What is the Objectivist alternative to the Federal Reserve?

[moralist]

The most admirable thing about Greg is his total refusal to be a victim or think of himself as one even though a case is to be made that he is to some extent. Why are some of us so eager to explain just how he really is one?

...to justify their own victimhood.

Inherent to being a victim is the belief in the lie that it is the fault of others and not by their own sanction. They have to believe that lie, or admit that they failed to rise above their own self imposed slavery.

"If you closely examine your chains, you will discover they were forged by your own hand."

--Greg

[moralist]

Every one here is utterly powerless to control the Federal Reserve and the international banking system. So to talk about it as if they could is just a fantasy that powerless people indulge in to ~feel~ like they are powerful.

A man is powerless right on up to the moment when he stops being powerless. For example, early Christians had no control over Roman authorities or the pagan masses. Yet by the end of the fourth century, Christianity was the dominant cultural influence in the empire.

There is no basis for the suggestion that the Federal Reserve is forever invulnerable to political, cultural and economic forces.

When you exercise power over your own finances there's no need to wait for the tide of history to change. My approach is to learn how to live so that it doesn't matter what the Federal Reserve does. The economic quality of my own life is completely unaffected by the Federal Reserve or the Banks...

...because I have no participation, investments, or financial entanglements in the debt/credit system.

Greg

Red herring. Finding ways to circumvent the Fed is an entirely separate issue from the claim that no one can control the Fed. The central bank was created by humans and can be ended by humans.

Well, it's the only issue that matters to me. I pick battles I can actually win, instead of impotently flailing away at sure losers. Everyone else is on their own to try to figure things out for themselves because I can't live their lives for them... only my own.

I take the Galt's Gulch approach by simply refusing to participate in a corrupted economic system. That's also a two way street. Conversely, because I don't participate, that corrupted system has no control over my financial wellbeing.

Problem solved!

Greg

Glad to hear you've stopped paying taxes.

I don't pay taxes. My clients do. This is Business 101, so I'm surprised you don't know this.

Taxes are just another cost of doing business which is already built into the selling price of goods and services. And operating without a debt load makes it easy to be highly competitive. I believe we've been down this road before, Frank. Do you really need to do it all over again?

Greg

I see. You don't pay taxes; your clients do. So apparently you are nobody's client.

What a silly conclusion. You think like a failure, Frank.

Capitalism is being both producer and consumer, while producing more than you consume.

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

I see. You don't pay taxes; your clients do. So apparently you are nobody's client.

What a silly conclusion. You think like a failure, Frank.

Capitalism is being both producer and consumer, while producing more than you consume.

Greg

1. You wrote "I do not pay taxes." (Post #165)

2. Then you wrote "I pay quarterly business taxes . . ." (Post #167)

A is A and A is non-A

Apparently your idea of thinking successfully is holding two contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time.

You do not pay taxes, but that doesn't mean you don't pay taxes. And the fact that you do pay taxes does not necessarily mean you pay taxes.

[Brant Gaede]

I see. You don't pay taxes; your clients do. So apparently you are nobody's client.

What a silly conclusion. You think like a failure, Frank.

Capitalism is being both producer and consumer, while producing more than you consume.

Greg

1. You wrote "I do not pay taxes." (Post #165)

2. Then you wrote "I pay quarterly business taxes . . ." (Post #167)

A is A and A is non-A

Apparently your idea of thinking successfully is holding two contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time.

You do not pay taxes, but that doesn't mean you don't pay taxes. And the fact that you do pay taxes does not necessarily mean you pay taxes.

Finally! You understand!

--Brant

[moralist]

I see. You don't pay taxes; your clients do. So apparently you are nobody's client.

What a silly conclusion. You think like a failure, Frank.

Capitalism is being both producer and consumer, while producing more than you consume.

Greg

1. You wrote "I do not pay taxes." (Post #165)

2. Then you wrote "I pay quarterly business taxes . . ." (Post #167)

All of the money I "pay" in quarterly taxes comes from my clients and not out of my own pocket. You've made it clear that this distinction is lost on you because you have no experience to give it any meaning.

A good businessman never regards as his what does not ultimately belong to him. Only profit belongs to me. Never expenses or taxes. This is how to remain solvent... a concept with which you seem to lack any personal experience.

From the nature of your comments you'd be a failure in business.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

I see. You don't pay taxes; your clients do. So apparently you are nobody's client.

What a silly conclusion. You think like a failure, Frank.

Capitalism is being both producer and consumer, while producing more than you consume.

Greg

1. You wrote "I do not pay taxes." (Post #165)

2. Then you wrote "I pay quarterly business taxes . . ." (Post #167)

All of the money I "pay" in quarterly taxes comes from my clients and not out of my own pocket. You've made it clear that this distinction is lost on you because you have no experience to give it any meaning.

A good businessman never regards as his what does not ultimately belong to him. Only profit belongs to me. Never expenses or taxes. This is how to remain solvent... a concept with which you seem to lack any personal experience.

From the nature of your comments you'd be a failure in business.

Greg

Ah, your poor clients, sacrificing their innocence so you don't have to.

--Brant

spelling test: "Spell, 'rationalization'"

[moralist]

I see. You don't pay taxes; your clients do. So apparently you are nobody's client.

What a silly conclusion. You think like a failure, Frank.

Capitalism is being both producer and consumer, while producing more than you consume.

Greg

1. You wrote "I do not pay taxes." (Post #165)

2. Then you wrote "I pay quarterly business taxes . . ." (Post #167)

All of the money I "pay" in quarterly taxes comes from my clients and not out of my own pocket. You've made it clear that this distinction is lost on you because you have no experience to give it any meaning.

A good businessman never regards as his what does not ultimately belong to him. Only profit belongs to me. Never expenses or taxes. This is how to remain solvent... a concept with which you seem to lack any personal experience.

From the nature of your comments you'd be a failure in business.

Greg

Ah, your poor clients, sacrificing their innocence so you don't have to.

--Brant

spelling test: "Spell, 'rationalization'"

Doing business is completely voluntary and never under duress. Offer decent value and people will throw money at you. Every productive business makes a decent profit over and above all of their expenses including taxes. That's how wealth is created... by producing more goods and services than consuming in expenses and taxes..

It's ok, Brant... I understand the different mindset when money is automatically taken out of your paycheck as I was an employee and know what it feels like. In your own business, you make the decision of how much money to charge for goods and services by observing the current free market conditions, and you can take advantage of the same business tax write offs that large corporations enjoy.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

It's ok, Brant...

Greg

~Sob~

[Wolf DeVoon]

Capitalism is being both producer and consumer, while producing more than you consume.

Bzzzt -- not profit chasers. Investors.

"Capital" means capital plant and equipment. When it's time to cut a bar of steel in half or punch a tunnel through a mountain, all the haircuts, sovereign debts, central bankers, and newspaper columns in the world can't do it. However decorative and amusing Disney movies, tourists, sportsmen and priests purport to be, in reality consumption contributes nothing to the work of production.

Whether the capital in question is a paintbrush, or a petrochemical plant, or an oil rig, or the pipe-welding robots and steel mills that make it possible to exploit a naturally inaccessible, dangerous, useless raw muck, the productive power of tangible investment in the form of industrial plant and equipment is the literal (and largely forgotten) basis of capitalism.

Before you can have a market, you need goods. Pieces of paper and taxes are not goods; they are merely claims to goods. Let's talk about actual physical goods: food, clothing, shelter, energy to keep us warm in the winter, mechanized transport, medicine and sanitation. These are tangible, life-sustaining physical goods that free societies enjoy in great abundance.

We need to look at capitalism from a simple, proletarian perspective — at the level of nuts and bolts and seed grain. Free enterprise rewards study, forethought, frugality, fidelity, intelligence, initiative, willingness to experiment, and showing up for work every day, ready to work whether it's fun or not. This is the reality of work, whether the work is skilled or unskilled, physical or mental. Most employers recognize and reward productivity. It is in their interest to recruit and retain able, hard working people. No employer deliberately hires lazy sycophants and stooges.

