Not going to happen. There is really no actual reason for the people who live today even bother thinking about people who'll have to live 200 years from now, and between now and 200 years from now, there still will be plenty of oil, coal, gas, nuclear power sources. To us, living today, it really doesn't matter what will happen 200 years from now. To them, it does. But this basically is it.
Your "government meddling" wouldn't be necessary if the market were free and not fatally tilted in the direction of the employer.
- by definition this is nonsense. Free market isn't tilted one way or another, sure, prices go up and down, including prices on labour. So do costs of doing business. Demands go up and down all the time, fashions change, technologies change, products change and people want different stuff. All of this means that there is a constant movement, nothing is in static balance, which is a good thing, all prices are rebalanced all the time.
One day you are an employee, another day you are an employer, this doesn't stay static either. Just because you are an employee doesn't mean you became a different cast of a person, you didn't become a "higher being" all of a sudden, you don't have moral highground. Same if you are an employer. The entire point of free market is that there are no artificial barriers to doing business, the government is that artificial barrier that distorts this balancing process, which is why the system gets out of whack, things become completely unbalanced, some corporations become monopolies that clearly have too much power. So once you accept the government meddling with business, you will have no choice, but to regulate that business. HOWEVER even regulations actually don't solve anything, because the monopolies have the resources, the lobbying power, everything they need in order to push competition out, to prevent it from appearing in the first place.
You are talking about something that is a result of government meddling but presenting it as if it is the free market's failure, which it is not. The free market doesn't produce this sort of imbalance, it solves imbalances that are introduced by the governments, solves them with so called 'recessions'. The gov't doesn't want a recession, so it makes it worse by applying even more force, more fake money, more regulations, more taxes, bigger government.
Does this mean that the problem of imbalance goes away?
No.
It becomes bigger. The balance becomes even more skewed, and natural forces of economics try to solve it with even a bigger recession. Eventually this can turn into a depression, but that's due to government creating a recession and then actively fighting the free market solution, because the solution seems like a sickness - recession.
Well guess what. This is exactly what happens to a human who gets sick, say he gets some cancerous growth. If instead of going through chemo-therapy the person simply takes a bunch of painkillers and ignores the disease, it CAN eventually kill him. Well, actually we CAN kill our economies completely, destroy them with all this sedative and pain killers that is 'stimulus', 'bail out', and inflation - money printing.
Of-course politicians will also do the usual go around blame game - blame the 'rich'. Yeah, it must be them, they are doing something to cause the symptoms of the sickness?
Well, guess what, that is nonsense. The sickness is the imbalance of supply and demand in the system, it's the imbalance created by some going into too much debt and not producing enough to offset their consumption. Given free fake money by gov't, the system gets signals that there is enough 'investment' in the system, and people spend even more of that money (that is fake) only worsening the IMBALANCE of consumption and production. They keep consuming more and more and reduce production. This WILL eventually kill the economy and society, will create a different society, completely totalitarian, and the mis-educated people will think that the gov't must come to their rescue.
Well, it was the gov't that destroyed their lives.
The USA also had huge amounts of unexploited natural resources as well, and the government massively subsidised the railway system which made the continent accessible and exploitable. And the government was still there to provide the basic legal structure of the country.
- nonsense. The rail was private, and today USA extracts more resources than ever (though because of inflation - fake currency, the prices keep rising and will continue rising).
And the government was still there to provide the basic legal structure of the country.
- let me tell you something about BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE.
There is no government on this planet that could set up 'basic infrastructure'. Not before people themselves move in, start businesses, start farms, lay some roads, dig some wells, build some towns and cities, it's people, and you can call them businesses, that create something. THEN gov't appears on a horizon and starts charging taxes, and then creates monopolies, hands out licensed contracts, etc.etc., destroys the infrastructure that is built with private hands, breaks everybody's legs, gives out crutches and says: see? Without us, the gov't, you couldn't walk! Yeah, without you breaking the legs of people, they wouldn't need crutches.
China is undergoing massive economic growth at the moment.
- China today is much less totalitarian than it was 50 years ago, unless you live in a backwards world and don't see the facts, China today is almost what USA was in 1880. It has a nearly free market, definitely freer than almost every other place on this planet, which proves my point every day.
A business, and doubly so a limited liability company is a fiction created by the government because generally people believe it is of overall benefit for them to exist.
- and it's wrong that there is a way for people to be absolved of responsibility of a civil lawsuit by government decree. This creates all sorts of moral hazards.
If there was no government, there wouldn't be businesses.
- 100% wrong. USA had very little government in 19 century till 1913 at least, and it became the most prosperous time in US history or history of the world.
Similarly, whenever the government becomes totalitarian, the businesses are destroyed, there is no free enterprise at all.
These laws wouldn't be necessary unless there was a problem to begin with that required regulation.
- that's the bullshit argument used to justify every power grab, every time gov't oversteps its authority it is justified with those precise words, even grammar and punctuation can stay the same.
And it's bullshit. People MUST BE ABLE TO DISCRIMINATE, and it's none of gov't business how we do that and what we base our decisions to hire or not to hire, to sell our labour or not to sell.
We discriminate on daily basis - who you date, where you shop, etc., but become an employer all of a sudden, put an ad into a newspaper that you want to hire a black female of age 30-32, who can't have children because she had ovaries removed, and it's somehow a problem with the GOVERNMENT.
It's bullshit. Everybody must be able to discriminate, it's our right as a free person.
That's not a contract between 2 individuals, it's not even a contract between a gov't and an individual business, it's a relationship, where one side has power that are akin to that of a prison ward and the other is the prisoner, guess who is who.
But if we are talking about rights, that concept is completely abolished in that sort of a relationship.
Yes, the employer or a potential employer can ask you, it's not a violation of anybody's rights for an employer to ask anything (and AFAIC it's not a right that an employee has, it's an entitlement by gov't and obligation to the employer, that employer can't ask about all other stuff, can't discriminate based on whatever the hell employer wants to discriminate on).
It's (potential) employer's right to ask, and it's (potential) employee's right to tell him to go fuck himself.
There is no such thing as an entitlement to a job. I MUST be able to ask anybody anything, it MUST NOT be an obligation forced by the state upon me that I cannot ask whatever the hell I want to ask about.
It's not a gov't job, thus there is no 'rights' being violated. It's 2 private individuals doing business, talking about a possible contract deal. If one behaves in a way that offends the other, the other can tell him it's bullshit (in whatever words he chooses).
But saying that gov't is allowed, is authorised to tell employers and employees exactly how they conduct their contract negotiations? This is nonsense.
There is so much bullshit associated with gov't enforcing various rules and regulations against businesses with the threat of a lawsuit (never mind the taxes and inflation,) it's just another reason NOT to hire people where the government is getting out of hand like this, getting into the business of every employer and how they want to run their company.
