Zimbabwe's nothing. This is why I referenced the Weimar Republic in an earlier post.

No Godwinism intended, BTW.

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

You Americans, complaining with a full belly. How about paying a 0,25% tax for every financial transaction [transaction = anything you do with money including cash withdrawal at an ATM]. The tax simply cascades though the whole economic chain, punishing everyone, regardless of their income. How about the same income tax [27,5%] spanning one order of magnitude [I mean If you earn 10,000 and I earn 100,000, we´ll be paying the same percentage].

That´s a reality down here. In face of that, charging tax over a debt that was converted to income seems pretty fair.

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If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you.

You Americans, complaining with a full belly. How about paying a 0,25% tax for every financial transaction [transaction = anything you do with money including cash withdrawal at an ATM]. The tax simply cascades though the whole economic chain, punishing everyone, regardless of their income. How about the same income tax [27,5%] spanning one order of magnitude [I mean If you earn 10,000 and I earn 100,000, we´ll be paying the same percentage].

So, what are you going to do about it? Could you be ready for a little tea party?

The natives are restless, and guns are lustrous.

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If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you.

That doesn't sound much different than a sales tax. In fact, it might be easier to manage.

Speculation here...
So; you earn a dollar... (0.25)
You deposit the dollar... (0.25)
You again withdrawl that dollar at an ATM (0.25)
and now buy something with that dollar (0.25)
That's equal to a 1% sales tax.
We have taxes here ranging in the 5.5-8.5% range depending on county and municipality. So if 1/4 of our income goes to taxable items, we break even. (For me it's probably around 1/10, so I am ahead of you, but, you also have the option of cutting some transactions)

Face it, government finds ways to get the money it wants.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

He shouldn't. The ball should be viewed as an asset acquired with a zero cost basis. Should he ever sell that asset and realize a gain, then hit him with a capital gains tax (maybe even write off the price of tickets to the game as well as hot dogs and beer as the cost basis). He hasn't realized any benefit from the ball yet.

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

...unless the tax also applied to every step of the process of producing whatever is being bought, thus increasing its price...

Exactly my point. If they want it, they get it.

Maybe the question should be how much money does the government get compared to GDP?

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

You have gift tax in the USA???? Does the IRS hang around Christmas Trees and Birthday Parties to enforce it?

Bite your tongue, man. You'll give them ideas. When you have little tin horn local officials shutting down some little kid's lemonade stand because he didn't have the proper license, yada, yada, which happens from time to time, the IRS could well do that.


-Richard

Gift tax is paid by the giver of the gift there is an annual per person (IIRC 12,000 for 2007). So if you had the money you could give each person on BA 12,000 with out having to pay gift tax. If the gifts you give for Christmas and Birthdays are subject to gift tax then I want to be on your Christmas list

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"Ten percent of nothin' is, let me do the math here... nothin' and a nothin', carry the nothin'"

"There are four lights!"

And why not...It's not like they are just skirting a single law.

Child labor.
Minimum wage.
Health violations related to the available safeties and facilities.
OSHA regulations related to proximity to paths of heavy machinery.
Building codes.
Permits.
Registering a business.
And I'm sure there is more...
Scofflaws, all of them.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

That is pretty much the case. The Federal Reserve creates and destroys money at will in and out of thin air. No need to print anything, because the majority of "money" is just bits in computer memory (and we hope those bit patterns are adequately backed up. ) anyway. The ratio of actual physical paper to the sum total of bank accounts is much less than one.

And they pretty much increment and decrement those bit sums at will.

Loaning money has always been creating money out of thin air, and paying it back is destroying it. (When a bank lends money, does it send all the deposit holders a notice that they've lent some of their money out, and therefore you can't use it? Ie, Mr. Smith, you have $1000 deposited, but we've lent out $500 of it, so you can only use $500) Most people don't realize that, and indeed, many say if the majority of people did, the whole economy would collapse as no one would believe money was worth anything.

That fear is the reason for the secrecy of the Federal Reserve. That's also why Alan Greenspan spoke in such obfuscated language. He would bore you to death, and he did that on purpose. Heck, it's so complicated and obfuscated now, I don't have a clue. There is an international equivalent that can do what the Fed does on a global level. And all of that is shrouded in secrecy as well.

Central banks have a quite a history. Our forebears were paranoid and suspicious and violently opposed the "money power". And for good reason. The shenanigans the "money power" can pull are mind boggling.

Classic example, the speculative bubble: You are JP Morgan, big time Big Money Boy. You can make and break kings by lending and calling in the loans. One day, just for fun, you decided to start a speculative real estate boom. You start making cheap loans to people who go out buy real estate.

You start a buying frenzy, and keep the money flowing freely by lending cheaply. The price of the real estate quickly inflates. Note there was no real increase in value, the price is just being inflated because so much more money is "chasing" it. Everyone is flying high, buying land, then selling it for a "profit" (paper).

