggesting herself as a naif, Lawrence wrote, 

"When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn’t get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early."

Wages arise from capital. Where there is no capital, you never find wages (parts of Africa). Where there is high capital per worker, you find high wages (surgeons). Where capital is lower per worker, there are low wages (China, India) [See: SOPHIE'S CHOICE OF CAPITAL OR LABOR. A FREE-MARKETS LIBERTARIAN BECOMES AN ANTI-CAPITALIST AND PERPETUATES AN ECONOMICS MYTH].

Every movie print distributed is capital. When a movie print gets shown, a movie showing becomes wealth sold for the wealth in cash or other bank credit in such purchases and sales.

Where there are more copies of the same movie distributed, there is more capital supporting more showings. 

Among the world of movie goers, consumer preferences expressed in sales of cash or other bank credit for movie showings reveal some kinds of movies sell better than others. Those movies have more prints distributed (capital) and to the contractors (actors) who produce the work of those movies get higher payouts.

Jennifer Lawrence earns substantially more than Steve Buschemi or a 
James McAvoy precisely because distributors can make and sell more prints (capital) of the same Lawrence movie over a Buschemi or McAvoy movie. Yet, no one seems bothered by that reality.

In addition to more prints, those movies that have the highest sales worldwide, typically take more capital (special effects, the work of technicians, specialized cameras) to produce. Hence earnings are higher across the board for contractors (actors) in those movies. 

Worldwide, owing to biologically-driven culture — codified laws, codes of conduct — the law of averages reveals that male and female movie goers prefer seeing men doing the action of movies. Subsequently, actors get more screen time and dialogue time than actresses. Thus, actors are producing more capital each movie relative to actresses.

There is no conspiracy whatsoever why actors earn more than actresses on average. Why Jennifer Lawrence doesn't understand these matters likely is why she works an actress and not an investment banker.

Between August 2014 and August 2015, Lawrence, the 25-year-old Hunger Games actress banked $52 million pre-tax over 12 months to be the best paid actress. Lawrence earned $16.5 million more than second-ranked Scarlett Johansson ($35.5 million) precisely because Lawrence's movies had wider distribution (more capital).

Likely, Lawrence would never acknowledge she earns much more than most actresses and actors for that matter precisely because she is one of the lucky people with pretty faces and one of the lucky people with relatively fit bodies. 

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SOPHIE'S CHOICE OF CAPITAL OR LABOR. A FREE-MARKETS LIBERTARIAN BECOMES AN ANTI-CAPITALIST AND PERPETUATES AN ECONOMICS MYTH

So today on Forbes, Jeffrey Dorfman, a professor of economics at The University of Georgia, who touts himself as a "free market, libertarian" presents a quite false Sophie's choice description of labor vs capital, which plays well to the misinformed masses. Such labor vs capital silliness is is standard fare for economists. 

Dorfman argues that Americans don't have high-paying jobs anymore because 1) automation is killing the middle class, and 2) lower interest rates causes a substitution of capital for labor and thus the cause for automation over workers.

Dorfman says that Americans are living in a "dumbbell economy, where most of the jobs are at either the lower or upper end of the income spectrum, with few jobs left in the middle class." Dorfman started his argument that capital in the form of automation is killing jobs and a cause of low pay and that more capital makes for fewer "middle class" jobs. In short, Dorfman is a pro-capitalist arguing against capital!

Because Dorfman is an academic economist, he is fooled by economics. As I show in Why is the Economy So Horrible? Because Academia Economics is Fake, Dorfman's false beliefs fail to surprise me.

Before the industrial era, almost all Americans were poor, barely living above bare subsistence poverty. Almost all were farmers who traded little. 

Farmers had little capital. There were hand tools and maybe a few plow horses. 

The few "wealthy" Americans were those involved in shipping. Ships of shipping, of course, are capital.

Under the automation of industrialism, true wages or "real" wages if said by economists rose and rose substantially. As Americans added machinery, which, of course, is capital, workers' buying power as expressed in true pay rose.

