Is the debt problem as bad as they say? | Sovereign Man: Finance, lifestyle design, Offshore Business and Expat news: "I’ve often said that bureaucrats and politicians have an extremely limited playbook consisting of taxation, regulation, and inflation. These three ugly sisters of bureaucracy effectively serve to steal from people, make things more difficult for them, and rob them of their purchasing power… and yet they’re dressed up as solutions instead of problems.
Consider the case of Illinois– the state is completely insolvent and running out of cash quickly. It doesn’t have the luxury of printing its own currency, and is thus being forced to deal with its fiscal reality… much like Greece.
Rather than trying to make their state more competitive in order to attract talent and capital, they’ve opted for the old playbook… starting with taxes. Specifically, Illinois lawmakers have targeted companies like Amazon, arguing that online transactions through the company’s Illinois-based affiliates are within the state’s sales tax jurisdiction.
For Amazon, the calculus involved is totally objective– once the Illinois legislature passed this legislation, the cost of doing business in the state exceeded the benefit, and Amazon cut all ties to its Illinois affiliates.
Thousands of people across the state who used to earn a portion of their living as an Amazon affiliate were stripped of their income thanks to do good lawmakers trying to squeeze a little more dough out of a productive company.
Peoria, Illinois based Caterpillar Inc. is in a similar position, now threatening to leave Illinois because the politicians keep raising income taxes. Now the financial powerhouse CME Group is echoing this sentiment. The impact this would have to the state economy is devastating."
And don't forget that you elected "Mayor Daley with lipstick and a Che T-shirt" from this hellhole...
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