Communism in America

[XMan]

Originally posted by: MadCowDisease

Originally posted by: X-Man

Originally posted by: naddicott
20% to one person means missing meals or rent, but to another person 20% means missing their 3rd Hummer purchase. Hardly an equal sacrifice. Try adjusting from a $15k budget to a $12k budget, and then from a $150k budget to a $120k budget, and tell me it's the same sacrifice. :roll:

America could bear to be a bit more socialist, but if we're "inching" there it's far too slowly for my taste.

Edit: BTW, I could see supporting a flat tax as long as sales taxes were high and "luxury" taxes even higher.

Most of the flat tax proposals exempt the first portion of a person's income from ANY taxes - IIRC the first 24K. As such that renders your comparison pretty much moot - the person making 15K wouldn't pay ANY taxes.

Fine, then what about 20% of a $24,001 salary?

We can argue case scenarios all day, but instead of discussing fringe cases ad nauseum if you actually try and discuss examples which are clearly situated in the middle of the debate you usually get somewhere.

Then their tax bill would be twenty cents - the 24,000 is EXEMPT from taxes. Only income above that point becomes subject to taxes.

 

[Train]

Originally posted by: biostud666
I don't want to impose anything, but it's possible for a country to function quite well with high progressive taxation, and a high sales tax. It's not without troubles, but it's possible.

no offense, but Americans dont want to "function quite well" we want to do whatever the #$%& we want.

 

[GrGr]

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: biostud666
I don't want to impose anything, but it's possible for a country to function quite well with high progressive taxation, and a high sales tax. It's not without troubles, but it's possible.

no offense, but Americans dont want to "function quite well" we want to do whatever the #$%& we want.

Life's sweet in BushWorld. Here's the proposed new national anthem:
"
Ha-ha-ha
Ho-ho-ho
And a couple of tra-la-las
That's how we laugh the day away
In the Merry Old Land of Bush
'Bzz-'bzz-'bzz
Chirp, chirp, chirp
And a couple of La-di-das.
That's how the crickets crick all day
In the Merry Old Land of Bush.
We get up at twelve and start to work at one,
Take an hour for lunch, and then at two we're done,
Jolly good fun.

Ha-ha-ha!
Ho-ho-ho!
And a couple of tra-la-las,
That's how we laugh the day away,
In the Merry Old Land of Bush.
Ha-ha-ha
Ho-ho-ho

Ha-ha-ha-ha!

And a couple of tra-la-las

That's how we laugh the day away,
With a ho-ho-ho!
Ha-ha-ha!
In the Merry Old Land of Bush."

 

[jackschmittusa]

Sure, let's make it fair for the rich. Doing 75 in a 55 zone costs 50% of a weeks income. Auto licence plates are 25% of a weeks income. Property taxes are 2% of your yearly income. Child support is 10% of your yearly income per child. Heavier vehicles damage the highways more and cause more pollution, so how about a yearly surcharge on vehicles over 2500 lbs.. And if you use your religious affiliation to foster your business, require a public filing of your tithes. I'm sure we can find many other things to make the burdens on the rich more equal.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Sure, let's make it fair for the rich. Doing 75 in a 55 zone costs 50% of a weeks income. Auto licence plates are 25% of a weeks income. Property taxes are 2% of your yearly income. Child support is 10% of your yearly income per child. Heavier vehicles damage the highways more and cause more pollution, so how about a yearly surcharge on vehicles over 2500 lbs.. And if you use your religious affiliation to foster your business, require a public filing of your tithes. I'm sure we can find many other things to make the burdens on the rich more equal.

That's a great idea, and it's already in use in Finland:

One of Finland's richest men has been handed a record 170,000 euros speeding ticket, thanks to the country's policy of relating the fine to your income.

Jussi Salonoja, the 27-year-old heir to a family-owned sausage empire, was given the £116,000 ticket after being caught driving 80km/h in a 40km/h zone.

Helsinki police came up with the figure after tax office data showed that Mr Salonoja earned close to £7m in 2002.

If his penalty stands it will beat the previous record of almost 80,000 euros.

That figure (£54,000) was paid in 2000 by Finnish internet millionaire Jaakko Rytsola, when he was caught speeding.