In effort to lift his specious "dumbbell" argument, Dorfman points to yard workers, retail shelves stockers, neurosurgeons and movie stars as workers whose work can't be automated while work "rules-based" work as accountants, travel agents, bank tellers, can have their work automated with computers. Yet, the dumbbells Dorfman lifts are quite like the ones President Obama has been seen lifting. Such is for the weak.

Academician economists like Dorfman claim that wages should fall when cap spending rises and wages should rise when cap spending fall. 

To economists, wages vs capital is the Sophie's Choice of economics! In short, economists like Dorfman argue in favor of Luddites (and thus Socialists)!

Academician economists fail to see reality. They think only with their hollow theories, which fail to match real-world reality. 

Wages and capital are interlinked. Wages are a consequence of producing wealth under efficiency. The more wealth produced and gained by each worker, the higher wages can rise.

High capital spending causes high wages. Wages rise when capital spending per worker rises. 

Jobs that fetch low wages are such jobs with little capital needed to amplify the work. Yet, jobs that fetch high wages are those that take much capital to do the work.

The cap spend for yard work is tiny. Lawnmowers and leaf blowers are cheap. Many lawns can be mowed and cleaned in a day by using no-skill workers and super cheap capital.

The cap spend for neurosurgeons is much. Surgical rooms are filled with an abundance of one-of-a-kind equipment and slew of pricey technicians. A surgeon can operate only on one brain a day, maybe two.

The cap spend for movie stars is much. Movies require pricey cameras, pricey sets, pricey editing machines, and slew of pricey technicians. 

The cap spend for accountants, travel agents, bank tellers is low. Computers are cheap. Pushing data through fiber optics is even cheaper. 

Only in proportion as labor becomes pricier that it becomes profitable to use cheaper methods (capital) to amplify labor. Capital spending arises because of likely increasing returns to capital. 

THE CHART SOCIALISTS AND POLITICIANS DON'T WANT YOU TO SEE AND THE CHART THAT SHOWS ECONOMISTS DON'T UNDERSTAND COMMERCIAL LIFE

Here, you can see charts for true wages and true capital spending flowing in lockstep. True wages have been falling for years in lockstep with true capital spending per prime age worker, those between 25 and 54. 

During the Clinton Good Times, wages rose. Wages fell thereafter. Workers enjoyed a small return to growing true wages during the final inflation of the Greenspan-Bernanke Credit Bubble, the largest bubble in American history.

In general, true prices have been falling for decades. And as a wage is a price, so too have true wages been falling. In Prices have been Falling for Years! Inflation? Major Deflation has been Underway Since 2007. So Why Does Life Seem Harder? I show you charts of prices for all kinds of goods falling and for years 

The Dorfman claim that entrepreneur-adventurers ask themselves "Should they hire people or should they automate?" never has reflected commercial reality. The true question is this: Is there a dearth of workers or is there an abundance of workers?

The growth in prime age working adults in America has been tremendous, up 45.3% since 1980. And not-so-coincidentally, true wages have fallen 41% and capital spending has fallen 49.5%!



True cap spending has been falling for years in America for heavy industry. Yet, cap spending for R&D and software has been rising. 



Check out the True State of the Union, Private Sector Capital to see more charts.

In You Are Going to Wind Up Working in a Gas Station. Capitalism is Dying, Americans, I show you a table of true wages for various occupations since 2000. You can see that wages rose during inflation of the massive Greenspan-Bernanke credit bubble and then fell substantially during deflation of that bubble precisely because more credit led to more capital spend and less credit to less capital spend.

All trade is about trading the right of ownership (property) in stuff, completed work or future payments in purchases and sales for profit. All of the names mankind uses for property (right of ownership) — capital, wealth, asset, collateral, stock — are names of property in various states — production, trade, estimation, deals of credit, potential sales.

Heed my dictum. Labor makes property. Capital makes property efficiently. 

All trade gets governed by one true, infrangible law and one axiom — the Law of Prices and the Axiom of Profit. The Law of Prices holds the winning bids of purchase and sale in the face of what is on offer set the price. The Axiom of Profit holds the sum of sales must at least equal the cost of production or the producer goes to ruin.

