Posted on 08/25/2003 2:05:47 PM PDT by snopercod
I'd bet you it's because he's a Merchant.
Not either or, neither is what I prefer. Toss the income tax, toss the welfare state. Let capital compete in America again instead of pretending it doesn't have anywhere else to go.
And THEY will sell it to enough of WE to make it stick. ("Look! We're stealing more money from everyone else but YOU!")
I didn't bother reading past this. You don't get it. Trade (human action) isn't a math problem, your efforts to treat it as such reveal a overwhelming misunderstanding of the entire nature of economics (which is the study of human action). You can't measure what products I would have purchased, what industries I would have invested in, etc. when I can't do it because the money has been taken away. Simplistic economic models assuming 'everything else is equal' are absurd and can't be applied to human action, because there is no 'control group'. If you don't take my money in tariffs, what will I do with it? Tell me how you quantitatively measure what I didn't get a chance to do. ALL you can do is see that, barring your taking my money away from me under the guise of making someone else better off by compelling me to buy their product that I don't prefer, I have less wealth than I otherwise would. Your interference drives down my standard of living by raising my costs and funneling my money to bureaucrats.
Look where it got them.
Let me see China and Japan now have the second and third largest economies in the world and China is closing fast on our own. I'd say it got em' plenty. Wouldn't you? Where were these countries 30 years ago? Where was China just 15 years ago? Real comforting trend there Poohbah. Sure, our one way trading relationship with these 2 countries have nothing to do with this. Just keep telling yourself that.
China's merely copying them [Japan].
Yes, I know. They are obviously stupid. ////
Yup. China's economy is fast closing on our own. Why, their independent auditor, Arthur Andersen, said so, so it's got to be true, right?
Good grief. You really believe that centralized economic planning works. Every day on FR, I encounter more doctrinaire Marxists than I ever found in the economics department at my university.
Bottom line: Japan is so deep in a deflationary cycle that can't PAY people to borrow their money (their banks are literally telling you that if you borrow 100 yen today, then you only have to pay back 95 yen tomorrow--but nobody's buying).
China is Enron with a few nukes: their banking industry is fighting WTO transparency rules tooth and nail because then the world sees how much bad paper they're carrying.
When the Awful Truth finally comes out, China's going to go back to the warlord stage of their history for another 100 years or so.
Only because it would make taxation a voluntary act, and thus limit the federal government's size and scope as originally intended. I wouldn't support doing so at these taxation levels (federal government consumes more than 20% of GDP) because it would require tariffs of over 200% (assuming people continued to actually buy 1 trillon dollars worth of imported goods, which at those prices they wouldn't). The scope of imports (roughly 10% of GDP) really isn't very big, but choking off the efficiencies obtained by importing goods and resources that can be produced elsewhere more cheaply would have a negative effect on all industries requiring those goods, and furthermore set back living standards by raising the price of goods. I prefer we keep lowering income taxes and tariffs, and strangle the welfare state instead of expand it (prescription drugs today, will I have to buy old people Segways tomorrow just because they vote for them - screw that, I'll leave and let this place collapse like every other socialist experiment...)
I'll ask you essentially the same question I asked another above. Throwing aside, for the moment, your fear of what THEY are going to do to you, if the switch to a tariff based rather than an income based system of taxation were put to a vote, which way would you vote?
It's like asking if you'd rather have me cut off your hand or your foot. The tariff is paid by the American who buys the good, not the person who sells it. I believe nothing short of repealing the 16th amendment will return america to Constitutional government. The Baby Boomers will bankrupt the welfare state first, imo. They'll just vote us into oblivion. After our Soviet style welfare state meltdown we can try something different. My suggestion is to protect yourself as best you can with that in mind. Everytime you buy something, ask yourself if you need it more than your savings.
I would support a constitutional amendment straight excise tax on all retail purchases across the board, whether the goods or services are foreign or domestic, with the (very low) maximum rate explicitly stated in the amendment.
I do not support income taxes at all.
Neither do I support a tariff applied solely against foreign goods.
IMNHO, a choice between them is a choice between taking a chainsaw to my leg or drinking hemlock. Either one is likely to be fatal; I see no particular advantage in either one.
Indeed. Few have the ability to meld the sanctimonious with pomposity in the exotic way you do. You really are in a class by yourself there. So clever and elegant. LOL.
But I also wonder about the figures you use on percent of the GDP in imports. Can we for long balance a lawyer's bill against the cost of tool machines? The Sunday productions from the NFL against the productions of real manufacturers? Or are we looking at a GDP as nebulous as the dot coms of yesterday?
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