Produce, Mooch, or Loot

Jesus didn't talk use taxes because he didn't run a government, however he told people to pay their taxes to the government that did exist.

When he returns, according to the Bible, he'll create a tyranny that will make North Norea look like a Randian paradise so I don't think he support freedom.

 

No, just irrelevant if you want to actually understand the concepts involved.

it may depend on whether a work ethic from the Iron Age applies for social reasons not just capital reasons. If the right's version of an Iron Age work ethic of "work or die" applies for social reasons; then even the wealthiest may need a work ethic; otherwise, it just applies for capital reasons and making money work instead of them as Persons, as a working capital substitute. And, why capitalism is wonderful when you have enough capital.

 

Give to Rome what is Rome's, yes I know. But the NT did not require taxes, tithing, as the OT did. Funny how you avoided that distinction.

He will? What chapter is that in?

You dodged the mooch issue. Expected.

 

Irrelevant to who? You? Then ignore the question. It was mine so answer it as I have asked it. If you want to twist my question, start your own thread.

Who are they 'mooching' from? You have a problem with inheritance given freely to someone by another? I also take it that you have no investments? Do you hate organizations like St Jude Children's Hospital for their 'mooching'? Is Christmas a day of mooching also?

 

Revelation. Jesus will establish a tyranny that would make the Il's look like Libertarians.

And again, Jesus didn't have a government, what need would be have of taxes?

 

Then cite the verses that say what you claim.

Again, you used the taxes from the OT incorrectly when you tried to make your prior point.

The 'mooch' question awaits your response.

 

Well, I will let you mull it over then. If you have questions just ask. I know it took me some time to figure it all out, too. If you keep studying the situation, you will eventually 'see the cat' – which is an analogy for that “aha!” moment when you realize that most everything you thought you knew about economics turns out to be wrong.

 

There would be a lot to cite, but here's the gist: Jesus will establish a kingdom where everyone will be forced to worship him and follow all of his decrees. Any who disobey or disagree or refuse to worship him, even only in thought, will be brutally tortured.

Your mooch question is idiotic. Charities are not moochers because they are involved in selfless service. As for inheritance, controlling inheritance is the last line of defense to prevent the establishment of an aristocracy.

 

For me it is not reducible to just a question of economics. There are the practicalities like how would land be valued nationally; what happens in a situation where land has no clear owner; how likely would it be that people would just abandon land and let it escheat to the government (and which government--federal, state or local and would create the dead weight loss allegedly not possible). I have not seen any typical scenarios like if you own an acre of land that is assessed at $10K, make $35K and pay $2600 in fed taxes, are you going to be paying more or less tax under this system than the current one. How would SS benefits be determined if FICA taxes are removed? Those sorts of issues I am thinking about more than obtaining some optimal economic efficiency since, from my perspective, economic efficiency results in unnecessary resource depletion more often than not when it comes to land as it is cheaper to destroy it and move on rather than maintain it.

 

Try citing a little if possible. Or call it a day and say you can't prove your claim.

Your answer is evasive an also idiotic. Did you look up any charities at all and see what they pay their people? So those who inherit are moochers but you aren't for taking interest you earn for doing nothing. Gotcha.

 

Interest is a payment for my continued support.

 

Your ideas won't work in places like Detroit, Flint, Birmingham, Jackson, or Stockton that are over-populated by entitlement seeking moochers and looters that will rarely seek justice for their crimes, or repentance for their lazyness.

 

The thread has 3 choices. IMO the majority of the producers are republican. The majority of the moocher and looters are democrat. You may not like that, but is is pretty close to the truth!

 

It's money for doing nothing i.e.; 'mooching'.

 

Taxes are taxes, forced redistribution is theft by the taker and receiver.

 

It might resonate better with you if you had a property with two houses and the government took part of the land and a house and gave it to someone else. There is no difference. The forced redistribution is the same.

 

The government would just accept whatever rent the potential land users offered to pay.

Then people could use the land for free. The land value tax only comes into play when one person wants to exclude others from the land; the person who pays the tax and receives the privilege of excluding others becomes the landowner.

Again, it is in the governments interest to just accept whatever the market offers for exclusive use of the land, just as landowners do under the current system. If government just accepts what the market offers, how can that cause land to be abandoned?

Not only are there no dead-weight losses associated with land value taxation, but land value taxation actually removes other dead-weight losses from the economy, resulting in negative dead-weight losses. The economy functions better with land value taxation than without it, because land value taxation eliminates speculation on land prices, and housing bubbles.

As a quick guess, I would imagine that 97% of the population would be taxed less then they currently are.

Under land value taxation you can live on low value land for free (country living), but what would you be willing to pay to live on higher value land where public transportation, libraries, schools, public parks, employment opportunities, and well maintained roads exist? Whatever the people of the community are willing to offer in exchange for living in the middle of that public infrastructure and those opportunities, that is what your tax bill would be. If you think your taxes are too high, you can move a little further away from those opportunities and your taxes will go down.

