At 6:10 AM +0000 3/30/01, Steve Thompson wrote:
Quoting Tim May (tcmay@got.net):
(Many estimate the tax burden to be in this ballpark, considering that income to non-governmental agencies is taxed at a high rate (usually the max, 50 % combined federal and state), then the income and dividends to employees and shareholders is further taxed at a high rate (30-45%). Tack on property taxes, utility taxes, 8% sales taxes, energy taxes, special use permit taxes, boat taxes, luxury taxes....)
That's quite an impressive haul. How do they do it?
I think I explained pretty well the mechanics of how the taxes are piled on at each stage. If you mean "how do the sheeple let themselves be fleeced?," the answer lies in creeping statism. The boiling frog metaphor. Each special interest group thinks it is "getting something" as the size of government grows.
These united states have allowed themselves to become something far, far worse than what the colonists were revolting against.
A kleptocracy, with a Potemkin facade of freedom.
Well, Tim, it isn't a facacde so much as a prevalent attitude. As far as I can tell, the majority of people play a big game of make-believe. They act as though they are free while voluntarily limiting their behaviour to a very narrow range.
Fortunately, there's enough entertainment out there to keep everyone happy.
"Everyone happy"? Disproved by just a single counterexample, and there are a lot of folks out there unhappy enough with things to <fill in favorite examples here>. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns