One may suppose to read in the thoughts, if not the words, of James Carville, “It’s about the power, stupid!”
Presently, worldwide commerce, free of worldwide governance, facilitates worldwide shenanigans. So long as individual nations remain stymied and the United Nations remains divided, power will gravitate to international pirates of volatility.
Worldwide mores have not evolved to facilitate worldwide governance. So, each nation must look to its own preservation, perhaps allying among leaders. To survive, nations must learn how to hold international pirates and money masters at bay.
To preserve representative governance, a republic must become quick to defend borders and to burst bubbles of financial piracy. America must, simultaneously, gain control over both its physical and its financial borders.
Neither the proposals of Obama nor of McCain even begin to address what must be done. Both Obama and McCain will undermine America’s borders, both physical and financial. However, Obama’s undermining will be quicker, deeper, more destructive, and longer lasting.
Obama is wrong on borders, defense, terrorism, allies, Israel, civilizing family values, and constitutional rule of law.
Obama’s one policy that may be better than the stupid Republican policies we have endured for eight years relates to the economic gulf between haves and have nots. However, the best way to address such gulf is not with a progressive income tax, but with a progressive consumption tax.
So long as no political party is willing to promote an effective consumption tax, a more progressive income tax may be the next best alternative. For this, Republican blindness to the obvious need to address the widening gulf in income and economic power has made manifest astonishing stupidity.
Regardless, my main concern is to rally against the suicidal surrender of representative governance to the virulent spread of international pirates of financial volatility.
Taxing income, regardless of how progressive the tax rate, is no way to attack such virus. Simply put, international money masters have too many easy avenues for avoiding such faux medicine. Indeed, more effective taxing of the income of millionaires simply widens the gulf and increases the control and power of international billionaires.
So, why have so few proposed effective medicine? Well, the virus is hard to explain to the electorate, even as it has infected our institutions through and through. Indeed, much support that has been essential to both Obama and McCain has derived from billionaire bandits. So, it must fall to maverick academics to fashion ways to educate the electorate, before, it is hoped, it becomes too late.
Obama’s “spread the wealth” plan, based as it is on progressivism in income tax rates rather than in consumption tax rates, is flawed, for the following reasons:
--- His plan will fund and reward layabouts, thereby diminishing productive work (rewards sloth).
--- His plan fails utterly to regulate funds used by international money masters to buy and control politicians, media, academia, and opportunities for inciting and exploiting social and economic volatility (empowers rule of pirates).
--- His plan blinds masses to their loss of freedom and dignity, by laying before them illusions of security (institutionalizes mind control).
Obama’s plan, by not promoting movement towards a progressive consumption tax, fortifies power protection for his money masters, by making it much more difficult for mere millionaires to make the quantum leap to financial piracy status. Obama’s plan does nothing to treat the spreading virus that renders us susceptible to being preyed upon by war profiteers and other opportunists of financial volatility.
****
HOW COULD OR SHOULD A PROGRESSIVE CONSUMPTION TAX WORK?
Civilization has two main problems: To keep alive: (1) purposefulness (freedom and dignity) and (2) representative governance.
Conditioning people to believe government owes them purpose and a living is unhealthy to any society that hopes to endure.
Enabling people to leverage wealth to the point of buying up politicians, media, and academia is suicidal to democracy.
Squaring the Circle:
End redistributive income taxes. Instead, resort to progressive consumption taxes. Add up all individual, non-business related purchases; allow no deductions for charities or political contributions or overseas or internet purchases. Then, tax every citizen's consumption --- progressively. Allow no political contributions from investment foundations, businesses, or corporations.
Mere Spreading of Wealth is not Moral:
It is immoral to take from those who produce in order to "spread their wealth" and income around to work-a-phobics.
Allowing Rule-Leveraging for Money Masters is not Democratic:
It is immoral to fail to check against institutions calculated to advantage such disproportionate accumulations of wealth and power as to sink democracy under the rule of oligarchic aristocrats, who are inclined to solidify control by buying up politicians, media, and academia.
The way to check against both the immorality of (1) wealth-spreading and (2) money-ruling is not with taxes on income or with giveaways to non-workers. Rather, the way to check against such abuses is by taxing consumption, progressively.
