From: Dave Sill (dsill@highland.net)
Date: Wed Nov 15 2000 - 08:54:04 MST
Corwyn J Alambar <nettiger@best.com> wrote:
>
> I've got some money in savings, and I've been working on investing it slowly
> to try and get a good nestegg going. However, it seems my savings are growing
> slower than the cost of living.
Is it the rising cost of living, or your rising standard of living that's
affecting your savings rate?
> I gre up rural - I know how to take care of things like animals and plants, and
> I wouldnt' mind returning to that sort of a life partially - not a Luddite
> hermit like the Unabomber, but a techno-hermit, with satellite uplink,
> computers, generating my own power, taking care of most of my needs without
> reliance on the outside.
>
> But in the end it comes down to the tyrany of money.
Money, as Joseph Campbell said, is congealed energy. The energy you expend
on the job comes back to you in the form of money, which can be traded for
pretty much anything--a property that's not true of your energy. So the
purpose of the day job is to provide you with sufficient money to procure
everything you need and want. Of course, some of that money goes to
"overhead", stuff you need in order to keep your job. I don't see what's so
tyrannical about that.
> There is no place I
> can live without either the fear of imminent confiscation by the latest
> banana republic despot in the name of "land reform", or the need to have some
> sort of steady income to pay the various property taxes.
That's true today, but I don't think it has to be that way everywhere,
forever.
> So here is the conundrum. The land that is inexpensive enough to afford is
> too far from the places I am capable of finding work (did I mention I'm a
> widely-read, hopefully well-spoken high school grad? No college diploma
> here, unfortunately - and that cuts my options down even more), and the land
> close enough to be able to work reasonably is very expensive now, especially
> for what would be needed for this sort of subsistence,
OK, so you have to find a new line of work (different job, part-time
student, etc.), a new way of working (e.g. telecommuting), or a new
location...or you can whine about how life isn't fair. :-)
> and at the same time
> it's also prone to the "divide and conquer" property tax progression - one
> farmer sells out to a developer for 50 units, and they agree to add $5000
> per acre in property taxes for new schools - after all, they're only paying
> $500-$1250 at best for their share, but the farmer next door just got tagged
> for $500,000 more per year, and is forced to sell to a developer, and it
> goes on and on.
In most places, agricultural land isn't taxed at the same rate as
residential. And some states are playing games with development rights to
preserve farmland. But it's inevitable that land near population centers
will be worth more for residential use than for agricultural use.
> And my work does very little toward allowing me to pursue the things I hold
> most dear - because I have to spend so much o my time dealing with traffic,
> and working most of my waking hours to pay for the house I don't really want
> and the gas I would like to not have to use to get to and from a job that
> doesn't really line up with my personal interests. But it's the trap of the
> moneyed system.
But it's a trap you have the power to get yourself out of--if not to avoid
in the first place, which is much easier.
> Yes, I understand a true libertarian society would have a different set of
> problems, and I could find a place where I wouldn't have to pay property
> taxes - but if you can show me a true libertarian nation I could move to...
Somehow I don't think that merely eliminating property taxes will solve all
your problems.
-Dave
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:31:59 MST