Yet Mr Salonoja could yet get his penalty reduced, as was the case with Nokia executive Anssi Vanjoki.

In 2002, Mr Vanjoki's 116,000 euros fine was reduced by no less than 95% due to his drop in income following a downturn in the mobile phone maker's profits.

 

[Dissipate]

Communism is definately alive and well in America today. This communism is fueled by namely two agencies: the IRS and the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve literally blew the doors off of taxation when it forcefully monopolized the nation's currency. After that happened, and the legal tender laws were passed, the IRS suddenly had something to tax anywhere and everywhere.

The process basically works like this: the Federal Reserve prints the currency, Americans add extrinsic value to the currency (by accepting it in exchange for goods and services), the IRS and numerous (too many to count) government agencies proceed to extract the currency. Through the Bank Secrecy Act, the government has also destroyed any and all vestiges of financial privacy. By being both the provider of the common medium of exchange and controlling the banks and other firms in the financial sector, the government has extracted over 40% of the nation's GDP. It is no wonder to me why the government's relationship with the banks is so cozy. The government grants the banks the power to loan money it doesn't have and the banks allow the government to spy on all of its customers.

I think the fact that virtually no one has figured out this absolutely horrid process speaks volumes of our lack of intelligence as a nation. Essentially by accepting unbacked government inflation tokens as your medium of exchange, you have shackled ourselves from the cradle to the grave. As long as the government controls and creates your medium of exchange, you will forever be at the mercy of the collectivists, communists, socialists and statists. This is precisely what is occurring in this country everyday. If people want this to end, they must first end their use of fiat currency, plain and simple.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: MadCowDisease

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: MadCowDisease

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: crazycarl
we are inching toward extreme crony capitalism.... the seizing of private land to build a wal-mart is of course a symptom of that.... as far as eliminating the upper class? please. lets not talk about income taxes if we are going to talk about crushing the rich. we should be talking about capital gains, dividend, and estate taxes - those are the ones that hurt the rich the worst. and if you haven't been paying attention, the ones that have been cut the most in the recent round of tax cuts

Yes, those are remarkably the areas that have seen the most of the recent tax cuts, but its not "helping the rich" as much as its undoing the socialist taxes of previous congresses. The upper class still pays a much higher rate than the middle class. but why? Why are we punishing people who worked hard and became successful? it seems like the less motivated are almost driven by fear of being left behind, therefore the more successfull someone gets, the more we should tax them and spend it on less-successfull people

The problem I think is that this country has the concept of taxation all backward. We associate it with a type of 'punishment.' Somehow, for some reason, the idea that being successful or wealthy was 'bad' crept into peoples' minds and they didn't want to be 'punished,' so they complained about these supposed 'tax punishments.' Taxation is for two purposes: to fund basic civil services and the government, and to redistribute wealth. Punishment has something to do with past wrongdoing or offense. I find it terribly difficult to associate wrongdoing with being successful, unless you are unfairly taking advantage of someone else (i.e. sweatshop).

A purpose of taxes is to redistribute wealth? what commie pipe are you smokin?

'Commie pipe?' Amusing. :roll: If you don't consider food stamps, welfare services, social security and other social services a redistribution of wealth I honestly don't know whether or not you are qualified to discuss this.

Sure it's income redistribution, but not as a foreseeable, or preferred by-product of our economic system. That's the difference. These programs started off driven by the highest of ideals, that in a nation SO rich, no one should starve. The problem broke when recipients (and their mouth-pieces) started to grow ever larger, more demanding and possessed by the idea that they were entitled to these things and more. For an easy case study of this phenomenon, research the evolution of the black community at large, pre and post civil-rights/?great society.?

 

[GrGr]

But government issued money (credit tokens) also has a positive effect on the economy.

Government taxes is very simply the government calling in credit previously issued to lubricate the economy.

When the government issues currency and circulates money through the banking system, it is basically issuing credit to the economy that it is entitled to receive back in taxes. The surplus money that is not returned by taxes is government credit floating around the economy to keep it operating financially. The taxes government recieves is then spent on goods and services provided by the public.

