Why do we need taxes?

deonb said:
It's not the right analogy. Both of those actually.

a) Yes, the U.S. has $3.5 trillion in physical cash instruments, but inflation doesn't just affect cash - it affects any cash-convertibles. E.g. the Russel 3000 alone is $25.6 trillion. Even if there was a way to only devalue only the cash, it creates arbitrage opportunities for computers to pick up that $1 for 97c on the dollar, which pushes up the index in line with inflation, which in turn sucks the injected cash back up again.

The whole 'market cap' of U.S cash-convertables is $135 trillion. That's what you're diluting against - not just the $3.5 trillion in actual cash.

b) A 2-for-1 split is not a diluting event - it's a nominal event - everybody owns the same % of the company before and after. It's the equivalent of exchanging dollars into cents (a 100-to-1 split). Instead, the equivalent of inflation when it comes to company stock, is a secondary offering. In a secondary the company prints more shares which it keep for itself (or sell it immediately to raise cash), which in turn causes the %'s ownership to drop for each of the other shareholders, and thus the share price to drop. If the shareholders don't like this, they vote the board out and get another one.


I'm starting to spot an interesting trend here:

a) Most people are fine with how the private sector raises money
b) Most people just voted and say they want government to run more like the private sector
c) Most people are against having the government raise money the exact same way that the private sector would...

Mmm....
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Firstly, the $3.5 trillion dilution is not a one time event, as I understand yourscheme it's annual, and of course as inflation increases so does the cost of government, so expect the annual injection of cash to rise every year.

Second, though you're correct a split does not change a company's market cap, the number of shares does increase, which is why the per share price drops. The percentage ownership in this case is not material, only the exchange value of the dollar, which is diluted, thus prices and wages will have to rise accordingly.
 
172andyou said:
By that logic you don't own your plane in CA either, because if you don't pay the taxes they will take it.



You signed it by living in the US. Don't like the system? Pick another country. I'm very confident you will find yourself continuing to choose to live in the US given the other options.
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Try not filing with the IRS when you live elsewhere. Uncle's arms are very long.
 
172andyou said:
You signed it by living in the US. Don't like the system? Pick another country. I'm very confident you will find yourself continuing to choose to live in the US given the other options.
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The standard BS answer given for it worldwide. It's just systematic theft. People aren't born to carry out the will of the State.

The entire premise of this thread proves that. Taxation is not required, it's just a fake way to make it look like government has a budget.

paflyer said:
Try not filing with the IRS when you live elsewhere. Uncle's arms are very long.
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That too.
 
Cooter said:
All taxation? Please explain, I'm interested.
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To save my thumbs, I'll let the man himself say it

"Taxation could be accomplished with user fees, highway fees, gasoline taxes...etc.

But taxation is theft when money is forcefully taken from one individual only to be handed over to another. This transfer of wealth is rife in America today and there are countless groups who fight to be on the receiving end of the theft.

The income tax is especially immoral because it is based on the assumption that the government owns you, all of your income, and gets to decide what percentage of it you're allowed to keep.

Fortunately, people are waking up to the depravity of taxation in America, as the following story illustrates"

http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com...-is-theft-meme-has-officially-gone-mainstream
 
James331 said:
To save my thumbs, I'll let the man himself say it

"Taxation could be accomplished with user fees, highway fees, gasoline taxes...etc.

But taxation is theft when money is forcefully taken from one individual only to be handed over to another. This transfer of wealth is rife in America today and there are countless groups who fight to be on the receiving end of the theft.

The income tax is especially immoral because it is based on the assumption that the government owns you, all of your income, and gets to decide what percentage of it you're allowed to keep.

Fortunately, people are waking up to the depravity of taxation in America, as the following story illustrates"

http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com...-is-theft-meme-has-officially-gone-mainstream
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Hmm. User fees instead of taxation. Makes sense, up to a point. Which "user" activities are going to fund the Department of Defense?
 
luvflyin said:
Hmm. User fees instead of taxation. Makes sense, up to a point. Which "user" activities are going to fund the Department of Defense?
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That's one "department" which could do with some MAJOR downsizing.
 
Most of the issue with taxes is when people feel like their dollars aren't getting spent where they feel they should be. So since they don't like that aspect, they don't agree with the premise.

I don't like taxes either. But I like roads. So... There's that.

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
 
There is only one reason government exists. To protect the people. Defense is priority one. All other functions are derived and not constitutional.
 
ircphoenix said:
Most of the issue with taxes is when people feel like their dollars aren't getting spent where they feel they should be. So since they don't like that aspect, they don't agree with the premise.

I don't like taxes either. But I like roads. So... There's that.

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
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Oh sigh.... did you actually drop the "I like roads".

