CDR: Voluntary Mandatory Taxes
For all those speaking favorably of the twentieth century trends toward voluntary mandatory (VM) taxes, a la the VM taxes on PCs to support recording moguls, the VM taxes on paper to support writers, the VM taxes on hamburgers to fund heart disease research, consider where ever-increasing taxes take us: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13169.html "Here's something to think about - while queuing up for petrol this afternoon (yes - I confess to being a panic buyer) I worked out that OPEC is charging $30 a barrel and our government is taxing us at slightly over $150 a barrel - ouch!" This is from the U.K., where tax policy is ahead of that of the U.S. Whilst we are (almost) ready to mcveigh the tax collectors and wipe out millions of burrowcrats, the Brits are quite sheeplike in accepting taxes which are several times the price of the underlying commodity. Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, and essentially all other European nations are similarly sheep-like in their acceptance of such taxes. This is where the "voluntary mandatory" taxation trend leads us. Taxes become an instrument of social policy as well as a way to line the pockets of the burrowcrats who go into government service. Frankly, tens of millions need to be liquidated. Thank Baal for unbreakable crypto. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
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"Here's something to think about - while queuing up for petrol this afternoon (yes - I confess to being a panic buyer) I worked out that OPEC is charging $30 a barrel and our government is taxing us at slightly over $150 a barrel - ouch!"
this is true, and similiar pretty much all over europe.
This is from the U.K., where tax policy is ahead of that of the U.S. Whilst we are (almost) ready to mcveigh the tax collectors and wipe out millions of burrowcrats, the Brits are quite sheeplike in accepting taxes which are several times the price of the underlying commodity. Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, and essentially all other European nations are similarly sheep-like in their acceptance of such taxes.
sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. this is an economic puzzle, not a political one. food, clothes, tobacco, gas/petrol and a couple other things have a very unique price structure, in that the demand is pretty much independent of price - you just need so much food or tobacco or gas, no matter what it costs, and you don't have any need for more, no matter how cheap it is. it's therefore been a long-known fact that you can change prices for this stuff at will without any change in demand. the only thing stopping you is the competition. now a tax is valid for everyone, so the last stop gap is out. therefore, gas and tobacco are the two highest-taxed items here in germany, and I'm fairly sure in most of europe. why don't we complain? oh, we do (a little). :) in the end, it doesn't matter much. I don't think europeans pay much more in taxes than US citizen do, it's just distributed differently.
Your message has been rejected and is being returned because it appears to be a reply to an alias that is designed for one-way communication only. You should reply only to the sender of a message sent to one-way aliases. If you wish to complain about abuse of a one-way alias, you should send E-mail to the postmaster of your domain. For example, postmaster@Eng. If your E-mail was addressed to more than one alias protected by this filter then you will get a copy of this message for each protected alias. Thank you for your cooperation and consideration, -- Postmaster P.S. This is an automatically generated message. -----------------Begin Returned Message------------------- Your message has been rejected and is being returned because it appears to be a reply to an alias that is designed for one-way communication only. You should reply only to the sender of a message sent to one-way aliases. If you wish to complain about abuse of a one-way alias, you should send E-mail to the postmaster of your domain. For example, postmaster@Eng. If your E-mail was addressed to more than one alias protected by this filter then you will get a copy of this message for each protected alias. Thank you for your cooperation and consideration, -- Postmaster P.S. This is an automatically generated message. -----------------Begin Returned Message------------------- Your message has been rejected and is being returned because it appears to be a reply to an alias that is designed for one-way communication only. You should reply only to the sender of a message sent to one-way aliases. If you wish to complain about abuse of a one-way alias, you should send E-mail to the postmaster of your domain. For example, postmaster@Eng. If your E-mail was addressed to more than one alias protected by this filter then you will get a copy of this message for each protected alias. Thank you for your cooperation and consideration, -- Postmaster P.S. This is an automatically generated message. -----------------Begin Returned Message------------------- On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Tom Vogt wrote:
sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. this is an economic puzzle, not a political one. food, clothes, tobacco, gas/petrol and a couple other things have a very unique price structure, in that the demand is pretty much independent of price - you just need so much food or tobacco or gas, no matter what it costs, and you don't have any need for more, no matter how cheap it is.
