Income tax: Ever calculated how wealthy you'd be without it?

Travlyr said:
Bully for you. Just don't try to steal my TV, Okay? Because there would not be any arbitration. Your protection agency will be preparing for a funeral instead.
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And that's a risk (risk of wrongful death suit, because maybe I'm just a TV repairman at the wrong address) you are free to take. That's the great thing about freedom: you have freedom! Do whatever you want! Go live in hippie camp (but with a moat and a big wall around your tent, of course). As long as you're not aggressive, it's all hunky dory.
 
helmuth_hubener said:
And that's a risk (risk of wrongful death suit, because maybe I'm just a TV repairman at the wrong address) you are free to take. That's the great thing about freedom: you have freedom! Do whatever you want! Go live in hippie camp (but with a moat and a big wall around your tent, of course). As long as you're not aggressive, it's all hunky dory.
Click to expand...

I agree. That is the risk. The biggest baddest will arm themselves to the teeth and protect their own. That is why I believe that a social contract is the most peaceful, prosperous, liberty loving way to live.
 
An armed society is a polite society.

The more arming to the teeth is going on, the more peace and prosperity ensues.
 
Now we're just sniping back and forth meaninglessly and I shan't be reduced to that. I don't feel like you're making any effort at understanding, and so that doubtless means that I have somehow angered or alienated you so much you no longer feel any desire to understand me.

So it's my fault, I'm saying. I accept full responsibility.

In the past I have appreciated your posts. I have gotten on your bad list somehow, and that's fine. Perhaps you're just bored what with the lowered post activity on RPF and have run out of interesting enemies. Because I don't see a huge, unbridgeable chasm between:

"I like it. And take the federal budget to $50 million by 2020." -Travlyr

and:

"Let's take the federal budget to $0." -Me

There's just not that much of a difference there. I wish I was someone you respected so you might take me seriously. But, you don't know me from Adam except on RPF, and clearly my posts on RPF have for one reason or another been less than impressive to you. You respect Ron Paul. I hope that one day after his campaign is done he'll recommend to everyone a reading list of some good books explaining why we don't need a state. Someone might listen to him. You might listen to him. You'll never listen to me. And that's fine. Why should you? I'm probably just some schmuck. But I miss this Jonathan:

I did read your take on entitlements, yet the entitlement system impoverishes people. The last two years in a row seniors have been denied their COLA adjustments and this year they can expect less than 4% increase while true inflation is closer to 10%/year. Seniors are losing the entitlement game fast as it is. There is something to be said to wean people off of entitlements, but if Ron Paul doesn't get elected, then those entitlements will go away as the dollar self-destructs just like the jobs have gone away already. -Travlyr

That's not stupid. What is stupid is to go another day letting the criminal gang plunder. -Travlyr

Do you consider theft to be a crime? -Travlyr

Now I'm the one asking you the same question. And I wonder if in your answers you're being completely honest with yourself, or if you're being a little like a TomL and hiding from a truth you do not want to know.

~~~

Thank you Danan, by the way, for a very thoughtful reply. I just don't have the time & energy to reply to it decently right now.
 
helmuth_hubener said:
Now we're just sniping back and forth meaninglessly and I shan't be reduced to that. I don't feel like you're making any effort at understanding, and so that doubtless means that I have somehow angered or alienated you so much you no longer feel any desire to understand me.

So it's my fault, I'm saying. I accept full responsibility.

In the past I have appreciated your posts. I have gotten on your bad list somehow, and that's fine. Perhaps you're just bored what with the lowered post activity on RPF and have run out of interesting enemies. Because I don't see a huge, unbridgeable chasm between:

"I like it. And take the federal budget to $50 million by 2020." -Travlyr

and:

"Let's take the federal budget to $0." -Me

There's just not that much of a difference there. I wish I was someone you respected so you might take me seriously. But, you don't know me from Adam except on RPF, and clearly my posts on RPF have for one reason or another been less than impressive to you. You respect Ron Paul. I hope that one day after his campaign is done he'll recommend to everyone a reading list of some good books explaining why we don't need a state. Someone might listen to him. You might listen to him. You'll never listen to me. And that's fine. Why should you? I'm probably just some schmuck. But I miss this Jonathan:

I did read your take on entitlements, yet the entitlement system impoverishes people. The last two years in a row seniors have been denied their COLA adjustments and this year they can expect less than 4% increase while true inflation is closer to 10%/year. Seniors are losing the entitlement game fast as it is. There is something to be said to wean people off of entitlements, but if Ron Paul doesn't get elected, then those entitlements will go away as the dollar self-destructs just like the jobs have gone away already. -Travlyr

That's not stupid. What is stupid is to go another day letting the criminal gang plunder. -Travlyr

Do you consider theft to be a crime? -Travlyr

Now I'm the one asking you the same question. And I wonder if in your answers you're being completely honest with yourself, or if you're being a little like a TomL and hiding from a truth you do not want to know.

~~~

Thank you Danan, by the way, for a very thoughtful reply. I just don't have the time & energy to reply to it decently right now.
Click to expand...
helmuth_hubener is a dummy. You are just a dummy. A bought and paid for dummy.
 
