One industry has thus far been able to escape punitive taxation … Hollywood.

Hell, if I’ve heard correctly, they’ve also been able thus far to escape regular taxation.

Ask yourself why there are so many German-speaking Hollywood lawyers in L.A. making mega-zillions off of the movie business. Is the market for German talent or distribution really that good?

No… the real reason is, Hollywood exploits a loophole in the legal code (not sure how much of this is the U.S. and how much is Germany) that allows for substantial tax evasion by the film producers. I don’t know offhand how much it amounts to, but somebody somewhere has to know.

I’d argue (without any hard facts, mind you, so take it for what it’s worth :) that this — as with any industry given a special exemption from taxation — has allowed it to prosper, pass some of its largesse down to the employees (including some very well-paid actors) and generally keep them in a bubble of prosperity, buffered from the full extent of punitive taxation levied on the rest of us. Good for them. Too bad they haven’t earned it, or even espouse its virtue as they incongruously take full advantage of it.

You want to squeeze Hollywood? Start squeezing here. Then sit back and watch all kinds of crunchy-cons pop out the woodwork to claim a special need to protect their particular tax loophole, to argue at fever pitch how immoral it would be for We the People to revoke that tax break and ask that they live like everyone else.

Michelle, Glenn, O’Reilly, Rush or someone ought to look into this one. There could be part of a book in there somewhere. This is part of the ill-gotten gains that have enabled Hollywood to live seemingly above the fray in recent times.

…it’s one of the worst industries for outsourcing jobs overseas.

Not just jobs, apparently!

Americans really love to be abused.

At the end of the day the retaking of America starts with the boycott of Hollywood. Ask yourself this. Would you donate a single dollar to the reelection campaign for Barack Obama? I wouldn’t and know most people here wouldn’t either. Why then would we devote any portion of our money to a Hollywood Socialist, Limousine Liberal whose aim it is to combat all the social injustices of the world with our money instead of theirs. At the end of the day, after you go to see a low quality Hollywood film (that more often than not is an object lesson in “Hollywood” morals) that is probably no less than 10 bucks a person for the ticket and after you pay 10 bucks for a drink and bag of popcorn (that probably cost less than a buck to produce) and multiply that times the number of people in your family and you have one of the most marked up products you can purchase in this country. And that money goes into the pockets of the very people who live in the most obscenely grandiose mansions and live the most decadent lives that they claim they are so disgusted with. These people have no compunction about handing over your hard earned cash to the reelection campaign for Barack Obama or any other Liberal Socialist who promises to right the wrongs of this world, WITH YOUR MONEY!

At the end of the day, I’ll be paying what I figure to be 13,000 dollars more a year for the government mandated health care insurance through either the premium and tax increase of the tax increase for my income level, if I’m even allowed to keep my existing plan. That’s an expenditure I did not count on as I planned my retirement. It affects how well I will live and what I may purchase and my very freedoms. I already had planned for my health care through different means. Now my budget and my life changes because these people organized and helped others to mandate that we all pay for those who didn’t plan.

At the end of the day, I will have had to make concessions with my future but Barbara Steisand will still live in a mansion that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. At the end of the day, I’ll have to give up some of the dreams of travel I’ve had for my retired years but Madonna will still be living in a Mansion in Great Briton. At the end of the day, I’ll have to tighten my belt and cut back on how much electricity I can use while Al Gore runs a home than uses ten times what mine does. And at the end of the day, the only people who will actually be expected to made sacrifices for their fellow man will be those of us who have been doing anyway for all of our years.

Boycott Hollywood. I pledge to not spend a single dime in a movie theater this year. I pledge to not purchase a single DVD from a store. I pledge to make an impact on the pocketbook of the entertainment industry that would use those profits to benefit those who would take my freedoms away.

Let’s put them out of business.

There are times I have to back off and make sure it is their dream and not mine.

ObjectionSustained on November 21, 2009 at 11:01 PM

Don’t back off! If you share their dream, they will surely succeed. You sound like a great person. Good luck!

Baxter Greene on November 21, 2009 at 2:19 PM

Do you have your own blog? If not, you should.

+1

CWforFreedom on November 21, 2009 at 2:45 PM

Thanks but I don’t have anywhere near the insight and writing ability of the Zero’s ,Captain Ed’s,Pattrico’s,Malkin’s,and Ace.
Until I could put together insightful,thought provoking,well written analysis, it would be best to leave it to the professionals and continue learning.

Let’s just ponder Michael Moore for a moment, and move on.

I just love the fact that Moore is not even taken seriously by most liberals now.
…as of 11/20/09:

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY

$14,232,656

What an absolute bomb.

Moore was all over cable and primary channels with his liberal friends in the press pushing this movie along with major advertising.

