In Human Action, Von Mises explained how it is necessary, in formulating practical economic recommendations, to relate to imaginary models. This is because we con't have access to an alternative earth on which to conduct alternative, double-blind simulations. So models must often indulge assumptions about the effects of actions under conditions of ceteris paribus, as if all other things remained equal. Of course, in the real world, all other things do not remain equal. For example, the United States is a vast empire of natural resources across which there is relatively easy transport, a common language, an agreeable climate, a commonly germ resistent population, and free trade. Those ingredients of resources, common language, culture, religion, assimilated mores, habits of cooperation, rivers and roads of transport, republican traditions, and international influence do not apply to many countries.
When politicians in the United States extol "free trade," what does that mean in the real world? In the real world, trading often risks transport of mad cow disease, ebola viruses, brainwashed suicide bombers, voices-in-the-head despots, sociopaths oblivious of the Golden Rule, and people whose only faith is in temporal material gain. In the real world, exchange of technology risks arming cultures that mean to overrun us. In the real world, free trade with countries whose leaders contrive to hold down local wages and to prop up their businesses allows dumping of excess production in ways that undermine and replace the industries of other nations. In the real world, free trade enriches oligarchs who tend to be a-theistic, a-moral, and a-patriotic. They tend not to be loyal Jeffersonians. The idea of oligarchs of an open society of globally erased borders does not tend to preserve any representative republic. Rather, it tends to replace all government by the people with a race to the bottom, to install corporatist oligarchs to rule in place of governments.
The idea or free trade, intelligently applied, can be a wonderful thing. However, when it is unguided by any common sense with regard to what is needed to preserve a decent society that avails human freedom and dignity under a representative republic, then it becomes a big lie that oligarchs find useful in order to dupe idiots.
South Korea is perhaps the preminent economic miracle of recent times. It undertook a program that might be called self-help affirmative action. A Korean writer, ha-joon-chang, makes his case for what I would call affirmative action tariffs. He says: "Global economic competition is a game of unequal players. It pits against each other countries that range from, as we development economists like to say, Switzerland to Swaziland. Consequently, it is only fair that we ‘tilt the playing field’ in favour of the weaker countries."
I tend not to ascribe so much credence to an idea of tilting the playing field in favor ot the weaker. I suspect such efforts tend to be cynically abused in such a godlessly trending world. I give no more credence to the idea of oligarchs acting sympathetically than I do to the idea of them acting objectively and impartially. That is, they will always be partial to their own bottom lines -- both in the economic sphere and in the legal/political sphere.
See http://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/ha-joon-chang-bad-samaritans.pdf:
"What Korea actually did during these decades was to nurture certain new industries, selected by the government in consultation with the private sector, through tariff protection, subsidies and other forms of government support (e.g., overseas marketing information services provided by the state export agency) until they ‘grew up’ enough to withstand international competition."
"If private enterprises worked well, that was fine; if they did not invest in important areas, the governmenthad no qualms about setting up state-owned enterprises (S O Es); and if some
private enterprises were mismanaged, the government often took them over,restructured them, and usually (but not always) sold them off again."
"The Korean government heavily controlled foreign investment as well, welcoming it with open arms in certain sectors while shutting it out completely in others, according to the evolving national development plan. It also had a lax attitude towards foreign patents, encouraging ‘reverse engineering’ and overlooking ‘pirating’ of patented products."
"Why then don’t the rich countries recommend to today’s developing countries the strategies that served them so well? Why do they instead hand out a fiction about the history of capitalism, and a bad one at that?"
"So there it was—the self-proclaimed leader of the ‘liberal’ world declaring war on another country because the latter was getting in the way of its illegal trade in narcotics. The truth is that the free movement of goods, people, and money that developed under British hegemony between 1870 and 1913—the first episode of globalization - was made possible, in large part, by military might, rather than market forces."
"Free trade was often imposed on, rather than chosen by, weaker countries. Most countries that had the choice did not choose free trade for more than brief periods. Virtually all successful economies, developed and developing, got where they are through selective, strategic integration with the world economy, rather than through unconditional global integration."
When politicians in the United States extol "free trade," what does that mean in the real world? In the real world, trading often risks transport of mad cow disease, ebola viruses, brainwashed suicide bombers, voices-in-the-head despots, sociopaths oblivious of the Golden Rule, and people whose only faith is in temporal material gain. In the real world, exchange of technology risks arming cultures that mean to overrun us. In the real world, free trade with countries whose leaders contrive to hold down local wages and to prop up their businesses allows dumping of excess production in ways that undermine and replace the industries of other nations. In the real world, free trade enriches oligarchs who tend to be a-theistic, a-moral, and a-patriotic. They tend not to be loyal Jeffersonians. The idea of oligarchs of an open society of globally erased borders does not tend to preserve any representative republic. Rather, it tends to replace all government by the people with a race to the bottom, to install corporatist oligarchs to rule in place of governments.
The idea or free trade, intelligently applied, can be a wonderful thing. However, when it is unguided by any common sense with regard to what is needed to preserve a decent society that avails human freedom and dignity under a representative republic, then it becomes a big lie that oligarchs find useful in order to dupe idiots.