That's a user fee, which is fine, like all the taxes in gas
 
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citizen5000 said:
There is only one reason government exists. To protect the people. Defense is priority one. All other functions are derived and not constitutional.
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From within and without, justice and defense, yes.
 
James331 said:
To save my thumbs, I'll let the man himself say it

"Taxation could be accomplished with user fees, highway fees, gasoline taxes...etc.

But taxation is theft when money is forcefully taken from one individual only to be handed over to another. This transfer of wealth is rife in America today and there are countless groups who fight to be on the receiving end of the theft.

The income tax is especially immoral because it is based on the assumption that the government owns you, all of your income, and gets to decide what percentage of it you're allowed to keep.

Fortunately, people are waking up to the depravity of taxation in America, as the following story illustrates"

http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com...-is-theft-meme-has-officially-gone-mainstream
Click to expand...

I don't think we'd disagree on taxation in modern America. But, what you posted here is different than saying all taxation is theft. You've only posted abuses of taxation and shown how it can be theft, not that it is always theft. I agree with the poster above that government does have the responsibility of defending its people and I would add administering justice. Taxation for that purpose isn't theft although a legitimate argument can be made about its size and scope being an abuse.
 
Cooter said:
I don't think we'd disagree on taxation in modern America. But, what you posted here is different than saying all taxation is theft. You've only posted abuses of taxation and shown how it can be theft, not that it is always theft. I agree with the poster above that government does have the responsibility of defending its people and I would add administering justice. Taxation for that purpose isn't theft although a legitimate argument can be made about its size and scope being an abuse.
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I'm guessing he's posting that for the purpose of hyperbole and argumentativeness, which is what will get this thread closed again. In fact the same statement by him was one of those deleted when we decided to reopen the thread.
 
James331 said:
That's one "department" which could do with some MAJOR downsizing.
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No kidding. 20+ carriers and over 100 foreign bases. The rest of the "free" world really could do some picking up of their own slack in this regard.

ircphoenix said:
Most of the issue with taxes is when people feel like their dollars aren't getting spent where they feel they should be. So since they don't like that aspect, they don't agree with the premise.

I don't like taxes either. But I like roads. So... There's that.
Click to expand...

Muh roads!

LOL. Another common meme as people slowly figure it out.

Name a road that wasn't built with debt instead of money actually collected.

Nobody votes to pay taxes to leverage debt for roads. Not anyone who has any sort of sane personal fiscal policy, anyway.

Addicted to debt, in all aspects of the culture and people's lives.

Around here, the State sells off lanes of roads to private investors as toll roads for maintenance deals. Sell us your lane, we'll maintain the other lanes for you. Probably have a nice job for you "consulting" when you retire with your government pension, too. Go hold some "public meetings" to tell the good plebes what a "great deal" they're getting.

Can't possibly maintain those roads with all the money already collected... oh by the way, don't let anyone notice the number of people paying them tripled and the road size didn't get any bigger.

When someone does finally notice, blame it on the other party until something else comes along to distract everyone. Wag that dog.

It's really hard to have a discussion about whether or not various forms of taxation are numerically valid or if the way to steal value is via taxation, inflation, devaluing currency, or whatever other schemes they can come up with -- when it's obvious the players leveraging debt against tax dollars aren't being honest.

It's kinda like deciding if the bank robber hurts society more than the convenience store robber vs your own personal mugger.

In roads, there's so many examples of how the rip off occurs if you just pay attention. I challenged a particularly expensive road paving out here where we have no roads, technically. $2.3M for four miles of dirt to be paved. Took nine months.

The answer from the supposedly "conservative" politician who approved it? "We got a State grant! it was cheaper!"

See how he has no inkling that State grants aren't really free money? I'm paying both County and State taxes, last I checked. But the system quickly makes him feel like he did something "good" by making him think he spent only half the price out of his stolen money budget.

Federal highways are worse. Three layers of that.

So I don't mean to make the thread political, but really to show the monetary techniques used to pretend taxes pay for roads.

In any other business we'd call this racketeering or money laundering. Everyone is in on it, but they can claim their little piece of it was "clean/good". Every layer adds debt, every layer thinks they got a "good deal". Etc.

It's so convoluted you can't really tell if anyone is benefiting properly from their tax spend because you can't really tell without days of digging into a single project, where the money is really coming from or going to.

And then you get games with "open records". Oh sure, you can get a copy of the County checks. Jut pony up $1500 for "copying charges". Buck a page. And that's a small rural county. And then you'll need a pile of unpaid people with an eye for malfeasance to go through it for days to even make a map of what's actually happening. They're not usually dumb enough to write checks directly to someone -- it'll be in he form of a questionable contract "won" by a family member or friend.

Think that's hard... try figuring it out at the central banking level. Friends of friends of friends scratching each other's backs. Any discussion of "would printing money be bad" somehow has to take in the corruption that would inevitably be involved with that much money. Even if 95% of the people involved have impeccable morals (unlikely) that 5% who don't are a serious problem when analyzing stuff like taxes vs monetary policy.
 