As I explain in Poverty and Envy, there is profit and loss for everything. We calculate profit or loss by subtracting outlays from income. No one works at a loss, whether wages less living expenses for workers or income less outlays for firms. In the absence of intervention, some things would not get sold for long as the sum of sales could not yield a profit.

Entrepreneur-adventurers are smart laborers. Entrepreneur-adventurers arise because of capital. 

Without capital, there is little reason to organize workers. Without capital, everyone lives at bare subsistence. 

All producers get constrained by the great Axiom of Profit. Capital becomes a factor in production only if in using capital, workers can produce property in stock or in work cheaper than by producing property in those things without capital. 

The capitalist buys a share of the profits from the entrepreneur-adventurer by selling cash and credit in a purchase and sale. Such a trade can arise only if the entrepreneur-adventurer can enlarge profits to cover his cost of capital and enlarge income to cover his cost of labor. In short, the permanent use of capital arises only under increasing returns whereby application of capital yields a proportional increase in output.

Little variation exists in the muscularity among individuals. Thus, little variation arises in the output owing to hand labor alone. However, with capital, variation is manifold according to various application of technology leading to degrees of efficiency.

With small production — hand labor — consumption is small precisely because low wages can only afford low payouts. In proportion as a market enlarges — more product on offer to many with low wages — wages can rise for those who make more product on offer. More product on offer only can come from efficiency achieved with capital amplifying labor.

Significant production of property to become wealth requires capital. As proportion of wealth produced by labor falls, the actual amount the laborer gets rises. More wealth produced leads to a higher living standard for those producing it. In short, capital leads to better living. 
Never are workers robbed by capital. Workers gain by capital. This is so not because capitalists are generous, but because entrepreneur-adventurers only can use capital under increasing returns.

Because of capital, workers can consume more than they could ever produce absent capital. It is owing to capital that all material progress arises. Revivalist Preachers of Born-Again Socialism like Thomas Piketty simply don't understand capitalism and thus reality.

For more on this, check out  Capitalism. Because without it, You Would be Living as a Bare Subsistence Savage and Elites Seek to Punish Workers with a Consumption Tax, or a Tax on Workers' Wealth.

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IF YOU DRIVE A CAR, I'LL TAX THE STREET. IF YOU TRY TO SIT, I'LL TAX YOUR SEAT. MR. WILSON. MR. HEATH.

There are only three kinds of taxes regardless of the guises politicians pitch the gullible to disguise the tax. There are taxes on wealth, there are taxes on capital and there are permission taxes.

With the rise of Born-Again Socialism revivalist preacher Thomas Piketty, there have been howls for taxes to get levied.

In ELITES SEEK TO PUNISH WORKERS WITH A CONSUMPTION TAX, OR A TAX ON WORKERS' WEALTH, I reveal the sneaky effort of some who seek to claim a consumption tax is not a tax on wealth.

Behind every tax scheme of every politician is a this: You don't have right to your property gained by profit in trade and they lack the duty to keep their hands from your property. 

Said another way: You have the duty to surrender all of your property to the amount that politicians say you do.

Wealth Taxes

Wealth is the name given to property put to purchase and sale for cash and credit. Any tax levied on property in a purchase and sale is a wealth tax.

Wealth taxes go by these names — income tax, capital gains tax, payroll tax, gift tax, estate tax, excise tax, as well as the family of ad valorem taxes such as sales tax, goods and sales tax, land tax, declared worth tax, car registration tax, legal filings tax.

Businesses get taxed on net sales, which are sales less expenses. Unfairly, workers get taxed on gross sales. Workers don't get to deduct their expenses incurred to produce their sales, which is defined as work.

So-called negative income taxes aren't taxes at all. Such is welfare. It's not full freight welfare. It's subsidy welfare, or that which subsidizes the inefficiency of workers who qualify to receive it based on an arbitrary benchmark of income.

A Capital Gains tax is a tax on income derived from the sale of an asset, most often ownership in a firm, which gets called stock or equity, or ownership in a debt owed by a firm, which gets called bond. As a capital gains tax is an income tax, it is a wealth tax.

