Posted on 06/02/2013 6:40:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
like i said, the article made no mention of taxation thus my reply... i have no problem with a consumption tax since that way you would get all the black market criminals paying into the system that as of now pay nothing either, get some of that EBT money back as well
False conclusion. Mass production was inevitable. Ford didn't care about destroying independent livelihoods. He simply needed people to build his cars. And obviously not everyone worked in the "dinghy factories." How else would you suggest we could have gone about making cars or other "dinghies"? I would argue mass production and the resultant huge amounts of wealth created allowed for more people to establish their own independent livelihoods.
Muawiyah - surprise, surprise - you have no idea how much I spend or don’t spend.
We'll do it right this time. Trust us.
It is a good thing that these articles are posted on FR so we know this kind of thinking exists, who publishes it, and who the authors are. Know thine enemy. This sounds like a manifesto written by the “Blockupy” nuts in Frankfurt or their brethren in the US.
Seems like a 23% consumption tax immediately makes everything that is used but still in good condition worth another 23%? I think a consumption tax likely increases items being sold on the black market (outside of the system). Yet... I still prefer a consumption tax to what we have now. Maybe not 23% though.
You’re right. We’d all be much wealthier and living happier lives with more consumer goods if everything we bought were made by individual artisans and we didn’t have interchangeable parts and those horrible assembly lines. How foolish of humans to reorder their economic systems and lives for higher productivity and reduced costs.
When the article mentions a rapidly disappearing middle class and people having things taken from them I assume taxation.
And the power they have over me is what?
my taxes haven't gone up so i attribute it to inflation and wage stagnation, many people haven't had a raise since shortly after the boy took office...
23% would really be harsh, let alone after adding state/county/city sales taxes in many places and then add state income taxes and you're talkin real out of pocket money!
‘Well, here’s the tried and true, used in Russia, China, Cambodia, all over Eastern Europe: “Kill or imprison the producers, confiscate their machinery and lands, subvert their institutions of learning.”’
You forgot the part about making the educated and the professionals work in the fields or are simply murdered outright and their property stolen.
Make your own way in this world or quit taking up space on this planet!!!
Make you own wealth or shut up!
Wasn’t the dreaded Hindenberg Omen seen recently?
And the bottom 50%, surprise, surprise, still don’t spend as much as you do.
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Wow, ladyjane must be fabulously wealthy as well as the world’s greatest spendthrift if she spends more that the bottom 50% do.
Also from the original article - "Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most thriving middle class in the history of the world. That was a great thing. But now the middle class is being destroyed and government dependence has surged to an all-time high."
That 'once upon a time' period, the United States recognized personal properties (ownership of wealth), now we have the professional agitator in chief "you didn't build that' leading the mob.
And we are not talking about the >90% peasant class in the past, these are the 50% 'paid idle poor'.
I never said mass production was a bad thing. On the contrary: I said, “Mass production is not a bad thing.”
A rising tide does lift all boats. Indeed, even the poor in this country are quite well-off in an absolute sense.
But tell me, how many of us - now that we have our bare necessities and even many luxuries, now that we’re wealthy compared to the average Chinese or our grandparents or whomever - how many have said “I have enough now” and gone back to living independent lives?
Aren’t we all instead chasing after a moving goal? Once we all became so rich as to afford one of Henry Ford’s Model A automobiles, did we stop there? Did we say, “Thanks for the job, Mr. Ford. And here’s the money to pay for the car. I’ll be heading back to my own independent livelihood now.”? (There’s a reason Huxley chose Ford as the god of his “Brave New World”.)
Sure, everyone is entitled to profit from his work and his ideas; I don’t begrudge anyone the fruit of his labors. But at some point corporatism began manufacturing demand to keep us in the factories in much the same way money-lending does to keep us paying interest. (Ever wonder why the Law of Moses forbade the Jews from charging one another interest? Or what the purpose of Jubilee was?)
We’re sharecroppers. With every harvest that supplies our needs and wants, we enrich the wealthy landowner and ensure the perpetuation of our condition. Yet we defend him and say, “But without him, we would starve!”
Silly serfs we are.
Heh! Ever heard of the “housing bubble”? Wealth transfer on a grand scale, that was.
(It seems some here have never played Monopoly.)
She’s in the 20% at the top ~ gave herself away by her responses. All the people in the lower 50% by definition have less to spend than does she.
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