The broad method of taxation is not the problem

[Black Flag]

That's just asinine garbage. The fact that government can legally print money does not mean there is no constraint on spending: it has to account to voters for its inflation record.

*cough*

"Accounting" is not a constraint ...it is merely a restraint... and you do not understand the difference.

The mining of gold is a constraint on its production - you have to find it before you can mine it, no matter how much you want gold.

The printing of money has no constraint on its production - you merely have to "trust" the Powers even care about "votes" (which they do not), nor do they care about destruction of wealth by inflation (given they care little about the destruction of wealth via war)


As typical, you lack core conceptual understanding of the topic, and of the comments.

[Black Flag]

No, that's just objectively false. All taxes that fall on economic rent, such as a land value tax, take nothing whatever from the productive part of society, because they only recover value that government and society created in the first place. It is the private recipients of economic rent who did not earn the money.

Government produces no wealth - it takes from the production of society.

Therefore, it cannot recover from what it does not produce.

Refuted above. You simply have no understanding whatever of taxation -- or probably any -- economics. None.

You have no concept nor principle from which to organize your position.

You pull all of it out of your ass and its a different shit depending on the flavor of the day.

[Travlyr]

You have been demolished, you know it, and you have no answers. Simple.

Interesting claim. Heh.. heh. Demolished eh? Me or my ideas? I don't yet feel demolished or destroyed. Try try again. Maybe I don't have answers. But I have plenty of questions.

Why should Ben Bernanke and his friends be able to go to their basement (laptop) and make all the money they want out-of-nothing (before breakfast) without penalty while I have to hire employees, buy equipment, cultivate the field, sew the seed, water the plants, protect my plants against predators, harvest the fruits, pay my employees health insurance, unemployment insurance, mandated wages, defend against lawsuits, and find a buyer for my crops when those jerks can make money out-of-nothing? No offense, but I want to do nothing and make $Billions upon $Billions like Ben and his D.C. friends. How did he get the privilege?

[Zippyjuan]

Interesting claim. Heh.. heh. Demolished eh? Me or my ideas? I don't yet feel demolished or destroyed. Try try again. Maybe I don't have answers. But I have plenty of questions.

Questions are good. It allows one to learn.

Why should Ben Bernanke and his friends be able to go to their basement (laptop) and make all the money they want out-of-nothing (before breakfast) without penalty while I have to hire employees, buy equipment, cultivate the field, sew the seed, water the plants, protect my plants against predators, harvest the fruits, pay my employees health insurance, unemployment insurance, mandated wages, defend against lawsuits, and find a buyer for my crops when those jerks can make money out-of-nothing? No offense, but I want to do nothing and make $Billions upon $Billions like Ben and his D.C. friends. How did he get the privilege?[/

Which brings us back to the original question- do we have a taxation problem? First we need to define what the problem is we are looking at. If it is a deficit, it is not due to taxes OR spending, it is due to taxes AND spending- spending more than we take in in taxes. The problem we have set up is now so big that the solution is also not OR but AND. If you want to get rid of the debt you need to BOTH reduce spending and cut taxes. Not popular options on either side but the only honest options out there. Ron Paul said we should not cut taxes until the debt is gone and first you have to balance the budget which I agree with. To do otherwise only adds to the problem. He also said he would not touch Social Security or Medicare expenditures but we also have to look at that too for ways to reduce the size and scope of government spending.

Based on the 2010 budget, if you want to balance the budget, not touch SSI or Medicare and not raise taxes you must cut ever single thing left in the budget (can't cut interest on the debt either). Everything. By 100%. Since that is not realistic they the other choices must come into play. Agruing and refusing to consider accepting the pain of higher taxes along with cuts only puts it off and allows the debt to grow even more. Unwilling to compromise adds to the deficits and debt.

And that is only to try to balance a budget. To get rid of the debt you must have more coming in from taxes than you are spending if you want actually reduce the debt itself. Everybody is going to have to give something up to reduce the impact that government and taxes have on the country.

