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the editors to [email protected].
"Number
9, Number 9, Number 9 ..."
Maybe it's because I'm a
dumb, narrow-minded conservative, but I count nine reasons in the misnamed
article "Eight
Reasons Not to Cut the Capital-Gains Tax," by Michael Kinsley.
Too bad none of them are
very good reasons. In reference to No. 9, how do you get the 1 percent figure?
Do only 1 percent of all Americans own their own homes, and think of selling
them from time to time? If so, then I'm more elite than I thought! The truth
is, the capital-gains tax affects a lot more than 1 percent of all
Americans.
Other
than that, I enjoyed the article.
-- John T. Tant
The
Editors' Reply
Kinsley
counts; it's his deputy who made the mistake.
We've
Found Reason No. 9!
Michael
Kinsley missed a pretty good reason in his "Eight Reasons Not to
Cut the Capital-Gains Tax." Unless you can go back in time, cutting the tax
rate on existing capital gains cannot possibly increase investment in
productive resources. You cannot change individuals' past investment decisions.
Those who claim to want a cut in the capital-gains tax rate because it will
increase investment and not because it is a handout to the rich could gain a
lot of credibility if they advocated reducing the rate only on future capital
gains.
--Bill Nelson
It's My
Money
I guess that one of the
things I liked about the blast at capital-gains tax cuts in "Eight Reasons Not to
Cut the Capital-Gains Tax," by Michael Kinsley, was the writer's cheerful
admission that he has written it all before. I assume that he formed his
convictions as a student, when he had no investments and didn't even know what
they were.
I am 79, and when I make
money out of the market, it is because I watch the ticker much of the morning,
study documents, make guesses, and take risks--with money that I earned
myself. I could lose my shirt at any moment. I have had noticeable losses, and
the feeling of humiliation that goes with them.
Kinsley
thinks it is OK for Washington to take a third (give or take) of anything this
retired research historian labors to make through entrepreneurial risk-taking.
I don't.
--Vaughn Davis
Bornet
Fair Play
for Belgium
I am not Belgian, nor do I
work for any Belgian company, but I have lived happily in Brussels for the last
30 years, and there is very little that I recognize in the highly subjective
account "I Have Seen the Future of Europe ...," by Gregg Easterbrook. He
is apparently unable to provide accurate factual information, and even
contradicts himself.
For example, Sabena is very
far from being a state-sanctioned monopoly, as it is in competition with other
carriers on all its routes except those with too little traffic to support a
second operator. If you want to find such a monopoly, you need look no further
than the rails, where the national operator operates the world's fastest in
cooperation with similar companies in the neighboring countries. Also, the
standard off-peak rate for local phone calls here is less than 2 U.S. cents per
minute, which scarcely makes dial-up access to an ISP a "luxury."
Although I
could flag numerous other fundamental errors, I think that these should be
enough to make my point that Easterbrook's opinion of European "telecoms and
communication bureaucrats" is far from the truth.
--Alan F.
Reekie
Get Out
of Your Cocoon
As a Eurocrat in my cubicle
at the European Commission, sitting on the ergonomic chair I "borrowed" from a
secretary when mine collapsed last year, I was wondering who got those plush
suites with leather chairs that Gregg Easterbrook referred to in "I Have Seen the
Future of Europe ...." Suddenly I got it: He is referring to the Council of
Ministers, a separate institution where representatives of the 15 member states
get together to make decisions (mostly on proposals by the Commission).
Just
because somebody can write and his or her spouse gets an assignment abroad does
not mean they have insight on a whole continent. I do not think Easterbrook had
to relocate to write that piece. Since Slate is distributed electronically and
is available to a wide international audience, you should get less ethnocentric
views of the world. Couldn't you get contributions from outside your
cocoon?
-- Jose Antonio Lopez
Sanchez
Good
Lord
In the Feb. 19 "Summary
Judgment," when reviewing the reviews of Roy Jenkins' Gladstone , you
understandably fell afoul of those tricky British titles of nobility. You
called the author "Lord Roy Jenkins," which is not correct. That would make him
the younger son of a duke, like Lord Randolph Churchill or Lord Peter Wimsey
(and not, thereby, actually a lord except in using that word in this courtesy
title).
Instead, he is a life peer
with a barony of Jenkins (Jenkins of Hillhead, to distinguish him from some
other Lord Jenkins). So you can call him "Lord Jenkins of Hillhead" or "Lord
Jenkins" for short; or by his actual name, "Roy Jenkins," since he still uses
it; but not "Lord Roy Jenkins." It is "Margaret Thatcher" or "Lady Thatcher,"
not "Lady Margaret Thatcher"; "James Callaghan" or "Lord Callaghan," not "Lord
James Callaghan"; and so on.
This is
worth pointing out because most retired top-rank British politicians are in
this position, and an amazing number of writers, even those for the
Economist , make this mistake. I'm sure most of the politicians who went
to the Lords only so they'd have a place to speechify after retiring from the
Commons would rather do without this, but it's part of the British schtick, so
at the least we ought to get the names right.
--David Bratman
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