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helmuth_hubener said:
Now we're just sniping back and forth meaninglessly and I shan't be reduced to that. I don't feel like you're making any effort at understanding, and so that doubtless means that I have somehow angered or alienated you so much you no longer feel any desire to understand me.

So it's my fault, I'm saying. I accept full responsibility.

In the past I have appreciated your posts. I have gotten on your bad list somehow, and that's fine. Perhaps you're just bored what with the lowered post activity on RPF and have run out of interesting enemies. Because I don't see a huge, unbridgeable chasm between:

"I like it. And take the federal budget to $50 million by 2020." -Travlyr

and:

"Let's take the federal budget to $0." -Me

There's just not that much of a difference there. I wish I was someone you respected so you might take me seriously. But, you don't know me from Adam except on RPF, and clearly my posts on RPF have for one reason or another been less than impressive to you. You respect Ron Paul. I hope that one day after his campaign is done he'll recommend to everyone a reading list of some good books explaining why we don't need a state. Someone might listen to him. You might listen to him. You'll never listen to me. And that's fine. Why should you? I'm probably just some schmuck. But I miss this Jonathan:

I did read your take on entitlements, yet the entitlement system impoverishes people. The last two years in a row seniors have been denied their COLA adjustments and this year they can expect less than 4% increase while true inflation is closer to 10%/year. Seniors are losing the entitlement game fast as it is. There is something to be said to wean people off of entitlements, but if Ron Paul doesn't get elected, then those entitlements will go away as the dollar self-destructs just like the jobs have gone away already. -Travlyr

That's not stupid. What is stupid is to go another day letting the criminal gang plunder. -Travlyr

Do you consider theft to be a crime? -Travlyr

Now I'm the one asking you the same question. And I wonder if in your answers you're being completely honest with yourself, or if you're being a little like a TomL and hiding from a truth you do not want to know.

~~~

Thank you Danan, by the way, for a very thoughtful reply. I just don't have the time & energy to reply to it decently right now.
Click to expand...

helmuth_hubener ... You really really should try to understand the world around you... instead of demonizing others. You really really should.
 
helmuth_hubener said:
Now we're just sniping back and forth meaninglessly and I shan't be reduced to that. I don't feel like you're making any effort at understanding, and so that doubtless means that I have somehow angered or alienated you so much you no longer feel any desire to understand me.

So it's my fault, I'm saying. I accept full responsibility.

In the past I have appreciated your posts. I have gotten on your bad list somehow, and that's fine. Perhaps you're just bored what with the lowered post activity on RPF and have run out of interesting enemies. Because I don't see a huge, unbridgeable chasm between:

"I like it. And take the federal budget to $50 million by 2020." -Travlyr

and:

"Let's take the federal budget to $0." -Me

There's just not that much of a difference there. I wish I was someone you respected so you might take me seriously. But, you don't know me from Adam except on RPF, and clearly my posts on RPF have for one reason or another been less than impressive to you. You respect Ron Paul. I hope that one day after his campaign is done he'll recommend to everyone a reading list of some good books explaining why we don't need a state. Someone might listen to him. You might listen to him. You'll never listen to me. And that's fine. Why should you? I'm probably just some schmuck. But I miss this Jonathan:

I did read your take on entitlements, yet the entitlement system impoverishes people. The last two years in a row seniors have been denied their COLA adjustments and this year they can expect less than 4% increase while true inflation is closer to 10%/year. Seniors are losing the entitlement game fast as it is. There is something to be said to wean people off of entitlements, but if Ron Paul doesn't get elected, then those entitlements will go away as the dollar self-destructs just like the jobs have gone away already. -Travlyr

That's not stupid. What is stupid is to go another day letting the criminal gang plunder. -Travlyr

Do you consider theft to be a crime? -Travlyr

Now I'm the one asking you the same question. And I wonder if in your answers you're being completely honest with yourself, or if you're being a little like a TomL and hiding from a truth you do not want to know.

~~~

Thank you Danan, by the way, for a very thoughtful reply. I just don't have the time & energy to reply to it decently right now.
Click to expand...

I went a little crazy. Baby boomers are not all rich. We have a lot of them walking the streets holding cardboard signs.
 
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I think that what would happen is that most people would just spend the extra money and not save or invest it. Then inflation would take off and we would actually in the long run possible be worse off then we have now since we would no longer have any safety nets, medicare, social security. I have not heard anyone say this here but I am going to play devils advocate and say it. I like the idea of having all my money and being richer but I think in reality that inflation would eat up that extra money sooner or later. What is your thoughts?

Would we really be better off with no taxes and no safety nets and no highway funds, and no schooling funds as some propose? I will try to keep an open mind. I do know if the fed did not collect the States probably would collect more to give some of these services. I am sure the Neocon's would be upset if income taxes went away because how are you going to fund War Spending.
 
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rockerrockstar said:
I am sure the Neocon's would be upset if income taxes went away because how are you going to fund War Spending.
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Deficit spending, of course, the way they do now with practically everything, left and right, with the promise of future taxes as a return on the war "investment", paid for by all the Future Indentured Servants of America - who will be taught to feel grateful for all that their parents and grandparents had.