South Korea is perhaps the preminent economic miracle of recent times. It undertook a program that might be called self-help affirmative action. A Korean writer, ha-joon-chang, makes his case for what I would call affirmative action tariffs. He says: "Global economic competition is a game of unequal players. It pits against each other countries that range from, as we development economists like to say, Switzerland to Swaziland. Consequently, it is only fair that we ‘tilt the playing field’ in favour of the weaker countries."
I tend not to ascribe so much credence to an idea of tilting the playing field in favor ot the weaker. I suspect such efforts tend to be cynically abused in such a godlessly trending world. I give no more credence to the idea of oligarchs acting sympathetically than I do to the idea of them acting objectively and impartially. That is, they will always be partial to their own bottom lines -- both in the economic sphere and in the legal/political sphere.
See http://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/ha-joon-chang-bad-samaritans.pdf:
"What Korea actually did during these decades was to nurture certain new industries, selected by the government in consultation with the private sector, through tariff protection, subsidies and other forms of government support (e.g., overseas marketing information services provided by the state export agency) until they ‘grew up’ enough to withstand international competition."
"If private enterprises worked well, that was fine; if they did not invest in important areas, the governmenthad no qualms about setting up state-owned enterprises (S O Es); and if some
private enterprises were mismanaged, the government often took them over,restructured them, and usually (but not always) sold them off again."
"The Korean government heavily controlled foreign investment as well, welcoming it with open arms in certain sectors while shutting it out completely in others, according to the evolving national development plan. It also had a lax attitude towards foreign patents, encouraging ‘reverse engineering’ and overlooking ‘pirating’ of patented products."
"Why then don’t the rich countries recommend to today’s developing countries the strategies that served them so well? Why do they instead hand out a fiction about the history of capitalism, and a bad one at that?"
"So there it was—the self-proclaimed leader of the ‘liberal’ world declaring war on another country because the latter was getting in the way of its illegal trade in narcotics. The truth is that the free movement of goods, people, and money that developed under British hegemony between 1870 and 1913—the first episode of globalization - was made possible, in large part, by military might, rather than market forces."
"Free trade was often imposed on, rather than chosen by, weaker countries. Most countries that had the choice did not choose free trade for more than brief periods. Virtually all successful economies, developed and developing, got where they are through selective, strategic integration with the world economy, rather than through unconditional global integration."
39 comments:
Turning banking over to the interests that run the Fed is like turning over moral instruction to jaded, child molesting priests. We can individually participate as factors in the contemporaneously unfolding reconciliation of our economy and society. Or we can entrust that reconciling function to liars and deceivers.
Something of the cosmos reconciles the constant feedback between and among its holistic aspect and the varying perspectives of its parts. This Something continuously renormalizes its physically substantive, qualitatively purposeful, and economically trading interfunctionings. The Reconciler of the Cosmos is much the same as the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace. There is more to the Invisible Hand than myth. It is both immeasurable and real, indeed, as immeasurable and real as the Reconciler of the Cosmos. The Holistic Source that is at work is the same Conservatory Principle, but intuited to operate under differently abstracted but similarly conceptualized models. Take away the money medium of exchange and substitute more direct trading and then, instead of renormalizing the economic exchanges of values and prices among human traders, you will get renormalizing of the physical and emotional exchanges of appreciations and apprehensions among bodies and conscious beings.
Of course, what we renormalize to present value affects that which the Holism reconciles to present value. But it does not affect that which the Holism reconciles to eternal value. We have no economic or moral model that is reducible to math for the purpose of reducing the operation of eternal God of science to any present system of equalizing formulas. At best, we can try to intuit such polestars as God may signal to our very imperfect receptors. But we cannot in earthly terms measure "progress" towards heaven. We can, however, stupidly entrust liars to deceive us about "progress." I give you the Fed.
The Fed's policies pump to increase the wealth gap. This helps turn our pols into bitches, who pump for oligarchic pimps, thus prostituting our republic. As a significant contributor to the sell out and downfalll of our republic, monetary policy may not be as direct as irresponsible fiscal spending, but its contribution is significant. The reason the Fed continues to create fiat money is because Congress keeps exceeding any budget. The two seem quite related. If Congress were not enabled with a blank checkbook, it would have to be more realistic about spending.
Our revenue policies have been incenting industries to go abroad. As unemployment at home becomes more desperate, labor tends to be bid down in all industries. This makes politicians willing to offer special incentives to reestablish or bring industries back home. This acts as a pump, which increases the gap between oligarchs and everyone else. And it turns pols into bitches, for barking such results to the masses as if "for the general good." This is the way to sell out a republic.
Opportunities attract opportunists. Opportunists can sense the approach and interests of other opportunists. Words and meetings are often not necessary. Lion prides coordinate hunts without needing to huddle. Honey badgers attract buzzards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIp6jQNDRT0. Memes can self organize below the level of necessitating conscious expression. After awhile, the actors come to recognize and take account of one another's motivations. One may be both food and food eater, target of conspiracy and conspiracist. It often depends on through which end of the glass one is looking as one makes analysis. All of existentiality is a trinitarian fractal flux of purposeful perspective, information made useful, and feedback of signification.
