STEVE FORBES:
The dollar should be stable in value. Compare it this way; what would your life be like if the authorities did to timepieces - clocks, watches - what they do to the dollar? So, you have 60 minutes an hour one day, 48 the next, 96 the next, 22 the next, you would have - soon have to have hedges, derivatives, futures to ?gure out how many hours you’re working. So, if you want to hire somebody, say 20 bucks an hour, to do a project. What hour is it? Is it the Texas hour? Or the New York hour? The Canadian hour? Or something in between? Then on taxes, this is a hobby-horse of mine and it sounds so simplistic to say it, that taxes just don’t raise revenue for government, they are also a price and a burden. And for small businesses especially, when they have to meet each quarter ?guring out what their payments are, going through their accountant. Have I tripped on something? What do I have to do? How do I protect myself? So, think of tax on income is the price you pay for working. Tax on pro?ts, the price you pay for being successful. Tax on capital gains, the price you pay for taking risks that work out. And the idea is a very simple one, you lower the price of good things like risk taking, productive work, success, you’ll get more of them. And not just from existing players, but people coming in and saying “I’m going to take a risk,” “I’m going to start this business,” “I think I can make something out of it.”
If you have an environment where people feel they can take risks again, where people feel there’s growth again, what does that do to the value of assets? The value of assets go up, because people will take the... what they think is going to be a better future and give a present value to it. So, suddenly the stock market goes up. Value of structures go up. Which means you have more collateral. Which means more capital is available. Asset values go up, it means liabilities become less burdensome. It also allows you to deal with your liabilities. Restructure your liabilities. It’s win/win. So the key thing is for government to create the environment and then small businesses especially will do the job for them.