If there is all this outcry about facebook passwords being asked from employees by employers, then employees (or potential hires) shouldn't be giving out their passwords, and the employers won't FIND anybody who will give it up, and they won't have a choice but to stop asking.
But having government tell every employer how exactly an employer is REQUIRED to hire people and what the pay will be (all this equal pay nonsense, all the potential lawsuits associated with different genders, races, mandatory insurance coverage, mandatory this, mandatory that, whatever), it all leads to one outcome - less and less employment opportunities, as potential employers find ways NOT to hire more people and to try and do more with those, who are already hired, or to outsource to other places, where there is no such ridiculous powergrab by the government.
This is all nonsense. From the Civil Rights Act of 64, requiring something from employers, to this nonsense about "Lilly Ledbetter" or whatever, the minimum wages, the stupid idea that health insurance must be tied to the place of employment (rather than like all other insurances to the insured), etc.etc. All of this raises the cost of doing business, creates potential situation for a lawsuit, causes employers to find ways not to hire people, to outsource.
Realise this: you do not have a right to employment by anybody.
Corollary: if you start your own business, you shouldn't lose your rights to the government, and nobody should be getting entitlements out of you.
There are no 'employee rights', there are no 'employer rights', there are no 'minority rights', there are no 'women rights', etc. There are only individual rights.
Once you stop understanding this principle, you lose your economy to the government, that will always grow to ensure that there is enough threat of violence against employers.
This is not free people associating with each other based on mutually beneficial contract, where the prices are set by their corresponding market value. This is government meddling, the kind of bullshit that destroys the economy and the society, and you are part of its cause.
but I didn't think of limiting the goverment's power by limiting its income. I guess I figured it would just print more as it needed.
- US government is not allowed to issue bills of credit, which is currency. It's only allowed to coin money by the Constitution. The Fed was set up as a supposedly independent body, with a dual mandate of 'price stability' and 'maximum employment', it was set up after 100 years of prices falling! What is its record on both of those things? Well, when it was introduced it was specifically prohibited from buying gov't Treasury bills. Shortly after the Congress lifted that prohibition and introduced so called 'debt ceiling'. They have NEVER failed to raise it. Of-course it's not a real ceiling, the real ceiling is hitting now that nobody wants to buy US Treasuries (the Fed is buying nearly ALL new debt from the Treasury! And they have the gall to talk about oil prices rising due to 'speculators', while in reality speculators are actually preventing the prices from going much higher with all this inflation, because so many speculators are still betting the prices will come down. They are also victims of government mis-education and can't see where the inflation is coming from and that gov't can't stop itself from printing more money at this point, it's political suicide, since it would cause a massive shock with interest rates hitting high double digits.)
As far as the interstates, I have no good reason for Hawaii having one, unless they made a bridge and no one told me.
- they do have one. H-1.
The initial investment for roads would cost a ridculous amount to get the land, and without the idea of eminent domain, one land owner could derail the entire thing.
- it's more of gov't nonsense, people find accommodations that are bilaterally profitable.
. I don't see wholly private roads as a good idea.
- I always take private roads if they exist where I am, they are much better maintained and there is less traffic. Generally though, it means that the taxes are not used to build them, which makes much more sense, why should people who never use them be subsidising them? Their costs will be built into price structure of goods delivered into them and into cost of people using them, but when it's market based it makes much more sense, because there are signal - yes, there is more business here, so it makes sense to increase capacity because the profits show it needs to be done. OR: no, there is no reason to build more capacity here, the profits aren't showing more demand. This is something that gov't can't do in principle, they can't figure out what projects are just NOT worth continuing, they are not price sensitive, so they end up wasting as much money as possible, because this gets coupled with various preferred contractors, and those people are just too happy to oblige building more and more unnecessary stuff at higher prices than market would set up.
I don't see how property rights protect against environmental pollution. Let's say we both have a river running through our land, and you're downstream of me, and I'm too lazy to properly dispose of some waste so I instead dump it in the river. I would be within my rights to do that, as it's on my property, but it would impact you in a negative way
- that's what property rights are for, you can't pollute MY part of the property, so you can't pollute yours. This is what gov't can be used for (it's an easy example, though I would still NOT use it there either,) but it's easy to see. If gov't is set up to protect individual rights AND property rights, then it's role is to be an efficient arbiter in such cases. You'd be severely punished by the system, that should be a deterrent good enough. If you don't stop, I think it should go all the way to cleaning up your mess and forcing you to pay for it, even confiscating whatever you have to pay for it! TH
Really, she wasn't a prostitute, where did I get THAT idea? Go back and look at all the pictures, postings and look at how she was described to 'approach' all those people she was trying to get to.
there would be no FDA, no EPA, no FAA and no national parks. Somehow, he believes that the past won't repeat itself. Such organisations didn't spring out of nothing. They arrived because companies were making a right mess of things.
- no, such organisations sprang out out of general public not caring to stop the federal government from grabbing powers that it was not authorised to have. He is 100% correct, those organisations have no right to exist at the federal level. It doesn't mean at all that those functions must not be handled somehow, but he is absolutely correct that the federal government has no authority to meddle with any of that. Add to that the departments of education, energy, interior, commerce, agriculture, business, Fed, FDIC, HUD, FHA, F&F, FBI and it's a good start on getting individual freedoms back (and individuals run businesses).
He seems to somehow believe that companies (motivated by profit) will take the long-term sustainable view on things because of market forces despite a few hundred years evidence to the contrary.
- no, it's only since about 1913 that the companies stopped thinking about the long term development, but it really took off since 1971 and it well coincides with Nixon getting the world off the gold standard - defaulting on the dollar. This is connected, as the government started printing fake money and creating inflation and pushed interest rates down artificially, it took down the rates on corporate bonds as well, so eventually people stopped viewing corporate stock and bonds as long term investment, stopped relying on ability to earn interest (indeed, with inflation being between 11% and 15% for the last 40 years, and especially since the early nineties) people now only view stock as a tool for trading - buy low sell high. This is not only about corporations themselves at all, this is about fake money and the reality of inflation destroying savings and investment. That's why the jobs are leaving as well.
Destructive? So under Ron Paul's understanding of Constitution no corporation would get a bail out, government wouldn't be in business of handing out moral hazards, like liability caps for any sort of mishap (deep water drilling, 75Million USD liability cap?)
No company would be able to use government to promote its own agenda, no company would be getting free money, money would not be destroyed by the federal government, no inflation. No company would get any special privileges - level playing field. Terrible, destructive.
No company would have the upper hand by having better lobbyists, sure, they could lobby, but they couldn't GET anything from lobbying, so what would be the point?
The competition would actually arise again, the government wouldn't be in business of promoting, creating and maintaining and saving monopolies. Horror.
