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Do you believe that as long as you earn your money honestly and break no laws, there should be no limit on the amount of money you make? Or, do you believe as President Obama said, “at some point, you’ve made enough money?”
Do you believe the money you earn from your job or business belongs to you, as well as the property you buy with the money you earn? Or, do you believe the government has the right to your money and property, and someone in Washington should decide how much of it you should keep based on the adage made famous by Karl Marx, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?
All you're doing is framing the question in a way that makes supporters of the government appear to be communists. Who the hell doesn't support the government taxing us and using our money? The question is how much should the government tax and use, and the relative difference between conservatives and liberals on this issue is far smaller than you think.
Just how do you plan to stop it? And if it is stopped, we won't have any more museums, theatres, scholarships, endowments for the arts, etc. The super rich are philanthropic.
I didn't say they cant leave it to society..Thats what they should do.
GnT - You have the basic concept of commerce wrong. The person that grew the peppers created wealth by growing the peppers and transferred some of your wealth in the form of the dollar to himself when he sold you the peppers. Real wealth, as opposed to monetary gain, is not created by the transaction but by the creation of the goods transferred. Farmers create wealth by turning seeds, dirt, water and air into food. Miners create real wealth by digging up rock and making it available to the refiners and manufacturers. The miners, like the farmers, gain money when they sell the wealth they have created. Manufacturers take the food and minerals and by applying skills and labor add create more wealth in the form of finished goods. Manufacturers retain some of that wealth in the form of profit that they distribute to their owners. The owners, unless they are actively working in the factory, do not create any wealth but collect a share of the wealth created by the farmers, miners and manufacturers.
I think you're confused ... as I see nothing here that is dramatically inconsistent with what I said, other than one point which you missed about wealth creation. First, I made no mention of where the "wealth" originated, or who and how it was created. I was discussing existing wealth and the exchange of that wealth between parties, which does not in any way shape or form, create new wealth from the exchange. Be it a "dollar" (and I would caveat that by saying a REAL dollar, and not counterfeit paper from the gangsters that has no tangible value) or green peppers ... both represent existing wealth. I have a dollar of silver, and you have green peppers. We agree to an exchange ... it's an equal exchange, and no ADDITIONAL wealth is created. That was the point and only point I was making. What did you think I was saying?
The point you missed was this ... let's say that each green pepper is worth 25 cents, so my silver dollar is worth four of your green peppers. My silver dollar had to be created just like your green peppers, so both represent existing wealth, and for the sake of discussion, you and I represent the total population of the country. I have 10 silver dollars in total existing wealth in my possession .... and you have 40 peppers. I agree to buy half. So what do you and I end up with? Each of us winds up with 5 Silver dollars and 20 peppers. It was an equal exchange, and neither of us actually increased our individual or collective wealth, nor did our country realize an increase in collective wealth, therefore there was no INCOME to tax. Given that it takes money to run our country, by taxing each of us 25 cents for our transaction, it is no longer an equal exchange, but a net loss. We are individually and collectively LESS wealthy, by 25 cents each or a total of 50 cents. It's only a matter of time that such a system renders both of us broke, and that's because there never was actual INCOME. Just exchange and consumption and taxation.
Bottom line is, the only way to increase wealth of a country or a company is to generate income, which adds more wealth to the existing wealth. The only way you generate income is by selling what you produce to other countries, which brings in new wealth to be added. Otherwise, you are just transferring wealth internally, which is not income, just exchange, and when you tax that exchange, it always results in a net loss of wealth ... except for those collecting the taxes ... who are the ones getting wealthy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW
Now all of this activity is subject to theft, coercion and misappropriation. These wealth creator’s band together to protect themselves by creating a government to keep order and remove force from the system. This, along with the owners, represents the loss of wealth due to the transfer to the unproductive but occasionally necessary overhead.
The rest of your post has some validity.
There is no wealth being created ... only wealth being extracted .... by fraud. If your medium of exchange is counterfeit and worthless, all of your labor and services and production is being stolen by those who are operating the printing presses, counterfeiting all of that worthless paper money. They are getting obscenely wealthy by robbing you, in the form of receiving real value for counterfeit currency. So long as nobody recognizes this is counterfeit money, there is no problem. But whoever is the last one holding that counterfeit money when the counterfeit money is detected, loses. Europe operates under the same fraud, extracting wealth from the people by stealing their labor and services and goods in exchange for worthless counterfeit Euros, which is why they are also going broke.
The truth is, it's the same gangsters counterfeiting all of this money ... the dollar, the Euro, the Pound, the Franc, the yen ..... they operate the presses ... they control the exchange rate ... the interest rates .... everything that defines the value of this worthless paper. And they've been doing it for a very long time ... all along the way, they've converted this counterfeit currency into real wealth by buying up tangible assets in exchange for that worthless paper ... gold, silver, real estate, buildings, factories, equipment .... all of it bought with worthless paper.
And they'll keep printing it and stealing until there is nothing left to steal ... in other words, they'll keep the fraud going until they own everything and we own nothing but piles of worthless paper. This is the key .. and this is why they needed to convince us, a long time ago, that it was much more convenient for us to carry paper money in our pockets, instead of all that bulky, heavy gold and silver.
They found it extremely "convenient" that they were able to sucker us into believing that. And now, we're paying the price for our stupidity.
Just think about every dollar you've ever made or saved ....how much more wealthy would you be if you could multiply that 40 times ... how about 100 times? Think you'd be better off today? Well, everyone that wants a silver dollar today will have to pay about $40 in counterfeit dollars to get ONE, which is 40 times as valuable. Want a $20 Gold Piece? That'll cost you $2,000+, that's 100 times. And it's going to get much worse, as the counterfeit dollar's illusory value continues to decline, until it is equal in value to toilet paper, which will be more useful, since it is much softer.
Last edited by GuyNTexas; 10-04-2012 at 03:56 PM..
Who the hell doesn't support the government taxing us and using our money? The question is how much should the government tax and use, and the relative difference between conservatives and liberals on this issue is far smaller than you think.
aha!. I was waiting to see if someone understood this. The difference being, to what degree.
Do you believe that as long as you earn your money honestly and break no laws, there should be no limit on the amount of money you make? Or, do you believe as President Obama said, “at some point, you’ve made enough money?”
Do you believe the money you earn from your job or business belongs to you, as well as the property you buy with the money you earn? Or, do you believe the government has the right to your money and property, and someone in Washington should decide how much of it you should keep based on the adage made famous by Karl Marx, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?
Yes. I also believe it shouldn't be stolen from us in the form of taxes. Taxes is just legalized theft.
Do you believe that as long as you earn your money honestly and break no laws, there should be no limit on the amount of money you make?
How is arguing otherwise?
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