As I write this it is Christmas Day and as usual we have been reminded of the golden rule of "do not do to others what you would not like yourself," yet at any other day of the year the golden rule "whoever has the gold makes the rule" is the governing credo of corporative businesses and their governments.

Wealth, as created by the current economic system driven by the greed to make more money with money, is not conducive to economic and social progress as people with money have different wishful needs than the necessary needs of the poor. For instance, people with money would like to buy a new yacht if the economy gets better, while a poor man would like to have a job if the economy gets better.

So doing better for the economy means different things for rich and poor people and the more the disparity of wealth becomes more accentuated the more the social system becomes more unstable with the so-called economic recessions. Also, acute wealth disparity among people creates additional opportunities for violence as more people become poor, become jobless and become hopeless for a better future.

Today, Christmas day, I learn that the Bush administration is contemplating to half the Dividend Taxes so that the economy can be revived. Further, the Bush administration claims that additional dividend tax cuts are needed "to greatly reduce the market distortions of taxing dividends twice, once as corporate profits and once as dividend income to shareholders." This remark of double taxation is such a hypocritical remark equivalent to all the cumulative governmental economic remarks and related decisions based on the economic priorities of privatization and higher productivity.

I want to tell you a little story about taxes. Some years ago, my wife was suggesting to me that it wouldn't be worth it to make too much money as more taxes would be paid, and I, as a poor man, told her that I would like so much to be able to pay taxes in the order of millions of dollars. In fact, to pay more taxes means that, on the average and excluding corporate villains, you are already richer than people who pay less taxes.

So this is the compassionate thought of the Bush administration at Christmas time: less dividend taxes for the richest people.

Reference

ANDREWS, EDMUND L., White House Aides Push for 50% Cut in Dividend Taxes (pdf) December 25, 2002, The New York Times http://www.ftlcomm.com:16080/ensign/ensign2/pdfarchive/NYtimes/AndrewsDec25_02.pdf