The only truth about the 'lowest taxes' would be if you only talked about this scam called 'carried interest'. Now that is a true scam.
As to the rest of that statement, today the US corporate tax rates are highest in the world (used to be Japan, not anymore). Personal tax rates are high as well, but that's not the problem, the problem is that nothing can be written off against the taxes. After the WWII in USA the top marginal tax rates used to be stupidly high, 94% or something like that. The actual taxes collected don't go above 18 or 19%, those silly marginal taxes were irrelevant, nobody paid them, that's because people could write off everything from as expenses and there were all sorts of schemes invented how to avoid paying those taxes.
Of-course the real boom in US economy was happening when there were no income or corporate or payroll taxes, but that's a separate issue. Today in USA there are people who are actually paying the highest taxes that were ever paid in USA by anybody, and those are the people that get hit whenever the tax rates go up.
People who don't pay taxes, don't pay them regardless of the rates. Be it the bottom 51% or the top 0.01% or whatever. There is a percentage of people that actually are squeezed from both sides, they are not on top of the food chain, and so they can't avoid paying taxes but they are making very good money relative to the rest of the economy, and so they are the ones who end up being milked for everything.
Consider that somebody who has very little to write off, and who is making say 10 million a year. If that person pays that money to himself in salary, then here is the break down if he lives for example in Connecticut.
3.5 million goes to the federal gov't as income tax. 600,000 goes to the State as income tax. 290,000 goes to the Mediare.
With the SS tax it's 4.4 million, 44%.
Now, if this person dies, the federal gov't wants 35% on the estate above million, the State wants 12%.
If you add up just these taxes alone, not taking into the account the liquidation of business at firesale prices, let's pretend that the business could be sold at a fair market value (fat chance), then the amount of taxes that the gov't collects is anywhere between 80% and 90%.
That's retarded, that's why people move their businesses out, and that is not even the full picture. I am not going to give examples, but gov't regulations don't help but actually hurt businesses, prevent them from hiring and cause them to shut down departments or sometimes the whole thing.
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There is often a talk about the companies being managed by people who are not actually in that business professionally, they are seagull managers, not caring about the business. Well, that is partially a consequence of the death tax, the kids of the businessmen end up liquidating the business, rather than continuing it, and even if they are brought up in that business and understand how it works and how to run it, the system is now set up to force them to liquidate and just to burn the rest of the money, rather than having them continue that business.
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Also it looks like you are of an opinion that taxes on the top earners can pay for all of those things that gov't is doing and wants to do, well that's just not going to happen. The real money is in the middle, as Willie Sutton said: "that's where the money is".
To run all this, once the economy crashes because nobody wants to lend you the money anymore, you'll have to tax the middle class. You want those programs, you'll have to pay for them.
I'm glad Ryan has the guts to make the hard decisions that need to be made and deal with the political fallout
- I am really sorry to burst your bubble then, but Ryan is not doing anything to cut spending, he is growing spending.
Ryan's budget is not touching anything, Romney and Ryan will not touch SS or Medicare or military spending or the debt in any way shape or form.
Ryan's budget is only about cuts to the proposed increases and they only are supposed to kick in 10 years in the future, that's because it doesn't cut anything from the current recipients of the welfare schemes that are SS and Medicare. Those are welfare, there are no assets, nothing is owned by the gov't, only bonds, IOUs, from gov't to gov't itself. This means that whether there is or there isn't a so called 'fund' the way to finance the Medicare and SS is via bond sales. Ryan assumes that USA can sell bonds far into the future, he is making rosy assumptions about the interest rates, he doesn't take into account the fact that the interest rates will go up, there is no where for them to go but up. This is the same as it was with the housing bubble, there was nowhere to go for the housing prices but down, same here.
Ryan is not a conservative, I would call him a socialist based on his budget, because he is not willing to cut anything, but I don't think he is actually a socialist anyway. He is a politician and that says it all, there is nothing else to say.
NRCS. As I said, this shouldn't be in the hands of the government, there is no reason that government should be the moderator in the room, that's my point.