Now, you let that go a while, and then you pull the plug, deflating that balloon. You call in those cheap loans (the fine print said you could do that at will. ). Now, you start a scramble to sell, as the suckers need the money to pay you back.

But, the price starts going down because now everyone is trying to sell, not buy. So, the suckers have to sell even more to pay you back as the price falls.

After it's over, you, JP, own that real estate and a lot of other assests the suckers had to sell off. That is what unchecked "money power" can do when it gets big enough. In his heyday, JP Morgan could've indeed pulled the plug on the entire US economy on a whim.

And that's why we have the Federal Reserve. The idea was for the government to take over and regulate JP's awesome power. But, the question is really who really took over whom. The Federal Reserve Act was actually written by JP and the boys more than "the people".

The Framers, from the intellectual wing to the wild eyed boys, were all deeply suspicious of the "money power" and its concentration in central banks. Jefferson said something like "first by inflation, then by deflation, they eat out the substance of the people". And he warned of "merchants" who had loyalty not to any nation or flag, but only to "Mammon".

And that's why there's always been such opposition to central banks. But the central bank won with the Federal Reserve Act. Again, the question is who really took over whom.

-Richard

For people who pride themselves in their intellectual abilities some really foolish comments are made here and many would look smarter by not showing that they didn't understand some concepts beyond their fields. I am pointing to no one here... just a general comment about the tone of posts here mods...

Money is, in the end, a contract that represents an agreement for the exchange of goods and/or services. It is not gold, it is not silver, it represents a contract to exchange wealth in an economy that is too complex to be adequately supported by direct barter. The whole concept of the Federal Reserve has painfully evolved over the last 200 years or so as a mechanism for regulating this sort of paper contract system. It has evolved because, if unregulated, these paper contracts tend to become over extended during boom times which then leads to default during times of economic stagnation or retrenchment.

The federal reserve, as so many concepts in this country, is a compromise between a Federal, or National, Bank and an unregulated banking system. It attempts to stablize the rather wild fluctuations that caused significant economic hardship for many, but made many others wealthy, during the first years of the republic. At the same time it is less powerful than a National Bank which was seen as placing too much power in the hands of a moneyed, landed elite, as Alexander Hamilton advocated, which would have restricted the ability of common people to rise economically.

Is the federal reserve political? Of course it is... In this country all issues and all institutions that attempt to regulate political, social, and economic life are political. It is the way that each of us is allowed to have some say in the direction this country takes. I think it is interesting that as political tides in this country ebb and flow, there seems to be a feeling by those groups that find themselves in the minority that they have somehow been swindled... that a secret group of illuminati have taken over the country.

In truth... the attitudes of people in this country, taken as a whole as a whole, tends to split down the middle between liberal and conservative; This is seen in many elections where the difference between winner and loser can be measured by a few percentage points. There do tend to be regions that are "traditionally" conservative and regions that tend to be "traditionally" liberal, but even these have shifted time and again over the last 200 or so years of republican government. A balanced view suggests that over all we have done fairly well in our experimental democratic republic. There have been abuses from the left as well as the right, but mostly people have attempted to work within the system. I find it interesting that one person's "abuse" is another's "reform". One might say that there is a universal belief on both sides:
OK... sort of stolen, but my need for a quote gives me the right...

Oh well, decide for yourself. One of the best books on the Federal Reserve is "Secrets of the Temple" by William Greider. It's 800 pages long, but pretty much explains what it is, does, and how it came to be. I have a copy, and I read many years ago.

For those interested, put that title in Google and you'll read reviews, both pro and con, and I certainly hope you read the book. One can make up one's own mind you knows what they are talking about and who doesn't.

-Richard

The IRS needs to give poorer folks a break.

Fair enough... the book by William Greider has been described as:
This view does have some merit however for some it lacks a sense of historical context. As I pointed out, the Federal Reserve represents a political compromise and, as with many political compromises in the short history of this country, it has not been completely fair or representative and has been a source of abuse from both sides of the political and ecomomic spectrum. The issues are complex and in many cases extremely intractable.

I would encourage anyone interested to read this book... I would also encourage a deeper examination of the economic evolution of the nation in the pre civil war period and harsh conditions brought about by an unregulated banking system. This should include study of Andrew Jackson's battle to dismantle the Second Bank of the United States in the 1830's. One should also examine the difficulties associated with the large scale industrial development during the post civil war period and the fights that led up to the development of the federal reserve system.

The IRS needs to give poorer folks a break.

They already do. The bottom 50% of wage earners paid only 3.3% of the income tax collected for 2004 (most recent figures available). Many of the lowest earners qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, basically giving them a refund for taxes they didn't pay. Everyone who draws a paycheck has to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes but a lot of people pay little or no federal income tax.

Despite the pronouncements about the rich not paying taxes, the percentage of total taxes paid by the top earners has increased since 1986 even with the tax cuts. You don't have to believe me if you wish. Here's a spreadsheet from the IRS itself. Do a little digging and you'll see what I'm saying is true.