But when you do say it, they come out of woodworks and promise that you'll be teared to shreds.
We need a way to have certificate fingerprints distributed in lists, multiple copies of those with redundancy, because you can't trust a CA. How do we know that other CAs are not having the same problems? How do we know CAs are not in on this stuff?
How do we know anything if we allow secrets rather than openness in this matters?
As always the same question is brought up and it cannot be answered without answering the most important question: are people more important or is it the government?
I sure hope everybody is an self centered asshole. Self centered assholes are easy to understand and when they are doing something you know they are doing it for their own profit. Self centered assholes, working for their own profit - this the best possible hope for a stable sound wealthy economy.
I want any concerned busy body to go immediately fuck themselves the moment they decide that yet another thing needs to be done for the 'public good'. There is no such thing as public good, what you think is good for everybody always ends up being good for nobody, but more precisely it ends up being good for very few who profit from that 'public good' and everybody else loses even more liberties.
Socialism is cancer and it needs to be eradicated.
That's completely false. USA had a much better system prior to 1965 with very cheap health care (most costs were out of pocket, a Dr. visit maybe under $5) and extremely cheap insurance ($2/month/person).
Single payer system is inefficient and at some point ends up bankrupt.
Hey, idiot, would you say that a family member using the pool of cash that is earned by all family members must pay income taxes on that money if he/she buys something for himself/herself?
Aren't you an idiot for calling the other guy a moron while being completely wrong on all points yourself and him being completely correct?
If you'd like to understand a bit about this "militant selfishness" I can explain it. If you want to know, read further, otherwise stop reading, it may offend you (and others, it's a warning.)
--
I find that the roots of the increase in this specific militant selfishness as a natural response to the societal pressure to sacrifice oneself as an individual for the "good of the collective" - a political idea that has reared its head in the last 100-150 years, with the rise of various political movements to that effect. Anything that is so called "progressive" or "pro-labor" or has anything to do with an "ism" of a social kind, be it communism, socialism, Marxism has created an unintended consequence - it produced a more violent response in individuals who do not buy into this herd mentality that the collective stands above the individual. Libertarian, minarchist, anarchist, anarcho-capitalist and other such views I think were re-enforced in people who were prone to be more individualistic than those, who apparently became the majority - the collectivized herd that supports progressivism. Political polarization of society (especially seen in USA today) can be attributed to these two sides basically separating further and further. I think eventually these two sides will no longer be able to coexist peacefully and will have to be physically separated somehow, but that may be far fetched.
The rise and fall of socialist/communist/fascist states in 20th century is one clear indicator that it is very difficult to live in peace with such radical progressive movement forming around. Some will say that socialism/communism and fascism are completely unlike one another, but they are very much exactly like one another when it comes to viewing how the state must be the ultimate decider of what individuals are allowed and not allowed to do.
Communism is supposed to bend the individual to the desires of the collective, so everything is owned communally, the work is supposed to be done to the maximum ability of an individual and the fruits of labor are supposed to be shared. This is of-course insanity, because there is no incentive to do any work in such environment and instead there is huge incentive to try and become the leader of the herd, so monetary profit is replaced with profit of being on the top of gov't ladder (having a complete egalitarian society and government structure is more of a pipe dream than any junkie could possibly imagine on a wildest trip). Of-course no political or economic dissent is tolerated.
Fascism allows private interests to run businesses but it then controls the profits by requiring enormous amount of gains to be paid to the state in taxes. The labor movement is modified to be completely pro-government, again no dissent is tolerated. Companies are supposedly controlled privately, but a huge part of control is required to be in the hands of the pro-government labor unions. The order is more hierarchical on the face value than the communist structure admits to have.
Socialism is a mixed system, with private and public systems mixed, some form of safety net is set, government exerts large amount of power over the individuals and businesses. The political structure is less rigid in that some nominal competition is allowed (but nothing that really challenges the socialist status quo). Of-course eventually the safety net creates a class of people who thrive doing nothing but only feeding off the system, and the system must then either overtax people or over-borrow or over-inflate (or all three).
In all of these systems, the anti-socialist response of individuals who do not conform is heightened and eventually they develop something of an allergy to anything that requires them to conform to any amount of collectivism, any form of herd behavior really puts them into hyper-drive in terms of anger. This, I believe, can produce such violent outcomes as was observed with the latest terrorist act in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik.
- not only that. It was not just a waste of time and money, the new deal is what allowed the depression to last for more than a decade. If government took the page out of 1921 book on depression, it would have cut spending dramatically instead of increasing it and would have allowed the recession to take course and restructure the bad debt and bad investments, would have eliminated the wrong businesses and would have allowed credit and other investments to be freed to be used for more useful purposes, re-creating businesses to build products that market needed.
In my humble foreign opinion it's what made you ready to reap the spoils of victory
- this is wrong reading of history and economics, which of-course dominates today simply because this is the reading that is convenient for the government, that wants to spend and wants to hear nothing of stopping that.
which made you the nr 1 economic power.
- USA became #1 economic power in 19 century, when it invested into manufacturing capacity, had no regulations and no income taxes or any other types of taxes that punished work. It didn't have any labor regulations, etc. This allowed USA to became the dominant manufacturer/exporter of high quality cheap consumer goods and it invited talent, that could produce without any government hindrance. People came to USA for liberties, not for any specific government regulation or handouts.
Once WWII ended, 1947 became the year that US saw a huge rise in productivity, which followed huge decline in government spending. The reason USA was able to come out of depression was the end of war and end of government spending and of-course for a while it was very useful that all competition had massive infrastructure problems after war and US dollar became the "reserve currency", which allowed USA to export inflation to the world once gold dollar was defaulted upon by Nixon in 1971.