Payroll taxes to fund social security are wealth taxes as such taxes get levied on income. As always, all taxes on income are taxes on wealth since such taxes get levied on sales in purchases and sales of wealth for wealth.

Payroll taxes that force workers to purchase unemployment insurance all the same are wealth taxes, regardless of the intent. As always, income taxes are wealth taxes. Payroll taxes are wealth taxes.

Excise taxes are taxes levied on the quantity of property being traded. Typical excise taxes are fuel taxes of gasoline and diesel, alcohol taxes on the quantity sold, tobacco taxes on the quantity sold.

Sales taxes as well as GST (goods and services tax) are known as ad valorem taxes since taxes get levied on the sum paid in a purchase and sale. Sales and GST taxes are taxes on wealth. 

Any tax on either unimproved land or improved land also is a tax on wealth whether as a one-time levy or as a recurring levy and also get consider as ad valorem taxes since the tax gets levied on a claimed fictitious resale price. 

Other sneaky ad valorem taxes include taxes on so-called declared worth of things such as car registration fees, taxes on property in chattel sent through mail, tariffs on imports or exports, taxes on cash or bank credits transferred to foreign bankers, taxes on legal document filings related to purchases and sales such as realty deed transfer filings.

Gift taxes and inheritance taxes (also said estate taxes) are among the most pernicious kinds of taxes as such are direct swipes of property by politicians.

When someone gives a gift to another, the gift giver relinquishes property in what is given without pay. As it is a gift, a trade fails to arise as all trades consist of property for property, specifically, wealth for wealth.

Capital Taxes

Capital is the name given to property put to produce work or stock. Any tax levied on property used to produce work or stock is a capital tax.

A tax on capital would be a fee paid to license a dump truck that hauls gravel to pave roads since the dump truck is the capital. If the tax levied levied on the weight of the truck, it is an excise tax. If the tax gets levied on the estimated sales price of the vehicle, it is an ad valorem tax.

A tax on capital would be a fee paid to pollute the air during the blasting of pig iron with pure oxygen while producing steel since the blast furnace is the capital. A tax paid on the tons of pollutants would be an excise tax. A tax paid on the pig iron before its conversion into steel would be an ad valorem tax.

A tax on capital would be a fee paid for a building permit since the labor put to building is capital. 

Permission Taxes

Permission taxes are taxes against the property in oneself. These are the strangest kinds of taxes. 

One kind of permission tax is a marriage license, which is a levy for a legal filing. Another kind of permission tax is a driver's license for personal use.

Permission taxes levied as licenses to do work are capital taxes. So a permission tax for a driver's license for commercial use is a capital tax. A fee paid to have a restaurant inspected before opening is a capital tax. A fee paid for any kind of license authorizing work is a capital tax.

VAT — Value Added Taxes

A VAT (value-added tax) is a wealth tax, though wrongly, many believe such taxes are capital taxes. The key to understand the difference between a wealth tax and a capital tax is this: 

A wealth tax gets levied on what you are trying either to own to rid yourself thereof. A capital tax gets levied on what you own already.

For the seller of product, if the seller bears the burden, a VAT is a wealth tax. A VAT tax can work like a capital tax if the buyer of bears the tax and uses what is acquired in a purchase and sale as capital in production because such a tax inhibits using capital.

Often, a VAT gets levied as an ad valorem tax.

Here are the Beatles in a cartoon!

Here are the Beatles performing their song Taxman.

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ELITES SEEK TO PUNISH WORKERS WITH A CONSUMPTION TAX, OR A TAX ON WORKERS' WEALTH

Tim Worstall is a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute, which exists as a think tank to promote libertarian and free market ideas. Worstall also writes for Forbes.

Today, Forbes published a work of Worstall's in which Worstall rather stupidly claims a consumption tax is not a tax on wealth. Worstall wrote, "This is rather the point of it in fact: it (consumption tax) entirely exempts wealth from taxation." 

Worstall does not know the first thing about wealth. Wealth is the name given to property put to purchase and sale for cash and credit. 