Do you notice how the ideas that there are all these threats from everywhere are invading the public discourse?
There are all these 'stories' about spies, these have been coming out fairly consistently. Anybody remembers Anna Chapman? AFAIC it was a story about a Russian prostitute mistaken for a super-secret spy.
But there are all these other stories, everything, from spies to the idea that there is more racism or sexism than ever, to supposed nuclear threats from Iran and such, take your pick.
In reality of-course there are various political forces that are gaining power from proliferation of ideas that there is this huge division: us vs. them, them vs. us, divide you into international camps, then into race camps and into gender camps, again, choose your poison.
This is a very old trick - divide and conquer, use every bit of negative news and blow it way out of proportion, use any anecdotal evidence to create various false movements, whatever.
It's all done in order to be able to take your attention away from the real problems. How about the fact that Obama was basically an agent of the banks and the ruling elite, very skilfully disguised as a populous movement with ideology of CHANGE - changing what? Changing the way that the government works!
All the while Ron Paul is marginalised, the guy who is building real momentum, a real movement of change - this is scary, this has to be stopped and you know it's being actively fought against by the media and the government and every dollar that is coming from the corporate ruling elite.
Your government and your corporate monopolistic elite are one and the same. Ask yourself: exactly what is fascism? How is it possible that a Republic descends into fascism? Through the little trick of 'democracy' of-course. Democracy is a gateway drug to fascism, democracy comes after republic creates enough freedoms that the economy booms and allows a few to feed the many, allows the many to ask the few to give them more and more without bothering themselves to produce. This is 'bread and circuses' and the politicians are using it very effectively to destroy the very concept of individual freedoms on daily basis.
Notice how they even destroyed the concept of INDIVIDUAL freedoms by introducing the false flags of so called 'civil rights' and 'women rights' and 'minority rights' and whatever else rights. Why am I saying those are false flags? Because all of those people should have the same exact rights, and all of those rights are individual rights, but creating these separate concepts of 'rights' what really is done is that some are given not rights, but privileges, while others are forced into obligations.
And you can't have individual freedoms when some are given something at the expense of others. You NEED a powerful state to ensure that these entitlements are given to some at the expense of others, and that's just another way to 'divide and conquer'.
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Closer to TFA: the universities are supposed to be these bastions of free expression of ideas, where non-mainstream ideas can be expressed and looked at without bias, but are they?
Who will it help if the universities end up being 'secured' the way airports are with TSA agents, for example, looking for signs of 'infiltration'?
How about FBI raiding universities with (or without) search warrants, turning papers and files over, breaking hands and throwing charges around? How about military doing it? (don't forget NDAA). What if they find a TERRORIST SYMPATHISER?! Will you ever see or hear from that person again, after all, they are terrorists, otherwise they wouldn't have been taken into the custody in the first place, right?
You think it's too far? Where do you think this is going?
If we had this discussion about a week ago, I would have agreed with a flat income tax across the board for everyone.
- so what changed in a week, you didn't mention?
My point is of-course that it is unfair to hit people with higher rates, this allows a gradual increase of rates, so that the majority of voters don't face the same rate of taxation so from their perspective increase of marginal rates is a direct subsidy - immoral, unconstitutional and just bad for economics from every perspective:
1. It diminishes available amount of capital investment.
2. It grows government.
However, a flat income tax is more unfair to the lower income earners than the graduated income tax is to the higher income earners.
- no, it's not 'unfair' to the lower income earners, it's quite a bit more fair. It's bad for the low income earners, but this is precisely why it's done this way - it allows the politicians to raise taxes by using the vote of majority upon those, who are seen as overachievers anyway, supposedly they will keep bearing this burden of taxes for all others to enjoy, all others who are using the collective violent force of government to rob those who make more money. It's disproportionate.
Your argument is well received only from POV that taxes should be lower across the board, but of-course the only correct income tax is 0. The only correct payroll tax is 0. The only correct corporate tax is 0. THAT coupled with REAL MONEY ensures that government cannot grow beyond its organic role, because when gov't is funded with real money that is received from not overbearing taxes, like excise, import, sales taxes, then at least it's not bound to anything that any person is actually doing - they are not forced to give up all of their income and spending information to the government by the year end. Also this removes the legal liability for tax evasion or tax avoidance or tax protest. Those things are impossible in a free society. As people we agree that we have to have some form of government, if we do not explicitly set one up, it will appear anyway, it's just going to be something spontaneous and likely even more abusive (like monarchies). So to have a government means to give it a role and to fund it, and USA of 18th century found a good compromise - tax imports, sales, excise. Do not tax income (if the Founders wanted to tax income, they would have made that specific provision, but they understood something about freedoms, they just had a war with a King exactly about that sort of thing, and it was only 3%. Serfs used to pay 25% of their income to their masters. To be elevated to the level of serfs in terms of individual freedom, many people have to see their taxes cut in half today).
I get that life isn't fair and all, but those who are earning more are doing so because of what the government is providing.
- that statement is FALSE.
Out of 37 richest self-made people in America, 34 were born in 19th century. 30 were born before 1850. Only 3 were born in 20th century - Buffet, Walton, Gates. This shows poorly for the argument that government involvement makes rich people richer. This shows the exact opposite. The bigger the government the more difficult it is for anybody to make more money. And there is a reason for it - government is standing in the way of people doing business. From regulations and laws to taxes and insane foreign policy and protection of preferred corporations - monopolies and to printing funny money. All of this and some more is what government does that ensures that people are poorer, not richer.
Even the people who are relatively poor were increasing their wealth much faster in 19th century than in 20th. That's because wealth is all the products that the people are making, not money. And as long as there is competition and sound money and little government involvement, the market creates more and more products at lower and
It's true, I don't pay much in income tax, but then again, I don't make much, either, so that's expected.
- my point exactly.
It's a direct subsidy from some people to majority, that's why those who pay disproportionate amounts into that try their best to minimise it and now just move their investments and work out of the country.
I like the idea of graduated income tax brackets, because it enables those who do make more to contribute more, but without burdening them as much.
- you are disregarding the fact that with a flat income tax it would be actually at least FAIR while those with greater income would still contribute much more, because for example 20% of a million is 200,000, while 20% of 100,000 is 20,000.
So it is completely wrong and unfair and destructive to the economy that the income tax is so disproportionately hurting people who are actually able to re-invest into the economy, because clearly they are not using most of their income to buy stuff for themselves.
Steve Jobs spent less than 4% of his entire fortune in his life, this means 96% was re-invested into the economy, which is exactly what we need people to do.
Thinking that having people with money give that money to government makes economy better is illiterate, but also it's basically based on class envy and unfair redistribution of wealth via the force of gov't.