GDP of a war time economy includes the production done for the war, it includes all those tanks and bombs and it also includes all the people who are hired by the government to build the tanks and bombs, but this does not at all mean that the depression ended! What it means is that the GDP has nothing to do with the useful productivity (just like today, 70% of GDP measures not production at all, but consumption of foreign made goods, 40% of economy is the financial sector and the GDP includes the fake money that is credited to the banks that then loan it to the Treasury, that, plus the war spending that USA is engaged in).
USA is not producing almost anything today that US population actually wants to buy, thus the shelves of the likes of Walmart are filled with Chinese products.
During war the shelves are simply empty, there are shortages, there is nothing produced that people are interested in, that they want for themselves, it's all bombs and bullets.
Again, it's like having gov't hire half of the country to dig and fill in ditches while the real economy is reduced by 50%, so the real productive output is very much reduced and the government borrows and prints money to pay these workers that dig and fill in ditches.
None of this is helpful to those, who actually produce real goods that everybody wants. Obviously a war may be fought for the right reasons and it may be a necessary war (very rarely so), but this does not mean that the economy is ANY better off than it was before the war.
The fact is that the government increased borrowing and spending during war, it put the country into a worse situation than it was before the war, the strain on the productive people in the economy became much bigger, I suppose the productive people take the hit, because they realise that the war must be fought and it will be over, so it's a form of patriotism, but this cannot last for too long (as is obvious with the case of the current wars, people don't care about them any longer, they don't want to participate at all).
The Great Depression did not end with the WWII starting, there were these jobs created that are useless to the real economy, the resources were misallocated more than before. But the GDP showed a picture that included all the tanks and bombs and teh fake employment.
The Great Depression only ended as the economy truly recovered its real productive capacity, as real jobs appeared again, that was around 1947.
As to Keynes, you must be kidding. AFAIC he is to economics what an astrologer is to astronomy, understand?
Keynesian idiots thought that the end of WWII would create an even worse depression because 10,000,000 soldiers would return from war and because the gov't would cut spending.
But that's the exact reason why the economy restarted - the gov't cut spending, cut taxes and those 10,000,000 people became available to the productive economy, which was allowed to allocate resources back from gov't to the private sector. Keynesian ideas have been debunked so thoroughly, that even Kenesians don't really wave the roots of their true ideology out in the open (except for certain nut cases, like Krugman and such).
Keynesians have been thoroughly beaten up during the seventies too, their ideology doesn't accept the simple fact that inflation and unemployment can go hand in hand, that's because productivity can fall faster than the value of money is falling, so the falling prices do not increase production at all and don't allow any hiring. That's what stagflation is.
This is simply amazing, this should be truly mind boggling, that people in a supposedly 'capitalist' society do not see anything wrong with the very idea that government should at all under any circumstances be meddling with any private deals. You want to buy a goat or to sell a goat? Why don't you ask government officials first? (actually that's not far fetched, you need all sorts of licenses, permits to do any type of goat selling and maybe even buying).
OK, so the wireless spectrum is not a goat, but it is a freaking business deal. I mean, Attorney General is approving this, I wonder what back handed, back door type of deals are going on there and who is paying who and how much? Wouldn't it be great to have real investigative reporting on this for once? Wikileaks, do they have anything on this?
You think it's stupid not to allow the government to pass laws that criminalise behaviour of individuals, their freedom of choice, freedom of association, their freedom of private property, starting with their own bodies (drug laws).
Government must not be allowed to pass laws that criminalise behaviour of individuals. There have to be competing court rooms, there have to be competing points of view and it should be up to the individuals to choose the courts they go to, which means that it is not government at all, so your point is simply wrong.
As I said, your comments are pure nonsense talk. I am talking about the law that should not exist, not the fact that people should abdicate personal responsibility.
Nonsense. Not participating in a program that is mandated by the government, regardless of what that program is, does not equate to ignoring personal responsibility.
I am talking about destroying the unjust law as it stands, and there is no justification for government to force people to buy any type of insurance.
Insurance is not there for you to pay for others, insurance is there for you to cover your own costs. So if you don't have insurance and you are in an accident, it is your problem. It's your health and other costs. If you have insurance, then after your deductible and up to whatever the cap is that you are paying for, you'll be covered.
If you are in an accident, it doesn't matter if you are responsible for it or not, your insurance is supposed to kick in above the deductible and cover your costs.
