One Nation Divided by Wealth
This Long/ Short Equity Firm Sees A Time-Arbitrage Opportunity In This Pest Control Merger
Yost Partners was up 0.8% for the first quarter, while the Yost Focused Long Funds lost 5% net. The firm's benchmark, the MSCI World Index, declined by 5.2%. The funds' returns outperformed their benchmark due to their tilt toward value, high exposures to energy and financials and a bias toward quality. In his first-quarter letter Read More
I hope that the readers of this hyperbole can detect the false logic that riddles the author’s outlook. He calls for increased government regulation to redistribute wealth and then rails against the government favoritism that helped to generate the disparity. If government favors are enabled by the size and scope of the government, is it really a good idea to award them more powers for to abuse?
The author missteps again when he says that the rich used Reagan’s tax reforms to buy jets and build mansions thereby neglecting reinvestment and hence their workers. Under the current tax scheme distributing the earnings of a business are discouraged as can be evidenced by the huge sums of cash that sit on the books of America’s corporations. Reinvestment is encouraged by the unfavorable tax status of dividends. This is ultimately irrelevant as even were it true that the wealthy were denuding their holdings of reinvestment through excessive dividends the dividends would be put to work financing other corporations in the 1%’s collective portfolio.
Even if the author were not totally off base on tax policy, and we were to follow that line of thinking, what about the builders and jet manufacturers who now benefit from the excesses of the wealthy? Are there livelihoods less important than any other’s?
It deeply concerns me that there are people who think this way. To stir up hatred and envy in the hearts of others using such logic is either deceitful or ignorant. To call on government action when it is the government that has tilted the field in the first place is insane. This author either has a selfish agenda or a detachment from reality.
Errata on my piece above- the $2m and up group, the top tenth of one percent, is 0.3 million not 3 million. Those 300,000 have almost as much income as the bottom half.
Flippant comments like those of PCP below my piece add no value, but do tell us that the person who hides behind those initials has no facts to impart, just smugness.
Sheer nonsense.
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