— except in government. Political office rewards conventionality, seniority, multiple meaningless rituals, symbolic gestures, half-truths, evasions, deliberate delay, trading the unearned, shaking hands, smiling, empty platitudes, feigned concern, absolute allegiance to the party line and the party leader, secret deals, backbiting, paranoia and showing up at cocktail parties to beg for money and favors.

Capital plant and equipment is the lifeblood and sinew of private enterprise. The vast bulk of productive investment is NOT financed by the so-called "capital markets," nor from government handouts or tax breaks, but instead from retained earnings. Proper maintenance of plant and equipment is a crucial priority for every factory, every farm, and every pilot of an 18-wheeler. Freedom implies responsibility. If your competitors have better technology, they cut costs and win customers.

The free market economy is a school in permanent session, teaching every participant the virtue of practical education. We don't always enjoy learning to use new tools — but we do it to stay in business and to make ends meet. Until very recently, the secular trend across all industries throughout American economic history has been falling prices and rising productivity. The computer on my desk cost $1000 and quietly outperforms any $1,000,000 mainframe built 30 years ago.

None of this applies to government. The bulk of state investment is NOT obtained from its operational revenue or taxation, which barely cover the salaries and pensions of a constantly growing number of government drones. Badly-timed, over-specified, bloated investment in state plant and equipment (weapons, office buildings, roads) are funded by the one and only "capital market" that governments care about — sovereign bond auctions. US bureaucrats, legislators, military planners and school districts have no incentive to maintain their plant and equipment. Dependence implies irresponsibility. Whether you view the government as a recipient of our willing charity, or as a thief who holds taxpayers at gunpoint, the essence of the game is dependence.

Government makes nothing, sells nothing, earns nothing. Their entire strategy is to elaborate and expand governmental operations, preferably to do less with more. Social Security and Medicare are out of control, suffering the same fate as Britain's NHS, for the same demographic and technical reasons. A Ponzi pyramid cannot succeed by robbing Peter to pay Paul, with increasing numbers of idle Pauls and an eroding number of taxpaying Peters. These are well known facts. There is no known solution, except to face the facts and confess that we have too much government, too little liberty.

Liberty is a profoundly unpopular idea. Throughout the world, terrified bankers and stock brokers are whimpering their conversion to Anatole Kaletsky's faith. "What is certain," Kaletsky assures them in confident, fatherly tones, "is that the era of laisser-faire ideology is fading. Capitalism's own incomparable instinct of self-preservation will see to that." [London Times editorial, September 10, 1998]

My hammer and nail have an instinct of self-preservation? — even if I leave them out in the rain, or give them to a starving Haitian?

This is what happens when you stretch an abstraction to the outer limits of anthropomorphism. What many people mistakenly call "capitalism" is the intangible financial services conducted by intermediaries who trade claims to wealth at varying dates and terms of payment. In J.P. Morgan's day, it was called banking. It's the pixie dust that allegedly pulled America into a healthier and happier service economy. Because it has no furnaces, factories, or chemical effluents, it is 100 percent eco friendly.

Like the government which regulates financial services and enforces debt contracts, banking is inert of productive power. All the bankers and brokers in the City of London couldn't make a ham sandwich without help from farms, factories, oil wells, refineries, power plants, transportation, butchers, bakers, and nuclear candlestick makers.

[COGIGG, pp.101-103]

[Mikee]

I guess you're a better lawyer and story teller than economist.

[Wolf DeVoon]

I guess you're a better lawyer and story teller than economist.

 

Yeah, I don't know nuthin about money.

[moralist]

Bzzzt -- not profit chasers. Investors.

I only invest in my own ventures because I'm familiar with my own track record and nothing I do ever involves debt of any kind. That bottomless pit is where all the suckers end up trying to get something for nothing.

However decorative and amusing Disney movies, tourists, sportsmen and priests purport to be, in reality consumption contributes nothing to the work of production.