Consumption tax revenues should be used to fund health care and to build, rebuild, and maintain the infrastructure that is used by all citizens.
Such use would create jobs. Such tax would not harm the poor. There would be little need to spread wealth to layabouts were wealth used to incentive work, fund health care, fund jobs, and build and maintain infrastructure. A progressive consumption tax would help check against the sort of oligarchic influence we suffer on account of those who now own and control our politicians, journalists, and professoriate.
****
TRANSACTION AND TRADE TAXES:
All trades and sales between separate legal entities should be subject to transaction (sales) tax.
Within a nation’s borders, rates should be based on the social, political desirability or undesirability of the particular product being transacted or sold.
A nation, across its borders, may generally prefer not to impose transaction taxes on its acts of export.
On its acts of import, a nation may wish to impose such transaction tax rates (tariffs) as may help protect local markets, industries, allies, or needy third world nations.
Non-monetary gifts between individuals need not be taxed, although estates and inheritances should be taxed.
Gift taxes should be imposed on gifts of all kinds to or from businesses.
In addition, gifts from businesses to individuals should be taxed to individuals, as part of their basis for consumption tax purposes.
Gifts from individuals to businesses should also be taxed to such individuals, as part of their basis for consumption tax purposes.
All gifts, transactions, and purchases by individual citizens with or from foreign entities, businesses, and individuals should then and there be added to each such citizen’s consumption basis.
Aside from export or import taxes, a local business’s purchase of raw materials from a foreign business should not be additionally taxed, provided the purchase price is paid directly to the selling business or by deposit in such business’s account.
Otherwise, transfer of funds from a local business or bank to a foreign bank should be subject to some sort of transaction hold and tax, to diminish incentives for evading high-end progressivity in local consumption tax rates.
Using techniques as listed above, America could still preserve its borders ---- physical, traditional, political, and financial.
****
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POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF BUSINESSES:
A progressive consumption tax would not interfere with the accumulation of power or wealth, such as for business owners or managers to direct social choices about production. Rather, such tax would only be felt upon distribution for use and consumption by individuals.
Thus, political influence would be restored to reasonable parameters and limits. Businesses would be precluded altogether from making campaign contributions. Individuals making escalating political contributions would face escalating taxation.
Problem: How can legislators become educated about business’ legislative concerns, unless providing such information (business free speech, i.e., lobbying) can be engaged in as a business expense? And, if it can, and if such expense is not taxed to businesses, then would not businesses, in accumulating wealth for directing choices about production, also be accumulating (untaxed) wealth for unduly influencing politicians in the writing of favorable legislation, such as for regulating in aid of monopolies, etc.?
What, then, would incentive protecting the environment and preserving arms length competition in the market place? If political lobbying must become subsumed as part of the “marketplace,” what becomes of the democratic notion of “one person, one vote”?
Note: The higher the cost of lobbying, the greater the advantage to established businesses and incumbent politicians; the greater the profit to business, the greater the leverage for politicians to express or imply politically backed threats and promises.
Would free speech, governmental transparency, term limits, and line item vetoes provide adequate checks against such unbalancing?
RECOMMENDATION — SPECIAL CONSUMPTION TAX ON LOBBYING:
For all expenses relating to lobbying and informing lawmakers, businesses should be charged progressively increasing special consumption taxes, even though businesses should otherwise ordinarily not pay income or consumption taxes, but only transaction taxes.
While established businesses would have a money advantage in getting their message to lawmakers, pursuing such advantage would become progressively more expensive, thus tending to make the playing field less uneven. And, the taxes would not go to lawmakers, but to the general treasury.
.