A consumption tax is a tax on spending on goods, whether chattel or services. Said another way, a consumption tax is a tax on wealth. That is all it ever can be.


The word consumption enters into economics from the Physiocrats. Most economic historians consider the Physiocrats as the first modern economists. The Physiocrats were Frenchmen (Quesney, Turgot, Le Trosne, others) who sought to justify taxation on merchants and financiers while justifying no taxation on farmers. 

In their explanation of a trade, which they called exchange, the word the Physiocrats wrote was consommation, which Englishmen translated as consumption. By consumption, the Physiocrats meant the purchase of something after first gaining the means by selling something else.

Le Trosne said, 

"There is this difference between an Exchange and a Sale, that, in an Exchange, everything is consummated, or completed (consommé) for each party. They possess the thing which they desired to procure, and they have only to enjoy it.

"In the Sale on the contrary, it is only the purchaser who has attained his object, because it is only he who is in position to enjoy. But everything is not ended for the seller.

"Exchange arrives directly at its object, which is consommation (consumption, completion). It has only two terms, and is ended in one contract. But a contract in which money intervenes is not consommé (completed, consumption), but it is necessary for the seller should become a buyer, either himself or by the interposition of the person to whom he transfers the money.

"There are, therefore, in order to arrive at consommation (completion, consumption) which is the ultimate object, at least four terms and three contractants, of whom one intervenes twice."

To the Physiocrats, the trading away of wealth in the form of cash or credit for wealth as products after the cost of production, which they called the produit net, is what they meant by consumption. Thus, the Physiocrats knew at least two kinds of wealth — products of the earth and money. 

Wealth is anything that can be bought or sold. Socrates said so in his dialogue known as the Eryxias. The Romans said so. English jurists of courts since the 1700s have said so. So too have American jurists.

Worstall conflates both capital with wealth as well as production and trade. 

Capital is property put to making stuff.  The name for property put to purchase and sale for cash and credit is wealth. 

Though most think of property as things possessed, property always has meant the right of ownership and never the thing owned. Only when property gets created, can trade arise between two persons.

Production is the use of capital to create property in potential wealth, which all know as stock or inventory when in chattel form, or to create property in actual wealth, which all know as work, in services form. 

Trade is the purchase and sale of property as wealth.

Labor is the poor man's capital. Work sold for wages is wealth. Wages acquired in a purchase and sale of work for wages is wealth. 

So too, is the same for the firm. Machinery and labor are the capital of the firm. Product sold for income is wealth. Income acquired in a purchase and sale of product for income is wealth.

Inventory (stock) is property that has potential wealth and derives from capital. Inventory never sold, though still property, is loss. Inventory does not become wealth until traded. 

Production uses capital. Trade requires wealth.

Until trade happens, nothing is wealth. Though someone has property in a beat-up, used bicycle that goes unsold while on offer at a lawn sale, because the bicycle remains unsold, the used bicycle never becomes wealth. 

However, when bought new in a purchase and sale, the bicycle became wealth of the seller and the cash or credit used to buy the bicycle became wealth of the buyer.

If someone has property in say a house, a banker might consider such property an asset — property that has potential to gain a street price in a purchase and sale. And as such, a banker might consider the asset as collateral, which is property pledged against debt owed on credit borrowed. 

Worstall then goes on to further embarrassment when he writes, "What a progressive consumption tax does do is tax the returns to capital that are then consumed." Brushing aside his horrible grammatical expression, "does do," Worstall reveals that he does not understand commerce and business.

When a capitalist invests, a capitalist uses his wealth to buy a right of action to a share of profit, if any, earned by a firm run by an entrepreneur.  The return to capital is profit. And all profit is income.

Credit capitalists use cash and credit as capital to produce income earned from the shares of profits purchased from entrepreneurs. The credit capitalist lends credit at interest because that is the product the credit capitalist sells.  

In trade, wealth trades for wealth. So credit is the wealth the capitalist sells in a purchase and sale to buy a right of action. The right of action is wealth the entrepreneur sells in a purchase and sale to buy credit.