If they are going to have launching capabilities, who is going to stop them?
In fact they shouldn't listen to anybody, they should just go ahead and do this. They need to do it if they can do it. US blew up a couple of nuclear bombs on this planet before anybody else, and some people thought that this could ignite the atmosphere actually and destroy the planet and they still did it, didn't ask anybody.
If you can do something do it. Nobody has the right to stop you if you can do it and you can protect yourself from others trying to stop you. As long as you have enough power to protect yourself from anybody attacking you for doing something you that you can and they don't want you to do it, you are OK and you must do what you want.
Yes, income tax did exist temporarily and it was repealed.
In 1913 though it was created at the same time with the Federal reserve, which made it possible to grow the government beyond its intended scope. As to the 16 amendment, that's what I meant earlier in this thread that I do not trust that government can run the justice system effectively and without corruption either. Obviously 18 amendment also existed in the Constitution. It was a mistake, just like the 16th.
except borrow money, invest in building shared infrastructure
- this is beyond federal government authority, which is only there to protect liberties, which is the role of government (used to be.)
By the way, I did leave a lengthy comment on this, it's not worth cutting pasting if I can just reference it.
and then levy taxes on the users of that infrastructure
- but that's not true at all. It's not just the users who are paying for this, otherwise it would have been not a tax, but a user fee.
return any excess to the public purse.
- right.
private companies which borrow money, invest in building shared infrastructure
- of-course it is different because the risk is to the investors, not to all tax payers. If this thing does not work out why should the risk be socialized?
levy intellectual property rent fees on the users of that infrastructure,
- I don't know about 'intellectual property rent fees' on infrastructure, but I am against all government interference in business, which means no government issued patents or any corporate protection whatsoever. What the hell is "intellectual property" if it's not protected by government for the sake of a monopoly?
return a sizeable profit to a bunch of speculators
- we are all supposed to be investors into our future. When you say "speculators", well, some people invest for the long term and some invest for shorter term, but their risk is higher. As long as government stays out of bailing them out, it is purely a localized problem of those particular people. As long as government stays out of creating moral hazard, there cannot be such a monstrosity created by the free market that is "too big to fail". This concept doesn't exist except in government halls.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
- correct, the function of government to protect liberties must be funded.
As you read this, you should also realize that none of it was meant to collect income taxes. Indeed income taxes didn't exist prior to 1913. It is not a coincidence that the Federal reserve didn't exist prior to 1913 either.
1. Income taxes were never meant to be collected, but gov't functions were to be funded by excise and sales taxes and tariffs, which they were. 2. Read amendments 4 and 5. Income taxes violate those. 3. Coinage act is violated by the Federal reserve counterfeiting operation.
General Welfare means social programs, they aren't theft, and the US began taxation programs during the Washington administration.
- absolutely not. General welfare is not about any social programs, it is about fairness of trade between separate states and maximization of liberties.
As for the statement that no one paid income tax in the 1950s, that is just ridiculous, there were accountants, there were ledgers and people went to prison for tax evasion.
- read what I said. I said people did not pay those high taxes but people did pay some taxes while effective taxes never went over 18%.
This means that people minimized their payments by not paying themselves the salaries, they used corporation as a vehicle to write off their expenses and it was easy. You could write off anything at the time and there was no real way to monitor transactions anyway. That's a big ruse that anybody in their right mind and sound judgment would not avoid paying 95 cents on the dollar to the government.
If welfare is evil, does the US military-industrial complex strike you as evil? Lockheed Martin for example makes the vast majority of it's income from US government contracts, as does Northrop Grumman, General Dynamic Land Systems, TRW and many others.
- obviously.
Didn't I say something about government subsidies that must be abolished? All government income taxes, all government spending that goes beyond protecting personal liberties must be stopped. This means end to all business regulations, shutting down every department except for justice (and I don't even believe they can do that right, not for the last 100 years at least) and military (same problem).
Why does USA have 900 military bases in 135 countries around the world? Why is USA in 5 or 6 undeclared wars right now? Aren't those all good questions?
You call people thieves and hacks, but then tell others THEY won't be polite?
- I am not talking about being polite, I am talking about ad-hominem attacks.
Government spend has ALWAYS created jobs. It is the only way ever to get us out of any recession.
- nonsense. Government spending cannot create jobs that are needed to get out of any recession ever.
Government spending can create WORK, but it cannot create meaningful productive jobs. Work means you are getting a paycheck for doing something, whatever it is (like building roads), but it does not help to get out of recession at all, because the products that you consume with your paycheck are not being exchanged for with real money (actual production based money), but it is only exchanged either for counterfeit money or for money that is borrowed (deferred taxes.)
Government can make you work, no doubt about it. It can give you a paycheck, but it can never do anything to recover from any recession by creating this sort of work. The only work that is meaningful and the kind of work that increases wealth and gets economies out of recessions/depressions are jobs that are produced by the private sector as a response to a clear or a perceived need, that others are willing to exchange their work for.
There is nothing that government can do to stop the 53Billion/month trading deficit with any of government jobs. There is literally no type of job that a government system can produce that corresponds to a market need. YES, it is possible for a government to spend money, any amount of money in fact on any one specific thing. But any product that government could even ever bother to produce would always lose to products produced in competitive markets in terms of cost of production, final price and in quality as well. That's because government does not need to produce anything that market needs because there is no profit motive.
