Upon perusing the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals included in the well-known 2030 Agenda, one may conclude that they are all harmless and entirely reasonable goals.

Who could be opposed to reducing poverty and hunger or advancing infrastructure, innovation, and industry? The trick, akin to the tale of the Trojan Horse, is that those goals have been appropriated by the most heinous interventionism, and bureaucrats with a foundation of conceit and stupidity use it to impose governmental control over every aspect of the economy. They are attacking farming, agriculture, and nearly any private activity in a Europe that is beginning to resemble a society suffocated by a predatory state and zombies close to the government, a la Chapter 9 from Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” First, they destroyed the very industry that the 2030 Agenda is purportedly committed to strengthening.

In a world of populist policies, the notion of taxing billionaires to alleviate the financial burdens of the middle class stands as a tempting narrative. Advocates tout it as the quintessential solution to income inequality, promising a redistribution of wealth that lifts the masses from their fiscal woes. However, this narrative, so alluring in its simplicity, crumbles upon closer examination, revealing a multitude of complexities and pitfalls that belie its benefits.

Central to the fallacy of taxing billionaires lies a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamics of government spending and deficits. Proponents of this approach often overlook the inconvenient truth that as most governments increase spending even when tax receipts rise, deficits soar to unprecedented heights, burdening future generations with a mountain of debt and always increasing taxes for the middle class.

Taxing the rich is the door that leads to more taxes for all of us. The case of the United States is evident. No tax revenue measure is going to wipe out an annual two trillion dollar deficit. Therefore, the government announces a large tax hike for the wealthy and disguises it with more taxes for everybody and higher inflation, which is a hidden tax.

The latest inflation figures in the United States look relatively positive, with a slight decline in annualized inflation rates. However, only three items of the CPI components declined in December. Persistent inflationary pressures that threaten to undermine the rate-cut narrative that financial markets have adopted are present below the surface. Investors expect the Federal Reserve to pump the monetary laughing gas machine, anticipating further rate cuts and monetary easing to support multiple expansions.

However, in this wave of fervent optimism, there are dark clouds looming on the horizon: another wave of regional bank troubles added to the burgeoning crisis in the commercial real estate market.

Market participants started the year with aggressive expectations of rapid and large rate cuts. However, after the latest inflation, growth, and job figures, the probability of a rate cut in March has fallen from 39 to 24%. Unfortunately for many, headline figures will support a hawkish Federal Reserve, and the latest comments from Jerome Powell suggest rate cuts may not come as fast as bond investors would like.

For the Federal Reserve, the headline macro figures show a strong economy, solid job creation, a low unemployment rate, stronger GDP growth, and persistent inflation. The real economy shows a weaker picture.