[Roy L]

This statement was directed to him, the Prince and those like him ...ie: Government workers and government beneficiaries who never really "worked" a day in their lives and lived off the efforts of others.

It takes a particular sort of lying ass to claim that people like firemen, police officers, water and sewer workers, teachers, etc. are not working but living off the efforts of others, and truly idle parasites like landowners are the "productive part of society."

[Roy L]

Government produces no wealth - it takes from the production of society.

Such claims are false, absurd, and dishonest. When government builds a road, a subway line, a water supply system, a dam, or any other infrastructure, that is production of wealth -- which also increases the value of privately owned land.

Therefore, it cannot recover from what it does not produce.

See above. Land value is the measure of the economic advantage created by the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the physical qualities nature provides. As the latter are not changing, and have usually been the same since the land's value was zero, it is the former that create increases in land value.

Your claims are just absurd and puerile "meeza hatesa gubmint" nonsense with no basis in fact.

You have no concept nor principle from which to organize your position.

ROTFL!! Wrong, dumpling. You are just spewing stupid garbage, and have already proved you are unable to comprehend my position -- which is far better organized than yours, and unlike yours is based on principles of logical reasoning and self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality.

You pull all of it out of your ass and its a different shit depending on the flavor of the day.

>yawn> No, that actually describes YOUR absurd anti-economic ravings.

[Black Flag]

It takes a particular sort of lying ass to claim that people like firemen, police officers, water and sewer workers, teachers, etc. are not working but living off the efforts of others, and truly idle parasites like landowners are the "productive part of society."

You truly are a moron.

Palestine, 1st Century
There was a very large disparity between rich and poor.

The upper class was made up of the temple priests and priestly aristocracy (including the Sadducees – a Jewish sect)

The middle class was comprised of traders and merchants, artisans (stonecutters, masons, sculptors) and craftsman (metal, wood, cloth dye). The Pharisees (another Jewish sect), sages, scribes, and teachers were also a part of the middle class.

The lower class was made of laborers (weavers, stone carriers, slaves (non-Jewish person taken into slavery because of debt), and the unemployable (lepers, blind, insane, crippled, etc.)

The Roman government required heavy taxation of its people. Tax collectors were local employees considered to be outcasts and traitors.

[Black Flag]

Such claims are false, absurd, and dishonest. When government builds a road,

With the money from the productive part of society.

that is production of wealth -- which also increases the value of privately owned land.

It is consumption of wealth.

To build House A, identical to House B for twice the cost is a destruction of wealth .. not an increase of it.

As already noted, you have no conceptual understanding of wealth, nor its creation.

[Roy L]

Why should Ben Bernanke and his friends be able to go to their basement (laptop) and make all the money they want out-of-nothing (before breakfast) without penalty

I am not defending the debt money system. But you need to understand how it works, and you don't.

while I have to hire employees, buy equipment, cultivate the field, sew the seed, water the plants, protect my plants against predators, harvest the fruits, pay my employees health insurance, unemployment insurance, mandated wages, defend against lawsuits, and find a buyer for my crops when those jerks can make money out-of-nothing?

If you own the land, you don't have to do any of those things. You can just charge a tenant for the mere opportunity to do them.

No offense, but I want to do nothing and make $Billions upon $Billions like Ben and his D.C. friends. How did he get the privilege?

Landowners considered a debt money system to be in their interest. And they were right, as the increase in the real value of land in the USA over the last 100 years proves. Creditors (lenders) lose by inflation, but landowners gain, especially if they have borrowed to buy land.

[Black Flag]

It takes a particular sort of lying ass to claim that people like firemen, police officers, water and sewer workers, teachers, etc. are not working but living off the efforts of others, and truly idle parasites like landowners are the "productive part of society."

But they are. If they are government employees, they obtain 100% of their living from the production of others.

IF such services were valued, people would voluntarily buy them.
Since it requires force and violence to seize funds to feed government employees, their services are not valued.

Because they demand no competition, thus remain the only lousy providers of such services also does not render such service as "valued", but merely "required".