Hmmm. It seems unfair to slap a huge tax on something if there are *laws* in place requiring people to have and use it. I'm thinking specifically of clothes, since you mentioned them. Is clothing particularly heavily taxed? In the presence of laws against public nudity, that would be roughly equivalent to a "head tax"... Since there are no laws requiring people to use gasoline/petrol, taxing it seems more fair to me - it at least presents people with a choice so they can pay up front (for an EV) or during the vehicle's lifetime (for taxes). Or if they are smart and fortune smiles upon them they can arrange their lives so they don't need cars. Bear
Ray Dillinger wrote:
Hmmm. It seems unfair to slap a huge tax on something if there are *laws* in place requiring people to have and use it. I'm thinking specifically of clothes, since you mentioned them. Is clothing particularly heavily taxed?
not that I knew of. I included it for the *economic* argument - there are other horizonal price structure items that are not heavily taxed - food, for example.
Since there are no laws requiring people to use gasoline/petrol, taxing it seems more fair to me - it at least presents people with a choice so they can pay up front (for an EV) or during the vehicle's lifetime (for taxes). Or if they are smart and fortune smiles upon them they can arrange their lives so they don't need cars.
something similiar holds for tobacco. however, fact is that almost nobody reduces is driving or smoking habits if prices go up. there is a short drop in consumption, but as the shock wears off, consumption returns to normal. we're speaking a few days, at most a week or two here.
Tim May wrote:
"Here's something to think about - while queuing up for petrol this afternoon (yes - I confess to being a panic buyer) I worked out that OPEC is charging $30 a barrel and our government is taxing us at slightly over $150 a barrel - ouch!"
this is true, and similiar pretty much all over europe.
This is from the U.K., where tax policy is ahead of that of the U.S. Whilst we are (almost) ready to mcveigh the tax collectors and wipe out millions of burrowcrats, the Brits are quite sheeplike in accepting taxes which are several times the price of the underlying commodity. Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, and essentially all other European nations are similarly sheep-like in their acceptance of such taxes.
sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. this is an economic puzzle, not a political one. food, clothes, tobacco, gas/petrol
Then you neither understand politics, or economics. And no, I don't claim to either, but as near as I can tell there isn't a spits worth of difference between economics and politics.
and a couple other things have a very unique price structure, in that the demand is pretty much independent of price - you just need so much food or tobacco or gas, no matter what it costs, and you don't have any
Food maybe, but tobacco and gas are both things that *can* be done without.
in the end, it doesn't matter much. I don't think europeans pay much more in taxes than US citizen do, it's just distributed differently.
-- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural
petro wrote:
sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. this is an economic puzzle, not a political one. food, clothes, tobacco, gas/petrol
Then you neither understand politics, or economics.
one was part of my study, the other not.
And no, I don't claim to either, but as near as I can tell there isn't a spits worth of difference between economics and politics.
I do believe there is. a market is more difficult to buy than a politician, for one.
Food maybe, but tobacco and gas are both things that *can* be done without.
in theory. in real life, consumption does NOT change a tiny bit with price changes. there's a (largely theoretical) cut-off point, where consumption suddenly drops to or near zero after a certain price, but I'm not aware of any events where this actually happened.
Tom Vogt wrote:
in theory. in real life, consumption does NOT change a tiny bit with price changes. there's a (largely theoretical) cut-off point, where consumption suddenly drops to or near zero after a certain price, but I'm not aware of any events where this actually happened.
Probably the quite near the point where some of the sheeple wake up to the fact that it's a losing situation (i.e. they'll be bankrupt if they continue supporting their tabacco habit), pick up their weapons and steal said tabacco, or grow their own, etc. Not all those who are addicted will give up. Others will of course give it up cold turkey. [However, you can look at petrol products in terms of addiction, especially if it's a necessity in getting to work.] In the US this was of course how the mobs got in power by making and selling alcohol. -- ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\ \|/ :aren't security. A |share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\ <--*-->:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you \/|\/ /|\ :masked killer, but |don't email them, or put them on a web \|/ + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often. --------_sunder_@_sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------
participants (6)
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petro -
postmaster＠engmail2.Eng.Sun.COM -
postmaster＠engmail3.Eng.Sun.COM -
sunder -
Tim May -
Tom Vogt