If you can show your insurance company that the responsibility is with the other driver(s), then it's up to your insurance company to go after that driver and/or his insurance. What does government have to do with any of it except providing huge subsidy to the insurance companies and thus driving the costs up?
By the way, I would like for the people who are reading any of this to step back and think about this statement that you made:
Insurance is there so that if you drive into someone elses car they do not have to pay for the damage you caused, you do in the way of higher insurance premiums.
This is a false statement.
Insurance is not there so that if you drive into somebody else, they don't have to pay for the damage. That's a completely perverted idea of what insurance is.
Insurance is there so that if you get into a situation that you are betting you may get into, so that you have a claim to insurance so that you don't have to bear the full cost of that situation.
Insurance is there so that if something happens to YOU, not to somebody else, to YOU, that you get covered.
If somebody sues YOU, if YOU get into an accident in any way and YOU are left with high costs, that's what insurance is for. You are buying insurance in order so that you don't have to bear the full cost of an accident, of an unfortunate situation.
That's why health insurance is no longer insurance under Obamacare, because you are no longer buying insurance, you are in a health management plan and the so called 'insurance' company cannot even assess the RISK of insuring your situation properly, and 'insurance' company is not allowed to price the risk for you accordingly or even deny you coverage based on pre-existing condition, which means this is no longer insurance.
You buy insurance so that if somebody hits you, your costs are covered by the insurance that you are paying for (minus the deductible and up to whatever maximum that you are paying for).
You don't buy insurance so that you cover costs of other people. Your insurance is supposed to cover the costs that YOU incur. If you get into an accident and somebody sues you, that's a cost that you want insurance for, your own insurance.
This is what is wrong with the public education, but in reality propaganda system that exists, it prevents people from understanding very basic concepts.
Economy is basically everything we produce and trade for. The bad habit is in consuming and trading with fake money for production of some people, and having this codified in the law.
Most UK residents I speak to actually agree with this. Insurance is there so that if you drive into someone elses car they do not have to pay for the damage you caused, you do in the way of higher insurance premiums. It also is used to compensate any people you run over for their injuries. People who are avoiding insurance are braking the law, and should be punished but they should also not be allowed to continue breaking the law. Immediately confiscating their car works pretty well in this regard.
- it's all fine and dandy, the problem, from my POV is that the government forces people to buy the products.
Government must not have the power to force people to buy anything, to participate in anything, to pay any income taxes (see my sig if you care to understand my POV).
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If a person doesn't have insurance it does not mean he cannot pay for the problems if he causes the problems on the road. What if you don't want to give up your income to an insurance company, instead you have your savings that you can tap into in case of an emergency?
The point is that what is forced here is involuntary participation in a system in a way that is detrimental to the individual and that really means to the economy and society in totality. The fact that people (who you talk to and others) don't understand it does not change it.
All products that people are forced to buy by the decree of government ends up being a massive misallocation of resources, any type of insurance, including car insurance, including social security and medical insurance and employment insurance, etc.etc.
All of this is involuntary in cases of the so called 'democracies' of the world, none of it is actually voluntary.
Being forced to give up your money to an insurance company that is really getting your money as a subsidy via the laws of the government, that's just another way to destroy the economy, it's also a ponzi scheme of-course and it destroys individual liberties.
If you were not robbed blind by the government in every way, you wouldn't have this problem of not being able to save and invest for yourself, to pay for yourself.
There is nothing that PREVENTS you from buying insurance, but government mandates for all of it just makes it more expensive, year to year.
When was the last time everybody's premiums went DOWN rather than up? The last time (in USA at least) was before the Federal reserve and various other government schemes were set up.
If millions of people break the law, it's not a law. Basically laws are relying on voluntary compliance. For profit prisons are the only correct way to have prisons, but that's because there should be no government laws that put people to jail. The court system, the prison system, the policing, all of this should be private. The prison time should be paid by liability insurance and thieves shouldn't even be in prison, they should be forced to return the value of what they stole maybe multiplied by 3.
Only violent criminals should go to prison, and liability insurance should be used to pay for their prison time and the amount of coverage basically then is relative to the holding conditions (and I suppose charitable groups can give them some more money if they care).
AFAIC if you steal from me, I don't want you in prison, I want you to be working for me until you pay it back more than once.