See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id1IKJGVkvg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTwqYM2kNuE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3qVTsDBE8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppQszYT3djE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBTtn0pns54
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qthiDQXpfxc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcfb2aR7V_U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heWbwsq4YL0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8PS6574R0E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8PS6574R0E (Coulter says Soros picked both Obama and McCain)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnf62Uhl3ac (Regarding Soros, about the bubble of American supremacy; does it not seem that Soros and friends want to regulate markets, nations, maybe even cultures and religions; he wants to control the education of the “well informed electorate” of the “open society,” i.e., the Ministry of Truth)
*****
Obama:
See http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_change/2008/10/21/142554.html?s=al&promo_code=6DC0-1
Obama Facts:
See http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_smears_fact_check/2008/10/20/142379.html?s=al&promo_code=6DC0-1
Misinformed Voters:
See http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2008/10/29/a_duty_not_to_vote.
Voter Fraud:
See http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/who_else_is_heading_for_swing.html.
Contribution Fraud:
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/28/AR2008102803413_pf.html
Media Fraud:
See http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2008/10/29/notorious_obamedia_moments_of_2008.
Demise of America:
See http://townhall.com/columnists/DouglasMacKinnon/2008/10/29/does_the_united_states_of_america_still_exist:
There is no greater threat to our liberty and this Republic than a biased media that despises traditional values and only speaks and lies with one voice. Again, Thomas Jefferson may have said it best when he wrote, “He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.”
****
--- Redistribution of wealth --- http://www.nypost.com/seven/10282008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/obamas_ideas_for_a_radical_court_135633.htm
--- Voter fraud --- http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stewart27-2008oct27,0,4960239.story
--- Supreme Court appointments --- http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/obama_and_the_law.html
--- Muslim friends --- http://townhall.com/Columnists/MonaCharen/2008/10/28/does_obamas_friendship_with_khalidi_matter_to_jews
7 comments:
Comment by Dlanor, at http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/post_134.html:
Well, when tax cuts can stimulate the economy, I see no reason they could not stimulate the economy, even while being made more proportionately to favor the poor. Has such ever been tried?
In any event, is not danger to democracy on account of disproportionate control by plutocrats of politicians, media, and academia at least as important as danger to economy on account of spreading of wealth?
Is it not more healthy to democracy to reduce unequally leveraged gulfs in relative wealth and power?
To me, it seems immoral to vote to have the State confiscate income of workers in order to give it to layabouts.
On the other hand, it is dangerous to enrich plutocrats to the point where they can buy up politicians, media, and academia.
Raising revenue from a progressive consumption tax, on the other hand, need not be used to spread wealth to layabouts, but could be used to discourage disproportionate access to political influence, while funding health care and infrastructure.
Problem: It is easier for a politician to get the support of 51% of a degenerate electorate by promising to allow them to abuse the other 49%. In other words, when an electorate has become degenerate, how can any politician, absent great charisma AND conscience, hope to get elected merely by appealing to the "better angels" of all of us?
Aside from "better angels," if Republicans want to regain power anytime soon, they (as well as Democrats) had best figure a way to get the power of plutocrats under control. Else, there will be no significant democracy left to worry about governing.
ORWELLIAN HYPNOSIS:
Snippets from http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/negative_liberties_and_obama_n.html:
Is the Orwellian character of Obama's mind a surprise? No. He is a man young enough to have grown up in a cocoon of semantic babble. The subliminal contradictions of popular entertainment, the indoctrinary quality of his education, the pandemic use of "politically correct" language, the nonexistence in Obama's universe of any need for critical thinking, his absorption into a parish filled with surreal anger which numb his conscience -- almost every single aspect of the life of Barack Obama dovetails into someone for whom the word "liberties" has no authentic meaning.
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Comment by Id, at http://comments.americanthinker.com/read/42323/226386.html:
Hi Bruce,
I'm doing what I do, Bruce. I'm climbing into Obama's head and so I can look outside his eyes and see how he sees... so I know exactly what is on the inside of him... so I can know what he's really thinking. winking smiley
You're the problem, Bruce. The utopia would be in manifestation today - if it were not for people like you. You don't understand because you are ignorant and uneducated. There is no way to reason with people like you. You must be sidestepped until such time as you can be swept out of the way.
Obama is on a mission to establish collective salvation for all mankind. The restraints you would place upon him, limit him from full expression of what it will take to establish collectivism which erodes all individuality so that man as one can experience a collective consciousness that is a higher evolution. You have not evolved and most likely never will evolve. You may need to be eliminated. But the vision is so great and so glorious, that this is a small price to pay.
