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Comment by nickthemagicman | Hacker News Reader

Why would the prices change? The demand hasn't changed? The supply hasn't changed?

People are still buying the same basic things they did before.

The money is simply shifted around from the rich to the poor?

Because this will give income to people who don't have amount of money right now. They will also come in market to buy things. So total number of people buying stuff will increase.

I have the theory that if you give money to everybody, prices will go up because sellers will figure they can increase the price of everything without it negatively affecting sales, since every buyer simply has more money to spare, no excuses.

> I have the theory that if you give money to everybody, prices would go up because sellers will figure they can increase the price of everything without it negatively affecting sales, since every buyer simply has more money to spare, no excuses.

That's how monopoly markets work. But if you're a grocery store and you realize everybody now has $4 more in their pockets, you can't start charging $5 for an apple when the store across the street is still charging $1.

You'll definitely start charging $2, otherwise you would not have stayed in business for long.

If you keep the same price, but everyone is charging 4x as much, you are losing, because everyone else needs 4x less customers to make the same profit as you, not to mention the work involved.

You'll run out of supply soon enough, too.

> You'll definitely start charging $2, otherwise you would not have stayed in business for long.

If I'm buying apples wholesale for $.50 and selling them retail for $1, how many apples does it take for me to go out of business?

> You'll run out of supply soon enough, too.

Are people now eating more apples than farmers can grow?

"shifted around" is nice euphemism for theft.

With that logic all taxes and social policies are theft.

Correct. Personal taxes (taking things via threat of force) are theft. It does not matter who is doing the taking.

You have redefined the English language for your own propaganda purposes. This significantly degrades any chance of you being taken seriously.

It's not necessarily for propaganda purposes, but I agree that this is a highly nonstandard terminology and it's not obvious to me that it improves anyone's ability to communicate.

Thank you. If my seizing my neighbor's extra car because I do not have one is theft, it is still theft if I convince a majority to pass a law take it for me. And it is enforced with the threat of (or actual) violence against my neighbor, if my neighbor refuses.

Negative. Theft is a crime. Crime is defined by the criminal law. If you choose to have your own personal criminal law, so that you can call whatever you like theft, that's up to you, but if you're going to do that with language, you can claim anything is anything.

Okay, we disagree. (*edit: we disagree about taxes being theft). But that is what I enjoy about communicating with other intelligent people, we can discuss ideas and not have to agree.

I have been studying this in my free time for the last decade or so, and do not have a ready list of sources handy, but here are a few I gathered in the last 30 minutes, should you be curious as to why I think this way: https://mises.org/library/taxation-robbery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_as_theft

A very short list of sites containing general backgrounders: https://mises.org/ http://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com/ http://tomwoods.com/ https://www.freemansperspective.com/

A short list of sources on this direction of thinking to start with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard

Much of this is intertwined in Libertarianism, Austrian Economics, and even Minarchy/Anarchy.

I obey the laws of the jurisdiction that I reside in, but that does not mean that I am not trying to actively change those laws for what I perceive as "the better"...

I search for as close an approximation to "the best way" as I can, understanding that humans are fallible by nature.

For entertainment, I am re-reading the book A Lodging of Wayfaring Men, a fictional book by Paul Rosenberg. While it is in severe need of editing (self-published?) I find it entertaining enough to re-read to get excited/stimulated about the possibilities of correcting systems that I consider to be operating very inefficiently, or flat out wrong.

Theft is a crime committed by another citizen. Redistribution of wealth is a "social program" committed by the State. See, with language, you can justify anything. One can make anything legal or illegal. It all depends on which Entity is saying those words. That's the nature of political power...

"A traitor is everyone who does not agree with me." ---George III of the United Kingdom

You would not have been in a position to earn any of the money you have without public infrastructure paid for by taxes. Maybe you would have been successful under an anarchy, but I doubt that is the case for the majority of HN'ers, and my best guess is that your ideological position would crumble pretty quickly if you were forced to live in the world which you ostensibly desire. Fortunately for everyone I can't see that happening without massive death and destruction.

I'm not advocating Anarchy. That's never going to work. We need laws, and I would love to change the laws regarding the income tax.

Who enforces the law? How does their labour get paid for?

Why would you think a tax on personal income is the only way to do that?

I didn't say it was :). What alternative do you propose?

Numerous states haven't had a problem with it even though they have no personal income tax.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/03/...

Right -- so those 7 states listed in the article have alternative forms of tax (corporate income tax, oil-production taxes, etc.). Are you opposed solely to personal income taxes (while still supporting alternative forms of tax), or are you opposed to all taxation?

Personal income tax only. In general, I believe individuals are the best deciders on how to spend their money, but I do not deny that gov has a responsibility to defend life, liberty and property. If it can't do that with the voluntary support of it's citizens (aka owners) then it deserves to be replaced. Fortunately we have a pretty awesome system to do exactly that.

I was too glib (wrong) in my second response to the assertion that my statement implies all social policies are theft.

I see; fair enough :). I'm not personally opposed to personal income tax, but I'm from a country that leans a little more to the left overall and the benefits of my taxation are evident. It's also less vexing; the tax comes directly out of my paycheque -- I never see that money. My understanding is that in the USA, one has to annually perform a federal tax return?

I'm not exactly pro-income tax either, but (governed effectively!) personal income tax has always seemed to me like a least-worst solution to funding a government and a country's public infrastructure. It's not great, but it provides the least opportunity for mass rorting (although that no longer seems to be true, the more I think on it). I could be convinced that other solutions work :).

Thanks :) Yes, every year we are expected to fill out a bunch of paperwork (generally between 1 and 100 pages) and hand it in by a certain date "or else". The bureaucracy that interprets this paperwork (imho) is a total waste of money (on the personal income tax side), and the time_cost*every_taxpayer is absurd.

For most people, their employer took out (in excess) taxes all year and sent them in, so they get a refund (after the paperwork ritual) on the loan they made to the gov with 0% interest.

I'm not a fan on taxes on things you own because it means you don't _really_ own them. For example a person who owns a piece of property but can not pay the property tax. It gets taken from them by force if necessary, hence they never really owned it. At the very least we should carve out an exemption for property you live on. Transaction taxes don't have that problem.

Glad you are and always will be a millionaire who doesn't use any public services and will never need to worry about hospital bills, housing or food.

Otherwise you're an idiot.

You know we had hospitals, housing assistance and food assistance before the personal income tax right? A personal income tax is just one way we fund gov services, there are plenty of other options that don't require a gun to the head.

Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming have no state level personal income tax.

Alaska and Texas have oil. Florida has tourists. Wyoming has coal.

You say taxation is theft. Anarchists say that the fact that you have any property that can be taxed is theft. This is a matter of opinion, not an indisputable fact.

Such a statement is only meaningful if the rules and systems that distribute wealth are sufficiently orderly and broadly considered fair. In a system considered to be significantly arbitrary or rigged, the whole concept of ownership is seriously weakened.

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