The primary mover for increased efficiencies and productivity (investment and lowering of the costs) and increased quality (competition with other market players) is the profit motive.
That's why governments are "great" at creating work building roads but it can never make an iPad.
Of-course it is theft. Private property is private property, so he makes his money and decides to leave it to his family, and then gov't comes alone (in a supposedly pro-capitalist pro-liberty pro-rights pro-private property pro-law) society (of-course it's not any of that) and forces sales of the holdings, this would include sales of stock, this would mean a fire sale, Buffet will be more than happy to participate, which is his business, to buy companies during such death tax sales.
If the money is just burned in a big bonfire no taxes can be collected but if the family gets it, it must be taxed (and business must be eliminated in many cases to do it too.)
Also if you don't like my comment, you don't have to comment on it, do you? Since we are "Looking Back At the Career of Steve Jobs", and since the thread I am replying to is in fact about some weird deal on how his money will be spent after he is gone, I think my comment is totally appropriate, it is part of a general debate on such matters.
You didn't take my answer seriously I suppose, because I understand political progressivism, specifically where it concerns economics, and I see it literally as theft. What does it have to do with American History of the 20th century classes? My conclusion is based on understanding this movement, not on any kind of misunderstanding.
Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR and LBJ are noted Progressives.
- precisely. Thieves and political hacks.
I believe that the Estate Tax system, even if the Bush cuts are repealed, will not lead to all of an estate's wealth going to the government, at the same time with an Estate Tax, it does not create a noble class of ultra wealthy land owners. I don't see government spending and welfare as an evil.
- why do you think it is wrong for me to disagree on these points? I cannot be pro-estate tax or pro-government spending. I see government spending as the actual key problem, which creates the poverty, doesn't remove it.
Poverty, AFAIC, is created by government spending (and regulating/taxing/subsidizing) and wealth is created by the private sector investment. Government is not (or shouldn't be) here to invest. It's here with a specific spending function - protect liberties. That's all that all of the government must be concerned with.
You see, people left other countries and they came to America and they created a system, a government, which recognized that the most important thing in this life for anybody is their personal individual liberties, and that was the single purpose of having a government - having a government to occupy the government void, which must be filled in by something, and if you must have this void filled in, you better fill it in with something that helps you and doesn't hurt you.
At least in USA government's only function is supposed to be protection of liberties and all other rights, and government is supposed to be there to limit your rights, which are not given to you by the government. The rights that you have are intrinsic and you set up the government only with one clear cut purpose - protect those rights and liberties.
I see any form of welfare by government spending as evil, as it is a way to take over people's liberties, and that's not what the government was authorized to do.
The tax rates of WWII era were high, but nobody paid them, because nobody paid themselves those salaries. People wrote every spending off the company and it was easy, there were no computer records. Effective income tax rate in USA never went over 18% anyway.
As to lowest unemployment past WWII, well of-course, government finally stopped spending after the war was over and it allowed the depression to stop and since 1947 there was growth helped by USA's virtual monopoly on labor (on production, because USA had intact infrastructure and others didn't).
There will be many comments here, that will be personal in nature, I will not bother responding. So if you keep it civil I will, but again, I obviously see any type of 'progressive' attitude towards economics as theft.
The correct fix to the money in political speech of-course is to stop government from dictating to the businesses, from counterfeiting fiat, setting interest rates, starting illegal wars, etc. That's the way to get money out of the political process - don't let the government do anything that deals with wealth redistribution and there will be no reason to give money to government if you just want your specific business agenda to be subsidized and competition destroyed.
As long as government regulates/taxes/subsidizes business, basically controls outcomes in business, some of that business will be government.
- so because you think it is "progressive", somehow this implies it's not theft? AFAIC "progressive" literally means theft.
There is another huge problem with this type of tax of-course - to be paid, holdings must be liquidated. So in case of Jobs this would literally mean that his shares would have to be sold off, it's a forced sell off, the prices would go down by a large amount, and I imagine that the biggest proponent of wealth tax - Buffet, would come in and feast on this sale. It's his business after all, to buy businesses sold on fire sales due to inheritance tax.
Should a man not be able to leave the money he made over the course of his life to his family? If you believe that, then you obviously are not on the same frequency as I am, because I believe in private property. Of-course this is none of my business, what Jobs does, but the principle of the thing matters.
Do you also believe that money would be better spent by government, rather than by private business? That is just sick, and I gave my answer to a similar question here.
I don't understand, what would you rather do? You are talking about actual investment capital, that is made from work of an individual, this is definitely the most moral way of saving money - working for it, as opposed to how gov't creates it - printing/borrowing (inflating and stealing from you now or borrowing - forcing deferred taxes upon those, who will pay them in the future for the spending done now.)
What do you mean "no moral advantage to more business"?
I can actually turn this right around and say that it is the most moral thing that can be done - investment into more business. Do you know what investment (deferred consumption) got for people? Everything you have and you use in your life is done from one form of investment or another. All products and services that market demands and market wants to buy and to pay for (when I say market, I mean individuals, who also have to work to exchange their work for yours), all of those products and services need to be produced.
The more competition there is in every sector the better. Would Steve Jobs benefit from less government involvement into health care and insurance in terms of regulations, taxes and subsidies? Of-course he would. Who can say what the state of medical advancements would have been by now if it was not for government regulations that destroy competition? Maybe his (and other people's) problem could be actually fixed for real if government was not allowed to interfere with the medical field. Government interference with the electronics and other technology fields is less than with medical, and look what happened in 40 years with computers. Computers are more powerful than ever and cheaper than ever.