Existence entails the repetitive expression of fractal patterns that are derivative of a trinitarian flux. As people detect prevailing directions in patterns of repetition, many will plot to profit from them. It's not that such conspiracies are inherently bad. It's that they are inherent and can be dangerous to opposing interests. When people are trying to recognize patterns, in order to preserve a decent republic against inherent forces of erosion, it avails little to try to prove whether such patterns are or are not secondary to conspiracies. It's those who have power (or who seek to make bad juju) who shield themselves with laws, who seek to punish those who try to defeat or change such laws, who call such attempts "illigitimate" or "conspiratorial." For example, for militant gays, it's "illigitimate" to contribute money to those who oppose the institutionalization of "gay marriage." Of present, those who can think and who seek to preserve a decent republic are sensing an obvious gathering of trends, cheap profit seekers, and cannibals of republics. Indeed, these foes of a free thinking society have now grown so blatantly wealthy, influential, and antagonistic to decent republican society that they no longer bother to hide the obvious fact. This is because they can easily bribe idiot lofos and because decent, thinking people have been neutered of access to institutions of power. When our foes blatantly tell us they mean in effect to erase the borders of the republic and to continue bleeding the influence of the middle class, it hardly takes a suspicious mind to get the point. Just a mind that is capable of decent, rational thought.
It's deceit all the way. Some Oly's have it that we should tax business income more, tax for carbon credits, and encourage unions. Jeffrey Immelt has moved much of GE's production to China, and GE pays few if any taxes. Yet he serves as an economic adviser to Obama. It seems Olys say America should do more taxing and regulating, then they say the taxing and regulating makes it necessary for them to move industries overseas (where the sum of adverse environmental results tends to be worse than before America increased its regulations). If you want your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Same with your industry, job, religion. Same with your republic. If conditions don't change. Period
The good of the "oligarchic free market" is a massive deception, a precursor to the destruction of republics, that is on a par with "slavery is freedom.
An American tends to believe in the American Ideal. An Hispanic tends to believe in his culture and family. Oil and water. Hispanics cannot convert to Americanism without converting their culture of familial dependence. That's not going to happen. Importing Hispanics will not make them into Americans. It will make America into Hispaniola. Too many Americans suffer from acute short sightedness, secondary to a severe case of projectionism, aided and abetted by treasonous representatives.
They don't really believe in communism. They believe in forcing mommy and daddy to secure their basement nests. Forever. What they are too uninformed to realize is that mommy and daddy do this by mortgaging their futures. Pretty soon, suppertimes in the basements suddenly stop.
Diversity is code for centralization of federalized specialty handouts. America is being turned into a storehose of raw materials to be used by elitists to advance their exterior exploits. We are being used as a storehouse for refuse.
Our nation's base of knowledge, technology, and industry has been exploited. Cannibal deceits among economists are rampant. IF all other things remained constant, then one may expect that exporting industrial jobs would counter the ill effects of losing jobs at home by facilitating the recruitment of cheaper labor abroad, in order to manufacture and sell cheaper products at home. The idea is that the division of labor tends often thus to be made more efficient, to the benefit of all.
However, all things do not remain equal. The earth is not a smoothly revolving economy. In default of vigilant free thinkers, serfdom is the usual condition for the mass of humanity. Some sociopaths do actually conspire. Demand for production is not infinite, and some jobs at home can be lost for a very long time. Then, the general public at home pays more in taxes to cover resulting unemployment. Moreover, as industry ships overseas, overseas know-how for technology improves, but does not at home. Rather, skills and knowledge for the labor force at home tend to fall behind. The result is often to undermine decent government at home, while empowering despots abroad. In essence, the scientific knowledge acquired from workers schooled at colleges funded by taxpayers at home is expropriated to the profittering of oligarchs who recruit cheap labor abroad.
Moreover, as unemployment at home becomes ever more desperate, labor is bid down in all industries. This makes politicians willing to offer special incentives to reestablish or bring industries back home. This acts as a PUMP, which increases the gap between oligarchs and everyone else. And it turns pols into b-tches, for barking results to the masses as if "for the general good."
Why do exploiters send American resources to third world regimes? Is it to relieve their poverty? Ha! South Korea did not turn its economy around by following American rules. American exploiters go to third world countries because the despots there tend to be good to make quick bucks with. Saudi Arabia is not interested in turning its women into middle class independent thinkers. Nor is China interested in turning its peasants into free thinkers. Some sociopaths do actually conspire. Enriching such despots by cannibalizing America is the way to cause government of, by, and for the people to perish -- everywhere. We are not raising despots to freedom. We are sinking freedom for ourselves. We are wholesale surrendering freedom for security from centralizing Dear Leaders. Our decline is breath taking.
A virus that kills its environment and that must therefore spread does not cease being a virus. The first thing to learn about preserving an environment is how to preserve a culture. We need a motto that is less like, Give us your huddled viruses yearning to spread. We need leadership that is more far sighted than a typical exploiter of memes that are like viruses.
