What? You mean people aren't passively allowing inflation to eat up their savings? Who'd a thunk it?
You mean people aren't passively allowing inflation to eat up their savings? Who'd a thunk it?
Who'd a thunk it Indeed. Tax labor and you get less production and more inflation. Tax consumption reducing the propensity to spend; promote savings and investment to reverse the trend.
"[T]he Equity of Imposition, consisteth rather in the Equality of that which is consumed, than of the riches of the persons that consume the same. For what reason is there, that he which laboureth much, and sparing the fruits of his labor, consumeth little, should be more charged, than he that living idlely, getteth little, and spendeth all he gets; seeing the one hath no more protection from the Common-wealth, than the other? "
--- Thomas Hobbes
"Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. "
"It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess.
They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed - that is, an extension of the revenue."