During economic recessions, when heavily indebted companies get in trouble and go bankrupt, that destabilizes the whole economy.

During economic recessions, when heavily indebted companies get in trouble and go bankrupt, that destabilizes the whole economy,

What impresses me more than anything when we look at the economy and we say, 'Things aren't going so well' is to see what great technology is really happening here.

Whenever a state or an individual cited 'insufficient funds' as an excuse for neglecting this important thing or that, it was indicative of the extent to which reality had been distorted by the abstract lens of wealth. During periods of so-called economic depression, for example, societies suffered for want of all manner of essential goods, yet investigation almost invariably disclosed that there were plenty of goods available. Plenty of coal in the ground, corn in the fields, wool on the sheep. What was missing was not materials but an abstract unit of measurement called 'money.' It was akin to a starving woman with a sweet tooth lamenting that she couldn't bake a cake because she didn't have any ounces. She had butter, flour, eggs, milk, and sugar, she just didn't have any ounces, any pinches, any pints. The loony legacy of money was that the arithmetic by which things were measured had become more valuable than the things themselves.

Both plans are much better than existing tax law. Both would be a significant simplification and would help promote economic growth.

Folks in the bottom half of the economy are already squeezed hard. They will be bloodied and bankrupt if economic policy inadvertently induces a recession.