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This scandal underscores some of the drawbacks of a tax driven currency and the uncertainty about whether the guy at the door with a big gun in his hand can be impartial.
Well from where I sit, besides the obvious reasons, income taxes applied properly maintain some semblance of wealth equality.
Well, at least they used to until we decided that the customer should pay for everything including his own income.
Not that that's important to libertarians.
I have to assume that Libertarians are as a group not poker players, otherwise they might have noticed that when one guy at the table wins all the money everyone else goes home broke and the game is over until they come up with another "stake".
Where do they think the "stake" comes from?
If they are anything like the friends and acquaintences I talk to money is just "there" and it's always been "there".
Apparently the average person believes in Unicorns.
"This scandal underscores some of the drawbacks of a tax driven currency and the uncertainty about whether the guy at the door with a big gun in his hand can be impartial".
you need transparency and checks and balances for any organization to work properly.
The solution? Eliminate humans. We seem to be well on our way.
Isn't that the point of automation, robotics, algorithmic decision making, and AI? The singularity is when human beings are no longer necessary and indeed in the way.
As I have been saying for some time, we need to revise our thinking and update it past the 19th century. America has the special disadvantage of people thinking that they live in frontier times.
As Bucky Fuller pointed out over fifty years ago, we know how to design and implement global utopia and have the resources to do it. What standing in the way is obsolete thinking and behavior based on it.
We may indeed need more automation in the future. There will be millions of more people needing SSMM and that will require real resources. Without those resources and the means to produce we will have a BIG problem. There will be plenty of work since Utopia is not in the cards. The other option is to scale back and push SS out to like75. But unless people are a lot healthier the older people may not be able to contribute. They surely won't be doing construction work on our bridges, etc. IMO one of the failures to fix unemployment today, with something like JG or stimulus is the loss of the ability to prepare for that future. Once you lose production it is gone forever. That is the BIG problem.
Going after the Tea Party and these other "patriot" groups (gold bugs) was probably the one good thing the IRS ever did and Obama reacts by firing the IRS chief. Typical.
"Going after the Tea Party and these other "patriot" groups (gold bugs) was probably the one good thing the IRS ever did and Obama reacts by firing the IRS chief. Typical."
Worse than typical…the guilty party retired at the end of 2012 and Obama fired his replacement. That helps exactly how? Give the nuts red meat to chew? No problem has been solved.
I suppose it doesn't matter much because the crooks…err…bureaucrats in modern (or has it always been so?) administrations are commodities.
This is awful leadership on so many levels and the system appears to be designed so that is a feature.
"Worse than typical…the guilty party retired at the end of 2012 and Obama fired his replacement."
Yes, absent from the media coverage of the IRS scandal has been any mention of Timothy "Tax Cheat" Geithner. No wonder he wanted to get out of dodge in such a hurry.
"Yes, absent from the media coverage of the IRS scandal has been any mention of Timothy "Tax Cheat" Geithner. No wonder he wanted to get out of dodge in such a hurry."
Yes Geithner was a serious fraud and unfortunately his replacement is just as bad. Geithner should do jail time but that tier can do anything they want and get away with it.
And Obama is proving to be masterful at hurting his supporters (and non-supporters) and incompetent at pretty much everything else.
16 comments:
INet conference: Skidelsky, Keen, Haring
economics and the powerful
http://ineteconomics.org/economics-and-powerful-inet-hong-kong
This scandal underscores some of the drawbacks of a tax driven currency and the uncertainty about whether the guy at the door with a big gun in his hand can be impartial.
"The income tax is a mathematical myth"
Well from where I sit, besides the obvious reasons, income taxes applied properly maintain some semblance of wealth equality.
Well, at least they used to until we decided that the customer should pay for everything including his own income.
Not that that's important to libertarians.
I have to assume that Libertarians are as a group not poker players, otherwise they might have noticed that when one guy at the table wins all the money everyone else goes home broke and the game is over until they come up with another "stake".
Where do they think the "stake" comes from?
If they are anything like the friends and acquaintences I talk to money is just "there" and it's always been "there".
Apparently the average person believes in Unicorns.
"This scandal underscores some of the drawbacks of a tax driven currency and the uncertainty about whether the guy at the door with a big gun in his hand can be impartial".
you need transparency and checks and balances for any organization to work properly.
The average person believes in fact money grows on trees even if popularly they say it doesn't.
"you need transparency and checks and balances for any organization to work properly."
And naturally, where humans are involved there will be Fk-ups on a regular basis.
The solution? Eliminate humans. We seem to be well on our way.
The solution? Eliminate humans. We seem to be well on our way.
Isn't that the point of automation, robotics, algorithmic decision making, and AI? The singularity is when human beings are no longer necessary and indeed in the way.
Tom,
Then we just have to do a BIG at that point?
So folks have balances to purchase what "we" (and our robots) produce?
See any other way?
rsp,
As I have been saying for some time, we need to revise our thinking and update it past the 19th century. America has the special disadvantage of people thinking that they live in frontier times.
As Bucky Fuller pointed out over fifty years ago, we know how to design and implement global utopia and have the resources to do it. What standing in the way is obsolete thinking and behavior based on it.
We may indeed need more automation in the future. There will be millions of more people needing SSMM and that will require real resources. Without those resources and the means to produce we will have a BIG problem. There will be plenty of work since Utopia is not in the cards. The other option is to scale back and push SS out to like75. But unless people are a lot healthier the older people may not be able to contribute. They surely won't be doing construction work on our bridges, etc. IMO one of the failures to fix unemployment today, with something like JG or stimulus is the loss of the ability to prepare for that future. Once you lose production it is gone forever. That is the BIG problem.
"you need transparency and checks and balances for any organization to work properly".
plus accountability and appropriate sanctions.
Going after the Tea Party and these other "patriot" groups (gold bugs) was probably the one good thing the IRS ever did and Obama reacts by firing the IRS chief. Typical.
"Going after the Tea Party and these other "patriot" groups (gold bugs) was probably the one good thing the IRS ever did and Obama reacts by firing the IRS chief. Typical."
Worse than typical…the guilty party retired at the end of 2012 and Obama fired his replacement. That helps exactly how? Give the nuts red meat to chew? No problem has been solved.
I suppose it doesn't matter much because the crooks…err…bureaucrats in modern (or has it always been so?) administrations are commodities.
This is awful leadership on so many levels and the system appears to be designed so that is a feature.
"Worse than typical…the guilty party retired at the end of 2012 and Obama fired his replacement."
Yes, absent from the media coverage of the IRS scandal has been any mention of Timothy "Tax Cheat" Geithner. No wonder he wanted to get out of dodge in such a hurry.
"Yes, absent from the media coverage of the IRS scandal has been any mention of Timothy "Tax Cheat" Geithner. No wonder he wanted to get out of dodge in such a hurry."
Yes Geithner was a serious fraud and unfortunately his replacement is just as bad. Geithner should do jail time but that tier can do anything they want and get away with it.
And Obama is proving to be masterful at hurting his supporters (and non-supporters) and incompetent at pretty much everything else.
Ed,
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/5/17/timothy-geithner-is-key-to-irs-scandal.html
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