Monied interests WANT central control. Corporate taxes are not that big a deal since, as you say, they are passed on. (The reason to get rid of them is to reduce incentives to export industries.) Big concerns want centralized control because it is easier to bribe and you get more bang for the buck. How are decent people to take power away from the central government when most of the wealth and power want central government? I think you have to tax central lobbying --- through the nose. It is simply too profitable to give up. It seems to be more addictive than cocaine. If it is to be taxed, it cannot be at flat rates, because those rates are too easy to pass on. To tax it through the nose, you have to tax it progressively. Yes, decentralize the fed obamination. Once it is decentralized, then lobbyists will not find it so profitable to work their corruption. As to corporations that only want to engage in free enterprise as opposed to crony capitalism: Why should they be against progressive taxation of lobbying consumption? After all, they are consuming. Does anyone think they are lobbying out of public spiritedness? Or for fair competition? Tax the hell out of central lobbying and we can kill Obamanism and The Crony Corporatist horse Obama rode in on.
I suspect a more enlightened electorate with a more enlightened and relatively simple tax policy could solve most national economic concerns relatively simply. Such a policy would render unions unneeded, damp down the conspicuous consumption that incites aristocratic wannabes, discourage the wholesale exportation of industries, return funds to the States, and provide needed funding for infrastructure. If our elite dumbifiers have their way, it can have but little chance.
If men were angels, I would be more persuaded. If I thought Obama and Soros were simply well meaning people, ditto. But I do not believe men are anywhere near angels, and I think power lust to rule is more at the heart of elitists than any concern for the lower classes they pretend to want to raise. I think the only things transparent about the regime are its evil intentions. It does not want to raise human freedom and dignity. IMO, it wants to establish serfdom. It sees danger to its lifestyle in according freedom to any but the dwindling uppermost class. Amnesty, open border, and concentrated efforts to undermine the tea party let us see behind the masks. The thing that free trade advocates need to understand is that free trade can never be a panacea because real world sociopaths abuse the concept. Is there any indication that Chinese leaders are any more willing to loosen their grip on the throats of their people than Obama is willing to obey the rule of law and give up his "pen?"
There is some wisdom in what you said. I would balk, however, at freely trading away a nation that avails human freedom and dignity in exchange for a nation or culture that avails only rulers ruling the ruled. If we persist in that way, then we will become vassals of China, peaceably, with nary a shot. As things stand, I think we are indeed becoming a two class society. I don't think the problem is lack of free trade on our part. The problem is lack of reciprocation. I think that lack is less a consequence of our failure to diversify than it is of despotic regimes not being able or willing to move beyond despotism. Whatever the nature of our trade with them, it seems to be making us more despotic, but it does not seem to be making them less despotic. Only more efficient. At some point, I think the ideal of free trade needs to face off with real-politick.
Agree that we should export markets, trade, and rule of law. And I may call that exportation "free" on some meta level. Regardless, it should be more smart than free. One way unrestricted trade is not free. One way dispersal of technology tends to enrich and arm cultural enemies. For there to be free trade, there would need to be cultural equals. Otherwise, the rationale for free trade seems often to reduce to willy nilly multi culti and a recipe for undermining ourselves at home. Our own regime looks upon us the same way China and Russia and Islamists do --- as cultural inferiors. That is why Obama wants fundamental change. If one's yardstick for measuring cultural success measures capacity to defend human freedom and dignity, then our nation (pre Obama) and our foundational basis are vastly superior to most other countries and cultures. If we want to preserve that success and offer it as a beacon, then no part of "free trade" should entail selling it out for a mess of multi culti pottage. We should not be offering most favored nation status to nations whose regimes operate on a principle that is diametrically opposed to the furtherance of human freedom and dignity. We should be dealing smartly, not equally, with nations that run on two classes --- rulers and ruled. We should not be accepting that their cultures are equal. They are not. They are inferior. We don't need to call them that, but we do need to know it. The alternative seems to be to lay back and let them eat out our innards. Whatever seems to be entailed in the idea of free trade should be applied in ways that do not undermine us at home. And it is obvious that we are being undermined at home.
Re: The phony rationale for this is to protect the people from being victimized by the powerful. But the result is that the powerful feel justified in demonizing those with whom they disagree.
When incompetent people are made to feel like victims, they tend to think their only recourse is a government program. The central selling point is something like this: Help make everyone give me their lunch money, and I will protect everyone from the bullies who have been taking yours. Si se puede means you cannot take care of yourself, unless you force everyone to pay to have the government protect everyone.
Of course, the government will not really protect everyone, but its operators will be more than glad to take everyone's money. When the promised protection falls short, losers will be told, "Well, you just need to help us get more people to pay their fair share." Most of government is little more than a very inefficient protection racket. In a protection racket, it is those who are best at selling the racket who get the most care, not those who need the protection. Those who need the protection tend to get to pull the finger. They are told, per Animal House, "You f'd up. You trusted us." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
When you cross Otter with Putin, you get an Animal House pyramid scheme. What could go wrong? Obama is the Black Otter. His Rainbow Coalition is Delta House. Congress is a food fight. For us to fall, Putin needs only to sit back and laugh.
Regarding business income not being taxed until profits are distributed: I don't think so. Domestic corporations pay corporate taxes. I am saying end that.
As far as respect for the Constitution, If we can get representatives and justices to return to the Constitution, I am all for that.