Oh, and obviously gov't creates entire classes of prisoners that should never be in prison ever, under any circumstances. Drug laws? Drug war? That is what gives the woody to the private prisons that are private in name only, because they get government money and gov't laws to subsidise them and to create the prison population for them.
No, sure, people don't react and don't do anything because they are the proverbial frog that is being slowly cooked in a pan, not thrown into boiling hot water, they are boiled slowly.
However there will be a breaking point, I believe that breaking point is going to hit when the next economic crisis happens, so when the dollar crashes, the US bonds crash. But the unfortunate part is that if the people did try to get out of that pan right now, it would mean much less blood, less senseless violence. It's not like it's good to have a massive revolt, revolution, guillotines on the streets, etc., it's really bad, it's bad for the economy and society, not just for those, who are unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and have their heads chopped off.
It's bad for the society, because it will disrupt the economy to the point, where it may take not just years and decades to fix, it's better to kick the bad habits sooner rather than later.
Well, it's government, it is not supposed to be efficient or intelligent. It's about punishment, show of force, showing you who is the boss, telling you to go stuff it, showing you that they can crash you (or your car).
What about people who provide the service of producing a physical item? Will they be unfairly burdened vs. doctors and lawyers
1. Manufacturers are not 'burdened', the cost of goods will contain the cost of taxes.
2. Doctors and lawyers are also involved in selling their services, they are working for companies and they are getting salaries, it's the company that sells the final product or service to the customer.
Again, read the link in my sig, it explains this in the lower part about the 16th amendment. What gov't basically did there (as supported by the SCOTUS) was introduce a way to tax corporate profits, not incomes, not personal incomes, only corporate profits.
So if a corporation makes a profit, the 16th amendment allows that to be taxed. Individuals don't make profits, they don't have a corporate balance sheet, so their income is not disconnected from the source (from them) via a balance sheet.
The SCOTUS rulings on this have never been challenged, they still stand - the only way that the 16th amendment allows more taxes is by taxing the difference between the incomes and the expenses and more importantly by making sure it's not a direct tax, so the source of income and income itself must be disconnected, and SCOTUS explained that to disconnect the source and income there has to be a corporate balance sheet and the taxes are on profits.
all cars seized and crushed? From all people? Even if just 10% of people cancel their insurance right now and drive this way, that's millions of people.
yeah, and breaking the law may mean you are going to get a fine and you should take it to the logical conclusion and not pay the fine.
Not pay the taxes, no fines, don't keep money in banks, drive without insurance, have drugs on you all the time, have guns at you at all times, stop giving the power the power.
The reality is that the entire power structure is based around voluntary compliance with the law that is set up.
Tired of paying those high insurance premiums? Don't want to waste your own time and gas money to game the insurance system with your phone being driven very carefully for miles and miles on end? Well, now you can have your insurance premiums lowered for a low fee of 10 bucks per month, we'll drive your phone around, as we collect the phones of all the other folks who are taking advantage of our great deal and low rates.
AFAIC just break the law, don't buy insurance. This is a problem of-course, because eventually the cops will have the license plate recognition systems that are tied into insurance databases and all the other databases and it will be nearly impossible to drive without insurance, but imagine for a moment that everybody just stopped buying insurance, cancelled their insurance completely and drove without it.
It's possible to set this up with today's communications than ever before. There should be: "get together to break the law" app that people would get and then all act as one to break the law of the day. This is the only way that doesn't involve violence against the government, with guns and all, that can be used to take the power back from the government.
Imagine if tax time came and nobody paid the taxes. Imagine if everybody cancelled their insurance and drove anyway. Imagine if everybody had drugs on them at all times.
what is the power going to do, when the subjects stop recognising the power? Kill everybody?
true, if he lost his hands above the elbows, it would have been even harder for him. OTOH many people who have no hands learn to use their legs and feet very effectively, so maybe he could build it anyway, also he does have relatives (looks like from one of the pictures), they could help.
Slashdot Mirror
The only truth about the 'lowest taxes' would be if you only talked about this scam called 'carried interest'. Now that is a true scam.
