From: Forrest Bishop (forrestb@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Sun Jul 07 2002 - 21:00:54 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 07, 2002 9:47 AM
Subject: How much benefit do we get from taxes?
>
> On Sunday, July 7, 2002, at 02:27 am, Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> > Well, my biggest gripe with taxes is that those "teeny slices" add up
> > to over 60% of my income! I have a very difficult time that believing
> > I should devote 60% of my renumeration to purposes chosen by others.
> > There just aren't that many people who have a better idea how to spend
> > my money imho.
The number you are thinking of is ZERO.
> Does anyone really know how much of their taxes go to others versus how
> much goes to themselves?
Taxes are not something *owned* by an individual anymore than death or numbers can be owned, therefore the number is zero {null
set}. More to the root, aggregate benefits are not calculable by monetary-accounting methods. Numbers such as GNP/GDP, for example,
are a hoax promulgated by kept intellectuals- "your" tax dollars at work. You may enjoy a few chapters of *Human Action* on these
topics-
http://www.mises.org/humanaction.asp
particularly pp 201-229, emphasis on pp 215-220.
> I would gladly pay those taxes that go toward
> anti-terrorism,
This expense category depends on the definition of a terrorist. If by terrorists you mean some group of people that uses violence
and the threat of violence to extort resourses from you to commit mass murder, cause mass pollution, threaten the human race with
extinction and engage in wholesale theft and fraud, then number you are requesting to see has a minus sign in front of it.
> defense, police, public roads, air-traffic control,
> etc. I use these services and think I get a bigger discount by
> bulk-buying with the rest of America.
Probably not the case. Each of the above services can be provided more efficiently in the natural order of the free market. You may
find these papers on Public-Goods Theory help clarify the issue-
*Public Goods and Externalities: The Case of Roads*
"When government monopolization of the roadways is discussed by economists, the "externalities" argument is usually raised. The
argument is said to be simple, clear, and irrefutable. In fact, none of these terms really apply..."
http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_1.pdf
*POLITICAL UNIFICATION: A GENERALIZED PROGRESSION THEOREM*
"...whereas it was always
possible for a prince to unite some private interests in the support
of his endeavors, it is extremely rare to secure the support of all
private interests. Therefore, additional beliefs must prevail in
order to make the nation aggressive. ....In order to secure government
growth, there is, apart from the intellectual problem of inventing
such ideas, the technical problem of spreading them. One of
government's strategically most important tasks is, therefore, to
bring as many educational institutions as possible under its control.
It must accommodate teachers, professors, university staff,
etc., within the state apparatus...."
http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/13_1/13_1_4.pdf
two of Hans Herman Hoppe's-
*The Private Production of Defense*
http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/Hoppe.pdf
and *Natural Elites, Intellectuals, and the State*
http://www.mises.org/intellectuals.asp
and of course the classic on the elements of public-goods theory-
*Our Enemy, The State*, by Albert J. Nock
http://www.barefootsworld.net/nockoets0.html
> I also see some indirect benefits
> by feeding the poor and educating the next generation. Even though
> these benefits go to others, I think my life is directly improved
> compared to if there were a lot of hungry poor, or whole uninoculated
> populations spreading disease, or even more unskilled teenagers who
> don't understand science.
There is a very close inverse correlation between the increase in government-funding of schools and the reduction in quality of
education. Science and technology courses in particular are being watered down or dropped in favor of various social-engineering
projects, i.e. human experimentation on children. Free public education is an unmitigated disaster, having produced entire
generations programmed to think the State is there to help them. There are several books written by public-school teachers on this.
> I further see some safety nets as insurance.
> Sure, I pay insurance fees and hopefully never have to claim anything in
> return. But if I do have a catastrophic disaster, I am covered. Some
> social programs fall into this category. I am not really paying for the
> benefit of others, but in case I need that benefit myself. Social
> Security, medicare, and disaster programs fall into this category.
Social Security is a massive fraud upon the people, a pyramid scheme that shall collapse (what the GAO calls the "train wreck") in
the not-distant future, very much like in the case of the Soviet Union. This fraud is a serious hazard to your health and longevity,
aside from being unlawful. Studying this system, along with its enabling, unlawful fiat-currency regime (which also shall collapse),
should be incorporated as part of an integrated life-extension regimen. The accounting fraud referred to as the "Unified Budget"
contains something called "intragovernmental" debt: the I-Owe-Me. It is as if you put a slip of paper into your piggy bank saying "I
owe myself $X someday", and then told everybody you have the $X saved up. Medicare is at least as destructive, if not worse.
Disaster programs, like any other form of insurance, can be met most efficiently in the free market.
Forrest
-- Forrest Bishop Chairman, Institute of Atomic-Scale Engineering www.iase.cc
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