Yuyutsu (continued)

Your hoping governments will retire seems just plain dumb to me. What are you hoping they'd be replaced with?

Taxation is not robbery; it is payment for service. Those who find it unacceptable are free to leave the country.

"Even governments don't recoup the interest they pay to foreign creditors"
Not directly, but like corporations that borrow money, governments can use the money they borrow to make more money. Governments can invest in things that make the private sector more productive, resulting in increased tax revenue without having to increase the tax rate.

I'd like you and anyone else ideologically opposed to taxation to think about this for a while; without taxation what means and incentive would there be for anyone to provide the things that increase productivity?

"Well, if it's in Australian dollars then they recoup it from ordinary Australians through inflation. Eventually, foreigners will learn that Australian money is no good and will stop lending."
Struth, you seem to be channelling Jardine!

The idea that Australian money is no good is utterly absurd, and shows you don't understand the financial system.

Firstly, our dollar can't collapse. Its value is determined by the market. If our dollar falls, exports rise and imports fall, increasing its value. Conversely if it rises, imports rise and exports fall, decreasing its value. Therefore its value is self correcting.

Secondly, inflation is something experienced by all currencies, so nobody could sensibly conclude that Australian money is no good.

Thirdly, hypothetically if there were an expectation that our dollar would keep falling, foreigners wouldn't automatically stop lending; it would depend on the interest rate that was offered. Anyway, if they did stop lending, the RBA could replace their function and our dollar still wouldn't collapse.

And finally, what I have proposed is not particularly inflationary; the inflationary effect of more spending would be counteracted by the deflationary effect of more production.

Yuyutsu (continued)

"If government has this responsibility then it had failed badly"
This much is true.

"and created a non-productive economy where half the employed do nothing useful while the few remaining genuine producers (cars, farmers) lose their jobs."
And that is false. You seem to have failed to noticed that fabrication has become a low value part of the manufacturing process, and car manufacturing is not the high value activity it once was. And while there may be fewer farmers than before, that doesn't mean there's less farming.

Dear Aidan,

Thank you for taking all this time to answer me.

Any connection between myself and Jardine is incidental: Jardine is well-versed in economics and has his strong ideas on how it should run, whereas I represent the simple people who have no interest in that and wonder why we need to know about and be tortured by these economics. Further, Jardine opposes taxation while I think that tax can be a good thing - provided that it is consensual.

As an ordinary person, I have the right to complain: having worked through the 1900's and accumulated that much money that could buy me that many bags of rice and that many pairs of shoes, why is your economy forcing me to buy them immediately? Why can't I wait and have those things when I need them in the 2000's? Now you try to sell me all kinds of electronic gadgets instead which I never needed, which I never asked for - that's cheating!

The scene I described in 'Survivors' did not depict a commodity-based currency - it depicted fraud, the promised millions of barrels were not truly there in that hangar. If instead of my wages in kind I can only get pieces of paper, then I have been cheated. Well yes, you also give me the option of joining the elite club and study economics so I can participate in this manipulation myself and gain at others' demise.

What business of mine is "to ensure there's a demand for the labour"? Either there is authentic demand for labour or there isn't - and if there isn't, then more people can sit at home and enjoy their life, rather than waste their time driving into the city morning and evening, doing useless (and at times even harmful) things there, wasting lots of energy, then returning home tired and grumpy.

Yes, if there's no genuine demand for labour, for products and services that are genuinely needed, then I rather support half the population through tax and/or charity than heat up the economy on useless or even harmful projects.

[continued...]

[...continued]

Your labelling people as 'workforce' is demeaning. Do I need to remind you that slavery is over?

«Jobs that you dismiss as contributing nothing do fulfil a need.»

But those "needs" are often artificial, born from government regulations and its bias and pressure to get more people working so that it can raise more tax. There are many examples: one example of bias is the tax-deductibility of advertising expenses, encouraging big businesses to brainwash people with propaganda to buy things they do not need.

As for truly worthwhile things, I believe that people are essentially good and with the reduction of economic pressures to obtain any job whatsoever just to pay the bills, with the security offered by a universal income (tax/charity based), people would naturally volunteer to do those truly-worthwhile things outside economic constraints and formalities.

Regarding the retirement of governments, I hope they be replaced by voluntary organisations.

Taxation need not be robbery, so why do they do it this way? Can't they just ask nicely rather than threaten?! Can't they allow us to pay (even more if necessary) only for things that we find agreeable rather than forcing us to pay for DISSERVICES that we abhor or find immoral?

Why should I want to increase productivity, especially if it pressures the workers and make them suffer? I rather increase happiness!

«and shows you don't understand the financial system.»

Perhaps, but it's a tragedy that one needs to understand it in order to survive - why can't you just keep it simple?!

I am truly worried by "the deflationary effect of more production": is more production really necessary? Weren't we happier before? Do we really need all these extra products and services? Are they indeed of quality, or just more junk?

[continued...]

[...continued]

«You seem to have failed to noticed that fabrication has become a low value part of the manufacturing process, and car manufacturing is not the high value activity it once was»

So are cars less important now? Can more people do without a car? So what you are saying is that value is no longer attached to importance - how come? economy must have artificially distorted it, attaching value to things of no value and less value to things of value.

Farming and cars (and such other simple things) are too essential and cannot be left to depend on external commercial and political influences. How can we allow these, for example, to be suddenly cut off by a stock-market crash in America or by orders from Beijing, perhaps because we "fail" to agree with the oppression of their regime? Rather than be tempted by all things shiny, it is important to keep small farmers independent and stay self-sufficient on the local level.

The true reason for not wanting Moslem immigrants is not merely that their values are different. Sikhs' values are different too, but they make splendid citizens. The reason for not wanting Moslems is that they hate our guts and seek our subjugation along with their own.

Potato-Head Dutton published statistics showing correlation of jihadism with Moslem "culture" in immigrants and their descendants. The appeasement industry howled about his revelations but facts are facts. Islamic hatred was on display when they caused riots in Cronulla by harassing women whose bikinis violated the woman-hating Islamic dress code.

As ttbn said at the outset, they're colonists, not immigrants. We don't need colonists, even when the are from Britain.