This is what passes as economic education?

Matthew Yglesias says this:

I might be an earnest, hardworking dude who works in the store. And somebody might die and give the store to me. The store may be worth millions and millions of dollars. If so, I ought to pay tax on it. Why? Because I've just inherited millions and millions of dollars, that's why. [EH: Oh, that's irrefutable, init?] That I'm earnest and hardworking, and that my riches came in the form of a valuable store rather than a heaping plate of gold matters not a whit. What about those sad folks forced to sell the family business? Don't cry for them. Here you are, you inherit a store worth $X. You owe $Y in taxes, with Y being less than X. So you are "forced" to sell the store, and accept "only" $X-Y as your inheritance. Note that X is a figure in the millions, and Y a small proportion of X. This is a very good problem to have, abstracting away from the fact that someone you love has probably died and this is probably a bigger concern of yours that the tax bill. This is, in other words, a non-problem.

I must not have been in class the week where they covered the theory that says that gold and real estate are interchangeable. Do you suppose that real estate is a good buy, now, what with inflation concerns on the rise and all? As compared to, say, a heaping plate of gold?

Also, as I recall, wealth is created by moving things from lower-valued uses to higher-valued uses. Apparently, an exception is made when the circumstances involve certain kinds of taxes. Then, moving them from higher-valued uses to whatever use is convenient to liquidate the tax bill created by relatives who have the bad taste of dying at inopportune moments, such as when your cash flow has not anticipated their death, is at worst value-neutral. So, as Matthew begins this ill-conceived tale, "fuck the small businessmen." Or perhaps not?

The government ought, perhaps, to facilitate some kind of lending arrangement so that people who prefer to keep the store and pay the tax down over time out of operating revenues can do so.

Yeah, maybe the government can facilitate "some kind of lending arrangement" for me the next time my withholding fails to keep up with changes in my income, deductions, and other tax events. There are so many, y'know? Why should small businessmen get all of the breaks?

Of course, that's the problem with Wonkism. At least physicists realize that coming up with grand theories of everything require some fantatic math and perhaps turning time on its ear, something that is not expected to be understood by everyone standing on line for the tube. Wonkers make the same demands and then want us to believe that the electorate will make sense of their impossibly byzantine grand-policy-of-everything-prescriptions. Apparently the New Socialist Man is equipped with a healthy dose of omniscience? Or will we have a caste of philosopher-kings like Mr. Yglesias to help us out?