Back to Back failures from Moore showing plainly that once his “Bush hating” cycle ran out of steam, the liberals did not need him anymore.
Just like Sheehan and Levi.

Couldn’t be happier to see it happen to a more pompous,narcissistic a$$hole.

Hard working professionals in this country often go to school for 3-10 years, and leave with a mountain of student loan debt it can take decades to pay off.

Firefly_76 on November 21, 2009 at 10:59 PM

Yes, but they get paid for their jobs. Big difference.

God bless you if you support them in their dreams.

John the Libertarian on November 21, 2009 at 9:38 PM

Thanks. There are times I have to back off and make sure it is their dream and not mine. Glad to know you and people like you are out there fulfilling yours.

Sorry, Doc. I work in this business and you couldn’t be more wrong on several points. Typically it takes 10 years of struggling and starvation to break in.

I guess by the logic of this post, your next tirade will be against professional athletes.

John the Libertarian on November 21, 2009 at 5:09 PM

Its called satire. And, cry me a river. Hard working professionals in this country often go to school for 3-10 years, and leave with a mountain of student loan debt it can take decades to pay off. How do any of the stupid policies these leftards espouse incentivize anyone to go to school for so long and be saddled with debt, only to have the majority of their earnings taxed away?

ObjectionSustained on November 21, 2009 at 8:59 PM

God bless you if you support them in their dreams.

John the Libertarian on November 21, 2009 at 5:09 PM

Being a father with two children who want to make it in the performing arts, and who are staring into the eyes of that daunting sacrifice of which you speak, I feel your pain and passion (My son is performing on his college main stage tonight and I am aching that I cannot be there to see him). I’m a lawyer because I knew early on that I did not have the “it” factor to make it in music.

That being said, I think Doc is saying what you are. People of all walks and passions sacrifice their time, energy and emotions to create better, more fulfilling lives for themselves and their families. Hollywood seems to sneer at us with a moral superiority and judgmentalism that grates the nerves and conscience. I do not for a second begrudge the rewards reaped by a talented few — and yes, only a handful have the chops to make it work — but I do resent it when they preach at me from behind a cheap, condescending irony.

By the way, I have a script that ….

How does that warrant Hollywood’s criticism of capitalism when Hollywood is the most unregulated capitalist industry in the world?

Tapping the Golden Vein
Centuries ago, at the beginning of the Obama Administration, we were
told that the “obscene” bonuses of AIG executives should be taxed away,
with special taxes that amounted to bills of attainder. This is not……

Hollywood is a myth-factory. It perpetuates its own myth that everyone outside looking in tends to swallow entirely. No, you do not simply sit down and write a script and make a million dollars. Doesn’t work that way. Young turks are always nipping at the heels of high-paid talent. There is tremendous churn. Development executives can have their entire careers ruined by a single bad film.

More than this, there is a substratum in Hollywood that is conservative and libertarian. You don’t hear from them because they know, and rightly so, that the way to present their ideas is through the medium, not talking to reporters like jackasses. But you see their deft touch when a film inspires. When profligacy is punished and personal sacrifice is rewarded. When true love and monogamy are celebrated, as they are in nearly every romantic comedy ever made. When the protagonist will do anything in his power to save his children and keep his family intact.

Why should these actors and directors be paid more? Because they are the only ones who can do it. They have the chops, they have the mysterious “it” factor, they have the talent. They have taken the risk. They have proven to sell tickets. How many Sarah Palins come around — individuals with that sort of powerful charisma that turns people to jelly and fills the theater seats? Are you saying Sarah doesn’t deserve her $7 million book advance?

Inventors make huge sums of money if people want to buy what they invent. Writers, directors, actors and producers invent every time they make a film. It is a well-coordinated invention with multiple moving parts and tremendous financial risk involved. It is an invention that can inspire people to change their lives for the better, to laugh, to cry, to learn, to dream and to escape for two hours the quiet desperation of their real lives.

I can’t tell you how many hard-working businesspeople secretly wish they had the chops to make it in this town. I can’t tell you how many beg me to read their script. I tell them, no, you have to move your life to L.A., ruin your marriage, pound the pavement for 10 years of grueling rejection, and then maybe, just maybe, a door may open for you. Chances are it won’t.

It’s easy to point at the buffoons like Will Ferrel or Jim Carrey. But there are hundreds upon hundreds of very talented actors in this town who hold all sorts of political beliefs, and they all have the right to speak their mind.

I guess by the logic of this post, your next tirade will be against professional athletes. After all, what are they contributing to society? Why should they make all that money? How dare football players gather in the end zone to pray to God — and tell the reporters that they won the game because they’ve been blessed by Jesus Christ — how dare they shove their values on everyone else!

The only exception?

TV’s larger tan 58″. Can’t have Penn, Reiner (aka Meathead) and Weinstein…..etc go without their home theaters….