As to the kind of lobbying that would be incented, depending on whether the tax system were flat or progressive, I remain unsold, either way. As I said, this is a mind experiment. What we have is bad. I think the problems with a flat tax would be different, but probably at least equally as bad. I am not certain that a progressive consumption tax would be better. I think it's intriguing to explore.
I would incline to agree that a way station would be a flat tax. Give that a few years to take care of the fairness problem in double taxing wealth on which income taxes have already been paid.
My intuition is that, all things considered, a progressive consumption tax combined with a national sales tax would improve our overall situation. There are many strong arguments that can be made either way. A flat tax would need to exclude people below a livable income or consumption threshold. When combined with sales taxes, It would be regressive against the remaining middle class tax payers. That would increase the existing gap in wealth and political influence, which I think is already bad enough.
Those who have accumulated the most wealth can be argued to receive the most benefit from existing infrastructure. (Much as whiny, same-sex married people without kids, who contribute little if anything to national defense, begrudge tax breaks given to ordinary families that raise the kids and troops that police and defend the nation.) I recognize that hired wordsmiths can make many cogent arguments on all sides of such issues. At present, I am unconvinced, but I doubt that a flat tax would adequately preserve infrastructure or fund the nation's defense. There are probably analyses on such issues, and I will be watching for them.
I note that there may be other aspects, relating to money transfers to non-domestic corporations and businesses, that may make a consumption tax interesting as a means for incenting industry to remain competitive, without unduly encouraging international corporatists to undermine our borders and eat out our industries. Again, what we have is bad. Those who benefit from our drift towards a two class society will be more than happy for us to continue to do nothing effective about it.
Just to be clear, I much prefer oligarchs running businesses than bureaucrats getting in their way or finding "better ways to use their money." People who acquire business power domestically ought ordinarily be allowed to use it for business purposes Which is part of why I would not want to tax business profits. Not until they are distributed. Tax employees and buyers of products for personal consumption, not businesses. Let those guys continue to produce! What I want to do is get business out of Congress and Congress out of business. I just don't think a flat tax will do much to help in that area. A flat tax will not stop cloaked bribes with regard to defining what is taxable income or consumption. But a progressive tax would put some brakes on that, even as it generated revenues for infrastructure (which seems largely to benefit business).
Presently, each consumer already keeps a running tally on his reportable income. For many people, their yearly consumption would essentially be their income, less savings and business investments. For people who drew down on wealth to make personal consumptions, it would include such additional amounts. In effect, a taxpayer would need to keep purchase receipts for items purchased from savings. In effect, savings would avail deferred taxation until spent, like a 401k. Alternatively, a tally could be kept by making all personal money purchases, and payments on credit cards, on a debit card or debit account. As large purchases are reported by retailers, cheating would be discouraged. A progressive rate would be applied to the consumption total that would depend on its amount. Lobbying expenditures would be imputed as consumption, not as business expenses. Congress should be making far fewer laws, and the feds should be doing far less. It should not cost that much to engage in lobbying. When it does cost a lot, someone is likely getting more crony representation than he ought. Make Congress more of a representative body than a business. In this day and age, with email communication and virtual meetings, what legitimate reason is there for big lobbying expenses, that should protect them from being taxed? Does it not seem obvious that serious hanky panky is going on, given how Congress people come out so much richer than when they went in?
Well, am I wrong about oligarchic power over msm? That Obama barely has brains enough to blow his nose? That he knows who to take major cues from? IAE, I hope Harry Reid's son's plans for the Nevada ranch land do fail. Rockefeller, Kennedy, Bush, Clinton, the Saudis, Foundations. Now Chelsea is thinking. They seem like political dynasties. I just don't think we should lay back and say, Well, this round of oligarchic influence will only last three generations. Does anyone really know how much trust fund wealth is safely locked away in offshore accounts? Without that information, I am dubious about oligarchic families losing their wealth or influence in only a few generations.
I agree that we should not go to a consumption tax unless it can be kept simple. I am working a mind experiment to test whether that is possible. Some of the counter concerns seem to have merit, and some do not. For most people who live paycheck to paycheck, whose consumption nearly equates to their pay, I doubt a consumption tax would be more complex than what we have. I think an enlightened society could, with just two tax forms, sales and consumption, accomplish a number of commendable goals: protect the republic against excessive oligarchic consumption of political favoritism; fund infrastructure; remove most Rube Goldberg exceptions; encourage home grown industry and business. But even if such a system could avail substantial improvements, it may be politically not feasible. This may be because it is an idea that cannot be reduced to simple practice. Or because it is just too novel. Or because some vested interests would invent problems because they want a two class society, so that the republic remains neutered of capacity for defending its innards. At this point, I remain unsatisfied that such a tax system could not be an improvement. IAE, I am perhaps less trusting of man's capacity to withstand temptation. So I do not tend to accept idealistic economic tenets unless they are closely tied to human nature. I do much appreciate your counter points. As I said, the idea needs precisely that kind of sharp questioning.
If you buy sugar out of a business account and then use it for personal consumption without a business accounting, that would be fraud. If you buy sugar out of a personal account or with cash, that would be taxable consumption. If you buy sugar out of a business account to serve it in a restaurant, that would be un-taxed business expense. No doubt, a lot of restauranteurs would be eating meals on the house, on the sly. But this kind of untaxed underground is already pervasive.