The government has the monopoly on issuing money (literally to create legal tender, i.e. dollar bills i.e. Federal Reserve notes) and government money issued (i.e. a credit to the economy) is not the same thing as private money (IOUs). Money, when issued by the government, is nothing more than legal tender for the payment of taxes i.e. paying back government credit and for settling "all debts, public and private" as you can read on the Dollar bill. You can exchange your dollar bills at one of six Federal Reserve for dollar bills of the same face value, no more no less. In the olden days you could (theoretically) exhange it for gold when the US was still on a gold standard but Nixon changed that in 1971. But nowadays you have a piece of credit (dollar bill) from the government that you can exchange for another identical piece of credit from the government. In the same way when you sell an asset (like your car or house) you receive government credits (dollar bills) in return. The good part about those government credits is that they are acceptable by all because, apart from being legal tender, they are good for the payment of taxes.

Now if nobody paid taxes it would be the same thing as not paying back a credit to the government but government would still have to meet it?s expenses. Government shortfalls cannot, by definition, exist. Technically a government never borrows (it issues government bonds - a debt instrument calling on previously issued credit (money). This enables the government to again issue a tax credit in the form of money. Money is all that the government makes. But the government cannot keep making unlimited amounts of money (give unlimited amounts of credit) without destroying the economy through inflation, in other words it cannot give unlimited credit because in the end the credit would become meaningless. In the same way the government cannot keep issuing Bonds (debt instruments calling on previously issued credit ? in effect taxation of money already in the economy without the actual removal of money at this point in time) without overburdening the economy.

A budget deficit is in effect government credit to the economy. In the long run the budget must be balanced (despite lunatic conservative ideas like "deficits don't matter" (Cheney)). On the other hand, if the government runs a surplus, i.e. takes back more money from the economy than it spends, it drains money from the economy and the economy contracts. Sometimes deficits (increased credit to stimulate the economy) are necessary but no economy can create money out of nothing.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: GrGr
But government issued money (credit tokens) also has a positive effect on the economy.

Government taxes is very simply the government calling in credit previously issued to lubricate the economy.(snip)

That's an AWFUL lot of text generated just to be wrong. Taxes at any level of government are operating revenue. Nothing more, nothing less. That the increasingly bloated fed has found ways to insinuate itself into the banking system to an extraordinary degree does NOT in any way change this simple equation.

 

[GrGr]

Originally posted by: HardWarrior

Originally posted by: GrGr
But government issued money (credit tokens) also has a positive effect on the economy.

Government taxes is very simply the government calling in credit previously issued to lubricate the economy.(snip)

That's an AWFUL lot of text generated just to be wrong. Taxes at any level of government are operating revenue. Nothing more, nothing less. That the increasingly bloated fed has found ways to insinuate itself into the banking system to an extraordinary degree does NOT in any way change this simple equation.

You snipped too soon. "Government then spends it on goods and services that the public provides" i.e. the government takes back what it needs to meet its operative costs. Taxes is when government takes back money (credit the government has given to stimulate the economy) to pay for it's costs.

 

[sandorski]

Oh noeeesss!! The poh poh rich man goin broke!!! :roll:

Before lamenting the plight of the Rich, one should check the statistics.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: GrGr

Originally posted by: HardWarrior

Originally posted by: GrGr
But government issued money (credit tokens) also has a positive effect on the economy.

Government taxes is very simply the government calling in credit previously issued to lubricate the economy.(snip)

That's an AWFUL lot of text generated just to be wrong. Taxes at any level of government are operating revenue. Nothing more, nothing less. That the increasingly bloated fed has found ways to insinuate itself into the banking system to an extraordinary degree does NOT in any way change this simple equation.

You snipped too soon. "Government then spends it on goods and services that the public provides" i.e. the government takes back what it needs to meet its operative costs. Taxes is when government takes back money (credit the government has given to stimulate the economy) to pay for it's costs.

No, even this is too convoluted a way to describe a government that was designed to fund itself on trade tariffs only. Just the fact that you seem to see this spider?s web of BS as a legitimate role of the government is indicative of two things. That Americans, by and large, have forgotten what our government is supposed to be and thus completely lost control over it. In all honesty, do you really think the people in DC are smart enough to juggle all these things at once?

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: GrGr
But government issued money (credit tokens) also has a positive effect on the economy.