I actually need to consume quite a bit of materials in the production of goods and services... but I realize you're talking about consuming within a different context that's divorced from facilitating production.

As long as I produce more than I consume... I'm good.

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

1. You wrote "I do not pay taxes." (Post #165)

2. Then you wrote "I pay quarterly business taxes . . ." (Post #167)

All of the money I "pay" in quarterly taxes comes from my clients and not out of my own pocket. You've made it clear that this distinction is lost on you because you have no experience to give it any meaning.

A good businessman never regards as his what does not ultimately belong to him. Only profit belongs to me. Never expenses or taxes. This is how to remain solvent... a concept with which you seem to lack any personal experience.

From the nature of your comments you'd be a failure in business.

Greg

Then your clients do not "pay" taxes out of their own pockets either. Their taxes are "paid" by their clients. And your clients' clients? Same thing. They don't pay them. They are "paid" by the clients' clients' clients. And the clients' clients' clients? "Paid" by the clients' clients' clients' clients.

That's the really neat thing about taxes. Shhh, don't tell anybody! Nobody really pays taxes! We all just pass them on to the next guy who passes them on to the next guy who passes them on to the next guy who passes them on to the next guy who passes them on to the next guy who passes them on to the next guy who passes them on to the next guy who passes them on to the next guy who passes them on to the next guy who passes them on to the next guy.

So what's all the scary talk about high taxes? The U.S. could raise taxes high enough to pay off the national debt in one year and colonize Mars from pole to pole--and no one would suffer financially.

It's common sense. Just ask any successful businessman.

[Brant Gaede]

Okay, help me out. I just recently listened to a refresher on the creation of the federal reserve and I'm not seeing what the alternative is. The alternative is not "we would have a bunch of competing currencies in an open market" That answer sounds a little too theoretical and not enough applied. Why? because that would only assume that the government is somehow the one entity that keeps us on a greenback standard. According to the history, the government created two national banks that ran for 20 years a piece many years ago but their charters were not renewed. Many years after that it was the banks themselves, not the government, led by JP Morgan (one of the few who was properly rocking the monopoly mustache) at Jekyll Island who decided to form this central bank using their government lackeys to enforce their decision.

So you say, there, you have government involvement and that is bad. But I say that they didn't really need government backing to still become the de facto standard especially not today. The top ten banks today control 50% + of the market share. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/10/02/10-biggest-banks-by-deposits.aspx

If today the fed was dissolved and banks were able to print their own currencies and the top ten said that they would establish a standard among them (and why wouldn't they since it was their idea in the first place), I don't really see many other banks not following their lead especially when the smaller banks (having much much smaller deposit bases) would have to borrow from the larger banks and would have to use the standard for efficiency or for contractual reasons. In this case we would have almost the same system as we have now.

There are many de facto standards that are in the world today that were not established or enforced by the government. Starting with currency, the world standard is the dollar. That was not established by the United Nations and it is enforced by a matter of efficiency in trade. The CD standard, the DVD standard, the two and three prong power cord/ outlet standard, the language in the local area that you live, base 10, etc. Many times we get upset if you need to fix something or find something and the store layout is different from you local one or the parts don't fit your specific brand. Simplicity is desirable.

Yes there are competing standards to may things in the world. There is the Mac vs PC thing but when you have Windows at a 90% market share of desktop operating systems, then Windows is the de facto standard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

Currency today has many competing forms to the dollar. Where I live we have the local B-Note. I've never used it. Why, because everyone doesn't take it. In Boston they have the Boston Bean, they have the BerkShare in Berkshire. We have Bitcoins and Litecoins. But the de facto standard is the dollar.