As to your question about whether personally accumulated wealth, on which income taxes had theretofore been paid during the accumulation, should, upon dissolution of the income tax, be again taxed upon expenditure for consumption, the answer, unavoidably, would be yes. Unless you want another Rube Goldberg system. No matter what tax system is devised, it will not be perfectly fair. In the interest of fairness, one as well may ask, what about all the wealth that was accumulated on account of un meritoriously earned crony advantage that was never taxed in the first place, but just laundered into considerable financial gain?
I do not pretend to advance a perfect system. My concern is more humble. What is needed to brake the oligarchic buying up of political favoritism that is converting us to a two class society that is largely under the influence of foreigners who are unfriendly to the idea of a representative republic?
An advantage in combining a national sales tax with a national consumption tax: the sales tax could be kept relatively low. A floor could be set so that no consumption tax would be levied until consumption reached a livable level. For most people, the consumption tax would be levied on taxable consumption, which would not include savings or business investments. For people whose consumption eats up all their income, the basis for a consumption tax would be much the same as for an income tax.
Except that declining to tax business income would not eat the rich. As to the Rube Goldberg code, you are probably correct that it must first be replaced by a flat tax. At some point thereafter, however, I think it would help to consider a progressive consumption tax on non business consumption. Power and wealth corrupt, so I do not put much faith in people who have once acquired power to rule to give it up merely to be politically fair to the rest of the citizenry. That is why I do not think a republic that wants to remain a republic can afford to allow too much un-taxed consumptive power to fall into the hands of international oligarchs.
Don't tax business exchanges. Just tax items bought at retail, for consumption. Those taxes are passed along to the buyers. I would prefer a flat tax to an income tax. Once the tax system is simplified, and business is no longer taxed, then look into a progressive consumption tax on non-business consumption. As needed to sustain the republic and defend it from two class oligarchic tyranny.
Make the feds re-distribute most tax revenue to the states. Then feds won't have as much corrupt incentive to tax so much. Domestic business income should not be taxed, except upon distribution to its employees and owners, and then only when used for personal consumption. Otherwise, business income and savings should not be taxed to the living owners. You are right that the IRS has become a terrorist organization. It has become so because we have become more like a two class society.
Maybe limit the application of taxes to currency expenditures for non-business, consumable items. Even then, however, you are correct that the power to define what is an item of consumption versus an item of business expense would remain a fearsome power. There is no end-all, be-all solution. Whatever the means we use to obtain revenues via taxes, such means should be guided in respect of what is needed to sustain and further a decent republic that avails reasonable freedom of expression and enterprise, that can serve as a beacon to the rest of the world. The further we fall from our founding ideals, the harder it will become to promote any such an assimilative agenda over the base whines and grunts of the present day sociopaths and narcissists who contend among the multi culti.
No doubt, you do not want a two class society. Presumably, you would like profits to be allocated by some invisible hand, believed itself to incline to reward merit, talent, inventiveness, and work. At least, that is what I believe. Even so, our artifices are part of the causal background. Our artifices can produce a system of hereditary stagnation, wherein money advantages would replace merit as the primary determinant for allocating further profits. It seems to me that a process of stagnating differentiation between two classes should not be allowed to continue along a linear, flat line, with no means for bending back to preserve a republic against the rise of "aristogarchs." I realize new oligarchs like Jobs and Bezos do arise to upset the apple cart, but that is a thin reed to incent the majority of society. I doubt an oligarchic ruled two class society can be avoided if there is no corrective. If anything, the acceleration towards a two class society is already climbing at a frightening rate. I want to see merit and work rewarded, but not to the point of surrendering the republic to an oligarchic run one world two class society. Is there something about a flat tax that would stem or reverse the trend towards oligarchic rule? If not, I don't see how we can wisely restrict all our taxes to flat rates. The distance between the classes appears to be accelerating beyond mere linearity and proportionality, does it not? As the advantage of money and wealth compounds, should that really be attributed either to merit or to what is needed to sustain a free enterprise based republic?
A trucking company will make more use of the roads and do more wear and tear. Businesses that need materials and components and outlets will do more shipping. Big agriculture will use more water. Businesses that pollute spread the ill effects to all, but don't necessarily completely restore the environment. Arms merchants that empower our enemies do not "benefit" us equally. Tax funded technological research that increases business profits does not benefit us equally. Our contract system is used far more by businesses.
Declining to tax businesses at all would seem likely to spur economic growth more so than a flat tax on income from which corporations were not immune. Add to that opportunities for consumption by workers across a broader base and I suspect the combination may spur even greater growth, without the downside of so much crony corporatism. Why put the republic at risk of being turned into a cashocracy for no good reason? Surely, there must be a point at which consolidation of wealth, as in Mexico, tends to result in diminishing GDP as well as putting representative republicanism at risk. I will take a look at the referenced article.
