Defending US President Joe Biden’s plans to hike capital gains taxes for high-earning Americans, a senior White House official told the Financial Times (FT) on Monday, just 0.3% of people filing taxes in the US would be hit by higher levies on their investments under the plan. “There’s increasing evidence that over recent years in fact many, many of the returns at the very top are what they call above-market rates of return, rents and so on.” “Taxing the people who are doing extremely well in the economy is one way of asking somewhat more from that.” “This is consistent with what the president had said on the campaign trail, which was that we needed to fundamentally reform parts of the code that affect the very, very richest or very highest-income Americans, in ways to make sure that it is fair and not rewarding wealth overwork.” These come in response to the criticism from Wall Street and Silicon Valley, as President Biden is set to roll out a series of tax increases on the wealthy, including a near-doubling of levies on capital gains and dividends, in order to fund a new education and child care spending package that could top $1.5tn. Markets remain unnerved ahead of a big week, with a slate of US economic data on the cards alongside the Fed policy decision and eyes on Washington. The US dollar index trades in eight-week lows of 91.68, extending its third straight weekly decline into a new week. Nick Note: Blah bla blah. This is much adoo about nothing……