James331 said:
Oh sigh.... did you actually drop the "I like roads".

That's a user fee, which is fine, like all the taxes in gas
Click to expand...
Well that seems unfair, because I'm paying for roads I don't use in that case! I only want to pay for the 7 miles I use to and from work!

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
 
denverpilot said:
No kidding. 20+ carriers and over 100 foreign bases. The rest of the "free" world really could do some picking up of their own slack in this regard.



Muh roads!

LOL. Another common meme as people slowly figure it out.

Name a road that wasn't built with debt instead of money actually collected.

Nobody votes to pay taxes to leverage debt for roads. Not anyone who has any sort of sane personal fiscal policy, anyway.

Addicted to debt, in all aspects of the culture and people's lives.

Around here, the State sells off lanes of roads to private investors as toll roads for maintenance deals. Sell us your lane, we'll maintain the other lanes for you. Probably have a nice job for you "consulting" when you retire with your government pension, too. Go hold some "public meetings" to tell the good plebes what a "great deal" they're getting.

Can't possibly maintain those roads with all the money already collected... oh by the way, don't let anyone notice the number of people paying them tripled and the road size didn't get any bigger.

When someone does finally notice, blame it on the other party until something else comes along to distract everyone. Wag that dog.

It's really hard to have a discussion about whether or not various forms of taxation are numerically valid or if the way to steal value is via taxation, inflation, devaluing currency, or whatever other schemes they can come up with -- when it's obvious the players leveraging debt against tax dollars aren't being honest.

It's kinda like deciding if the bank robber hurts society more than the convenience store robber vs your own personal mugger.

In roads, there's so many examples of how the rip off occurs if you just pay attention. I challenged a particularly expensive road paving out here where we have no roads, technically. $2.3M for four miles of dirt to be paved. Took nine months.

The answer from the supposedly "conservative" politician who approved it? "We got a State grant! it was cheaper!"

See how he has no inkling that State grants aren't really free money? I'm paying both County and State taxes, last I checked. But the system quickly makes him feel like he did something "good" by making him think he spent only half the price out of his stolen money budget.

Federal highways are worse. Three layers of that.

So I don't mean to make the thread political, but really to show the monetary techniques used to pretend taxes pay for roads.

In any other business we'd call this racketeering or money laundering. Everyone is in on it, but they can claim their little piece of it was "clean/good". Every layer adds debt, every layer thinks they got a "good deal". Etc.

It's so convoluted you can't really tell if anyone is benefiting properly from their tax spend because you can't really tell without days of digging into a single project, where the money is really coming from or going to.

And then you get games with "open records". Oh sure, you can get a copy of the County checks. Jut pony up $1500 for "copying charges". Buck a page. And that's a small rural county. And then you'll need a pile of unpaid people with an eye for malfeasance to go through it for days to even make a map of what's actually happening. They're not usually dumb enough to write checks directly to someone -- it'll be in he form of a questionable contract "won" by a family member or friend.

Think that's hard... try figuring it out at the central banking level. Friends of friends of friends scratching each other's backs. Any discussion of "would printing money be bad" somehow has to take in the corruption that would inevitably be involved with that much money. Even if 95% of the people involved have impeccable morals (unlikely) that 5% who don't are a serious problem when analyzing stuff like taxes vs monetary policy.
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I agree wholeheartedly that the privatizing of public roads for private gain is absurd and a gift of public funds... ie illegal af.

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helmsley372.jpg


Only the little people pay taxes....
 
The only thing that keeps budgets in check is a limit on the ability to borrow. If the government just printed money to pay the budget, and could print as much as it wanted, what short-term external inputs are there on spending levels?
 
Zeldman said:
Only the little people pay taxes....
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Only the little people go to jail, too. We all know this. Nobody touches the Oligarchy. Not even the Oligarchy.

Interesting developments in one of the little people's stories from last year, in March. I won't bother to say who.

Wonder why, and who he ****ed off. He should be enjoying a nice paid for suite on a beach somewhere by now. Probably being punished for not doing his job well enough.

Lindberg said:
The only thing that keeps budgets in check is a limit on the ability to borrow. If the government just printed money to pay the budget, and could print as much as it wanted, what short-term external inputs are there on spending levels?
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Short term? Markets would notice and start asking questions. But it wouldn't stop it. Bunch of blather on CNBC about it, from all the talking heads. That's about it. Maybe a nice "calm down" message from Uncle Warren Buffett in ol' Omaha. Those always play well.

Long term, the other country's central banks would be mad that they weren't notified and in on it, like most structured moves like that. So they could make up nonsense phrases like "quantitative easing" to sell to the masses.