I cannot think of a way for a business to market its products without making more use of infrastructure then ordinary workers and consumers. That is the point! If businesses, workers, and consumers want an infrastructure that will support economic development, then it has to be funded. Once it is funded and built, it is the business owners who disproportionately benefit from it. I am trying to think about this without the name calling. Please don't stoop to calling me a marxist. That's the tactic of Progs -- to call people racists, etc. I decline to want to tax business. That is NOT marxism, and your credibility and objectiveness become suspect when you call it so.
You and I both dislike big government. What you are ignoring is that government is run by people. The most influential people. If you take away formal government, you will still have governance, but it will be by corporations. Which is mainly fine, so long as they do not overreach. Our moving towards Agenda 21 and the creation of a two class society is a sign of overreach. Lately, masks are slipping and business rationalists seem to be accepting Soros' one world, open society, two class, Agenda 21. People are rationalizing that under simplistic ideas of borderless free trade. That will put us in a race to the bottom among two class, despotic regimes.
Oligarchs of today have the financial, political, and technological means, the opportunity, and many have the motivation to reduce us to a one world, two class, Agenda 21 open society. If we ignore the importance of a strong middle class in order to sustain human freedom and dignity, then we can rationalize an idea of world goodness that would necessarily fall from the sky merely because we erase borders and all sing economic kumbaya free trade. My read of history and human nature does not lead me to trust such a lullaby. Unchecked power corrupts. Wealth is power. If the American middle class does not protect itself politically, it will be enserfed, and Agenda 21 will become unstoppable. We will fall to a system of raw competiton that will pump us towards survival of the cronyist and most devious. Some will sense it, and others will slowly boil all of us in it, like frogs. Even as they sing the praises of their new masters.
Most of us will have witnessed acts of despotism. We have noticed that everyone tends to become hushed and circumspect as despots agglomerate power. Witness the effects of the gay mafia. There's risk in not singing the praises of a despot. Despotism is what comes of a two class society.
Obama expected all things to remain equal while he became more flexible. Bureaucratic stupidity always gets surprised by unintended consequences borne of its cluelessness about the complexity of economic and political markets.
Obama is playing a game as old as despotic collectivism. Obama is unkind history personified. The electorate, legal and illegal, that gave him to us is stupidity personified. The sad thing is, Obama is greasing the way to the two class playground that oligarchs want. The very oligarchs that are false fronted by the regime as demonic decoys -- to stir hate from which they hedge and benefit. Such evil has been with us since before recorded history, and it is with us now more than ever.
I am Divergent. I am a conserver of liberty. I cannot say I am a Liberal, because faux liberals have profaned that word. I cannot say I am a conservative, because I am not backward looking. Therefore, I am a Conserver of Liberty. I would conserve all that is needed in order to preserve liberty. Anything less is sub-human
Islamists are no doubt watching the success of the gay mafia. And the success of Putin. Just when the rest of the world is seeing the Obama regime as the hollow fairy tale that it is, too many Republicans are running from it instead of against it. A perfect storm of quislings. Quislings who are stupid, cowardly, or on the take. As the Iron Lady tought, this is no time to go wobbly.
California used to be Republican. Now it is a madhouse. Progs want to gift Texas with more of the same. As Texas goes, so will go the USA. I am saddened that the Bushes claim to be Texans. Ted Cruz is a Texan. I don't care where he was born.
It's not a slow train. It's more like the beginning of NWO fast trains to Treblinka. It's more like a rise of I.G. Farben, like a Phoenix. Coulter points out, rightly, that immigration reform is code for turning Texas blue. At that point, the Nazi oligarchic-collectivist axis may as will have taken Moscow.
Why are so many Rinos, despite the mood of Americans, on board with Immigration Reform? What's to reform? Just Enforce The Damn Borders! Is this fascination with immigration because Rinos are sympathetic to people living in shadows, or is it because they are sympathetic to paymasters? I am too old to start believing in fairy tales now.
I want to believe Ann Coulter, that we must restore Republicans to rule the roost in Congress. But I fear the Rino brand as much or more than the Dino. For the NWO, immigration reform will be like the Nazis' attempt to take Moscow. Except, this time, the btards might just do it. Rinos, Dinos, Marxists, Oligarchs, and NWO Reichtagers --- apparently all want to eliminate the political influence of middle class Americans.
Rinos seem to be Manchurians representing NWO Oligarchs. The Soviets wanted to be called Marxists, even though their leaders, who preserved "more equal" status for themselves, clearly were more fascist and despotic than Marxist. They were bent to rule, and to eliminate the middle class in order to do it. Now, we have apologists for oligarchic cronies advocating for a one world, open society, playground for oligarchs. They pretend not to want to eliminate the political and economic influence of the middle class, even though such eliminative trend is readily apparent.
Yes, some banana republics are improving as middle classes in industrial republics falter. Is that a good trade, or is it a race to the bottom in a one world oligarchic playground? I accept that our NWO Oligarchs are not Marxists or Commies. But then, neither, really, were the Soviets. What both have in common practice, however, is the dissipating of the middle class. A republic without a middle class is a banana republic. That's not the American Ideal.
Ann Coulter thinks our two biggest challenges are Obamacare and Immigration. I think she is right. She says we need on that account to elect enough Republicans to retake all of Congress. We need to not be replacing viable conservative republicans with non-viable social conservatives. I tend to agree, but that is easier said than done. Problem 1 is that Rinos lie. They say they will enforce the border first, then they somehow get bought off. If Rinos succeed, they will not be redistributing wealth as much as they will be destroying the republic.
Something about Republicans concerns me in a fundamental way. I don't trust their flat tax rationalizations and all things being equal rationalizations. I don't trust Oligarchs to be any less committed to a two class society than Marxists. I would agree that we need to do away with the income tax, and, perhaps, for a time, replace it with a flat sales tax. However, over time, we need to go to a better form of progressive tax. On consumption. For the long term, a flat tax would set a two class society in concrete. That kind of NWO has been the goal of a number of oligarchs for many years.
A two class society is contrary to human freedom and dignity. Yet, doing away with the political influence of the middle class seems to have been a common goal both for marxists and for apologists for crony corporatism. A healthy representative republic requires an economically sound, vibrant, informed, and vigilant middle class.
We have too many dumb-consuming debt slaves and too many crony corporatists. This produces the kind of two class society that Marxists and NWO crony corporatists want. The way to get fewer debt slaves is to decline to tax savings. The way to get less crony corporatism is to more smartly tax it. A flat tax plays into the hands of apologists for a two class system. We already are trending too much towards a two class society, and it is neutering the thinking, middle class. Moreover, a flat tax on consumption would tend to be even more regressive against the middle class, because it would disproportionately reward those who benefit most from the infrastructure that is provided in common by all.
Police and soldiers tend to disproportionately sacrifice to avail the common peace. Corporations disporportionately benefit from the patents that are the results of engineers they hire. Businesses that take advantage of senile and gullible people turn them into debt slaves, thus disproportionately benefitting from the mail and media system. Trucking companies tend disproportionately to benefit by roads that are paid for by taxpayers. Businesses that rely on roads for availing market deliveries benefit from them more so than those consumers who pay to buy online. Big agriculture uses proportionately more water. Businesses that pollute spread such ill effects to all, but don't necessarily restore the environment. Arms merchants that empower our enemies do not "benefit" us equally. Tax funded technological research by universities, that increases business profits, does not, wealth wise, benefit us equally. Our legal contract system is used far more by businesses.
It is hard to think of ways for businesses to market their products without their benefitting from the use of common infrastructure, in terms of wealth accumulation, more so than ordinary workers and consumers. Opportunity to play at table stakes games requires that one have table stakes. In that sense, a progressive tax, such as on consumption, hardly seems unfair.
Moreover, doing away with a progressive tax may often be counterporductive. Surely, there must come points at which consolidation of wealth, as in Mexico, tends to result in diminishing GDP, as well as putting representative republicanism at risk. Moreover, given the need to fund common infrastructure, doing away with a progressive tax seems not feasible. (How good is the infrastructure in Mexico?) Not if businesses, workers, and consumers want an infrastructure that will support economic development.
If wealth did not carry advantages for creating more wealth, then a progressive tax system would not accompany the situation we have: an increasing Gini index. Moreover, to argue that we already have family wealth being dissipated after three generations, given our progressive tax system, is to intimate that a flat tax would not contribute as well to such a dissipation of hereditary, aristocratic-like wealth. IOW, if dissipation of dynastic aristocracies is a good thing in a representative republic, then why should we "fix" it with a flat tax?
Apologists say, all things being equal, that a flat tax would bring money that has been sheltered offshore roaring back, which would revitalize the economy. However, stopping taxes on businesses would do much the same. And it would discourage the need to offshore money in the first place. At bottom, all things do not remain equal. Two class apologists and their masters are the ones contributing the most towards rationalizations for erasing our borders. Once that is done, we will have created a rock over us that will indeed be too heavy for us to lift.
We need to decide: Do we want a representative republic that can be a beacon of freedom and dignity to the world? Or do we want to be led placidly to the Marxist-Despotic Dream: A borderless world run by networks of dictators, despots, and oligarchs, bent on eliminating middle classes everywhere?
FAIRNESS: As to fairness, given a two tax system of a national sales tax and a progressive consumption tax: Each business owner, worker, and consumer could manage his own affairs so that they would, in respect of such system, renormalize towards an assimilated idea of fairness. The government's interference and tinkering may still intrude in respect of defining that which does not constitute a taxable consumption, that which does constitute a taxable consumption, and to whom and when such consumption should be imputed and taxed. However, such a system's main area of intrusion would tend to be less detailed and more general, revolving around setting tax rates and progressions. That would put more of the marketplace back under the guidance of "the invisible hand." Individuals would make their own choices, and government could use tax mechanisms to prevent the citizenry from devolving to a two class despotism.
START UPS: A progressive tax rate would opportune middle class, small business to participate towards leveraging the business benefits that are availed by the social infrastructure. As small businesses grow more prosperous, they would participate ever more proportionately to such benefits and would increase distributions to owners, whose increasing consumption would subject them to fairly proportionate tax rate increases. A vibrant society ought not impose rates on start ups that are too burdensome to allow them to stake a chance to play at the table of business.
CONSTITUTION: We have traveled far since our founding. The road back is gone. The best we can do is to try to fit ourselves to its spirit, as we continue.
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