Does Taking From the Rich Really Help the Poor?
Transcription of interview with Walter Williams on September 26, 2011.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor
Professor Walter Williams from George Mason University wrote a number of books, and the
most recent one is called Race and Economics: How much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination.
He has spoken a great deal about discrimination issues and some of the problems with affirmative
action, with minimum wage, and with certain regulations that have happened to government.
Douglas Goldstein, financial planner & investment advisor, interviewed Williams on Arutz Sheva
Radio.
Douglas Goldstein: Is it proper for African-Americans to demand reparations for slavery?
Would it also be proper for Jews to demand the same from Egypt, or for the English and
Spanish from the Romans and the Muslims?
Walter Williams: As far as blacks demanding reparations for slavery, by no stretch of
the imagination was slavery just.
It was unjust.
If I had in my way, I would require that reparations be made by slave owners to black slaves.
However, both of those parties are dead now and that’s got to be taken over in heaven
or hell wherever they are.
The point here is that it was reparation, and if I walk away and would receive reparations,
it’s not going to come from a tooth fairy or Santa Claus.
What you would be doing is taking money from a white person up today to punish him for
what a white person of yesterday did to a black of yesterday.
That to me is a weird sense of social justice.
The fact is that with the people who committed somebody an injustice, you might make a case
where they are duty bound to make up for it, but if they’re dead, what can you do?
Douglas Goldstein: I always understood that the term African-American is the current proper
term and you’re using the term black.
Is there a reason that you and I are not on the same page?
Walter Williams: You wouldn’t call a Jewish person from Germany a European American.
That’s too broad in the area.
If you look at an Egyptian who comes to the United States, Egypt is in Africa, so wouldn’t
he be an African American?
I think he would be, or if you take an Afrikaner from South Africa who resides in America,
would you call him an African American?
Now, if you want to make sense, you could say look at Walter Williams, who is a Nigerian
American or a Ghano-American.
But we don’t know where we came from or what country.
I think Africa is a continent and it’s not a country.
To call a Frenchman a European in Germany may be correct in terms of a continent, but
in fact those people hate each other and have been fighting each other for centuries.
I’m 75 years old so I’ve lived through a number of names for my people.
Among the more patterned ones was colored, Negro, Afro-American, black, and now they
want me to change again to African-American.
I’m just saying look I’m too old to change.
Douglas Goldstein: We have the two particular groups that are often considered as amongst
the poorest and with the least opportunities, and these are the ultra-religious Jews, the
charedi, and the Arab Israeli population.
They tend to have very large families, not great education in terms of work education,
and there is a big discussion about whether Israel should have a minimum wage to get these
people into the flow earning money.
Do you think that the principles you studied would apply here as well?
Walter Williams: Yes it would.
It’s like the law of gravity.
The law of gravity is the same in Israel as it is in the United States, and same thing
with the law of the man, which is that the higher the price of something, the less people
will take of it including laborers, and the lower the price, more people will take of
it.
The minimum wage law has the same effect no matter where it’s applied.
It tends to discriminate against the employment of low-skilled people.
As a matter of fact, it also handicaps entrepreneurs and one way that entrepreneurs like small
shops get around a number of government regulations, including the minimum wage, is to hire members
of the family so they can become a family business and as a family business, you don’t
have to pay minimum wages.
Douglas Goldstein: One of the issues that a lot of people in the States are talking
about is the question of estate tax.
They say their families in America who are literally billionaires never pay tax on the
money that they made for any of a number of reasons.
They push that it is moral to charge them a larger income tax, asset tax or estate tax
in order to help those people who don’t have.
Do you think that is the moral solution?
Walter Williams: No, it’s a very foolish solution.
I think that the estate tax is one of the most vicious taxes around.
What does it do for many people to pay the estate tax?
They own a small business or their parents own a small business, their parents die and
sometimes they have to sell the business in order to pay the estate tax.
In general, you ask where the people get the money to pay the estate tax?
They have to sell their bonds or stocks and what’s happening is that these bonds and
stocks, they’re high power dollars.
They are producing things and when the government gets hold of it, it gets into consumption.
The society has made worse off because it’s taking high power dollars out of that position
of producing things wit the stock market, bonds and whatever, and putting it into food
stamps or other kinds of government spending.
I think the estate tax is one of the most vicious taxes and on top of it, in the United
States it does not generate that much revenue.
The last time I looked, it’s around $60 or $70 billion.
On top of that, it leads to a perverse economic behavior.
People are not stupid and when they get older and older, they start giving their money away.
They don’t save as much because they know that the government is going to get the hands
on it, or they
will start giving money to their children, indulging the children with fancy cars or
airplanes and all that kind of stuff because they know if I will die and give it to my
children in terms of cash, the government is going to get the hands on it.
If I’m running up against the wall and I’m having difficulty with my bills, I’m spending
more than I’m taking in, if I can walk into somebody with
a gun in the hand and take their money, which is in fact what government has, a gun in a
hand or some kind of coercion, then why should I curtail on spending?
The government has a wonderful thing that you and I do not have, and that is they can
always print money to pay their bills.
If we do that to pay our bills, they’re going to put us on jail.
As a matter of fact, I often suggest to people that if they’re on trial for counterfeiting,
they should just tell the judge that they’re engaging in monetary policy.
Douglas Goldstein: Could you please tell people how they could keep track of what you’re
doing.
Walter Williams: They can go to my webpage.
I have a very healthy webpage and it
is www.walterewilliams.com or they can just do a Google Walter E. Williams and they will
come up with a lot of references.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host
of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show (Monday nights at 7:00 PM on www.israelnationalradio.com.
He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S. and Israel.
Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA,
SIFMA.
Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
Member NYSE/SIPC, a Fidelity Investments company.
His book Building Wealth in Israel is available in bookstores, on the web, or
can be ordered at: www.profile-financial.com (02) 624-2788 or (03) 524-0942.
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