I urge everybody who is in higher tax brackets to move their investment capital and the jobs elsewhere, where it's not as obviously rigged by the system against the minority.
If we were to get rid of income tax, where would government reveue come from to fund the public works and such things it does currently do?
- gov't shouldn't be doing much of anything. Before 1913 it was barely detectable that there was a federal government and that was exactly the time (after the Civil war, but mostly 19 century to the WWI) when the US economy did so much that USA became basically world's super power, biggest creditor nation.
What was USA before 19th century? An afterthought to the European nations. 19th century put USA on the map as an innovator and a super economy for a reason, and that reason was mostly absent government regulations and taxes and no inflation (except the Continental, but hey, they used to say: not worth a Continental. Soon they'll be saying: not worth a Federal.)
US federal gov't was able to run on legal taxes: excise, import. 50% of taxes were derived from alcohol sales. Governments are doing too much and during crisis they should be doing even less, because they created the crisis and by doing more they turn crisis into catastrophes.
As to you not caring about income taxes - most likely you don't pay any, or you pay very little, and just like the case is with the government workers, majority of people in USA are not paying income taxes (50% pay only 3% of all income taxes, those are bottom earners), so to them income taxes are a direct subsidy from the top earners, so obviously they want the taxes to go up on top earners, because bottom earners don't pay them anyway!
So it's a direct subsidy, a direct wealth transfer and it is part of the problem with the economy, as those, who are paying these taxes are getting hurt and move their savings and investments and work somewhere else.
Government workers do not add any value into the system, whatever they are doing, they are spending value that was added to it by people who actually produced something that market in fact was willing to spend real savings on (or real investment).
Government workers can only spend what they have taken away, and they are spending it not within normal market, they are insensitive to market signals on everything that deals with prices, thus they cannot by definition argue that they are adding value, they are always subtracting it, they are not market participants.
Also: profit is something that is made on investment, not on straight out work, as in: payment for labour is not profit.
Profit is something that is made upon money that is saved and invested, thus individual income cannot be considered profit. Just because a person doesn't spend 100% of what he earns doesn't make that profit, it only makes it savings.
Savings and profit are not the same thing.
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Finally: a government worker is not generating any new income for the government. Again, a government worker can only take money that was already subtracted from somebody's actual market participation activity and spend that money in any way, that doesn't have to do with the market at all.
A government worker does not in fact create ANY money that government DID NOT HAVE ALREADY. Thus this 'income tax' that government worker pays is not a tax on income, it's just an accounting gimmick. The government already had that money, it already took it from somebody. That's not new money that government received from actual productive activity.
I am very serious, I already talked about it at length here and many people didn't understand this simple concept then either - government workers do not pay income taxes.
To understand this you have to ask yourself a question: what is income in the first place? I argue income taxes are illegal and collected illegally, but that's not the point here.
The point is that under the definition of what income taxes are: they are taxes upon revenue or pre-tax profit (and thus you can read my argument about illegality of it, people don't have profit, they exchange their own labour for pay).
But what is the profit that the government is getting from a government worker, who was paid by government just to return part of that money back? There is no new profit there of any kind. That's money that already came from profits of other people, who paid taxes for real - those who actually worked to do something to be paid outside of government. Those who participated in the real economy and created something of value and part of that value was then taken away by the government.
However once the government has that money, it can then play games like pretend that government workers pay income taxes, while in reality they could just as well pay their workers the after so called income tax amount.
The businesses are forced to withhold income taxes from employees (and if this wasn't the case, taxes would have been much lower, if people had to give a wad of cash to government by the year end, they would have revolted long ago).
Government withholds that amount too, and it's on a statement, it makes it look like a gov't worker pays taxes, but gov't worker didn't actually PRODUCE anything that added any value to the original money that the government has collected already!
Of-course they also can use deductions against their so called taxes, but that just means they are getting more pay, nothing else.
Now, when a government worker pays taxes on his OTHER income, something he may have generated from other sources, not government (he sublet his house or he did something else that qualifies as 'income'), THEN YES, he paid actual income taxes.
Of-course this 'article' is also a piece of propaganda designed for intimidation.
In the former USSR the people just assumed that KGB had nearly infinite powers, this way people lived in fear and were easily turned into 'seksots' - secret collaborator or secret agent.
It was done consciously this way, to ensure everybody is constantly assuming that everybody else is a 'seksot' and to make sure people don't trust each other and behave according to what is expected from them. Of-course there were real atrocities committed, and that helped plenty to create the atmosphere of fear.
I don't have reasons to doubt that NSA is working on projects like this, of-course I assume that the totality of the information that is released is bullshit, but there is something there that is real. Of-course they want every word that anybody ever recorded and transmitted to anybody - this is power of-course.
The only correct solution to this is to stop government from doing this any further and to take apart what they have done already, for this everybody who is in power right now must be removed from it (including the SCOTUS, it's crap) and new people must be put there who must be forced to obey the Constitution.
You must understand that once you allow the government to go beyond any of the authorised powers (Article 1, Section 8), you will have nothing protecting you at all from crap like this, but also from much worse.
NDAA with indefinite detentions, extra-judicial killings, destruction of all rights, property rights, business rights, complete control of what you do.
Income taxes are nothing compared to all the other stuff they do, at least for income taxes they amended the Constitution.
When did they amend the Constitution to build this NSA data centre to spy on all people, completely destroying presumption of innocence, abolishing the idea of the illegality of search without warrant, murdering people based on what POTUS wants?
Is the 2nd amendment going to be the last line of defence from total tyranny? I don't know, it may be not enough.
More government spending, more invasion of privacy, more unauthorised behaviour, more deficit and debt, more government jobs (paid for with debt of-course), more government contracts, more money printing - inflation.
Less real economic activity, less freedoms, less real value in money.
Only one good thing hopefully will come out of this: fewer people supporting government actions, less desire to have this type of government, getting closer to the point when this becomes completely unbearable (of-course this will only really end when all resources end as government consumes them all).
They want government to control every aspect of human life, including artificially controlling birth rates, so that government can get one more leverage point against the people while doing THIS kind of nonsense?
There is no 'moral obligation' by a person who runs a business to anybody around him, there is only obligation not to hurt other people, but this applies to businesses and to individuals equally (well, it should apply equally anyway).
There is no more 'moral obligation' for a person who does business to anybody around him, than there is 'moral obligation' for people around him to buy from him whatever he is selling.
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Not going to happen. There is really no actual reason for the people who live today even bother thinking about people who'll have to live 200 years from now, and between now and 200 years from now, there still will be plenty of oil, coal, gas, nuclear power sources. To us, living today, it really doesn't matter what will happen 200 years from now. To them, it does. But this basically is it.
Your "government meddling" wouldn't be necessary if the market were free and not fatally tilted in the direction of the employer.
