On Sat, 14 Sep 1996 21:08:58 +0200 (METDST), Asgaard wrote:

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The 70% already _are_ cutting the throats of the other 30%. It's called a 60%+ tax rate. This is the sum of: federal income tax, state income tax,

Most of these taxes are not used for feeding the poor but to support the Nomenclatura of the Bureaucracy and we all want to get rid of that.

Quite true; I'd love to see the government run as a business, where some departments might run out of money 6 months early if they aren't careful. It'd be hard at first, but they'd have to change to survive...

standalone women to make babies to get benefits was very bad. The Chinese system - less benefits the more children you have - is the way to go.

++agree (Orwell also contributed other conventions. . .)

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(The point being that people want more than "basic food and shelter," but are often unwilling to make the commitments and sacrifices in their lives to gain the wherewithal to earn significant salaries.)

This is where we disagree. The real lazy ones are satisfied with a roof over there heads, a microwave oven for cooking pizza, a six-pack and a soap opera. Most people really do want to achieve something more in their lives.

How many of them are willing to go pick grapes for below minimum wage, since they've carefully avoided learning anything remotely useful? We have a ton of illegal immigrants who are quite willing to do so. The market is there, so why aren't they working?

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There is a basic error here, one that I see often. Who says that the "anarcho-capitalists" will freely give away, say, some vast fraction of their profits so as to subsidize the overall society? Any more so than the

Not a vast portion, if the above_basics capitalistic economy blooms. Probably 10% would suffice - what was once paid to the church, the institution that traditionally has supported the ill and poor.

traditionally *raped* the ill and poor. Nothing wrong with true charity, but do you really think all the gold and art that (for instance) the Vatican acquired, much of it during the dark ages, was from giving contributions to the poor? Most of the time, they were the problem: "Give us money to buy absolution or your loved ones will rot in Hell forever!" # Chris Adams <adamsc@io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams@acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell