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Got a little captain in you?
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If you didn't before, you sure do now.
That's why he's got that grin on his face. It's not rum in the Captain's barrel, you see. It's your booty.
According to Bloomberg.com, Diageo Plc, the maker of Captain Morgan rum, was essentially given... wait for it... $2.7 billion in tax incentives to move its production from Puerto Rico to the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI).
That's a lot of other people's money to be rearranging like barstools on our Titanic of an economy.
WHAT'S A PIRATE'S FAVORITE LAW?
TAaaRrrP.
The article notes that USVI Governor John deJongh, Jr. had no idea that his deal with Diageo would cause the world's largest booze maker to become an "unlikely beneficiary" of TARP funds.
Nonsense. Everyone is likely to be a beneficiary of TARP funds, if you don't count the fact that we each must now pay for one another's windfall revenues.
If government is the illusion that each of us can live at everyone else's expense, TARP is what that illusion looks like.
Longer and even less interesting to read than Moby Dick (admit it: the middle is the doldrums), TARP, which spends roughly $1 billion per page, was deliberately slammed together and down the taxpayers' throats by Barack Obama (D), Harry Reid (D) and Nancy Pelosi (D) quite probably to avoid public scrutiny.
To paraphrase Mr. Obama's Chief of Staff, the administration didn't let the financial crisis go to waste.
This notion that TARP's countless ill effects had not been foreseen has got to go. The entire purpose of TARP was to forcefully and haphazardly transmogrify money with potential value into loot for the administration's political supporters. Which supporters were getting how much money nobody knew because no human was given time to review the law passed by what Pelosi called "the most ethical Congress ever." That it was going to happen was the reason for creating the law.
This case, where we join the Soviet Union in subsidizing alcohol (talk about failed policies), is especially delightful because it very simply illustrates the folly of Progressive economics:
Step one: take wealth from everyone or someone.
Step two: take your administrative cut.
Step three: give the balance to someone else.
Step four: pat yourself on the back for your loving-kindness and wisdom.
It illustrates how someone is always made poorer in Progressive economics.
In this case, it's even more fun, because we double-dipped. We took $2.7 billion dollars jobs and money in the form of taxes away from Puerto Rico and gave them to USVI. Diageo - a foreign company - is made better by the incentives. USVI is made better by Diageo's move. But Puerto Rico and taxpayers are all made worse. One can expect politicians in USVI to support Democrats, who used your wealth to buy political power, by the way.
Bacardi, the world's largest Rum maker, plans to stay in Puerto Rico.
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO
The Captain should be made governor of his own island. Go with Bacardi. If you're really dedicated, you'll also have to throw these brands overboard:
- Smirnoff
- Johnnie Walker
- Baileys
- J&B
- Cuervo
- Tanqueray
- Guinness
Life without Guinness will be tough, I know. But together, we shall overcome.
P.S. Nip one in the bud: yes, Conservatives are for lower taxes. But this was a federal action that favored one group over another. As a general rule, the Federal government should not be in that line of work.
