[Hemingway's Ghost]

Yes... they’ll have to pay the new national sales tax, but when you factor in the lower prices caused by the disappearance of the embedded taxes you’ll see that the total price paid for consumer goods in terms of real dollars will fall or will remain very nearly the same.

I think this is where this idea falls apart. I just don't think there's any way in hell a company's going to start charging lower prices because their costs are less. I think retail products will still cost the same as they do now, and the companies who produce these retail products will simply pocket extra profits.

Take, for example, a compact disc. CDs cost, retail, pretty much the as they did 15 years ago, even though the cost to produce a CD has declined dramatically.

[Principled]

I think this is where this idea falls apart. I just don't think there's any way in hell a company's going to start charging lower prices because their costs are less. I think retail products will still cost the same as they do now, and the companies who produce these retail products will simply pocket extra profits.

Competition will prevent this. If you don't think competition will force pricecs down and wages up in an amount corresponding to the eliminated costs, then how do you explain today's pricing and wages being competitive?