- by definition this is nonsense. Free market isn't tilted one way or another, sure, prices go up and down, including prices on labour. So do costs of doing business. Demands go up and down all the time, fashions change, technologies change, products change and people want different stuff. All of this means that there is a constant movement, nothing is in static balance, which is a good thing, all prices are rebalanced all the time.
One day you are an employee, another day you are an employer, this doesn't stay static either. Just because you are an employee doesn't mean you became a different cast of a person, you didn't become a "higher being" all of a sudden, you don't have moral highground. Same if you are an employer. The entire point of free market is that there are no artificial barriers to doing business, the government is that artificial barrier that distorts this balancing process, which is why the system gets out of whack, things become completely unbalanced, some corporations become monopolies that clearly have too much power. So once you accept the government meddling with business, you will have no choice, but to regulate that business. HOWEVER even regulations actually don't solve anything, because the monopolies have the resources, the lobbying power, everything they need in order to push competition out, to prevent it from appearing in the first place.
You are talking about something that is a result of government meddling but presenting it as if it is the free market's failure, which it is not. The free market doesn't produce this sort of imbalance, it solves imbalances that are introduced by the governments, solves them with so called 'recessions'. The gov't doesn't want a recession, so it makes it worse by applying even more force, more fake money, more regulations, more taxes, bigger government.
Does this mean that the problem of imbalance goes away?
No.
It becomes bigger. The balance becomes even more skewed, and natural forces of economics try to solve it with even a bigger recession. Eventually this can turn into a depression, but that's due to government creating a recession and then actively fighting the free market solution, because the solution seems like a sickness - recession.
Well guess what. This is exactly what happens to a human who gets sick, say he gets some cancerous growth. If instead of going through chemo-therapy the person simply takes a bunch of painkillers and ignores the disease, it CAN eventually kill him. Well, actually we CAN kill our economies completely, destroy them with all this sedative and pain killers that is 'stimulus', 'bail out', and inflation - money printing.
Of-course politicians will also do the usual go around blame game - blame the 'rich'. Yeah, it must be them, they are doing something to cause the symptoms of the sickness?
Well, guess what, that is nonsense. The sickness is the imbalance of supply and demand in the system, it's the imbalance created by some going into too much debt and not producing enough to offset their consumption. Given free fake money by gov't, the system gets signals that there is enough 'investment' in the system, and people spend even more of that money (that is fake) only worsening the IMBALANCE of consumption and production. They keep consuming more and more and reduce production. This WILL eventually kill the economy and society, will create a different society, completely totalitarian, and the mis-educated people will think that the gov't must come to their rescue.
Well, it was the gov't that destroyed their lives.
So, are you against the existence of limited liability companies?
- I said it repeatedly, in that many words.
The USA also had huge amounts of unexploited natural resources as well, and the government massively subsidised the railway system which made the continent accessible and exploitable. And the government was still there to provide the basic legal structure of the country.
- nonsense. The rail was private, and today USA extracts more resources than ever (though because of inflation - fake currency, the prices keep rising and will continue rising).
And the government was still there to provide the basic legal structure of the country.
- let me tell you something about BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE.
There is no government on this planet that could set up 'basic infrastructure'. Not before people themselves move in, start businesses, start farms, lay some roads, dig some wells, build some towns and cities, it's people, and you can call them businesses, that create something. THEN gov't appears on a horizon and starts charging taxes, and then creates monopolies, hands out licensed contracts, etc.etc., destroys the infrastructure that is built with private hands, breaks everybody's legs, gives out crutches and says: see? Without us, the gov't, you couldn't walk! Yeah, without you breaking the legs of people, they wouldn't need crutches.
China is undergoing massive economic growth at the moment.
- China today is much less totalitarian than it was 50 years ago, unless you live in a backwards world and don't see the facts, China today is almost what USA was in 1880. It has a nearly free market, definitely freer than almost every other place on this planet, which proves my point every day.
A business, and doubly so a limited liability company is a fiction created by the government because generally people believe it is of overall benefit for them to exist.
- and it's wrong that there is a way for people to be absolved of responsibility of a civil lawsuit by government decree. This creates all sorts of moral hazards.
If there was no government, there wouldn't be businesses.
- 100% wrong. USA had very little government in 19 century till 1913 at least, and it became the most prosperous time in US history or history of the world.
Similarly, whenever the government becomes totalitarian, the businesses are destroyed, there is no free enterprise at all.
These laws wouldn't be necessary unless there was a problem to begin with that required regulation.
- that's the bullshit argument used to justify every power grab, every time gov't oversteps its authority it is justified with those precise words, even grammar and punctuation can stay the same.
And it's bullshit. People MUST BE ABLE TO DISCRIMINATE, and it's none of gov't business how we do that and what we base our decisions to hire or not to hire, to sell our labour or not to sell.
We discriminate on daily basis - who you date, where you shop, etc., but become an employer all of a sudden, put an ad into a newspaper that you want to hire a black female of age 30-32, who can't have children because she had ovaries removed, and it's somehow a problem with the GOVERNMENT.
It's bullshit. Everybody must be able to discriminate, it's our right as a free person.
That's not a contract between 2 individuals, it's not even a contract between a gov't and an individual business, it's a relationship, where one side has power that are akin to that of a prison ward and the other is the prisoner, guess who is who.
But if we are talking about rights, that concept is completely abolished in that sort of a relationship.
Yes, the employer or a potential employer can ask you, it's not a violation of anybody's rights for an employer to ask anything (and AFAIC it's not a right that an employee has, it's an entitlement by gov't and obligation to the employer, that employer can't ask about all other stuff, can't discriminate based on whatever the hell employer wants to discriminate on).
It's (potential) employer's right to ask, and it's (potential) employee's right to tell him to go fuck himself.
There is no such thing as an entitlement to a job. I MUST be able to ask anybody anything, it MUST NOT be an obligation forced by the state upon me that I cannot ask whatever the hell I want to ask about.
It's not a gov't job, thus there is no 'rights' being violated. It's 2 private individuals doing business, talking about a possible contract deal. If one behaves in a way that offends the other, the other can tell him it's bullshit (in whatever words he chooses).
But saying that gov't is allowed, is authorised to tell employers and employees exactly how they conduct their contract negotiations? This is nonsense.
There is so much bullshit associated with gov't enforcing various rules and regulations against businesses with the threat of a lawsuit (never mind the taxes and inflation,) it's just another reason NOT to hire people where the government is getting out of hand like this, getting into the business of every employer and how they want to run their company.
If there is all this outcry about facebook passwords being asked from employees by employers, then employees (or potential hires) shouldn't be giving out their passwords, and the employers won't FIND anybody who will give it up, and they won't have a choice but to stop asking.