Dylan Ratigan had it right in his now-infamous rant, which he was... cough... allowed to retire for saying on TV... about such shenanigans.


He was right. The can was kicked down the road. Massive wealth was extracted.

It always gets kicked down the road. What we never hear about is, why.

Big games. Real big games when you start asking if a central bank can *really* just do whatever it wants. The answer is "maybe" but they're going to have to have an awfully good strategic reason for it, because their banking buddies are going to skewer them with a very big dull javelin to find out why they're doing it. Unless, they're let in on it ahead of time to make up some "cool story bro" crap about why they're doing it.

Of course, as of last week, he went to work as a commentator for The Young Turks / TYT TV, because apparently his surprise switch into "hydroponics run by military vets"... didn't pan out.

Maybe he can't stay away from the media machine and it's money. Those suits are expensive.

And it's 2017. What better time to return from retirement to platforms like YouTube and Facebook owned by folks he's "interviewed" and admires when he was in "retirement". YouTube has announced that they're dropping their advertising model next year.

Anybody think of good reasons why they'd do that? Don't want advertisers upset about what they allow and what they disallow perhaps?

Monetary policy is VERY intertwined with the phrases and press releases put out through the financial media. Very intertwined. It's impossible to unwind that.
 
denverpilot said:
Theft at gunpoint with threats of incarceration are only okay if everyone thinks they voted for it. Or their ancestors did.

It's that magical "social contract" that nobody signed.
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Taxes we voted for are perfectly reasonable. It's also reasonable to expect to pay for the "service" of a stable society with law-enforcement etc. Not everyone is as peaceable and stable as us pilots...you wouldn't want anarchy.
 
Stearman said:
Taxes we voted for are perfectly reasonable. It's also reasonable to expect to pay for the "service" of a stable society with law-enforcement etc. Not everyone is as peaceable and stable as us pilots...you wouldn't want anarchy.
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I guess this thread came back to life.

I didn't vote for them. Didn't say I wouldn't, but there's easily 50% of them I wouldn't.

I'd clearly vote for certain services as long as the money was guaranteed to go to those services and not to other things. But that's not how our corrupt system works anymore. If it ever did.
 
Everskyward said:
Unfortunately...
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Lest the Internet be used to discuss real topics and problems.

One thing I like about this board is demographically we have some decently intelligent people here from more than a few walks of life, it's good to hear their opinions.
 
James331 said:
Lest the Internet be used to discuss real topics and problems.

One thing I like about this board is demographically we have some decently intelligent people here from more than a few walks of life, it's good to hear their opinions.
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There are other places where you can discuss the merits of taxes.
 
Ack sorry everyone. Don't log on here often and just responded to the notification I saw at the upper right. Now we can let it die. ;)
 
coloradobluesky said:
...we keep the capitalist system we have and lets face it, we need to provide for those that cant take care of themselves too, don't we?
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Do we? And which "we" do you mean? And what do you mean by "take care of themselves"? If someone isn't saving for retirement, must we intervene because they are not taking care of themselves? What about being overweight? Lazy? Homeless? Sick?

There is an imperative in most religions to care for the true needy. We, the moral people of this country need to provide for those who can't take care of their basic needs - they cannot meet their addiction to food, clothing and shelter. We do this because our personal morality tells us to. I think this works well because individuals are well suited to apply their personal rules of morality to decide when people really need help.

We, the people of this government not only have no imperative to care for individual welfare, but it is also not allowed for the government to do. Like many things we have messed that up and in this case to the point that we have impaired the ability of the charity organizations to do the work. The government is bad at doing this because they have no rules of morality. A government must attempt to (badly) simulate morality by making complex systems to determine eligibility, systems which drive stupid and perverse behaviors and which are ultimately self defeating. We have spent trillions upon trillions fighting the "war on poverty" and yet the needle has not even moved.
 
bflynn said:
Do we? And which "we" do you mean? And what do you mean by "take care of themselves"? If someone isn't saving for retirement, must we intervene because they are not taking care of themselves? What about being overweight? Lazy? Homeless? Sick?

There is an imperative in most religions to care for the true needy. We, the moral people of this country need to provide for those who can't take care of their basic needs - they cannot meet their addiction to food, clothing and shelter. We do this because our personal morality tells us to. I think this works well because individuals are well suited to apply their personal rules of morality to decide when people really need help.

We, the people of this government not only have no imperative to care for individual welfare, but it is also not allowed for the government to do. Like many things we have messed that up and in this case to the point that we have impaired the ability of the charity organizations to do the work. The government is bad at doing this because they have no rules of morality. A government must attempt to (badly) simulate morality by making complex systems to determine eligibility, systems which drive stupid and perverse behaviors and which are ultimately self defeating. We have spent trillions upon trillions fighting the "war on poverty" and yet the needle has not even moved.
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That is certainly an opinion.
 
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