To: TobagoJack who wrote (6170 ) 7/22/2001 5:03:19 PM From: Maurice Winn Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 74559 <When the going gets tough, the tough taxes everything. > Very true, but first you have to catch your dinner. It seems to me that cyberspace currencies can just hang out in cyberspace and never touch the ground. So the tough in USA, Hong Kong and Kiwiland can't tax something which lives in the Cook Islands, Bermuda, Cayman Isles, Isle of Man, Russia, Kazakhstan, or perhaps nowhere - simply circulating in cyberspace. Since it's encrypted, how the heck are they going to catch us? For example, say you mentioned to me, "Hey Mq, there's a Chen article about Japan, USA, China, Hong Kong, India etc, funds flow, where the stock markets are going and you'll like it. Email the dude $0.34 and he'll email me a promotion bonus of 4c". So I figure you are a good recommender, pay the dough and get the goods. Sure enough, I like it so you get another little star on your 'Recommender's Rating'. Later, you want a recipe for Kumara fettucine, which I email you for $1.50 [very delicious]. Or, I'm living in Kiwiland, but want to travel to the USA. So I email some money to the Fijian ticket seller, who emails me an authentication number. I go out to the airport, zap my email system into their gizmo, which takes the authentication number and I get on the plane. The air line might have to pay tax on their income, but I won't have to pay tax on mine. Suppose my Bermudan company [Globalstar] made a big profit - it would put the money in my account and I'd be ready to spend in a big way. With so many countries, it's going to be hard to keep them all locked up in the taxing system. The USA or somebody will have to threaten to blow them up if they don't hand over the profits or stop doing it or something. With luck, the thieving criminal governments are going to run out of money because they will run out of people to steal from. Sure, they'll have some taxing methods - they can just tax the house you live in and if you don't pay, kick you out. Mqurice