But having government tell every employer how exactly an employer is REQUIRED to hire people and what the pay will be (all this equal pay nonsense, all the potential lawsuits associated with different genders, races, mandatory insurance coverage, mandatory this, mandatory that, whatever), it all leads to one outcome - less and less employment opportunities, as potential employers find ways NOT to hire more people and to try and do more with those, who are already hired, or to outsource to other places, where there is no such ridiculous powergrab by the government.
This is all nonsense. From the Civil Rights Act of 64, requiring something from employers, to this nonsense about "Lilly Ledbetter" or whatever, the minimum wages, the stupid idea that health insurance must be tied to the place of employment (rather than like all other insurances to the insured), etc.etc. All of this raises the cost of doing business, creates potential situation for a lawsuit, causes employers to find ways not to hire people, to outsource.
Realise this: you do not have a right to employment by anybody.
Corollary: if you start your own business, you shouldn't lose your rights to the government, and nobody should be getting entitlements out of you.
There are no 'employee rights', there are no 'employer rights', there are no 'minority rights', there are no 'women rights', etc. There are only individual rights.
Once you stop understanding this principle, you lose your economy to the government, that will always grow to ensure that there is enough threat of violence against employers.
This is not free people associating with each other based on mutually beneficial contract, where the prices are set by their corresponding market value. This is government meddling, the kind of bullshit that destroys the economy and the society, and you are part of its cause.
but I didn't think of limiting the goverment's power by limiting its income. I guess I figured it would just print more as it needed.
- US government is not allowed to issue bills of credit, which is currency. It's only allowed to coin money by the Constitution. The Fed was set up as a supposedly independent body, with a dual mandate of 'price stability' and 'maximum employment', it was set up after 100 years of prices falling! What is its record on both of those things? Well, when it was introduced it was specifically prohibited from buying gov't Treasury bills. Shortly after the Congress lifted that prohibition and introduced so called 'debt ceiling'. They have NEVER failed to raise it. Of-course it's not a real ceiling, the real ceiling is hitting now that nobody wants to buy US Treasuries (the Fed is buying nearly ALL new debt from the Treasury! And they have the gall to talk about oil prices rising due to 'speculators', while in reality speculators are actually preventing the prices from going much higher with all this inflation, because so many speculators are still betting the prices will come down. They are also victims of government mis-education and can't see where the inflation is coming from and that gov't can't stop itself from printing more money at this point, it's political suicide, since it would cause a massive shock with interest rates hitting high double digits.)
As far as the interstates, I have no good reason for Hawaii having one, unless they made a bridge and no one told me.
- they do have one. H-1.
The initial investment for roads would cost a ridculous amount to get the land, and without the idea of eminent domain, one land owner could derail the entire thing.
- it's more of gov't nonsense, people find accommodations that are bilaterally profitable.
. I don't see wholly private roads as a good idea.
- I always take private roads if they exist where I am, they are much better maintained and there is less traffic. Generally though, it means that the taxes are not used to build them, which makes much more sense, why should people who never use them be subsidising them? Their costs will be built into price structure of goods delivered into them and into cost of people using them, but when it's market based it makes much more sense, because there are signal - yes, there is more business here, so it makes sense to increase capacity because the profits show it needs to be done. OR: no, there is no reason to build more capacity here, the profits aren't showing more demand. This is something that gov't can't do in principle, they can't figure out what projects are just NOT worth continuing, they are not price sensitive, so they end up wasting as much money as possible, because this gets coupled with various preferred contractors, and those people are just too happy to oblige building more and more unnecessary stuff at higher prices than market would set up.
I don't see how property rights protect against environmental pollution. Let's say we both have a river running through our land, and you're downstream of me, and I'm too lazy to properly dispose of some waste so I instead dump it in the river. I would be within my rights to do that, as it's on my property, but it would impact you in a negative way
- that's what property rights are for, you can't pollute MY part of the property, so you can't pollute yours. This is what gov't can be used for (it's an easy example, though I would still NOT use it there either,) but it's easy to see. If gov't is set up to protect individual rights AND property rights, then it's role is to be an efficient arbiter in such cases. You'd be severely punished by the system, that should be a deterrent good enough. If you don't stop, I think it should go all the way to cleaning up your mess and forcing you to pay for it, even confiscating whatever you have to pay for it! TH
Really, she wasn't a prostitute, where did I get THAT idea? Go back and look at all the pictures, postings and look at how she was described to 'approach' all those people she was trying to get to.
there would be no FDA, no EPA, no FAA and no national parks. Somehow, he believes that the past won't repeat itself. Such organisations didn't spring out of nothing. They arrived because companies were making a right mess of things.
- no, such organisations sprang out out of general public not caring to stop the federal government from grabbing powers that it was not authorised to have. He is 100% correct, those organisations have no right to exist at the federal level. It doesn't mean at all that those functions must not be handled somehow, but he is absolutely correct that the federal government has no authority to meddle with any of that. Add to that the departments of education, energy, interior, commerce, agriculture, business, Fed, FDIC, HUD, FHA, F&F, FBI and it's a good start on getting individual freedoms back (and individuals run businesses).
He seems to somehow believe that companies (motivated by profit) will take the long-term sustainable view on things because of market forces despite a few hundred years evidence to the contrary.
- no, it's only since about 1913 that the companies stopped thinking about the long term development, but it really took off since 1971 and it well coincides with Nixon getting the world off the gold standard - defaulting on the dollar. This is connected, as the government started printing fake money and creating inflation and pushed interest rates down artificially, it took down the rates on corporate bonds as well, so eventually people stopped viewing corporate stock and bonds as long term investment, stopped relying on ability to earn interest (indeed, with inflation being between 11% and 15% for the last 40 years, and especially since the early nineties) people now only view stock as a tool for trading - buy low sell high. This is not only about corporations themselves at all, this is about fake money and the reality of inflation destroying savings and investment. That's why the jobs are leaving as well.
Destructive? So under Ron Paul's understanding of Constitution no corporation would get a bail out, government wouldn't be in business of handing out moral hazards, like liability caps for any sort of mishap (deep water drilling, 75Million USD liability cap?)
No company would be able to use government to promote its own agenda, no company would be getting free money, money would not be destroyed by the federal government, no inflation. No company would get any special privileges - level playing field. Terrible, destructive.
No company would have the upper hand by having better lobbyists, sure, they could lobby, but they couldn't GET anything from lobbying, so what would be the point?
The competition would actually arise again, the government wouldn't be in business of promoting, creating and maintaining and saving monopolies. Horror.
Really? The difference between her being 'real spy' and her being a 'real prostitute' was what exactly?
Do you notice how the ideas that there are all these threats from everywhere are invading the public discourse?
There are all these 'stories' about spies, these have been coming out fairly consistently. Anybody remembers Anna Chapman? AFAIC it was a story about a Russian prostitute mistaken for a super-secret spy.
