Rick Kelo asks Does Democracy Guarantee Freedom?

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Rick kelo

Rick Kelo is an influential political philosopher in the Classic Liberal tradition.  In addition to engaging in various public debates on capitalism vs. socialism with socialist university professors Rick also routinely addresses some of the hard questions out there.  Rick Kelo has earned a reputation for dissecting even obscure and complicated topics in plain English.

Recently Rick Kelo asked us to consider whether having a democracy means the people in that country will have freedom?  “One of the Classic Liberal philosophers whose reading I’ve always enjoyed was Joseph Priestly,” Kelo notes.   Priestly looked at this exact topic:

IT is a matter of the greatest importance, that we carefully distinguish between the form and the extent of power in a government… If the power of government be very extensive, and the subjects of it have, consequently, little power over their own actions, that government is tyrannical, and oppressive; whether, with respect to its form, it be a monarchy, an aristocracy, or even a republic. For the government of the temporary magistrates of a democracy, or even the laws themselves may be as tyrannical as the maxims of the most despotic monarchy.

Joseph Priestley, An Essay on the First Principles of Government

Priestly makes a very important distinction: a government may have any form, the real question is how wide reaching its authority is.  Classic Liberals like Richard Kelo teach that people should be left free from coercion to decide how to live their own lives.  This teaching is also at the root of Pacifism.  If someone isn’t harming another person, or another person’s property, then it is seldom – if ever – morally legitimate to interfere with how they’re living their life.

 

Rick Kelo considers the Exploited Worker

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Richard Kelo

In political discourse most people take it for granted that a worker can be exploited, or that workers in general ARE exploited by employers.  But is this really the case?  Rick Kelo is an employment expert who has more than a decade’s experience as an executive recruiter matching tax professionals with opportunities that will advance their careers.  However, Richard Kelo also has an education in economics and philosophy at some of the most prestigious universities in the world.  So today he addresses the “Exploited Worker” myth.

“Workers are paid for their labor far in advance of any revenue generated by the sale of what they produce,” Rick Kelo points out.  “It is the business owner who assumes the risk that he won’t be able to sell what the employee produces.  Also, we must consider that  the worker voluntarily enters into employment,” Kelo continues.  Any of us would laugh if we tried to picture the image of a company sending an HR employee to the street corner to put a gun to someone’s head and force them to work at their company.  In reality, only voluntarily agree to employment when workers feel the wage rate is high enough to benefit them, and they also get a guaranteed payment today unlike the business.

How about the case of the shy employee who doesn’t ask for a raise, and thus believes they are paid less than they deserve?

Rick Kelo spends most of his days as a tax recruiter assisting people in just such a lot, but is that circumstance enough to prove the worker is “exploited?”  Wouldn’t we say that if that less assertive employee chooses not to (ask for more money, look for a better job, whatever the superior condition is we’re considering) that is the same as him actively choosing to remain in his current employment?  Do any of us, as outsiders looking in on someone else’s situation, have a basis for criticizing their rational decision to do that even if our own choice under those conditions would be different?  Clearly that less assertive employee is maximizing their preferences even if that arrangement wouldn’t maximize our preferences in their shoes.

Rick Kelo Dissects what Socialism Really Means

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Socialists are fond of claiming that they’re actually speaking for the worker without a voice.  However, Rick Kelo, a West Point graduate and Classic Liberal social thinker sees the matter differently.  To Kelo the actual issue at the heart of Socialism is who actually controls society.

“Socialism is always sold as altruism, but its not actually about helping anyone – it’s really about controlling them,” says Richard Kelo.

Kelo points out it necessarily must mean this because Socialism is the substitution of individual plans for government plans.  “Socialism deprives entrepreneurs and capitalists of the ability to decide how their resources will be employed,” Rick Kelo continues.  “In a Socialist economy small business owners are forced to unconditionally comply with the orders of State central planners.”

Rick Kelo on Forms vs. Functions of Government

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Rick Kelo is a Classic Liberal who, with an educational background in Economics from the prestigious US Military Academy at West Point, focuses on economic questions.  One of those questions is does the form of a government really matter, or does its function matter?  For instance is only a totalitarian regime dictatorial, or is it possible for a Democracy to be dictatorial too?

Americans have long believed their freedoms were safe because of the form of their government: a republic.  Most Americans are convinced that only dictatorships, like the one in Syria, can be autocratic but not a representative democracy where the voter decides.

When Rick Kelo considered that question he raised a distinction that almost everyone has overlooked.  We usually distinguish between the form of government but not the function.  What should matter to us is the extent the individual is free or oppressed, not the form of that oppression.  Is oppression from a powerful monarch any different than oppression from a powerful parliament?  As Richard Kelo points out, if the State functions by holding extensive power, and the citizen holds very little power over their own actions, then that government is tyrannical whether its form is a dictatorship or a republic.

How often do we consider what ultimately comprises a representative government: majority vote wins, but disregard the other half of what comprises a representative government: individual rights.  One example of this is the popular trope on the far political left of “Democratic Socialism.”  The savvy Socialist knows he must distance himself from dictatorial forms of government since Socialist dictators mass murdered 150,000,000 people last century.  So, the savvy Socialist aims to claim moral goodness as proved by getting a 51% vote to legitimize their immorality.