In his tirade against capitalism, silly-minded Thomas Piketty has said, "...the past devours the future," stealing his famous quip from another Frenchman, philosopher Henri Bergson. Yet, as I show in Thomas Piketty, Revivalist Preacher of Born-Again Socialism. The Second Great Awakening of Socialism has Come to America, wealth in the present that becomes capital creates the future.  In short, the present creates the future! And that is what capitalism and credit is all about. 

Income is the name given to property in cash or credit acquired in a purchase and sale for other wealth. An income tax is a tax on profit and thus the return to capital, but it isn't a tax on capital. It's a tax on wealth. All income taxes are taxes on wealth.

All income is the same, whether gained by the purchase and sale of work for cash and credit or gained by the purchase and sale of rights of action to future profit for cash and credit.

As I say in Interest, Capitalists and Futuristic Time Cops, for a theory to be useful and closer to truth, it must apply equally to many things observed. In agreement, de Fontenay said, "Wherever there is a revenue you perceive capital. The theory of revenue must be the same for all classes of human production." 

Income gained from capital gains is not different at all from income gained by labor. As bad and immoral as income taxation is, as long as income taxation is going to exist, then capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as ordinary wages and salaries precisely because all income is the same.

A tax on capital would be a fee paid to license a dump truck that hauls gravel to pave roads since the dump truck is the capital. A tax on capital would be a fee paid to pollute the air during the blasting of pig iron with pure oxygen while producing steel since the blast furnace is the capital. A tax on capital would be a fee paid for a building permit since the labor put to building is capital. 

A tax on capital would be an impact fee to develop one's property in undeveloped land. Undeveloped land goes into making improved land — land with structure on it — to become wealth when sold in a purchase and sale for cash and credit, often obtained through a mortgage.

If only Worstall had read my work, Why is the Economy So Horrible? Because Academia Economics is Fake, he could have disabused himself of many false beliefs. For a guy working for a free-markets, libertarian think tank, Worstall doesn't understand capitalism at all.

For most, obvious confusion rests in that most fail to see property means right of ownership and not what is owned.

• So anyone has property in chattel, which are things. 
• So anyone has property in work produced from the mind or the body, such as a surgeon who sells his surgery skills in operation and buys income. 
• So anyone has property in libability — right of action — against a debtor to whom he has lent credit in a purchase and sale of a share of profit.

The entirety of trade, or commerce, or real economics ties up with two words — property and profit. Without profit from effort, anyone would lack buying power to buy anything else. Without property, no one can trade. 

A society is association of strangers who have come together because of the desire to trade — to trade property for property, and when we talk about such property, we give it a name, wealth.

To trade, someone needs to produce property — the right of ownership — in chattel, in work or in rights of action — at surplus under efficiency (sales must exceed cost) to gain profit so to buy property in what is wanted (lacking) and sell property in what is not wanted (surplus). 

Bare subsistence manual labor isn't going to produce much property in surplus, if at all. So, producers take to using property in other things, or that which we call capital, to produce property in surplus, or that which we call stock, in hopes of sale, transmutting that stock into wealth; or if they are selling completed work, then transmuting property in labor, which is capital, directly into property in work, which is wealth of the laborer.

For most, their obvious confusion further gets exacerbated because the dynamics of trade — property in various states — is too much for their minds to grasp.

Most get lost in thinking about trade in the same way that most fail to grasp relativity. Thoughts of changing frames of reference are too hard for most to handle.

Capital is one thing and one thing only. The name for property put to making stuff is called capital. Capital is property of production. It doesn’t get much simpler.

So credit lent becomes capital of the entrepreneur used to buy fixed capital (buildings, equipment) or floating capital (electricity, diesel). So wealth used to capitalize a bank becomes the capital of the banker.

All of the names mankind uses for property — capital, wealth, asset, collateral, stock — are names of property in various states — production, trade, estimation, deals of credit, potential sales.

