You know, if all the real asses ignore me, then I guess I'll just have to miss all of their insults. Works out well for me as well!

FUNNIEST FACT: No taxes can be fair because the idea is inherently unfair, and any argument about a fair system of taxation should really be about what kind of unfairness and what consequences of said system are most acceptable.

That was really well put and I agree wholeheartedly.

Taxing, in an age where money isn't backed by a mineral, doesn't really make any sense at all. The government doesn't need to collect physical gold from us to pay for our infrastructure. If they didn't tax us at all, and just printed money (or added numbers to a bank account; no need for paper anymore either) we could save a lot of trouble and get rid of an entire huge bureaucracy; ultimately, we'd pay for that infrastructure through inflation rather than a direct tax. (And if there is a 'tax' more progressive and 'fair' than inflation, I've never seen it.)

The only good thing about the current system is that it creates this imaginary 'deficit' number, which helps keep government spending in check. (Under the no-tax system, rampant government spending leads to rampant inflation, with little in the way of scary numbers to convince congress to slow it down.)

Interesting.

Note that economists believe inflation is in direct proportion to the supply of money (i.e. total money = average price * total purchases / circulation rate.)
If we assume the economy does not shrink, and the circulation rate is fixed, we can simplify the relationship by stating that as the total money increases or decreases by some factor α, the average price also increases or decreases by some factor α.

1.) How do you reconcile your idea against the litany of complete failures any time any country has tried to do this? e.g. Brazil.

2.) Against what revenue source can such a country borrow money?

3.) I hypothesize that this system would put an unreasonable amount of the tax burden on workers without collective bargaining, including fixed/low income earners and unskilled workers. On what basis do you argue this system is fair?

The flaw in your argument is assuming I thought very much about it.

I don't think anyone makes that assumption about you.

Oh no he didn't!

I don't understand how we can expect to stimulate the housing market under the Fair Tax system. I also don't understand how this system benefits the poor more than the current system (they already have a zero tax liability). If we eliminate the IRS (not sure where you stand on this), who is going to oversee sales-tax compliance (there's obviously going to need to be some sort of oversight)? Do you honestly believe that this rate would remain fixed? I have my doubts. It seems to me that the logical solution isn't a Fair Tax system at all, it's that we need to get government spending back under control & we need to raise taxes to accomplish this (we're currently paying far too little).

Far too little!? What about the people who pay 1/3 of their income straight off the bat, not even counting all the additional taxes? How much more could you possibly expect them to pay?

Ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy would be a good start. I don't think that we should be borrowing billions of dollars so that we can extend tax cuts for the top 2%. Once that's done we're going to need to resurrect some dead politicians (e.g: Roosevelt) that'll have the balls to tell the American people that we need to raise taxes (drastically for the wealthy). 33%? That's chump-change.

Wow.

How else can we afford to do all of this nation-building that we've grown accustomed to? The money has to come from somewhere. It sure as **** isn't coming from the unemployed. I don't honestly think that we should return to 90%, which is what the super-wealthy were paying under Roosevelt, but it certainly needs to be much higher than it currently is. If we can keep pro-regulation politicians in power long enough to prevent anarcho-capitalists from destroying our country, we may just have a shot at cleaning up their mess. This is obviously assuming that we'll no longer need to bail out banks or go to war w/ countries for WMDs that don't exist. However, it's unlikely that anything that's good for the peasants will occur until we have campaign finance reform.

I don't know, maybe the best solution to being a shopaholic isn't to get another credit card?

Haha, that's a good way of making a good point, Bobbo.

1. I think the answer to your first question is to maybe stop the nation-building in the first place. We wouldn't have to worry about affording crap if it doesn't exist.

2. I understand the viewpoint of the pro-regulation politics, but to say that our country somehow resembled capitalism is a joke. In fact, I agree that regulation is necessary to protect rules of the game, and I agree for regulation in the right areas and places. The housing market and the crisis was not a result of unfettered capitalism and lack of regulation. There was PLENTY of regulation, and there was a framework that had previously been set up by the almighty government. It was not a free for all. A framework and environment that encouraged risky behavior was laid out by the government. I agree with those that those on Wall Street fully knew the potential catastrophic results of their actions. But when banks have been bailed out at a more than 90% rate, why WOULDN'T they have performed them. The very fact that you acknowledge that "this is assuming we don't need to bail out banks" is also acknowledging that the almighty regulators were doing so in the first place.

"The 50 largest failures up to that time all took place in the 1970s and 1980s. As the savings and loan (S&L) crisis unfolded during the 1980s, government repeatedly sent the same message: lenders and creditors would get all of their money back. Between 1979 and 1989, 1,100 commercial banks failed. Out of all of their deposits, 99.7 percent, insured or uninsured, were reimbursed by policy decisions.16"

99%. 99 percent got a bailout. That is not capitalism. That is an artificial environment created by the government.

I recommend you read one of the better papers written about the crisis and the environment surrounding it. It's actually a great laymen's paper as well, but it does get a little dense. It's 40 pages, and well worth the read. It criticized the environment that government set up, as well as executives and Wall Streeters. But the message that runs clear is that Wall Streeters didn't create an unstable system, they merely took advantage of one with perverse incentives where the "loss" part of "profit and loss" was non existent. It is impossible to run a market effectively without the notion of loss.

http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/RUSS-final.pdf

This just proves that the quickest way to market recovery is market crash. The bailouts under Reagan set us up for the current recession.

I'll give it a read. Thanks.

Wow, JM is the new Wookie06 except that when Jon`C comes in to challenge him, he really does backpedal.

Oh Wookie06, no-one can replace you =p

noone except wookie07

I consider wookie07 to be an inferior example and an homage at the same time, while also pretending to be superior. Much the same way WS7 is to WS6. Few if any will get that without google.

I'm not backpedalling. I'm making grand statements and gross over simplifications with no intent of justifying or debating them.

Also. Don't forget this thread exists because you bit my hook, little boy.

little boy

jesus

No, this thread exists because many people can't resist grossly over-responding to my simply stated observations. Your somewhat correct assumption merely provided an opening for me to make a point. A teachable moment (just to annoy Jon`C), so to speak.

I know. I'm 6'2" and shrinking and 260 lbs and increasing. Maybe he means my intellect.

Actually, I'm under that and should lose more soon, just a little self-deprication there.

This is my only opinion on politics for the time being.

Yeah, if we had those aspirations, we'd own the world by now.

Like **** you would. You're the most powerful singular military force, that's true, but your track record with invading countries doesn't exactly speak of an ability to "own the world" if you wanted to. Unless you believe that wasting enormous resources invading and trying to maintain one country with the reported original intent of overthrowing its government and then stabilizing the place somehow translates into an ability to "own the world" at will.

I love that the hands are still white.

If you think we're being imperialist now, i think you're seriously underestimating true imperialism.

You think we're sovereign. That's so cute.

1/2 is bigger than 1/3, right?

Oh man, will I ever live that down?

Yeah, see, if we wanted to own the world, we WOULDN'T do it that way.

We'd just kill you all.

Luckily for you, we're nice.

The past few days: A barrage of inexplicable stuff from JM

Who is this 'we' ?

I guess you could personally open a bunch of letters and try to inflict papercuts on people.

It's probably not even worth trying to tell you why being not nice still wouldn't mean your country could just go out and kill everyone but themselves.