Of course, if we consider the powerful function of such a government – not its form of being democratically elected – then we see that even if you get the representative government Socialism cannot exist without oppressing the individual rights.

Even Hitler was elected.  Elections are no guarantee of freedom.

Rick Kelo

Rick Kelo

Rick Kelo Discusses Preventing Monopolies

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Rick A Kelo

If you could pass only one law, 50 words or less, to reduce the prevalence of monopolies what law be most effective?

Rick Kelo is a respected mind in the field of tax recruiting and of economics.  A graduate of West Point and a Finance MBA, Rick worked in the fields of economics and corporate finance before becoming a Chicago tax recruiter a decade ago.

When Rick Kelo was posed that same question his answer was easy and straight-forward: free trade and free markets.  Rick argues that competition is more effective at controlling monopolies than intervention by government.  When asked why Kelo noted that every monopoly in modern human history, which he defines as from Darcy v. Allen forward, has been caused by government intervention against the harsh competition of laissez-faire and free trade.

Rick Kelo goes as far as to point out that economic historians know of only two examples in all of human history of monopolies that do NOT appear to have been directly caused by government intervention and government grants of protection.  “When we study anti-trusts,” says Richard Kelo, “the two odd outlies are the monopolies of DeBeers Diamond and the New York Stock Exchange before 1900.  Those are the only two counter-factual examples where we see a monopoly that wasn’t directly created by government actions.”

Rick Kelo’s Quick Thought on the Minimum Wage

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As someone who has vigorously advocated peaceful & voluntary economic cooperation as superior to coercive, State-mandates it comes as no surprise that Richard Kelo has an opinion on the minimum wage.

People think minimum wage will raise the living standards of the most vulnerable workers.  It will, slightly.  But, as Rick Kelo points out often on Twitter, only for those who don’t become unemployed by it.   In his formal education as an economist before becoming a tax recruiter, Rick discovered that minimum wages are not truly a wage increase at all.  They are actually a wage transfer.  Those workers who are forced out of work have their wage transferred to those minimum wage workers who are fortunate enough to keep their job under the new, higher, minimum wage.

If our real belief is that we want to help the most vulnerable, then we should oppose increasing these arbitrary wage laws by remembering how much harm they do to the living standards of the newly unemployed they create.

Rick Kelo & James Galbraith after sparring on economics

The Effect of Trump on Small Business and Economy

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What impacts are Trump’s economic reforms expected to cause?    

Rick Kelo, a resident of Kansas has seen various changes and reform in the American economy over the years. From the various reform policies that have been introduced by Obama’s administration and how Trump has proposed to deal with the persistent issues, there is a lot happening on the current economic horizon.

The major question right now is how Trump stands to affect the economy and what that means for various types of businesses. In the following paragraphs, Trump’s potential impact on the economy in general and small businesses in particular has been discussed.cropped-news.png

When it comes to Kansas, Rick Arthur Kelo says that things don’t look so good from the economic angle, at least at the moment. About a month back, Stephen Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, two of Trump’s important economic allies revealed the basic structure of the much-awaited tax plan. These reforms have been ambitiously called the biggest tax cuts in all of history. These are supposed to slash taxes paid by businesses and make the entire tax filing and return process easier for everyone.

Mnuchin and Gary claimed that these new taxes will stimulate further economic growth where everyone will pay for themselves. However, some members from the Kansas administration like Duane Goossen have expressed their concern at the similarities between this economic plan and the one for which Kansas reached this delirious state in the first place.

Arthur Laffer, an expert on supply-side economics since the time of Raegan is the “economic spirit” behind Trump’s economic plan. Laffer is also one of the architects behind the tax plan proposed by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. The former member of the economic policy advisory board that assisted Reagan is widely known for the Laffer curve.

In simple words, this is derived from a theory which states that economic activity is directly tied to taxation. If the taxes are lowered, up to a certain point, it will mean more revenue. However, tax reforms based on this tax slashing theory is what is said to have brought Kansas where it is in the first place.

Therefore, while some business owners are positive about the coming change and believe that it will bring benefits for the business, there is no lack of administrators who feel that the entire country will soon be affected exactly how Kansas was. The state has been struggling to balance its books, and the tax breaks have been blamed for the situation.

Rick Kelo- Internet Information Communities

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The Internet Has Provided the Perfect Platform for Intellectual Minds to Come Together and Provide Support for Those Looking For Answers

What is an internet information community? In short, it is a community of online users dedicated to helping each other find information however pertinent or trivial, and use their skills and education to help others. There is perhaps no greater example of this than the famous question and answers forum Quora. Quora allows users to create profiles of themselves also listing their education and qualifications. Then, when questions are posted on the site, regarding literature, economics, philosophy or sport for example, experts in the field can come back with answers. It is, in some ways, like the intellectual version of Yahoo Answers.Richard Arthur Kelo

Rick Kelo is one such thinker who has taken to the forum to offer his advise and wisdom to members of the community. Today, Rick Kelo works as a tax consultant in a large American firm. His interest and studies in economics, and political history, make him an authoritative voice on such matters, where he has answered questions ranging from labor economics to socialism. For Rick Kelo, forums like Quora are important in helping to disseminate unbiased, neutral and professional ideas and opinion.