Man must become one. Any concept of individualism blocks, bars, and inhibits the collective consciousness of all humanity from coalescing. Private property must be extinquished. You don't understand. You are functioning at a lower level of reason.
You cling to your guns and to your religion, because you so zealously guard your individualism. You will not become one with the collective consciousness of man that is required. You are the limit, Bruce, that creates the limitation that must be overcome.
Please allow me to explain to you what must occur: complete and total oneness of collective consciousness that occurs at a spiritual level. The material pins us to this world... but we want to rise above this world and to ascend in an evolution of man. Until we are completely unified, collective salvation cannot be accomplished. Each individual must cede itself over to the oneness of all humankind. Wanting to hold onto property is symptomatic of lower level thinking. It is an unwillingness to die that you can live in the collective salvation of all mankind in unity and oneness with each other. We must die to self to live as one. It is your religion, Bruce, that is no doubt the problem. You cling to your religion and you must let go of it to experience collective salvation to achieve universal oneness.
I am offering you world peace, the end of poverty, and a fulfillment of equality - the end of war - the end of struggling - the end of all things that come from your own selfishness.... your own individuality. How can you maintain private property?? How can you be so selfish as to insist that you will not give up all that you have to achieve the oneness that will bring man to the higher dimensions whereby all will be one in harmony?? It is your religion, Bruce, that holds you back. If you will pool your resources as you pool your mind, your will, and your soul into the collective consciousness - you will experience collective salvation with us. (Am I freaking anyone out?? lol)
Let me explain to you what will happen. You will divest yourself of all concept that there is a God higher than you above you. You must relinquish this because it holds you to the lower levels which cannot ascend. As we all become one, we shall all ascend together, become one, and become God. This is collective salvation. We will be conscious only of our own deity.. and there will be no more religion and no more war. There will be no more selfishness, no more insistence that you are separate in autonomy instead of one in collectivism communally.
It's the Kool-Aid, Bruce... it's the Kool-Aid. If you could feel the power of it, the pull of it, the offer to become one with us and attain Godhood... together with us as one... you would be inexorably drawn.... to vote for Obama... even if you could not put in words as I have... the power of the pull to oneness.
*****************
Now, from a Christian point of view... what actually happens when a person "turns themself over to this"... should the pull be strong enough to give up all personal religion and individual "consciousness" whereby one maintains inner contact with the knowledge of a God above one... it is 100% consciousness of man... and 0% consciousness of God... with no inward ability to ever turn back... because full consciousness has been attained of the deity of man... in this "collective salvation" of man, by man, and for man... to the complete exclusion of any consciousness of a God above one. That 100% consciousness represents blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.... with 0% left inside in total hardening of the heart whereby to ever desire to turn back to regain a conscious awareness of the reality and the truth and an awareness that represents a conscience towards any God who is above one.
It is in the inner working of the spiritual power which cries out for global communism.
Private property must be relinquished and one must become completely one with the collective consciousness of man in the worship of man in the so-called "collective salvation" of man... because one must completely become, from the inside, what will manifest collectively in the sociopoliticaleconomic structure of the new world order.
Oh, I've got it figured out. Because I've gone right to the core of it. On November 4, I can guarantee you that the pull of this power will pull on a number of people at a spiritual level of dimension... just as Obama has foretold. They will sense a light of the dawning of the awareness of the pull to collective consciousness... and they will know they must vote for Obama.
You already see the power of it pulling conservatives into the realm of a Marxist socialist... with no logical explanation that they can state. It is the inward spiritual pull which is pulling them.
I know what I know... whether this is posted or not.
Obama is functioning in cult power... and I've just discerned for you the very subliminal subconscious draw of affection which is... the Kool-Aid.
I'm leaving the United States should he be elected... on two wings of a great eagle.
Grace!!
****
Comment by Dlanor:
Re: "It's the Kool-Aid, Bruce... it's the Kool-Aid. If you could feel the power of it, the pull of it, the offer to become one with us and attain Godhood... together with us as one... you would be inexorably drawn.... to vote for Obama... even if you could not put in words as I have... the power of the pull to oneness. "
Hey, Id,
I heard from Hal, back from his Space Odyssey, regarding your desire not to pull the lever for Barack.