Social Security would be abolished and replaced with the citizens dividend.

“Georgists also advocate for the return of surplus public revenue collected from economic rent back to the people through a basic income or citizen's dividend.” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

This potential problem is addressed in that Open Letter to Mikhail Gorbachev, which I linked to in a previous post.

“With all or nearly all of the rent of land collected publicly, it would be necessary to guard against the possibility that users of land with fully depreciated improvements would abandon their property, leaving the State to demolish the improvements in preparation for the next use of the site. This potential problem can be avoided by requiring every user of land to post a government bond as a "security deposit" that the land will not be abandoned in a run-down condition. Interest on the bond could be applied to the annual rent.” – http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Open_letter_to_Mikhail_Gorbachev_%281990%29

 

One of the big issues is how to define a moocher. According to Mit Romney, most of the working class are moochers.

I would call the working class to be producers, since it's their work which allows production in the first place. You get nothing without workers.

The only moochers are the ones who have the ability to work, and the opportunity, but choose not to.

 

I'm giving money to my back that they turn around and loan out to generate more wealth.

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So God was angry when taxes were used by Kings he put in place to redistribute wealth from the peasants to build palaces?

 

Exactly what trust fund babies and hedge fund folks do. Now what?


Gotta ask Him. Probably. God was angry at many things back in the OT. He's probably angry at skeezy liberal pols who use tax money to buy votes. Whatcha think?

 

And this is where you lose my support. I am paying for my home and its sounds to me like you envision a world in which that home is taxed away from me so that I am forced to live at the whims of some government bureaucrat who could say "You there have an extra bedroom, so we are going to make you pack your crap up and move somewhere else and let someone who could use that bedroom enjoy all the work you put into that house despite your investment."

If you wanted to say tax me at a set rate that is not burdensome or allow people to have exemptions from taxes for owner occupied land up to an acre or two to maintain private land ownership and phase something in over time, then fine. Your proposal however, seems to make us all living in the commons, subject to the whims of other people and the government, and basically turn the country into a communist era society in relation to real property. My answer to that is no. Good fences make good neighbors.

 

That is unfortunate, because you do not have nearly enough land to be harmed by this tax system. It would actually benefit you a great deal.

The land value tax ignores all improvements. So, if you build a fifty story building with hundreds of bedrooms, you will pay no more tax than they guy who owns an empty lot next to you. Land value taxes do not penalize people who build on the land which they own. Are there any empty lots around your home? If so, you won't pay any more tax than those who hold those lots. In fact, your tax liability will be figured off what people are willing to pay to hold those empty lots.

You have not been listening, because I have repeatedly mentioned that all land value tax proposals come with an exemption or equivalent citizens dividend. In the case that the system were set up using the citizens dividend, government would send you a bill for land which you hold, but it would also send you a check, giving you the money with which to pay that bill, so long as you only hold a modest amount of land. If you want to use high value land at the corner of a busy intersection, land that every business man would love to own, then your citizens dividend isn't going to cover the bill, you will have to pay a fair tax for scarce locations like that.

Actually the land value tax already exists, and if you own a home, it is part of your property tax bill. The only thing the system I advocate does is increase the tax on land (which you don't own very much of) while decreasing all of the other taxes you pay. As those other taxes are removed, your wages will rise, consumer prices will fall, and if your home is on a modest amount of land, then even your property tax bill will decrease, because your improvements will no longer be taxed. As far a your situation goes, I can almost guarantee that the only change you would experience by the increasing of the land value tax while removing other taxes, would be that you would build wealth faster and have more security and more free time with your family.

 

Saying that I have not been listening is condescending. I don't believe what you are saying. It is too infomercial sales pitchy and does not comport with reality as I see it. School systems that are funded by existing real estate taxes on land plus improved value are struggling, so I see no feasible way in which a land tax to replace income taxes could make a dent in the federal budget, let alone pay for the federal debts, fund retirements, and have money left over to give every citizen a check. There are only two realistic angles here: either it is a scheme to dismantle the government, or it is a scheme to end private property ownership while corporations absolutely destroy our natural resources because the cost to them to do so would be even less than it already is.

 

Was God angry with our founders who rejected King George's taxes and established our once free country?

Are you claiming that God sanctions your agenda just because you use corrupt government to implement it?

 

So are you saying that I am part of a conspiracy, starting with Adam Smith (the father of capitalism) who only supported land value taxes, the founding fathers (the original constitution of the U.S. specified that all revenues were to come from land value taxes), Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Mark Twain, dozens of economic professors from the top universities (Yale, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, etc.), and eight Nobel laureates, we are all involved in a conspiracy to cripple the government and take away your home. I guess that is one possibility. The other possibility is that you have not yet come to grips with the benefits of land value taxation. Which possibility seems more likely?

Do you realize that under a land value tax, all the oil, coal, gold deposit, magnetic spectrum, geocentric orbit, etc. royalties will go 100% toward reducing taxes on your labor and consumption? You have not wrapped your head around this idea yet … and it is starting to look like you are not even going to try.