But there are all these other stories, everything, from spies to the idea that there is more racism or sexism than ever, to supposed nuclear threats from Iran and such, take your pick.
In reality of-course there are various political forces that are gaining power from proliferation of ideas that there is this huge division: us vs. them, them vs. us, divide you into international camps, then into race camps and into gender camps, again, choose your poison.
This is a very old trick - divide and conquer, use every bit of negative news and blow it way out of proportion, use any anecdotal evidence to create various false movements, whatever.
It's all done in order to be able to take your attention away from the real problems. How about the fact that Obama was basically an agent of the banks and the ruling elite, very skilfully disguised as a populous movement with ideology of CHANGE - changing what? Changing the way that the government works!
All the while Ron Paul is marginalised, the guy who is building real momentum, a real movement of change - this is scary, this has to be stopped and you know it's being actively fought against by the media and the government and every dollar that is coming from the corporate ruling elite.
Your government and your corporate monopolistic elite are one and the same. Ask yourself: exactly what is fascism? How is it possible that a Republic descends into fascism? Through the little trick of 'democracy' of-course. Democracy is a gateway drug to fascism, democracy comes after republic creates enough freedoms that the economy booms and allows a few to feed the many, allows the many to ask the few to give them more and more without bothering themselves to produce. This is 'bread and circuses' and the politicians are using it very effectively to destroy the very concept of individual freedoms on daily basis.
Notice how they even destroyed the concept of INDIVIDUAL freedoms by introducing the false flags of so called 'civil rights' and 'women rights' and 'minority rights' and whatever else rights. Why am I saying those are false flags? Because all of those people should have the same exact rights, and all of those rights are individual rights, but creating these separate concepts of 'rights' what really is done is that some are given not rights, but privileges, while others are forced into obligations.
And you can't have individual freedoms when some are given something at the expense of others. You NEED a powerful state to ensure that these entitlements are given to some at the expense of others, and that's just another way to 'divide and conquer'.
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Closer to TFA: the universities are supposed to be these bastions of free expression of ideas, where non-mainstream ideas can be expressed and looked at without bias, but are they?
Who will it help if the universities end up being 'secured' the way airports are with TSA agents, for example, looking for signs of 'infiltration'?
How about FBI raiding universities with (or without) search warrants, turning papers and files over, breaking hands and throwing charges around? How about military doing it? (don't forget NDAA). What if they find a TERRORIST SYMPATHISER?! Will you ever see or hear from that person again, after all, they are terrorists, otherwise they wouldn't have been taken into the custody in the first place, right?
You think it's too far? Where do you think this is going?
If we had this discussion about a week ago, I would have agreed with a flat income tax across the board for everyone.
- so what changed in a week, you didn't mention?
My point is of-course that it is unfair to hit people with higher rates, this allows a gradual increase of rates, so that the majority of voters don't face the same rate of taxation so from their perspective increase of marginal rates is a direct subsidy - immoral, unconstitutional and just bad for economics from every perspective:
1. It diminishes available amount of capital investment.
2. It grows government.
However, a flat income tax is more unfair to the lower income earners than the graduated income tax is to the higher income earners.
- no, it's not 'unfair' to the lower income earners, it's quite a bit more fair. It's bad for the low income earners, but this is precisely why it's done this way - it allows the politicians to raise taxes by using the vote of majority upon those, who are seen as overachievers anyway, supposedly they will keep bearing this burden of taxes for all others to enjoy, all others who are using the collective violent force of government to rob those who make more money. It's disproportionate.
Your argument is well received only from POV that taxes should be lower across the board, but of-course the only correct income tax is 0. The only correct payroll tax is 0. The only correct corporate tax is 0. THAT coupled with REAL MONEY ensures that government cannot grow beyond its organic role, because when gov't is funded with real money that is received from not overbearing taxes, like excise, import, sales taxes, then at least it's not bound to anything that any person is actually doing - they are not forced to give up all of their income and spending information to the government by the year end. Also this removes the legal liability for tax evasion or tax avoidance or tax protest. Those things are impossible in a free society. As people we agree that we have to have some form of government, if we do not explicitly set one up, it will appear anyway, it's just going to be something spontaneous and likely even more abusive (like monarchies). So to have a government means to give it a role and to fund it, and USA of 18th century found a good compromise - tax imports, sales, excise. Do not tax income (if the Founders wanted to tax income, they would have made that specific provision, but they understood something about freedoms, they just had a war with a King exactly about that sort of thing, and it was only 3%. Serfs used to pay 25% of their income to their masters. To be elevated to the level of serfs in terms of individual freedom, many people have to see their taxes cut in half today).
I get that life isn't fair and all, but those who are earning more are doing so because of what the government is providing.
- that statement is FALSE.
Out of 37 richest self-made people in America, 34 were born in 19th century. 30 were born before 1850. Only 3 were born in 20th century - Buffet, Walton, Gates. This shows poorly for the argument that government involvement makes rich people richer. This shows the exact opposite. The bigger the government the more difficult it is for anybody to make more money. And there is a reason for it - government is standing in the way of people doing business. From regulations and laws to taxes and insane foreign policy and protection of preferred corporations - monopolies and to printing funny money. All of this and some more is what government does that ensures that people are poorer, not richer.
Even the people who are relatively poor were increasing their wealth much faster in 19th century than in 20th. That's because wealth is all the products that the people are making, not money. And as long as there is competition and sound money and little government involvement, the market creates more and more products at lower and
You are doing it wrong! Everybody knows that most nymphomaniacs hide in
This:
but that I don't have a problem with the concept
and this:
It's true, I don't pay much in income tax, but then again, I don't make much, either, so that's expected.
- my point exactly.
It's a direct subsidy from some people to majority, that's why those who pay disproportionate amounts into that try their best to minimise it and now just move their investments and work out of the country.
I like the idea of graduated income tax brackets, because it enables those who do make more to contribute more, but without burdening them as much.
- you are disregarding the fact that with a flat income tax it would be actually at least FAIR while those with greater income would still contribute much more, because for example 20% of a million is 200,000, while 20% of 100,000 is 20,000.
So it is completely wrong and unfair and destructive to the economy that the income tax is so disproportionately hurting people who are actually able to re-invest into the economy, because clearly they are not using most of their income to buy stuff for themselves.
Steve Jobs spent less than 4% of his entire fortune in his life, this means 96% was re-invested into the economy, which is exactly what we need people to do.
Thinking that having people with money give that money to government makes economy better is illiterate, but also it's basically based on class envy and unfair redistribution of wealth via the force of gov't.
I urge everybody who is in higher tax brackets to move their investment capital and the jobs elsewhere, where it's not as obviously rigged by the system against the minority.