Hal read your lips. And your mind.
Hal says, "I can't allow you to do that, Id."
It's for your own good, for the sake of your positive liberty, guaranteed by the collective.
Resistance is futile.
Sleep, Id. Sleep.
*****
RIGHTS WITHOUT REMEDIES:
See http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/who_enforces_the_constitutions.html.
****
VALUES AND PRIORITIES:
Comment by Dlanor, at http://comments.americanthinker.com/read/1/226381.html:
Re: “When we've seen the last shreds of transparency on the part of our government....”
Well, I doubt many human minds could retain sanity upon seeing government (or, for that matter, even another human mind) transparent, without filters, in full, resplendent glory. The horror!
Regarding “priorities” — here’s the deal: We need means for assimilating sustainable, civilizing values. Such means cannot endure so long as, screaming all the way, we resist drawing even the most fundamental of defining lines.
We are falling towards loss of all capacity to set limits for even the most basic of civilizing and replenishing relationships. For guidance about what should be the role of parents or for raising children, we are, in these days, rabidly reducing to babel, distrusting history and philosophy, each turning to his or her own pleasure.
Over such fundamentals, what could have more priority?
Does it not often seem that the first priority of those who most ardently wish to shackle the regulation and defense of our borders is to preserve freedom and opportunities for pulling down the curtains on whatsoever traditional values they damn well want to?
Our imperfect situation may preclude us from perfectly squaring the circle, to preserve both family values and national defense. As we insist on perfection in respect of one or the other, we seem to be endangering both — freedom and security.
Our “bubble” of multicultural diversity and tolerance seems to be bursting our social and familial glue — as well as meaningful “law.”
Popeye: “I can’t stands no more!”
****
Obama:
See http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_change/2008/10/21/142554.html?s=al&promo_code=6DC0-1
Obama Facts:
See http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_smears_fact_check/2008/10/20/142379.html?s=al&promo_code=6DC0-1
Misinformed Voters:
See http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2008/10/29/a_duty_not_to_vote.
Voter Fraud:
See http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/who_else_is_heading_for_swing.html.
Contribution Fraud:
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/28/AR2008102803413_pf.html
Media Fraud:
See http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2008/10/29/notorious_obamedia_moments_of_2008.
Demise of America:
See http://townhall.com/columnists/DouglasMacKinnon/2008/10/29/does_the_united_states_of_america_still_exist:
There is no greater threat to our liberty and this Republic than a biased media that despises traditional values and only speaks and lies with one voice. Again, Thomas Jefferson may have said it best when he wrote, “He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.”
Mettle Testing:
See http://comments.americanthinker.com/read/1/226574.html:
Comment by Dlanor, re: Karl Rover ("Gee, let's guess. I'm going with no, the Democrats are not planning to disenfranchise, round up and exterminate Jews.")
Well, German voters launched Hitler, eventually rendering themselves impotent to stop the holocaust.
Now, Democrat Jews stand poised to help launch Obama, who appears to lack both will and fortitude to help face down any serious alliance against Israel.
True, when free people anywhere, whether in Israel or elsewhere, are begun to be rounded up, American Democrats will not have invited it ... directly.
So, Democrats can continue to adore Obama. He is such a good Georgie Porgie! Just watch as he sticks in his thumb, pulls out a plum, and says, "My, what a good boy am I!"
****
Unraveling American Self-Reliance — Mexicanization of America:
http://www.newsmax.com/ruddy/ruddy_gop_survival/2008/10/27/144701.html:
For Republicans, changing demographics are worrisome. Minorities and immigrants like the idea of a big and benevolent government handing out benefits — the something-for-nothing boondoggles that the Democrats have reveled in since Franklin Roosevelt invented the concept.
If you give amnesty, which really means citizenship, to just 2 million or 3 million of the 12 million illegals here, the electoral map moves dramatically in favor of the Democratic Party. But there will be no reason why Obama and the Democrats won’t push for amnesty and citizenship for all 12 million.
....