As to the rest of that statement, today the US corporate tax rates are highest in the world (used to be Japan, not anymore). Personal tax rates are high as well, but that's not the problem, the problem is that nothing can be written off against the taxes. After the WWII in USA the top marginal tax rates used to be stupidly high, 94% or something like that. The actual taxes collected don't go above 18 or 19%, those silly marginal taxes were irrelevant, nobody paid them, that's because people could write off everything from as expenses and there were all sorts of schemes invented how to avoid paying those taxes.
Of-course the real boom in US economy was happening when there were no income or corporate or payroll taxes, but that's a separate issue. Today in USA there are people who are actually paying the highest taxes that were ever paid in USA by anybody, and those are the people that get hit whenever the tax rates go up.
People who don't pay taxes, don't pay them regardless of the rates. Be it the bottom 51% or the top 0.01% or whatever. There is a percentage of people that actually are squeezed from both sides, they are not on top of the food chain, and so they can't avoid paying taxes but they are making very good money relative to the rest of the economy, and so they are the ones who end up being milked for everything.
Consider that somebody who has very little to write off, and who is making say 10 million a year. If that person pays that money to himself in salary, then here is the break down if he lives for example in Connecticut.
3.5 million goes to the federal gov't as income tax.
600,000 goes to the State as income tax.
290,000 goes to the Mediare.
With the SS tax it's 4.4 million, 44%.
Now, if this person dies, the federal gov't wants 35% on the estate above million, the State wants 12%.
If you add up just these taxes alone, not taking into the account the liquidation of business at firesale prices, let's pretend that the business could be sold at a fair market value (fat chance), then the amount of taxes that the gov't collects is anywhere between 80% and 90%.
That's retarded, that's why people move their businesses out, and that is not even the full picture. I am not going to give examples, but gov't regulations don't help but actually hurt businesses, prevent them from hiring and cause them to shut down departments or sometimes the whole thing.
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There is often a talk about the companies being managed by people who are not actually in that business professionally, they are seagull managers, not caring about the business. Well, that is partially a consequence of the death tax, the kids of the businessmen end up liquidating the business, rather than continuing it, and even if they are brought up in that business and understand how it works and how to run it, the system is now set up to force them to liquidate and just to burn the rest of the money, rather than having them continue that business.
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Also it looks like you are of an opinion that taxes on the top earners can pay for all of those things that gov't is doing and wants to do, well that's just not going to happen. The real money is in the middle, as Willie Sutton said: "that's where the money is".
To run all this, once the economy crashes because nobody wants to lend you the money anymore, you'll have to tax the middle class. You want those programs, you'll have to pay for them.
I'm glad Ryan has the guts to make the hard decisions that need to be made and deal with the political fallout
- I am really sorry to burst your bubble then, but Ryan is not doing anything to cut spending, he is growing spending.
Ryan's budget is not touching anything, Romney and Ryan will not touch SS or Medicare or military spending or the debt in any way shape or form.
Ryan's budget is only about cuts to the proposed increases and they only are supposed to kick in 10 years in the future, that's because it doesn't cut anything from the current recipients of the welfare schemes that are SS and Medicare. Those are welfare, there are no assets, nothing is owned by the gov't, only bonds, IOUs, from gov't to gov't itself. This means that whether there is or there isn't a so called 'fund' the way to finance the Medicare and SS is via bond sales. Ryan assumes that USA can sell bonds far into the future, he is making rosy assumptions about the interest rates, he doesn't take into account the fact that the interest rates will go up, there is no where for them to go but up. This is the same as it was with the housing bubble, there was nowhere to go for the housing prices but down, same here.
Ryan is not a conservative, I would call him a socialist based on his budget, because he is not willing to cut anything, but I don't think he is actually a socialist anyway. He is a politician and that says it all, there is nothing else to say.
if you had a sense of humour, you'd be familiar with the sound a 2 pound satellite makes over your head (even in a low earth orbit)
I think it is as large as a comparable satellite in normal gravity.
NRCS. As I said, this shouldn't be in the hands of the government, there is no reason that government should be the moderator in the room, that's my point.
GDP of a war time economy includes the production done for the war, it includes all those tanks and bombs and it also includes all the people who are hired by the government to build the tanks and bombs, but this does not at all mean that the depression ended! What it means is that the GDP has nothing to do with the useful productivity (just like today, 70% of GDP measures not production at all, but consumption of foreign made goods, 40% of economy is the financial sector and the GDP includes the fake money that is credited to the banks that then loan it to the Treasury, that, plus the war spending that USA is engaged in).
