The introduction of consumption taxes was quite annoying because first they taxed my income. After I had acquired sufficient stash that my income requirement shrank to not much, they shifted to spending taxes, which meant anything I bought was taxed! Get me coming and then get me going. <consumption taxes are far less damaging to a society than penalisation of productive effort
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The main thing is to tax use of and harm to the commons, such as the air, resources, water, spectrum, public spaces [roads, hospitals, airports, water reticulation].
Cutting spending is better than increasing such taxes to cover the absurdly high costs of government.
Yes, there is enough gold to use it as money, at about $10,000 an ounce, but that would set off a ridiculous gold-digging economy, like Easter Islanders digging moais to fill in time until they depleted the resources and society collapsed.
Gold digging is an unnecessary, useless and wasteful activity. But if gold is used as money, of course it becomes a very useful thing to do - much better than inventing cyberspace, anti-cancer drugs etc. The distraction of capital and effort to gold digging would be a great waste. It's not as though we are short of other useful things to do.
Mqurice |