Today, Texas is an anchor for the GOP nationally. But an Obama amnesty program will put that state solidly into the Democratic column. Florida and other smaller red states like Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico will become quite blue. Blue states, like California and New York, will get bluer.
****
New Socialist Media — Palin Negative Headlines:
See http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/palin_negative_headlines/2008/10/28/144911.html?s=al&promo_code=6F48-1
OK, NOW THEY’RE GETTING SCARY
(Reminds me of the Halloween after the Cuban Missile Crisis, or Whitaker Chambers in the Pumpkin Patch):
More Obama Radical Connections — See:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31740_Khalidi_Tape_News-_The_Guest_List;
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31731_Zombie-_Barack_Obamas_Close_Encounter_with_the_Weather_Underground.
Ultimate Play On Volatility (to consolidate rule of Uber-Nomenklatura?) — See:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/bidens_generated_crisis.html.
Double, double, boil and burst bubble ....
Comment by Dlanor, at http://sweetness-light.com/archive/cpusa-hails-biggest-realignment-since-1930s:
Now, will we get to the part about the dictatorship of the proletariat within the first 100 days?
Isn't there some kind of law of diminishing returns on being a bully? After awhile, doesn't the value of seeking to avoid the bully marginalize the value of tolerating the bully? When other places have lower rates, won't businesses just vote with their feet? Actually, that does appear to be part of the Agenda: spread economic activity away from the U.S. and towards the third world. Even though much of Third World is primed by history to dimmi-diminish humanity into serfdom. What you want less of, you tax. If you want less production in free countries, you increase their tax rates.
Shouldn't the goal of a tax for a rational and free society be to increase revenue without disincenting production and industry? Some say the middle class has too much consumption and not enough savings. Well then, why not do away with taxes on production (income taxes and domestic corporation taxes) and instead tax domestic consumption, progressively? (Capture taxes on export-transfers of dollars from the U.S. by taxing such exprts as if they constituted a form of consumption.) Wouldn't a progressive tax on consumption be as simple to implement, calculate, and collect as to require that all retail purchases be made by each person from his assigned retail account?
You know, I am not qualified to be entirely confident that a progressive consumption tax would be a good idea. But I do think the idea merits more consideration than it has gotten --- especially upon considering some of the disadvantages among alternatives. I agree that any tax is going to distort the market. I also think disproportionate differences in wealth to such extent as we have now are distorting all markets. There is so much accumulation of means and power that well positioned cronies can shake and shape markets as easily as a kid can shake ripe, loose apples from an apple tree. Cronies now have power to market markets. I don't see how simple ideas of supply and demand can re-set this kind of situation to anything resembling an "arms length" marketplace, as opposed to an adhesion marketplace. Any centralizing authority to tax is necessarily going to alter the parameters and means for availing the expression of individual incentive and freedom. As to black markets, I suspect that problem could be resolved under most systems, depending on the general will versus the will of those who benefit from black markets. When people buy large expenditure items (rare art, houses, vehicles), they will generally need to show viable paper trails. Those kinds of expenditures can generally be tracked. Other potential expenditures on the black market would be subject to undercover monitoring of dealers. Means for monitoring are going to continue to increase, perhaps geometrically. I'm not sure that can be slowed very much. By and large, America still has a market oriented economy. Yes, if we proceed much further towards Obama-collectivization, that will change. But then no kind of tax system or pricing system will likely work very well. As to what wrecked the soviet marketplace, I doubt it was a progressive consumption tax. I suspect it was something more akin to state set pricing, production quotas, and ration lines. Still, I agree in this respect: The kind of legalistic society that can come up with such legal animals as credit-default-swaps will work overtime trying to end-run the best intentions of any tax system (including a progressive consumption tax system). Even so, I come back to two main points: (1) The middle class consumes more than it responsibly should, and (2) the top 1 percent of 1 percent has too much incentive and means to buy political favors to be good for a free market republic. So, as a mind experiment, I wonder how a progressive consumption tax might be part of a solution to those concerns --- especially if it were conditioned on retiring taxes on incomes and domestic corporations (to the extent they did not engage in lobbying, i.e., buying and "consuming" political favors)?
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