USA is not producing almost anything today that US population actually wants to buy, thus the shelves of the likes of Walmart are filled with Chinese products.
During war the shelves are simply empty, there are shortages, there is nothing produced that people are interested in, that they want for themselves, it's all bombs and bullets.
Again, it's like having gov't hire half of the country to dig and fill in ditches while the real economy is reduced by 50%, so the real productive output is very much reduced and the government borrows and prints money to pay these workers that dig and fill in ditches.
None of this is helpful to those, who actually produce real goods that everybody wants. Obviously a war may be fought for the right reasons and it may be a necessary war (very rarely so), but this does not mean that the economy is ANY better off than it was before the war.
The fact is that the government increased borrowing and spending during war, it put the country into a worse situation than it was before the war, the strain on the productive people in the economy became much bigger, I suppose the productive people take the hit, because they realise that the war must be fought and it will be over, so it's a form of patriotism, but this cannot last for too long (as is obvious with the case of the current wars, people don't care about them any longer, they don't want to participate at all).
The Great Depression did not end with the WWII starting, there were these jobs created that are useless to the real economy, the resources were misallocated more than before. But the GDP showed a picture that included all the tanks and bombs and teh fake employment.
The Great Depression only ended as the economy truly recovered its real productive capacity, as real jobs appeared again, that was around 1947.
As to Keynes, you must be kidding. AFAIC he is to economics what an astrologer is to astronomy, understand?
Keynesian idiots thought that the end of WWII would create an even worse depression because 10,000,000 soldiers would return from war and because the gov't would cut spending.
But that's the exact reason why the economy restarted - the gov't cut spending, cut taxes and those 10,000,000 people became available to the productive economy, which was allowed to allocate resources back from gov't to the private sector. Keynesian ideas have been debunked so thoroughly, that even Kenesians don't really wave the roots of their true ideology out in the open (except for certain nut cases, like Krugman and such).
Keynesians have been thoroughly beaten up during the seventies too, their ideology doesn't accept the simple fact that inflation and unemployment can go hand in hand, that's because productivity can fall faster than the value of money is falling, so the falling prices do not increase production at all and don't allow any hiring. That's what stagflation is.
This is simply amazing, this should be truly mind boggling, that people in a supposedly 'capitalist' society do not see anything wrong with the very idea that government should at all under any circumstances be meddling with any private deals. You want to buy a goat or to sell a goat? Why don't you ask government officials first? (actually that's not far fetched, you need all sorts of licenses, permits to do any type of goat selling and maybe even buying).
OK, so the wireless spectrum is not a goat, but it is a freaking business deal. I mean, Attorney General is approving this, I wonder what back handed, back door type of deals are going on there and who is paying who and how much? Wouldn't it be great to have real investigative reporting on this for once? Wikileaks, do they have anything on this?
yeah, well, it doesn't have to be a full hand!
You think it's stupid not to allow the government to pass laws that criminalise behaviour of individuals, their freedom of choice, freedom of association, their freedom of private property, starting with their own bodies (drug laws).
Government must not be allowed to pass laws that criminalise behaviour of individuals. There have to be competing court rooms, there have to be competing points of view and it should be up to the individuals to choose the courts they go to, which means that it is not government at all, so your point is simply wrong.
As I said, your comments are pure nonsense talk. I am talking about the law that should not exist, not the fact that people should abdicate personal responsibility.
Nonsense. Not participating in a program that is mandated by the government, regardless of what that program is, does not equate to ignoring personal responsibility.
I am talking about destroying the unjust law as it stands, and there is no justification for government to force people to buy any type of insurance.
Here is what insurance is supposed to be, it's a way to hedge your own bets, to cover your own costs, this shouldn't ever be dictated by government.
I just made a comment that answers your question, your question is posed out of a misunderstanding of what insurance is.
Insurance is not there for you to pay for others, insurance is there for you to cover your own costs. So if you don't have insurance and you are in an accident, it is your problem. It's your health and other costs. If you have insurance, then after your deductible and up to whatever the cap is that you are paying for, you'll be covered.