Same applies to all technologies, as technology improves, it frees up more of the human time and reduces costs as well as it creates better, quicker, safer ways of delivering whatever the need is, so in case of cancers for example, it is possible to fight many cancers without surgery, with just certain types of drugs, which is a clear advancement in everything - from technology itself, to the difficulty of recovery, to amount of work that needs to be done, etc.
Without government interference and with more private investment that is the outcome - more competition, more choice, better choices, lower prices.
So I don't know what you would do with money, but the best way to spend money is to generate more business opportunities via investment AFAIC, I think it actually is the most moral thing that can be done. You cannot raise standard of living with hand outs, but if you create a business and a product, you do in fact increase standard of living for many.
The best thing he could do with the money (if he is not going to leave it to his heirs, and BTW, inheritance tax is real theft) is "donate" it to somebody who already has a lot of money and is running a successful company or to set up an investment fund to have the money invested into various start up businesses.
OTOH he could just burn it, wouldn't have to pay any inheritance tax at all and it would be something different for a change.
TCP/IP? It didn't have to be TCP/IP, you do realize that computer networks existed before the time of TCP/IP and they evolve. All of the things that gov't spends money on, is the money that cannot be spent by private sector (credit being crowded out, inflation, taxes), so you are promoting theft of money by gov't to build things that are either redundant or would have been handled privately in a similar way, or are you saying TCP/IP and packet switching in general is unattainable for any entity outside of government? They certainly managed to build all sorts of things outside of gov't, so I don't see your point.
Well, my business is not in USA for reasons of inflation, regulation and taxation, which means the jobs are not in USA, the capital is not in USA the taxes are not paid in USA and the wealth is not produced in USA, the goods produced are not helping the USA with its trade deficit and debt. If you think your approach is correct - go ahead, destroy your own economy.
Of-course USA is bankrupt. The GDP is fake, especially because what they use as deflater (CPI) is fake. Inflation is between 10 and 13%, the GDP has been steadily falling by 10% a year since 2003 easy. 70% of GDP is consumption, not production, and it's consumption of goods produced elsewhere. The trade deficit is over 53Billion/month. The debt on the books is 14.67 Trillion. The off the books debt (including all of the purchases of the bad debt from Freddie/Fannie, banks, GM and all other bail outs, including various pension obligations in states and municipal gov'ts) is over 100 Trillion. The spending is growing, not shrinking, but it does not matter anymore, the level of debt in USA has gone over what historically is the plank, above which the debts cannot be returned. USA cannot return the debt, so it will default on it one way or another, and USA is choosing to default via inflation - currency destruction. What honest person wants to be in the market of a country that destroys its own currency? Well, if you are connected to the gov't racket, then you can become a billionaire, otherwise you'll lose everything just to inflation. Of-course the US is unproductive, as only about 7% of the production is manufacturing. 40% of industry is financial, almost 10% is gov't sector, 50 million people are on SS (some of them are also working of-course), but unemployment and underemployment in real numbers is likely over 20%. Why go into this market, which is destroying its currency, chasing the capital investment out of the country, destroying competition with gov't regulations and taxing more than anybody else (that I have to deal with, anyway.) What's the point? To go there just to lose money?
But it's everybody's loss if USA becomes unproductive in such a way, that it destroys its economy and money and stops producing goods that anybody in the world would want. USA would suffer the most of-course, as the people in America won't be able to buy anything anymore, but the world is also losing wealth, because USA was once producer of cheap good quality manufactured goods. But it lost its way of liberty, which is what needs to be restored before it would make sense to start investing there again.
Until than it makes no sense to make any investments in USA, it makes no sense to hold USD denominated assets. For the young people in USA it makes no sense to stay there if this continues, as they will have to pay for all this borrowing (any borrowing is just deferred taxing, so if you don't like paying taxes for your current spending, you borrow, but this means you are just telling the future generations to pay for your spending.) Of-course USA will default. It has no production left to pay back its debts. To pay back the debts, USA has to product, because trade is not about exchanging counterfeit fiat for goods, it's about exchanging goods for goods, and clearly the debt, unemployment and the 53 Billion USD/month trade deficit shows that there are no goods USA can exchange with.
Some believe that the way to fix this is to impose tariffs and more taxes, but that's nonsense. You can't fix the trade deficit by producing more expensive stuff than anybody else - you can't sell it (either domestically or abroad). All you end up doing with that is making everything more expensive and hurting the economy that much more.
Anyway, a good start for USA is to elect Ron Paul, get rid of the inflation tax, income tax, wars, business regulations and subsidies, SS, Medicare, Medicaid and other impossible to pay for things and return liberties to the people so they start saving and producing again.
You are correct, so the future of me either having a business in USA or not (business which is not in USA now) depends on the outcome of US presidential elections AFAIC. Ron Paul wins - I bring my business into USA, anybody else wins - I won't deal with USA most likely, because it will be lost and I'll keep dealing with emerging markets.
Oh, they have no choice. The country is bankrupt, so it's either going to become the next United States of Soviet Republics moving to the next logical step: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or it will return to its roots of personal liberties and freedoms and limited government machine.
See? Not limited personal freedoms and overpowering government, but the opposite of it - limited government and maximum of personal liberties and freedoms.
I think most Americans would rather be free than not.
Slashdot Mirror
You just want the wrong thing, it's a nube thing.
But when you do say it, they come out of woodworks and promise that you'll be teared to shreds.