Ask yourself. If the fed was dissolved tomorrow and the top 10 banks decided to continue printing greenbacks (that didn't say Federal reserve on them) wouldn't you continue to use them? And if the majority of Americans continued to use what ever the big banks used, how would that be substantially different from the Fed today? There would still be inflation. There would possibly be even more cronies operating in the world. The big banks definitely wouldn't return to gold and they probably would increase the fractional reserve ratio by quite a bit (secretly because they would not be required to reveal that sort of information)

So what is the practical alternative? Or maybe I have my history wrong...

ps. led by JP Morgan (one of the few who was properly rocking the monopoly mustache) maybe Wyatt Earp did as well : )

If you think of banks as warehouses for storing gold they could print up receipts--paper money--backed by that gold. Now, if the Fed were dissolved where would they get the gold to issue receipts against? Who has much to deposit in the first place and who would trust any of the top ten banks with their gold? You'd need new warehouses, new companies owning the warehouses, new banks. This is not going to happen. Even if it did happen there would always be the specter of possible government confiscation of that gold. In the 1930s even gold contracts or gold clauses in contracts were abrogated.

A way out of this would be paper money--private business paper money, as receipts against some type of commodities' basket. Oil, gold, natural gas, orange juice, corn, wheat, etc. It would not be necessary to have warehouses and physically store these things; it could all be done electronically with dynamic over-sight involving futures' contracts. You could even throw in actual equity ownership in real time. Etc.

But basically the Objectivist alternative to the Federal Reserve assumes the Fed is abolished, even if over some rational transitional time, and replaced by true private banking. Stop! That's it. We cannot really know what the happening details would be beyond this point. Some of us might go into the banking business and create that future and some of us doing that will fail even to the point of bankruptcy. We would end up with sundry types of free market money, paper and electronic backed by real somethings--we can call those as having "intrinsic value" even though there is no such thing (sounds better than "substantial physical items value")--and the Federal government would have to shrink so much you'd hardly know it existed any more compared to its huge, present-day footprint. That's the bummer. It has to be shrunk first and the Fed replaced consequently to that as no longer needed (by the government).

(The world would also have to become a much better, safer and more benevolent place so national defense expenditures could be drastically cut.)

--Brant

there may be alternatives to the Fed that are not "Objectivist" better than what we now have; the imagined Objectivist future is hundreds of years away--but consider this: the real "Objectivist future" is not some structural ideal but acting rationally out of one's present-day context--it's as simple as that and involves all aspects of human being not controlled by the alligator brain in the midst of fucking or fighting ("fuck or fight"--you heard read it here first, folks)

[moralist]

Then your clients do not "pay" taxes out of their own pockets either.

Yes.

That's true if they're also business owners, because every business operates on the same set of economic principles.

So what's all the scary talk about high taxes?

So what's all the scary talk about high prices?

You won't understand this, but one creates the other.

This is why it's important to be a producer as well as a consumer. By enjoying the freedom of operating on both sides of the ledger you can charge high prices as well as paying them. This is the economic magic of parity. As long as you produce more than you consume you're debt free and creating wealth.

Greg

[moralist]

Okay, help me out. I just recently listened to a refresher on the creation of the federal reserve and I'm not seeing what the alternative is. The alternative is not "we would have a bunch of competing currencies in an open market" That answer sounds a little too theoretical and not enough applied. Why? because that would only assume that the government is somehow the one entity that keeps us on a greenback standard. According to the history, the government created two national banks that ran for 20 years a piece many years ago but their charters were not renewed. Many years after that it was the banks themselves, not the government, led by JP Morgan (one of the few who was properly rocking the monopoly mustache) at Jekyll Island who decided to form this central bank using their government lackeys to enforce their decision.

So you say, there, you have government involvement and that is bad. But I say that they didn't really need government backing to still become the de facto standard especially not today. The top ten banks today control 50% + of the market share. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/10/02/10-biggest-banks-by-deposits.aspx

If today the fed was dissolved and banks were able to print their own currencies and the top ten said that they would establish a standard among them (and why wouldn't they since it was their idea in the first place), I don't really see many other banks not following their lead especially when the smaller banks (having much much smaller deposit bases) would have to borrow from the larger banks and would have to use the standard for efficiency or for contractual reasons. In this case we would have almost the same system as we have now.

