"The most dangerous myth is the demagoguery that business can be made to pay a larger share, thus relieving the individual. Politicians preaching this are either deliberately dishonest, or economically illiterate, and either one should scare us. Business doesn't pay taxes, and who better than business to make this message known? Only people pay taxes, and people pay as consumers every tax that is assessed against a business. Begin with the food and fiber raised in the farm, to the ore drilled in a mine, to the oil and gas from out of the ground, whatever it may be—through the processing, through the manufacturing, on out to the retailer's license. If the tax cannot be included in the price of the product, no one along that line can stay in business." —Ronald Reagan
I think that 'myth' is right up there with the one that says a world market is of any benefit to the working class of America. Another 'dictate' of economics, as it stands, is that the value of labor will average out across the labor pool. Our dollars per hour are averaging out with populations working for dollars per day. Is that not the dreaded 'communism'? ...just confined to the working class. Just like it was with the Soviets.
Does anyone really believe America can train or educate all our population to be the Lawyers, Speculators, and Corporate Raiders of the world? We'll all be the 'thinkers', while the rest of the world is the 'doers'? Or should we just go ahead and start building dirt floored thatch huts for our working class peasants so the housing industry will stop failing?
I believe the reason the world is parceled out with imaginary borders is that economic systems work just like ecological systems. Metaphorically, profit makers/users (predators) and labor/resources (prey) will find a mutually beneficial balance or die out. That balance is destroyed by invasion across systems.
Our predators seem to think they can devour their working class and move on to other hunting grounds, avoiding the natural checks and balances that say that when predator gets too greedyit ends up starving.
More directly to the point of President Reagan; has any of you heard of Land Value Taxation? It seems to work on a metropolitan scale. I wonder if it would scale up. Because of greed and imbalance, the current system appears to only be working for a very small minority, and has set the rest against each other.
I always wondered why the Creator would design such a beautiful, perfectly balanced system, and then destroy it with Armageddon. I'm beginning to think He's looking to do more than just run 'them' off the temple steps with a stick this time.
I don't presume to have 'the answers' and welcome discourse about my thoughts. If you're worried about publicly dignifying my ideas and feelings with a response, backChannel, by email is fine with me. I'll try to respond, in kind.
Let me add that I don't consider myself a 'communist'. I do believe community is the next level of stewardShip beyond family. Region, and nation are built on those foundations.
America has already gone to war with itself once over just that issue. No matter what the revisionists say.