A good example of this is a recent question, which asked why there was so much wealth disparity say, between a janitor in America and a Janitor in a third World Country. Rick Kelo’s answer was ”There’s more accumulated capital per worker in the American economy (where the U.S. janitor works) than in Nigeria’s economy (where the Nigerian janitor works). This is also the same reason why the American janitor of 2016 earns a higher wage than the American janitor of 1950 even though they’re no more productive.”

An answer like this is typical of Rick Kelo’s style- succinct, to-the-point and informative. He also tackled another pressing question, about the possible effects of reducing corporate tax rates, ”The answer to your question must be considered along three lines. The first line is the impact to the individual firm that now has a lower tax burden. The second line is the impact to the overall US economy, by which is meant the 60% of GDP comprised from the private sector. The third line is the impact on the US federal government in terms of tax receipts and the programs funded by those tax revenues.” For Rick Kelo, using his education to make important intellectual contributions to forums such as Quora, is an important duty of an educated American citizen.

Rick Kelo – What Is Happening With the Estate Tax?

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The Current Estate Tax Rules

Rick Kelo notes that the US Congress is considering a wide range of tax reform proposals currently. One of the many reform proposals deals with the US Estate Tax and its possible repeal. As per statistics, the Estate Tax in its current form has an impact on only 0.2% of all US estates.

According to the current legislation in place, an American citizen gets to enjoy a life-time exclusion amount of $5.5 at the moment. As a result, a married couple can leave behind $11 to their family and/or friends without the need for any Estate Tax. Of course, both of them need to be American citizens.

The effect of Estate Tax has been considered by Rick Kelo. As per the current law, any property that has been passed at death will get a step-up in terms of tax for determining the future capital gains that occur when the property has been sold.Rick Kelo

Illustrating the Effect

Consider an asset that has been purchased for $1,000. When this property is sold for $2,000, the taxpayer will have enjoyed a capital gain of $1,000. Now, if this asset was instead passed after the death of the taxpayer, the recipient’s tax basis will be increased to match the asset’s value at the date of the decedent’s death.

Continuing with the example, the first taxpayer will have bought the asset at $1,000. At his or her death, consider the value of the asset to be $1,500. The taxpayer who inherits the asset ends up selling the asset for $2,000. Now, for this taxpayer, the tax basis was increased to $1,500. As a result his or her capital gain after the sale is just $500.

 What Does the Repeal Bring?

The repeal of the estate tax can affect this transaction. Its repeal may actually cause the step up in the tax basis to be removed as well. Instead, it might be replaced by the carry over basis. In the case of the previous example, the taxpayer inheriting the asset will have a tax basis of $1,000 which was the original basis. As a result, the sale of the asset at $2,000 will bring a profit of $1,000.

While possibly welcome, Rick Kelo believes that repealing the Estate Tax might not actually be that much of a benefit. In fact, there is a chance that the repeal will lead to an increase in the taxes that must be paid than what is currently required.

Rick Kelo – Information, Democracy, and Social Media

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Where can we turn in our modern world for accurate, up to date, and interest information about what is happening in the world? There has been a dramatic shift recently in the way that information is spread throughout the public. Previously, people heard information through word of mouth, through reading a local or national newspaper, or maybe listening to the radio. But with the invention of modern technology, media has taken to social networking sites and the World Wide Web in general, using the power of digital communication to bring information to people around the world almost instantaneously. At the same time, the speed that information can now be shared around the world has meant that a lot of what we see and read online is not entirely accurate. Without a buffer of time, individuals (and more importantly, amateurs) are able to post anything they want about the world online.

If you are looking for interesting and up to date information on the state of our country’s political and economic atmosphere, turn to the articles on Rick Kelo’s blog Ceteris Paribus: “Economics from the Austrian and Monetarist Traditions”, “Political Philosophy from the Classic Liberal Tradition”, and  “Socialism and Star Wars”. Rick Kelo is a professional tax consultant, expert in economics, and active plotter in the political sphere of the United States. Countless individuals have turned to his published articles for interesting reads that promise to engage people while also delivering them hard hitting information about economics and political theory. cropped-news.png

He has also used social media and the digital world as his primary means of communicating. This has had a significant impact on the response to his writings. Many millennials, and in fact more than 60% of all people in the United States, get their news exclusively from social media. Because of this, it is crucial that thought-leaders and those who care about the economy take to the web as a battleground for sharing information. By getting information out there to the majority of people, Rick Kelo and other economists like him are making sure that our country is more informed, even if it is in a relatively small way.

Rick Kelo (on MSNBC) continues to publish his thoughts and ideas online, despite his demanding day job, because he believes strongly in the need for more people to have informed opinions about the state of the American economy and political situation. Only with a fully educated population can we expect to remain one of the world’s main democratic powers.