Bwahahaha, you really think that?! That is the biggest load of garbage ever sold to the American public. Government issued currency confers benefits to no one except the issuers, and the initial receivers.

Government taxes is very simply the government calling in credit previously issued to lubricate the economy.


When the government issues currency and circulates money through the banking system, it is basically issuing credit to the economy that it is entitled to receive back in taxes. The surplus money that is not returned by taxes is government credit floating around the economy to keep it operating financially. The taxes government recieves is then spent on goods and services provided by the public.

Another huge load of garbage. Who the hell is telling you this crap??

The government has the monopoly on issuing money (literally to create legal tender, i.e. dollar bills i.e. Federal Reserve notes) and government money issued (i.e. a credit to the economy) is not the same thing as private money (IOUs). Money, when issued by the government, is nothing more than legal tender for the payment of taxes i.e. paying back government credit and for settling "all debts, public and private" as you can read on the Dollar bill. You can exchange your dollar bills at one of six Federal Reserve for dollar bills of the same face value, no more no less. In the olden days you could (theoretically) exhange it for gold when the US was still on a gold standard but Nixon changed that in 1971. But nowadays you have a piece of credit (dollar bill) from the government that you can exchange for another identical piece of credit from the government. In the same way when you sell an asset (like your car or house) you receive government credits (dollar bills) in return. The good part about those government credits is that they are acceptable by all because, apart from being legal tender, they are good for the payment of taxes.

Most of this is true except they are only good for the payment of taxes because people are moronic enough to accept them for goods and services in the first place.

Now if nobody paid taxes it would be the same thing as not paying back a credit to the government but government would still have to meet it?s expenses. Government shortfalls cannot, by definition, exist. Technically a government never borrows (it issues government bonds - a debt instrument calling on previously issued credit (money). This enables the government to again issue a tax credit in the form of money. Money is all that the government makes. But the government cannot keep making unlimited amounts of money (give unlimited amounts of credit) without destroying the economy through inflation, in other words it cannot give unlimited credit because in the end the credit would become meaningless. In the same way the government cannot keep issuing Bonds (debt instruments calling on previously issued credit ? in effect taxation of money already in the economy without the actual removal of money at this point in time) without overburdening the economy.

A budget deficit is in effect government credit to the economy. In the long run the budget must be balanced (despite lunatic conservative ideas like "deficits don't matter" (Cheney)). On the other hand, if the government runs a surplus, i.e. takes back more money from the economy than it spends, it drains money from the economy and the economy contracts. Sometimes deficits (increased credit to stimulate the economy) are necessary but no economy can create money out of nothing.

Please read these books and educate yourself on these matters. The Case Against the Fed and What has government done to our money?. The book What has government done to our money? is online for free. Unfortunately The case against the Fed is not.

 

[GrGr]

The dollar system and the (world wide) dollar reserve system has been extremly beneficial for the US economy. Without dollars the US economy would not be what it is today. The wealth distribution question is a different question but somehow, dissipate and Hardwarrior, I have a feeling we are looking at the issue from very different view points I agree that the wealth distribution is extremely lopsided in favor of those that have the power to issue money (why) and that it is not right. That could be changed through the political process though.

I don't agree that getting rid of the dollar (or whatever Mises and Rothbard etc suggests I am not familiar with their work) would be practical given the dominance of the dollar as the chosen currency of the world. Wouldn't the ? simply jump for joy if you started experimenting with something else than dollars in the US? The US economy is precarious enough without further radical experiments imo The Asian economies are sitting on a stupendously huge mountain of dollars atm., and it is growing by the day. That mountain cannot grow forever because the imbalance will topple not only the dollar and the US economy but also the Asian economies. So maybe you will get what you hope for anyway. The destruction of the US paper-dollar standard.

Who knows, maybe Bush is actively looking at destroying the US paper-dollar? I've seen reports that some experts believe the US dollar will have disintegrated by the end of the decade. Interestingly that is the same time the babyboomers will start retiring in ernest and the ss and medicare issues will come to the forefront thanks to the deficit question. We know that Bush doesn't trust "experts" and the scientific approach. If Bush's economic policy is faithbased heaven help us all. Don't say that Presidents don't have power over the economy.