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THOMAS PIKETTY, REVIVALIST PREACHER OF BORN-AGAIN SOCIALISM. THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING OF SOCIALISM HAS COME TO AMERICA

Socialism Revivalist preacher Thomas Piketty has written the new millennial age bible for crypto-socialists everywhere luring them from the shadows to the new socialist church.

This Second Great Awakening of Socialism is sure to stimulate reformers seeking to remedy the evils of society, which they believe capitalism drives, as they strive to usher in their anticipated Second Coming of progressive Utopia.

This Second Great Awakening, this socialist resurgence could alter life, worsening life for working Americans unless stopped.

Already we have seen mass-scale camp meetings such as Occupy Wall Street. Those who flocked to Occupy Wall Street listened to revivalist oratory and sang hymnody. Many unwitting Americans who watched on their taxpayers' financed, welfare-funded, big, flat screens have been converted to socialistic thought through this enthusiastic preaching.

Second Great Awakening socialist revivalists pull chapter-and-verse from their playbook of trickery railing against purported evils of capitalism, damning capitalists and crying for mercy for all of the down trodden workers and welfare needy-greedies.

Piketty has become the Henry Ward Beecher of the Second Great Awakening of Socialism, luring many to come forth and become worshippers, baptized into a Born-again Socialism.

Piketty's Postmillennialist socialism theology is a call to purify society of capitalism as preparation for the return of Socialist Utopia. This is why Piketty calls for Progressive reforms.

Yet, Piketty's demonic false religion is easily exposed, which I have done in these:

• Thomas Piketty, 696 Pages Of Foolery Destroyed In Less Than Five Minutes
• Ut Oh, Someone Better Tell Thomas Piketty About L > G Too
• More Bad News For Thomas Piketty P > G Too!

SERMON OF THE PAST DEVOURS THE FUTURE

Piketty preaches a fire and brimstone sermon of "the past devours the future." Piketty strives to seduce the minds of seekers with such phrases as 

"A market economy based on private property, if left to itself, contains powerful forces of convergence, in particular with knowledge and skills; but it also contains powerful forces of divergence, which are potentially threatening to democratic societies and to the values of economic and social justice.

"The principal destabilizing force has to do with the fact that the private rate of return on capital, signified as "r", can be significantly higher for long periods of time than that rate of growth of income and output, as signified by "g". 

"Hence, since inequality r > g implies that wealth accumulated in the past grows more rapidly than output and wages, this inequality expresses a fundamental logical contradiction. The entrepreneur inevitably tends to become a "rentier", more and more dominant over those who own nothing but their labor. Once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases. i.e. the past devours the future."

Few know that Piketty stole his now famous line from the late 19th century-early 20th century French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) who said, “The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future." 

Bergson is the guy who believed in élan vital, an invisible force that could be harvested, embedded into an inanimate thing, and activated with electricity to create life!

But is it true? Does "wealth accumulated in the past" that becomes capital devour wages and output? It turns out, this is the central contradiction of Piketty rather than capitalism.

According to reality, rather than hoarding their wealth, rentiers take their year before return, levering up their wealth to create more capital, putting their wealth at risk!

In short, the present creates the future! And that is what capitalism and credit is all about. 

In 77 of 84 years, rentiers — landlords and dividends earners — for every $1 rentiers earned, spending on capital rose by more than $1 in the following year. In 69 of 84 years, spending on capital by entrepreneurs — farmers and proprieters — rose by more than $1 for every $1 earned. 

In short, through the genius of credit, capitalists leveraged their wealth to bring forth capital into the now. This is how an economy grows.

Credit is expected profits of the future embodied in property. Thus, credit is a kind of conditional property. Credit embodies estimates of prices for future sales and prices for future outlays.

Credit arises from worthful rights, rights to existing goods, rights to expressible services, rights to future profit should such materialize. The one who extends credit, in truth, buys a right of action against the borrower for a preferential share of profit, should profit materialize.

Reality reveals the irreality of the socialist revivalist preacher Piketty. The irony of it all is that Piketty preaches heresy relative to the reality of trading property for profit, but his preaching gets absorbed as orthodoxy as standard academia economics.