There are many de facto standards that are in the world today that were not established or enforced by the government. Starting with currency, the world standard is the dollar. That was not established by the United Nations and it is enforced by a matter of efficiency in trade. The CD standard, the DVD standard, the two and three prong power cord/ outlet standard, the language in the local area that you live, base 10, etc. Many times we get upset if you need to fix something or find something and the store layout is different from you local one or the parts don't fit your specific brand. Simplicity is desirable.

Yes there are competing standards to may things in the world. There is the Mac vs PC thing but when you have Windows at a 90% market share of desktop operating systems, then Windows is the de facto standard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

Currency today has many competing forms to the dollar. Where I live we have the local B-Note. I've never used it. Why, because everyone doesn't take it. In Boston they have the Boston Bean, they have the BerkShare in Berkshire. We have Bitcoins and Litecoins. But the de facto standard is the dollar.

Ask yourself. If the fed was dissolved tomorrow and the top 10 banks decided to continue printing greenbacks (that didn't say Federal reserve on them) wouldn't you continue to use them? And if the majority of Americans continued to use what ever the big banks used, how would that be substantially different from the Fed today? There would still be inflation. There would possibly be even more cronies operating in the world. The big banks definitely wouldn't return to gold and they probably would increase the fractional reserve ratio by quite a bit (secretly because they would not be required to reveal that sort of information)

So what is the practical alternative? Or maybe I have my history wrong...

ps. led by JP Morgan (one of the few who was properly rocking the monopoly mustache) maybe Wyatt Earp did as well : )

If you think of banks as warehouses for storing gold they could print up receipts--paper money--backed by that gold. Now, if the Fed were dissolved where would they get the gold to issue receipts against? Who has much to deposit in the first place and who would trust any of the top ten banks with their gold? You'd need new warehouses, new companies owning the warehouses, new banks. This is not going to happen. Even if it did happen there would always be the specter of possible government confiscation of that gold. In the 1930s even gold contracts or gold clauses in contracts were abrogated.

A way out of this would be paper money--private business paper money, as receipts against some type of commodities' basket. Oil, gold, natural gas, orange juice, corn, wheat, etc. It would not be necessary to have warehouses and physically store these things; it could all be done electronically with dynamic over-sight involving futures' contracts. You could even throw in actual equity ownership in real time. Etc.

But basically the Objectivist alternative to the Federal Reserve assumes the Fed is abolished, even if over some rational transitional time, and replaced by true private banking. Stop! That's it. We cannot really know what the happening details would be beyond this point. Some of us might go into the banking business and create that future and some of us doing that will fail even to the point of bankruptcy. We would end up with sundry types of free market money, paper and electronic backed by real somethings--we can call those as having "intrinsic value" even though there is no such thing (sounds better than "substantial physical items value")--and the Federal government would have to shrink so much you'd hardly know it existed any more compared to its huge, present-day footprint. That's the bummer. It has to be shrunk first and the Fed replaced consequently to that as no longer needed (by the government).

(The world would also have to become a much better, safer and more benevolent place so national defense expenditures could be drastically cut.)

--Brant

This is not going to happen.

Everything you wrote will never happen. It's just a fantasy.

The only real personal solution is to become your own bank.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Then your clients do not "pay" taxes out of their own pockets either.

Yes.

That's true if they're also business owners, because every business operates on the same set of economic principles.

So what's all the scary talk about high taxes?

So what's all the scary talk about high prices? You won't understand this, but one creates the other.

This is why it's important to be a producer as well as a consumer. By enjoying the freedom of operating on both sides of the ledger you can charge high prices as well as paying them. This is the economic magic of parity. As long as you produce more than you consume you're debt free and creating wealth.

Greg

People are still paying taxes including you even though I agree with your "parity" to a point. That is, taxes are an economic burden and can be increased to the point of gross economic distortions even though no matter how much or in what respects raised the Federal government, as a practical matter, cannot rake in more than 20% of the gross national income through them, so it must borrow.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Everything you wrote will never happen. It's just a fantasy.

The only real personal solution is to become your own bank.