We need a way to have certificate fingerprints distributed in lists, multiple copies of those with redundancy, because you can't trust a CA. How do we know that other CAs are not having the same problems? How do we know CAs are not in on this stuff?
How do we know anything if we allow secrets rather than openness in this matters?
As always the same question is brought up and it cannot be answered without answering the most important question: are people more important or is it the government?
I sure hope everybody is an self centered asshole. Self centered assholes are easy to understand and when they are doing something you know they are doing it for their own profit. Self centered assholes, working for their own profit - this the best possible hope for a stable sound wealthy economy.
I want any concerned busy body to go immediately fuck themselves the moment they decide that yet another thing needs to be done for the 'public good'. There is no such thing as public good, what you think is good for everybody always ends up being good for nobody, but more precisely it ends up being good for very few who profit from that 'public good' and everybody else loses even more liberties.
Socialism is cancer and it needs to be eradicated.
I have developed even a better computer language, here is the syntax:
this is the output:
it does all that, then it adds $1,000,000 to my bank account and gives me a blow job.
That's completely false. USA had a much better system prior to 1965 with very cheap health care (most costs were out of pocket, a Dr. visit maybe under $5) and extremely cheap insurance ($2/month/person).
Single payer system is inefficient and at some point ends up bankrupt.
Hey, idiot, would you say that a family member using the pool of cash that is earned by all family members must pay income taxes on that money if he/she buys something for himself/herself?
Aren't you an idiot for calling the other guy a moron while being completely wrong on all points yourself and him being completely correct?
If you'd like to understand a bit about this "militant selfishness" I can explain it. If you want to know, read further, otherwise stop reading, it may offend you (and others, it's a warning.)
--
I find that the roots of the increase in this specific militant selfishness as a natural response to the societal pressure to sacrifice oneself as an individual for the "good of the collective" - a political idea that has reared its head in the last 100-150 years, with the rise of various political movements to that effect. Anything that is so called "progressive" or "pro-labor" or has anything to do with an "ism" of a social kind, be it communism, socialism, Marxism has created an unintended consequence - it produced a more violent response in individuals who do not buy into this herd mentality that the collective stands above the individual. Libertarian, minarchist, anarchist, anarcho-capitalist and other such views I think were re-enforced in people who were prone to be more individualistic than those, who apparently became the majority - the collectivized herd that supports progressivism. Political polarization of society (especially seen in USA today) can be attributed to these two sides basically separating further and further. I think eventually these two sides will no longer be able to coexist peacefully and will have to be physically separated somehow, but that may be far fetched.
The rise and fall of socialist/communist/fascist states in 20th century is one clear indicator that it is very difficult to live in peace with such radical progressive movement forming around. Some will say that socialism/communism and fascism are completely unlike one another, but they are very much exactly like one another when it comes to viewing how the state must be the ultimate decider of what individuals are allowed and not allowed to do.
Communism is supposed to bend the individual to the desires of the collective, so everything is owned communally, the work is supposed to be done to the maximum ability of an individual and the fruits of labor are supposed to be shared. This is of-course insanity, because there is no incentive to do any work in such environment and instead there is huge incentive to try and become the leader of the herd, so monetary profit is replaced with profit of being on the top of gov't ladder (having a complete egalitarian society and government structure is more of a pipe dream than any junkie could possibly imagine on a wildest trip). Of-course no political or economic dissent is tolerated.
Fascism allows private interests to run businesses but it then controls the profits by requiring enormous amount of gains to be paid to the state in taxes. The labor movement is modified to be completely pro-government, again no dissent is tolerated. Companies are supposedly controlled privately, but a huge part of control is required to be in the hands of the pro-government labor unions. The order is more hierarchical on the face value than the communist structure admits to have.
Socialism is a mixed system, with private and public systems mixed, some form of safety net is set, government exerts large amount of power over the individuals and businesses. The political structure is less rigid in that some nominal competition is allowed (but nothing that really challenges the socialist status quo). Of-course eventually the safety net creates a class of people who thrive doing nothing but only feeding off the system, and the system must then either overtax people or over-borrow or over-inflate (or all three).
In all of these systems, the anti-socialist response of individuals who do not conform is heightened and eventually they develop something of an allergy to anything that requires them to conform to any amount of collectivism, any form of herd behavior really puts them into hyper-drive in terms of anger. This, I believe, can produce such violent outcomes as was observed with the latest terrorist act in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik.
I am only not clear on the reas
So the new deal was a waste of time and money ?
- not only that. It was not just a waste of time and money, the new deal is what allowed the depression to last for more than a decade. If government took the page out of 1921 book on depression, it would have cut spending dramatically instead of increasing it and would have allowed the recession to take course and restructure the bad debt and bad investments, would have eliminated the wrong businesses and would have allowed credit and other investments to be freed to be used for more useful purposes, re-creating businesses to build products that market needed.
In my humble foreign opinion it's what made you ready to reap the spoils of victory
- this is wrong reading of history and economics, which of-course dominates today simply because this is the reading that is convenient for the government, that wants to spend and wants to hear nothing of stopping that.
which made you the nr 1 economic power.
- USA became #1 economic power in 19 century, when it invested into manufacturing capacity, had no regulations and no income taxes or any other types of taxes that punished work. It didn't have any labor regulations, etc. This allowed USA to became the dominant manufacturer/exporter of high quality cheap consumer goods and it invited talent, that could produce without any government hindrance. People came to USA for liberties, not for any specific government regulation or handouts.