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REAPING DAY APPROACHES. THE REAPER COMES TO REAP YOU. ANOTHER TAX DAY IN AMERICA COMES.

Income tax on wages is an ongoing sales tax on the product of capital of any wage earner. Said another way, income tax is a series of sales tax levies on wealth traded between wage earner and employer.

Income taxes levied on work sold means that you, the worker, have no right to work. Yet, if you work, you have a duty to yield an unearned share of your profit with politicians who have not invested in your personal enterprise, yourself. Politicians have given themselves the right to an unearned share of your profit without investing in you.

If the requirement for work is paying what amounts to a toll, a fine, a penaltax, are you free?  Can you look at yourself in the mirror and claim to be free?

As I explained in WHY IS THE ECONOMY SO HORRIBLE? BECAUSE ACADEMIA ECONOMICS IS FAKE, the entirety of trade, or commerce, or real economics ties up with two words — property and profit. Though most think of property as things possessed, property always has meant the right of ownership and never the thing owned. Only when property gets created, can trade arise between two persons.

The name for property put to making stuff is called capital. The name for property put to purchase and sale for cash and credit is wealth. 

Labor (skills, body) is the wage man's capital. The work of the wage earner is his wealth. The wage earner sells work, which is the embodiment of his skills and muscles and buys wages, which are bank credits, most often in the form of deposits, but sometimes in cash.

Incorporated firms face an alike tax as wage earners do. However, all taxpayers, who cannot shift their otherwise compulsory tax burdens upon others, subsidize the capital of incorporated firms since the rules of law let enterprise-adventurers write off capital, sometimes as direct expenses and sometimes as depreciation expenses. In short, for incorporated firms, any profits earned get earned on eventually free-to-them capital.

Wage earners get shafted because they lack deduction on their capital. Wage earners cannot write off legitimate expenses such as food, which is energy for the mind and for the body; clothing and rent, which are shelters for the body and mind; transport, which is how wage earners bring to market (their workplaces) their wealth for sale (their work); medicine, which is how wage earners restore damaged bodies and minds; fitness, which is how wage earners educate their bodies; and skills acquisition, which is how wage earners educate their bodies and minds.

Even farmers get to write off all expenses to feed their cattle, to transport their cattle to market, to get medicine into the bodies of their cattle. Even farmers get to write off as depreciation, all barns to house their cattle, all vehicles to transport their cattle. Are you prized less than a Jersey cow? 


The purpose of government is to facilitate justice for a society of property, which is the only society that can form and be among strangers. As I explained in LAW VS JUSTICE. GOVERNMENT VS SOCIETY. POLITICS VS YOU, the only legit reason for government is to protect the individual and his property from a mob and to certify claims about property when in a society of property so that men can engage in trade, which is the purchase and sale of property, rather than war among each other. 

Government isn't supposed to exist to provide jobs for unionized government workers nor for contract workers. Government isn't supposed to exist to provide guaranteed income for welfare collectees. Government isn't supposed to exist to provide contract work and unearned profits, which ends up being little more than largess. Government isn't supposed to exist to create barriers to entry against competitors, thus insuring unearned profits for cowards who can't compete. 

Government isn't supposed to exist to guarantee profits for farmers. That is why futures markets exist.

Yet, all of the foregoing describes the government of the United States of America today as well as the state governments of all 50 states. Through the force of government, many Americans are beggaring many other Americans.

For many decades now, Americans have not lived among a society of property. Instead, Americans live among a society of law-legitimizing thieves, Americans who hide behind wicked, deceptive rhetoric such as "it's your duty, it's for children, it's for the homeless, it's for women, it's for the elderly, it's to protect you against the terrorists."

In 1726, English trader and pamphleteer, Daniel Defoe wrote in his Political History of the Devil, 

Things as certain as Death and Taxes, can be more firmly believ'd

In the episode Two Minutes to Midnight, of show, Supernatural (Season 5, 21), Dean Winchester sits down to share a pizza with Death, aka the Grim Reaper. It's hard to see those of the IRS as little different than one of the Four Horsemen of Congress and the political establishment of the U.S.A.

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