Greg

Thank you. I don't know why I thought I said that.

--Brant

oh!--I did say "hundreds of years" from now--my bag--you replied to my post while I was still adding to it missing this

[Wolf DeVoon]

The only real personal solution is to become your own bank.

Colossal misunderstanding of what a bank is. The earliest bankers did not accept deposits or issue notes. They were engaged in the business of making foreign payments for a small fee on behalf of customers. Next they became involved in mint operations and making payments in "good coin." Bank notes were traded for specie because it was safer than keeping gold and silver at home. English banks began to accept deposits and pay interest on them, discounting bills of exchange and making loans as a source of bank revenue to pay interest on deposits. Soon it was understood that banks only needed a small reserve of cash on hand to satisfy depositor withdrawls and hence they could lend more, especially because loans are paid as bank credit into borrower accounts (no cash taken from reserves). So long as the bank loaned to solvent borrowers on good collateral, and those loans were repaid on time, the bank remained profitable and always able to meet the cash and credit needs of customers.

Unless you're making foreign payments for others, accepting deposits, and making loans -- you aren't doing business as a bank.

[moralist]

Then your clients do not "pay" taxes out of their own pockets either.

Yes.

That's true if they're also business owners, because every business operates on the same set of economic principles.

So what's all the scary talk about high taxes?

So what's all the scary talk about high prices? You won't understand this, but one creates the other.

This is why it's important to be a producer as well as a consumer. By enjoying the freedom of operating on both sides of the ledger you can charge high prices as well as paying them. This is the economic magic of parity. As long as you produce more than you consume you're debt free and creating wealth.

Greg

People are still paying taxes including you even though I agree with your "parity" to a point.

Of course. It's just common sense.

When prices go up because of higher taxation, I just charge more money like everyone else. That's how I can afford to pay the higher prices for what I consume... by charging higher prices for what I produce.

Being a producer is like owning your own boat. No matter how deep the taxes and prices are... you float on the solvent surface instead of sinking "under water" drowning in debt.

This is where the economic freedom is... on the surface of the water. So build an ark and you'll always be safe and sound.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Wolf, all Greg said was he doesn't borrow money from a bank but lends his savings to himself to buy things using his own capital. He's not really a bank, of course. That's just his shorthand way of showing he's not beholden to the banking system as it is presently constituted for he's not in debt to it.

--Brant

but if he doesn't have some actual bank accounts it's likely an eccentricity that may require medical intervention (the psychiatrist that wants to be in me but--don't worry--I have a protective order and the sheriff is coming)

[Wolf DeVoon]

When prices go up because of higher taxation, I just charge more money like everyone else. That's how I can afford to pay the higher prices for what I consume... by charging higher prices for what I produce.

Being a producer is like owning your own boat. No matter how deep the taxes and prices are... you float on the solvent surface instead of sinking "under water" drowning in debt.

This is where the economic freedom is... on the surface of the water. So build an ark and you'll always be safe and sound.

You're a fool. In an inflationary period, it becomes easier to pay debt. High taxes hurt your customers, who have less to spend.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Wolf, all Greg said was he doesn't borrow money from a bank but lends his savings to himself to buy things using his own capital. He's not really a bank, of course. That's just his shorthand way of showing he's not beholden to the banking system as it is presently constituted for he's not in debt to it.

Now is an excellent time to borrow. Rates will to revert to mean. They can't go any lower.

[Brant Gaede]

This is where the economic freedom is... on the surface of the water. So build an ark and you'll always be safe and sound.

Greg

There's a hurricane approaching LA.

--Brant

your weather from me for free

[moralist]

The only real personal solution is to become your own bank.

Colossal misunderstanding of what a bank is.

Wolf, I don't give a flying crap what banks are!

As my own bank, I set my own rules.

I store assets and loan myself money at zero percent interest for various financial ventures, then I pay myself back from the profits so that I have assets to take out a loan from myself for the next venture. In this manner I'm able to operate independently of of boom and bust credit/debt cycles and consistently prosper regardless of the economic or political climate.

Greg