If we were to get rid of income tax, where would government reveue come from to fund the public works and such things it does currently do?
- gov't shouldn't be doing much of anything. Before 1913 it was barely detectable that there was a federal government and that was exactly the time (after the Civil war, but mostly 19 century to the WWI) when the US economy did so much that USA became basically world's super power, biggest creditor nation.
What was USA before 19th century? An afterthought to the European nations. 19th century put USA on the map as an innovator and a super economy for a reason, and that reason was mostly absent government regulations and taxes and no inflation (except the Continental, but hey, they used to say: not worth a Continental. Soon they'll be saying: not worth a Federal.)
US federal gov't was able to run on legal taxes: excise, import. 50% of taxes were derived from alcohol sales. Governments are doing too much and during crisis they should be doing even less, because they created the crisis and by doing more they turn crisis into catastrophes.
As to you not caring about income taxes - most likely you don't pay any, or you pay very little, and just like the case is with the government workers, majority of people in USA are not paying income taxes (50% pay only 3% of all income taxes, those are bottom earners), so to them income taxes are a direct subsidy from the top earners, so obviously they want the taxes to go up on top earners, because bottom earners don't pay them anyway!
So it's a direct subsidy, a direct wealth transfer and it is part of the problem with the economy, as those, who are paying these taxes are getting hurt and move their savings and investments and work somewhere else.
Government workers do not add any value into the system, whatever they are doing, they are spending value that was added to it by people who actually produced something that market in fact was willing to spend real savings on (or real investment).
Government workers can only spend what they have taken away, and they are spending it not within normal market, they are insensitive to market signals on everything that deals with prices, thus they cannot by definition argue that they are adding value, they are always subtracting it, they are not market participants.
Also: profit is something that is made on investment, not on straight out work, as in: payment for labour is not profit.
Profit is something that is made upon money that is saved and invested, thus individual income cannot be considered profit. Just because a person doesn't spend 100% of what he earns doesn't make that profit, it only makes it savings.
Savings and profit are not the same thing.
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Finally: a government worker is not generating any new income for the government. Again, a government worker can only take money that was already subtracted from somebody's actual market participation activity and spend that money in any way, that doesn't have to do with the market at all.
A government worker does not in fact create ANY money that government DID NOT HAVE ALREADY. Thus this 'income tax' that government worker pays is not a tax on income, it's just an accounting gimmick. The government already had that money, it already took it from somebody. That's not new money that government received from actual productive activity.
I am very serious, I already talked about it at length here and many people didn't understand this simple concept then either - government workers do not pay income taxes.
To understand this you have to ask yourself a question: what is income in the first place? I argue income taxes are illegal and collected illegally, but that's not the point here.
The point is that under the definition of what income taxes are: they are taxes upon revenue or pre-tax profit (and thus you can read my argument about illegality of it, people don't have profit, they exchange their own labour for pay).
But what is the profit that the government is getting from a government worker, who was paid by government just to return part of that money back? There is no new profit there of any kind. That's money that already came from profits of other people, who paid taxes for real - those who actually worked to do something to be paid outside of government. Those who participated in the real economy and created something of value and part of that value was then taken away by the government.
However once the government has that money, it can then play games like pretend that government workers pay income taxes, while in reality they could just as well pay their workers the after so called income tax amount.
The businesses are forced to withhold income taxes from employees (and if this wasn't the case, taxes would have been much lower, if people had to give a wad of cash to government by the year end, they would have revolted long ago).
Government withholds that amount too, and it's on a statement, it makes it look like a gov't worker pays taxes, but gov't worker didn't actually PRODUCE anything that added any value to the original money that the government has collected already!
Of-course they also can use deductions against their so called taxes, but that just means they are getting more pay, nothing else.
Now, when a government worker pays taxes on his OTHER income, something he may have generated from other sources, not government (he sublet his house or he did something else that qualifies as 'income'), THEN YES, he paid actual income taxes.
Otherwise it's an accounting trick.
No question about it.
Of-course this 'article' is also a piece of propaganda designed for intimidation.
In the former USSR the people just assumed that KGB had nearly infinite powers, this way people lived in fear and were easily turned into 'seksots' - secret collaborator or secret agent.
It was done consciously this way, to ensure everybody is constantly assuming that everybody else is a 'seksot' and to make sure people don't trust each other and behave according to what is expected from them. Of-course there were real atrocities committed, and that helped plenty to create the atmosphere of fear.
I don't have reasons to doubt that NSA is working on projects like this, of-course I assume that the totality of the information that is released is bullshit, but there is something there that is real. Of-course they want every word that anybody ever recorded and transmitted to anybody - this is power of-course.
The only correct solution to this is to stop government from doing this any further and to take apart what they have done already, for this everybody who is in power right now must be removed from it (including the SCOTUS, it's crap) and new people must be put there who must be forced to obey the Constitution.
You must understand that once you allow the government to go beyond any of the authorised powers (Article 1, Section 8), you will have nothing protecting you at all from crap like this, but also from much worse.
NDAA with indefinite detentions, extra-judicial killings, destruction of all rights, property rights, business rights, complete control of what you do.
Income taxes are nothing compared to all the other stuff they do, at least for income taxes they amended the Constitution.
When did they amend the Constitution to build this NSA data centre to spy on all people, completely destroying presumption of innocence, abolishing the idea of the illegality of search without warrant, murdering people based on what POTUS wants?
Is the 2nd amendment going to be the last line of defence from total tyranny? I don't know, it may be not enough.
Perpetuum mobile is fiction. Government workers do not actually pay income taxes and judging by your comment you understand that.
More government spending, more invasion of privacy, more unauthorised behaviour, more deficit and debt, more government jobs (paid for with debt of-course), more government contracts, more money printing - inflation.
Less real economic activity, less freedoms, less real value in money.
Only one good thing hopefully will come out of this: fewer people supporting government actions, less desire to have this type of government, getting closer to the point when this becomes completely unbearable (of-course this will only really end when all resources end as government consumes them all).
What's funny is people on this site saying that people consume too many resources, so there needs to be birth control done by government. When they get a reply that people are not a drain on the system, they are a resource that need to be freed from government oppression to solve the problems of resources, so many of /. posters argue against it.
They want government to control every aspect of human life, including artificially controlling birth rates, so that government can get one more leverage point against the people while doing THIS kind of nonsense?
The REAL drain on the system is GOVERNMENT.
You are a minority. The type of bread and circuses that wins is the type that is aimed at the lowest common denominator.
There is no 'moral obligation' by a person who runs a business to anybody around him, there is only obligation not to hurt other people, but this applies to businesses and to individuals equally (well, it should apply equally anyway).
There is no more 'moral obligation' for a person who does business to anybody around him, than there is 'moral obligation' for people around him to buy from him whatever he is selling.