If you are in an accident, it doesn't matter if you are responsible for it or not, your insurance is supposed to kick in above the deductible and cover your costs.
If you can show your insurance company that the responsibility is with the other driver(s), then it's up to your insurance company to go after that driver and/or his insurance. What does government have to do with any of it except providing huge subsidy to the insurance companies and thus driving the costs up?
By the way, I would like for the people who are reading any of this to step back and think about this statement that you made:
Insurance is there so that if you drive into someone elses car they do not have to pay for the damage you caused, you do in the way of higher insurance premiums.
This is a false statement.
Insurance is not there so that if you drive into somebody else, they don't have to pay for the damage. That's a completely perverted idea of what insurance is.
Insurance is there so that if you get into a situation that you are betting you may get into, so that you have a claim to insurance so that you don't have to bear the full cost of that situation.
Insurance is there so that if something happens to YOU, not to somebody else, to YOU, that you get covered.
If somebody sues YOU, if YOU get into an accident in any way and YOU are left with high costs, that's what insurance is for. You are buying insurance in order so that you don't have to bear the full cost of an accident, of an unfortunate situation.
That's why health insurance is no longer insurance under Obamacare, because you are no longer buying insurance, you are in a health management plan and the so called 'insurance' company cannot even assess the RISK of insuring your situation properly, and 'insurance' company is not allowed to price the risk for you accordingly or even deny you coverage based on pre-existing condition, which means this is no longer insurance.
You buy insurance so that if somebody hits you, your costs are covered by the insurance that you are paying for (minus the deductible and up to whatever maximum that you are paying for).
You don't buy insurance so that you cover costs of other people. Your insurance is supposed to cover the costs that YOU incur. If you get into an accident and somebody sues you, that's a cost that you want insurance for, your own insurance.
This is what is wrong with the public education, but in reality propaganda system that exists, it prevents people from understanding very basic concepts.
But what if the economy is the bad habit?
- :) I love what you are having, it's great.
Economy is basically everything we produce and trade for. The bad habit is in consuming and trading with fake money for production of some people, and having this codified in the law.
Most UK residents I speak to actually agree with this. Insurance is there so that if you drive into someone elses car they do not have to pay for the damage you caused, you do in the way of higher insurance premiums. It also is used to compensate any people you run over for their injuries. People who are avoiding insurance are braking the law, and should be punished but they should also not be allowed to continue breaking the law. Immediately confiscating their car works pretty well in this regard.
- it's all fine and dandy, the problem, from my POV is that the government forces people to buy the products.
Government must not have the power to force people to buy anything, to participate in anything, to pay any income taxes (see my sig if you care to understand my POV).
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If a person doesn't have insurance it does not mean he cannot pay for the problems if he causes the problems on the road. What if you don't want to give up your income to an insurance company, instead you have your savings that you can tap into in case of an emergency?
The point is that what is forced here is involuntary participation in a system in a way that is detrimental to the individual and that really means to the economy and society in totality. The fact that people (who you talk to and others) don't understand it does not change it.
All products that people are forced to buy by the decree of government ends up being a massive misallocation of resources, any type of insurance, including car insurance, including social security and medical insurance and employment insurance, etc.etc.
All of this is involuntary in cases of the so called 'democracies' of the world, none of it is actually voluntary.
Being forced to give up your money to an insurance company that is really getting your money as a subsidy via the laws of the government, that's just another way to destroy the economy, it's also a ponzi scheme of-course and it destroys individual liberties.
If you were not robbed blind by the government in every way, you wouldn't have this problem of not being able to save and invest for yourself, to pay for yourself.
There is nothing that PREVENTS you from buying insurance, but government mandates for all of it just makes it more expensive, year to year.
When was the last time everybody's premiums went DOWN rather than up? The last time (in USA at least) was before the Federal reserve and various other government schemes were set up.
I don't know where you live, but I don't see any gov't that allows a real choice for the people.
If millions of people break the law, it's not a law. Basically laws are relying on voluntary compliance. For profit prisons are the only correct way to have prisons, but that's because there should be no government laws that put people to jail. The court system, the prison system, the policing, all of this should be private. The prison time should be paid by liability insurance and thieves shouldn't even be in prison, they should be forced to return the value of what they stole maybe multiplied by 3.