Once WWII ended, 1947 became the year that US saw a huge rise in productivity, which followed huge decline in government spending. The reason USA was able to come out of depression was the end of war and end of government spending and of-course for a while it was very useful that all competition had massive infrastructure problems after war and US dollar became the "reserve currency", which allowed USA to export inflation to the world once gold dollar was defaulted upon by Nixon in 1971.
If they are going to have launching capabilities, who is going to stop them?
In fact they shouldn't listen to anybody, they should just go ahead and do this. They need to do it if they can do it. US blew up a couple of nuclear bombs on this planet before anybody else, and some people thought that this could ignite the atmosphere actually and destroy the planet and they still did it, didn't ask anybody.
If you can do something do it. Nobody has the right to stop you if you can do it and you can protect yourself from others trying to stop you. As long as you have enough power to protect yourself from anybody attacking you for doing something you that you can and they don't want you to do it, you are OK and you must do what you want.
Yes, income tax did exist temporarily and it was repealed.
In 1913 though it was created at the same time with the Federal reserve, which made it possible to grow the government beyond its intended scope. As to the 16 amendment, that's what I meant earlier in this thread that I do not trust that government can run the justice system effectively and without corruption either. Obviously 18 amendment also existed in the Constitution. It was a mistake, just like the 16th.
except borrow money, invest in building shared infrastructure
- this is beyond federal government authority, which is only there to protect liberties, which is the role of government (used to be.)
By the way, I did leave a lengthy comment on this, it's not worth cutting pasting if I can just reference it.
and then levy taxes on the users of that infrastructure
- but that's not true at all. It's not just the users who are paying for this, otherwise it would have been not a tax, but a user fee.
return any excess to the public purse.
- right.
private companies which borrow money, invest in building shared infrastructure
- of-course it is different because the risk is to the investors, not to all tax payers. If this thing does not work out why should the risk be socialized?
levy intellectual property rent fees on the users of that infrastructure,
- I don't know about 'intellectual property rent fees' on infrastructure, but I am against all government interference in business, which means no government issued patents or any corporate protection whatsoever. What the hell is "intellectual property" if it's not protected by government for the sake of a monopoly?
return a sizeable profit to a bunch of speculators
- we are all supposed to be investors into our future. When you say "speculators", well, some people invest for the long term and some invest for shorter term, but their risk is higher. As long as government stays out of bailing them out, it is purely a localized problem of those particular people. As long as government stays out of creating moral hazard, there cannot be such a monstrosity created by the free market that is "too big to fail". This concept doesn't exist except in government halls.
Have you read the United States Constitution?
- for some weird reason I read it many times.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
- correct, the function of government to protect liberties must be funded.
As you read this, you should also realize that none of it was meant to collect income taxes. Indeed income taxes didn't exist prior to 1913. It is not a coincidence that the Federal reserve didn't exist prior to 1913 either.
1. Income taxes were never meant to be collected, but gov't functions were to be funded by excise and sales taxes and tariffs, which they were.
2. Read amendments 4 and 5. Income taxes violate those.
3. Coinage act is violated by the Federal reserve counterfeiting operation.
General Welfare means social programs, they aren't theft, and the US began taxation programs during the Washington administration.
- absolutely not. General welfare is not about any social programs, it is about fairness of trade between separate states and maximization of liberties.
As for the statement that no one paid income tax in the 1950s, that is just ridiculous, there were accountants, there were ledgers and people went to prison for tax evasion.
- read what I said. I said people did not pay those high taxes but people did pay some taxes while effective taxes never went over 18%.
This means that people minimized their payments by not paying themselves the salaries, they used corporation as a vehicle to write off their expenses and it was easy. You could write off anything at the time and there was no real way to monitor transactions anyway. That's a big ruse that anybody in their right mind and sound judgment would not avoid paying 95 cents on the dollar to the government.
If welfare is evil, does the US military-industrial complex strike you as evil? Lockheed Martin for example makes the vast majority of it's income from US government contracts, as does Northrop Grumman, General Dynamic Land Systems, TRW and many others.
- obviously.
Didn't I say something about government subsidies that must be abolished? All government income taxes, all government spending that goes beyond protecting personal liberties must be stopped. This means end to all business regulations, shutting down every department except for justice (and I don't even believe they can do that right, not for the last 100 years at least) and military (same problem).
Why does USA have 900 military bases in 135 countries around the world? Why is USA in 5 or 6 undeclared wars right now? Aren't those all good questions?
You call people thieves and hacks, but then tell others THEY won't be polite?
- I am not talking about being polite, I am talking about ad-hominem attacks.
Government spend has ALWAYS created jobs. It is the only way ever to get us out of any recession.
- nonsense. Government spending cannot create jobs that are needed to get out of any recession ever.
Government spending can create WORK, but it cannot create meaningful productive jobs. Work means you are getting a paycheck for doing something, whatever it is (like building roads), but it does not help to get out of recession at all, because the products that you consume with your paycheck are not being exchanged for with real money (actual production based money), but it is only exchanged either for counterfeit money or for money that is borrowed (deferred taxes.)
Government can make you work, no doubt about it. It can give you a paycheck, but it can never do anything to recover from any recession by creating this sort of work. The only work that is meaningful and the kind of work that increases wealth and gets economies out of recessions/depressions are jobs that are produced by the private sector as a response to a clear or a perceived need, that others are willing to exchange their work for.
There is nothing that government can do to stop the 53Billion/month trading deficit with any of government jobs. There is literally no type of job that a government system can produce that corresponds to a market need. YES, it is possible for a government to spend money, any amount of money in fact on any one specific thing. But any product that government could even ever bother to produce would always lose to products produced in competitive markets in terms of cost of production, final price and in quality as well. That's because government does not need to produce anything that market needs because there is no profit motive.