Millions of not-too-distant future children are going to come to a table fully expecting the same meal that has always been served -- and even expecting to "pay" for it, albeit in the same way. What they will get instead of a meal is a bill only, as a mountain of generational tabs all come due at once, with nobody trusting that some yet future generation will take care of it.

That is the day when people will say, "IN GOD WE TRUST. All others must pay with cash that does not read IN GOD WE TRUST."
 
rockerrockstar said:
I think that what would happen is that most people would just spend the extra money and not save or invest it. Then inflation would take off
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Inflation is actually not caused (at all!) by increased spending. Inflation is an increase in the supply of money. It is caused by whatever causes the supply of money to increase, such as a mining under gold money, or politicians whims under fiat money.

But people spending more money would increase prices, you say! That's what you mean by inflation and it surely would increase; it's just supply and demand. The supply of goods is the same, and the money chasing those goods is now greater, so the prices for all the goods will increase. What can I say to that? Well....

Thinking about things in terms of money makes it very easy to make mistakes unless you really slow down and think very carefully. Thinking in terms of real goods can sometimes simplify the situation and make it clearer. So let's talk about bricks and food and gasoline. Right now lots and lots of bricks and food and gasoline are going towards state (state as in our current form of aggressive government, at all levels, not state as in the 50 states) spending.

The state grabs a major portion of the pile of bricks society has and proceeds to use them for things the government deems important. It uses some of the bricks to build statues to its prominent managers, many of them to throw through people's windows, others to hurl at protestors, others to build towers in every town from which professional propagandists can shout the state's messages to the townspeople all day long, and then many of them it sticks into large envelopes and mails to all the elderly and low-class layabouts across the continent in exchange for them continuing to lay about. The rest of the bricks, it dumps into the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean.

So in that situation -- which is the situation we are now in -- society is producing all these bricks, but then half of them are being "used" for all manner of wasteful and horrible stuff. Ditto for the food and gasoline. So society has to get by on only half of what we're producing. It should be really obvious why that would make society poorer. Half their stuff is taken! Every year!

Think of the movie A Bug's Life. Once a year, the grasshoppers come and take half of the harvest. What if they could get the grasshoppers to go away and never come back? Then they could keep all of their harvest. What would that mean? Would the ants eat more and have more babies instead of hunkering down and trying not to starve? Would maybe not all of it go into increasing the horde of food deep in the tunnels of the ant hill? Of course! Would that be bad? Of course not! And would some of it be saved? Yes, because the extra food is not going to cause the time preference of the ants to change. Saver ants will still be inclined to save. And long-term, that savings is going to allow them to really improve their lot, because that will make possible the capital investment in harvester machines allowing them to get food 100 times more efficiently.

Have I convinced you? Eliminating state spending will massively improve our quality of life. As Ron Paul says: the spending is the tax. The spending is where the state goes out on the market and buys things, that is, it appropriates resources unto itself which would otherwise be available to good people for good purposes.
 
helmuth_hubener said:
Inflation is actually not caused (at all!) by increased spending. Inflation is an increase in the supply of money. It is caused by whatever causes the supply of money to increase, such as a mining under gold money, or politicians whims under fiat money.
Click to expand...

Not quite. A shortage of goods can prompt inflation. A sharp increase in economic growth can spark inflation as more money is available and demand for goods is increased. If the market can react fast enough, inflation can be nipped in the bud.

Geonomics creates a stable economic climate as speculation is minimized, preventing runaway inflation.
 
EcoWarrier said:
Not quite. A shortage of goods can prompt inflation. A sharp increase in economic growth can spark inflation as more money is available and demand for goods is increased. If the market can react fast enough, inflation can be nipped in the bud.

Geonomics creates a stable economic climate as speculation is minimized, preventing runaway inflation.
Click to expand...
If your definition of inflation is "prices of goods got higher," then yes, decreased supply of goods can cause that, as can increased demand. There's a lot of "inflation" right now in Louisiana, in that sense.

I, however, use a completely different and, I believe, more useful and sophisticated definition of inflation. Inflation is an increase in the money supply.

As an aside, speculation is of course a stabilizing influence in an economy. We are all pro-speculation here.
 
I, however, use a completely different and, I believe, more useful and sophisticated definition of inflation.
Click to expand...

I see-it makes you more sophisticated to us a definition of a word that most of the people use in a different way. You must be better than the rest of the world. Increasing the money supply is only one use of the word inflation- and it is not the most common usage but a limited use. If you read an article in a newspaper and it said "Inflation running at 2.3%" do you assume they meant the money supply? No. Neither did other readers of that article. That is because the most common usage is an increase in price levels- not the money supply. If you wish to communicate with people, it is helpful to use the more common meanings of words- unless you indicate specifically you meant a different usage. I inflated my bicycle tires before I went for a ride today. His ego really got inflated after that one. These are also valid usages- and the words in the sentence indicated which meaning the word had. To inflate simply means to make larger.
 
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