Only violent criminals should go to prison, and liability insurance should be used to pay for their prison time and the amount of coverage basically then is relative to the holding conditions (and I suppose charitable groups can give them some more money if they care).
AFAIC if you steal from me, I don't want you in prison, I want you to be working for me until you pay it back more than once.
Oh, and obviously gov't creates entire classes of prisoners that should never be in prison ever, under any circumstances. Drug laws? Drug war? That is what gives the woody to the private prisons that are private in name only, because they get government money and gov't laws to subsidise them and to create the prison population for them.
No, sure, people don't react and don't do anything because they are the proverbial frog that is being slowly cooked in a pan, not thrown into boiling hot water, they are boiled slowly.
However there will be a breaking point, I believe that breaking point is going to hit when the next economic crisis happens, so when the dollar crashes, the US bonds crash. But the unfortunate part is that if the people did try to get out of that pan right now, it would mean much less blood, less senseless violence. It's not like it's good to have a massive revolt, revolution, guillotines on the streets, etc., it's really bad, it's bad for the economy and society, not just for those, who are unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and have their heads chopped off.
It's bad for the society, because it will disrupt the economy to the point, where it may take not just years and decades to fix, it's better to kick the bad habits sooner rather than later.
Well, it's government, it is not supposed to be efficient or intelligent. It's about punishment, show of force, showing you who is the boss, telling you to go stuff it, showing you that they can crash you (or your car).
What about people who provide the service of producing a physical item? Will they be unfairly burdened vs. doctors and lawyers
1. Manufacturers are not 'burdened', the cost of goods will contain the cost of taxes.
2. Doctors and lawyers are also involved in selling their services, they are working for companies and they are getting salaries, it's the company that sells the final product or service to the customer.
Again, read the link in my sig, it explains this in the lower part about the 16th amendment. What gov't basically did there (as supported by the SCOTUS) was introduce a way to tax corporate profits, not incomes, not personal incomes, only corporate profits.
So if a corporation makes a profit, the 16th amendment allows that to be taxed. Individuals don't make profits, they don't have a corporate balance sheet, so their income is not disconnected from the source (from them) via a balance sheet.
The SCOTUS rulings on this have never been challenged, they still stand - the only way that the 16th amendment allows more taxes is by taxing the difference between the incomes and the expenses and more importantly by making sure it's not a direct tax, so the source of income and income itself must be disconnected, and SCOTUS explained that to disconnect the source and income there has to be a corporate balance sheet and the taxes are on profits.
all cars seized and crushed? From all people? Even if just 10% of people cancel their insurance right now and drive this way, that's millions of people.
yeah, and breaking the law may mean you are going to get a fine and you should take it to the logical conclusion and not pay the fine.
Not pay the taxes, no fines, don't keep money in banks, drive without insurance, have drugs on you all the time, have guns at you at all times, stop giving the power the power.
The reality is that the entire power structure is based around voluntary compliance with the law that is set up.
I see a business opportunity.
Tired of paying those high insurance premiums? Don't want to waste your own time and gas money to game the insurance system with your phone being driven very carefully for miles and miles on end? Well, now you can have your insurance premiums lowered for a low fee of 10 bucks per month, we'll drive your phone around, as we collect the phones of all the other folks who are taking advantage of our great deal and low rates.
AFAIC just break the law, don't buy insurance. This is a problem of-course, because eventually the cops will have the license plate recognition systems that are tied into insurance databases and all the other databases and it will be nearly impossible to drive without insurance, but imagine for a moment that everybody just stopped buying insurance, cancelled their insurance completely and drove without it.
It's possible to set this up with today's communications than ever before. There should be: "get together to break the law" app that people would get and then all act as one to break the law of the day. This is the only way that doesn't involve violence against the government, with guns and all, that can be used to take the power back from the government.
Imagine if tax time came and nobody paid the taxes.
Imagine if everybody cancelled their insurance and drove anyway.
Imagine if everybody had drugs on them at all times.
what is the power going to do, when the subjects stop recognising the power? Kill everybody?
true, if he lost his hands above the elbows, it would have been even harder for him. OTOH many people who have no hands learn to use their legs and feet very effectively, so maybe he could build it anyway, also he does have relatives (looks like from one of the pictures), they could help.