The primary mover for increased efficiencies and productivity (investment and lowering of the costs) and increased quality (competition with other market players) is the profit motive.
That's why governments are "great" at creating work building roads but it can never make an iPad.
this is factually wrong.. and stupid.
- no, your uninformed opinion is wrong.
Of-course it is theft. Private property is private property, so he makes his money and decides to leave it to his family, and then gov't comes alone (in a supposedly pro-capitalist pro-liberty pro-rights pro-private property pro-law) society (of-course it's not any of that) and forces sales of the holdings, this would include sales of stock, this would mean a fire sale, Buffet will be more than happy to participate, which is his business, to buy companies during such death tax sales.
If the money is just burned in a big bonfire no taxes can be collected but if the family gets it, it must be taxed (and business must be eliminated in many cases to do it too.)
Also if you don't like my comment, you don't have to comment on it, do you? Since we are "Looking Back At the Career of Steve Jobs", and since the thread I am replying to is in fact about some weird deal on how his money will be spent after he is gone, I think my comment is totally appropriate, it is part of a general debate on such matters.
You didn't take my answer seriously I suppose, because I understand political progressivism, specifically where it concerns economics, and I see it literally as theft. What does it have to do with American History of the 20th century classes? My conclusion is based on understanding this movement, not on any kind of misunderstanding.
Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR and LBJ are noted Progressives.
- precisely. Thieves and political hacks.
I believe that the Estate Tax system, even if the Bush cuts are repealed, will not lead to all of an estate's wealth going to the government, at the same time with an Estate Tax, it does not create a noble class of ultra wealthy land owners. I don't see government spending and welfare as an evil.
- why do you think it is wrong for me to disagree on these points? I cannot be pro-estate tax or pro-government spending. I see government spending as the actual key problem, which creates the poverty, doesn't remove it.
Poverty, AFAIC, is created by government spending (and regulating/taxing/subsidizing) and wealth is created by the private sector investment. Government is not (or shouldn't be) here to invest. It's here with a specific spending function - protect liberties. That's all that all of the government must be concerned with.
You see, people left other countries and they came to America and they created a system, a government, which recognized that the most important thing in this life for anybody is their personal individual liberties, and that was the single purpose of having a government - having a government to occupy the government void, which must be filled in by something, and if you must have this void filled in, you better fill it in with something that helps you and doesn't hurt you.
At least in USA government's only function is supposed to be protection of liberties and all other rights, and government is supposed to be there to limit your rights, which are not given to you by the government. The rights that you have are intrinsic and you set up the government only with one clear cut purpose - protect those rights and liberties.
I see any form of welfare by government spending as evil, as it is a way to take over people's liberties, and that's not what the government was authorized to do.
The tax rates of WWII era were high, but nobody paid them, because nobody paid themselves those salaries. People wrote every spending off the company and it was easy, there were no computer records. Effective income tax rate in USA never went over 18% anyway.
As to lowest unemployment past WWII, well of-course, government finally stopped spending after the war was over and it allowed the depression to stop and since 1947 there was growth helped by USA's virtual monopoly on labor (on production, because USA had intact infrastructure and others didn't).
There will be many comments here, that will be personal in nature, I will not bother responding. So if you keep it civil I will, but again, I obviously see any type of 'progressive' attitude towards economics as theft.
The correct fix to the money in political speech of-course is to stop government from dictating to the businesses, from counterfeiting fiat, setting interest rates, starting illegal wars, etc. That's the way to get money out of the political process - don't let the government do anything that deals with wealth redistribution and there will be no reason to give money to government if you just want your specific business agenda to be subsidized and competition destroyed.
As long as government regulates/taxes/subsidizes business, basically controls outcomes in business, some of that business will be government.
. It is a very progressive tax in t
- so because you think it is "progressive", somehow this implies it's not theft? AFAIC "progressive" literally means theft.
There is another huge problem with this type of tax of-course - to be paid, holdings must be liquidated. So in case of Jobs this would literally mean that his shares would have to be sold off, it's a forced sell off, the prices would go down by a large amount, and I imagine that the biggest proponent of wealth tax - Buffet, would come in and feast on this sale. It's his business after all, to buy businesses sold on fire sales due to inheritance tax.
Should a man not be able to leave the money he made over the course of his life to his family? If you believe that, then you obviously are not on the same frequency as I am, because I believe in private property. Of-course this is none of my business, what Jobs does, but the principle of the thing matters.
Do you also believe that money would be better spent by government, rather than by private business? That is just sick, and I gave my answer to a similar question here.
I don't understand, what would you rather do? You are talking about actual investment capital, that is made from work of an individual, this is definitely the most moral way of saving money - working for it, as opposed to how gov't creates it - printing/borrowing (inflating and stealing from you now or borrowing - forcing deferred taxes upon those, who will pay them in the future for the spending done now.)
What do you mean "no moral advantage to more business"?
I can actually turn this right around and say that it is the most moral thing that can be done - investment into more business. Do you know what investment (deferred consumption) got for people? Everything you have and you use in your life is done from one form of investment or another. All products and services that market demands and market wants to buy and to pay for (when I say market, I mean individuals, who also have to work to exchange their work for yours), all of those products and services need to be produced.
The more competition there is in every sector the better. Would Steve Jobs benefit from less government involvement into health care and insurance in terms of regulations, taxes and subsidies? Of-course he would. Who can say what the state of medical advancements would have been by now if it was not for government regulations that destroy competition? Maybe his (and other people's) problem could be actually fixed for real if government was not allowed to interfere with the medical field. Government interference with the electronics and other technology fields is less than with medical, and look what happened in 40 years with computers. Computers are more powerful than ever and cheaper than ever.
Same applies to all technologies, as technology improves, it frees up more of the human time and reduces costs as well as it creates better, quicker, safer ways of delivering whatever the need is, so in case of cancers for example, it is possible to fight many cancers without surgery, with just certain types of drugs, which is a clear advancement in everything - from technology itself, to the difficulty of recovery, to amount of work that needs to be done, etc.
Without government interference and with more private investment that is the outcome - more competition, more choice, better choices, lower prices.
So I don't know what you would do with money, but the best way to spend money is to generate more business opportunities via investment AFAIC, I think it actually is the most moral thing that can be done. You cannot raise standard of living with hand outs, but if you create a business and a product, you do in fact increase standard of living for many.
The best thing he could do with the money (if he is not going to leave it to his heirs, and BTW, inheritance tax is real theft) is "donate" it to somebody who already has a lot of money and is running a successful company or to set up an investment fund to have the money invested into various start up businesses.
OTOH he could just burn it, wouldn't have to pay any inheritance tax at all and it would be something different for a change.
TCP/IP? It didn't have to be TCP/IP, you do realize that computer networks existed before the time of TCP/IP and they evolve. All of the things that gov't spends money on, is the money that cannot be spent by private sector (credit being crowded out, inflation, taxes), so you are promoting theft of money by gov't to build things that are either redundant or would have been handled privately in a similar way, or are you saying TCP/IP and packet switching in general is unattainable for any entity outside of government? They certainly managed to build all sorts of things outside of gov't, so I don't see your point.
Well, my business is not in USA for reasons of inflation, regulation and taxation, which means the jobs are not in USA, the capital is not in USA the taxes are not paid in USA and the wealth is not produced in USA, the goods produced are not helping the USA with its trade deficit and debt. If you think your approach is correct - go ahead, destroy your own economy.
Of-course USA is bankrupt. The GDP is fake, especially because what they use as deflater (CPI) is fake. Inflation is between 10 and 13%, the GDP has been steadily falling by 10% a year since 2003 easy. 70% of GDP is consumption, not production, and it's consumption of goods produced elsewhere. The trade deficit is over 53Billion/month. The debt on the books is 14.67 Trillion. The off the books debt (including all of the purchases of the bad debt from Freddie/Fannie, banks, GM and all other bail outs, including various pension obligations in states and municipal gov'ts) is over 100 Trillion. The spending is growing, not shrinking, but it does not matter anymore, the level of debt in USA has gone over what historically is the plank, above which the debts cannot be returned. USA cannot return the debt, so it will default on it one way or another, and USA is choosing to default via inflation - currency destruction. What honest person wants to be in the market of a country that destroys its own currency? Well, if you are connected to the gov't racket, then you can become a billionaire, otherwise you'll lose everything just to inflation. Of-course the US is unproductive, as only about 7% of the production is manufacturing. 40% of industry is financial, almost 10% is gov't sector, 50 million people are on SS (some of them are also working of-course), but unemployment and underemployment in real numbers is likely over 20%. Why go into this market, which is destroying its currency, chasing the capital investment out of the country, destroying competition with gov't regulations and taxing more than anybody else (that I have to deal with, anyway.) What's the point? To go there just to lose money?
But it's everybody's loss if USA becomes unproductive in such a way, that it destroys its economy and money and stops producing goods that anybody in the world would want. USA would suffer the most of-course, as the people in America won't be able to buy anything anymore, but the world is also losing wealth, because USA was once producer of cheap good quality manufactured goods. But it lost its way of liberty, which is what needs to be restored before it would make sense to start investing there again.
Until than it makes no sense to make any investments in USA, it makes no sense to hold USD denominated assets. For the young people in USA it makes no sense to stay there if this continues, as they will have to pay for all this borrowing (any borrowing is just deferred taxing, so if you don't like paying taxes for your current spending, you borrow, but this means you are just telling the future generations to pay for your spending.) Of-course USA will default. It has no production left to pay back its debts. To pay back the debts, USA has to product, because trade is not about exchanging counterfeit fiat for goods, it's about exchanging goods for goods, and clearly the debt, unemployment and the 53 Billion USD/month trade deficit shows that there are no goods USA can exchange with.
Some believe that the way to fix this is to impose tariffs and more taxes, but that's nonsense. You can't fix the trade deficit by producing more expensive stuff than anybody else - you can't sell it (either domestically or abroad). All you end up doing with that is making everything more expensive and hurting the economy that much more.
Anyway, a good start for USA is to elect Ron Paul, get rid of the inflation tax, income tax, wars, business regulations and subsidies, SS, Medicare, Medicaid and other impossible to pay for things and return liberties to the people so they start saving and producing again.
You are correct, so the future of me either having a business in USA or not (business which is not in USA now) depends on the outcome of US presidential elections AFAIC. Ron Paul wins - I bring my business into USA, anybody else wins - I won't deal with USA most likely, because it will be lost and I'll keep dealing with emerging markets.
Oh, they have no choice. The country is bankrupt, so it's either going to become the next United States of Soviet Republics moving to the next logical step: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or it will return to its roots of personal liberties and freedoms and limited government machine.
See? Not limited personal freedoms and overpowering government, but the opposite of it - limited government and maximum of personal liberties and freedoms.
I think most Americans would rather be free than not.