On Tue, 2004-10-12 at 00:17, Travis Pahl wrote: > On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 23:46:50 -0600, Bill Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Mon, 2004-10-11 at 14:54, Travis Pahl wrote: > > > > > > It's gotten smaller many times, and the trend has been downward for > > > > decades. Only the Social Security tax has been increasing, masking the > > > > reductions in the income tax. > > > > > > Spending has increased despite small ups and downs in tax levels. And > > > social security is an income tax as well. Again you are using > > > governemnt classifications to mask the true nature of things. > > > > The nature of things is irrelevant in many political decision making > > processes. The nature of them both is theft, but that argument goes > > nowhere with the public -- the voters. > > The fact that it is theft is not the point of what we are discussing. > The point here is that big government and government supporteres often > try to treat SS and income tax as two seperate things when they are in > essence the same. Both are examples of government taking a percentage > of your income. But only one is included when they say what your > income tax is. Whether the person thinks it is theft or not is not > really important. Well it is, but it is not important to the point I > am trying to make. When stating what percent the income tax is, we > should include SS.
When you do that, you lose the > > > Indeed, a skilled communicator > > can use the definitions the government provides to bring people to > > oppose them where they would not have in the general "true nature" case. > > Sure you can. But an even more skilled communicator would at some > point in the discussion point out the problem with the government > definitions and get the person to begin using the correct use of the > words that will help stop the governments redefinition from becoming > even more entrenched. You've not much experience in law, do you? Law requires terms to be defined to avoid ambiguity. Do say corporations pay a corporate income tax? You are wrong if you do. But that is the accepted use of the word, and thus if you want to be effective you use it. Same thing with SS vs Payroll tax (after all if you want to pick nits, there is no income tax: there is a payroll tax that everyone calls an income tax). They are both *legally* different functions with legally defined attributes. There is no avoiding it with elitism. You pay far too much focus on the wrong battle, thus you lose it in the minds of those you are trying to "educate". > u now. > > > > > > There is not multpile markets for one commodity. > > > > On what planet? > > > > Let us walk through this particular example as I understand NYC > > arrangements. > > > > Some land owners participate in the government regulations, meaning they > > have limits on what they can charge, etc. for rent. Others choose not > > to. > > Nope not really. You are suggesting that owners have a choice in the > matter. They either have old apts and have no say, or when they > built apts they could build with really high taxes and have no control > in rent from the government but of course have high rents to pay the > higher taxes or accept gov control but pay lower taxes. In all cases > the government is using coercion to get the owners to accept > governments prices. You conflate two issues here in your attempt to merge everything into one. Taxes are a separate issue. All choices are not without consequence. Whether or not non-rent-control-participants face higher taxes is irrelevant to the fact that they are able to not agree to rent controls. The government always uses coercion; it IS coercion. yet still, people opt out of it. Some through legal means, some through non-legal means. but they still due, and this then create two markets: one regulated by and external entity and one unregulated by an external entity. > > So some tenants, by definition, participate in one or the other market, > > and in some cases both. If the supply and demand side of those markets > > develop where one is favored over the other, it will increase faster or > > subsume the other, But that in no way changes the existence of two > > markets. I suppose one could play semantic games and say that those are > > two aspects of the same overall market; but then you'd have to say the > > overall market is in fact a free market -- and I suspect you'd object to > > that (indeed I might as well). > > Of course it is a sematics game. That was my point from the begining. > Regular use of the term market in this context refers to a market for > each commidity. Goodman started playing with sematics by saying that > rent controlled and non rent controlled apts are two seperate > commidities and thus there is a free housing market in NYC. People > looking for housing in NYC do not see it as two seperate markets. Whether or not they SEE it as two distinct markets does not change the fact that it is. Ultimately the consumer sees a variance in prices. Indeed, if as you suggest the newer apartments have the higher prices then they perceive of the difference being the new versus old apartments, and do not see the effect of the rent control directly. While perception == reality in much of politics, in the market perception affects reality but is not reality. Either way, even as you described it there are still two markets, even if perceived as a single one. > > > I know what the past has given us, but it does not mean that the trend > > > will continue. You beleive it will. I beleive it will not. > > > Meanwhile other cities that got rid of it without these stupid plans > > > and have enjopyed free housing markets for deccades now. Why you > > > refuse to beleive that it could have been true in NYC had they not > > > kept fighting for what was completely right rather than accepting a > > > stupid small step is beyond me. > > > > Maybe he has a better grasp on NYC politics than you. > > Maybe he does. But I do not think he does. I grant that he has lived > there longer, but I have lived there for nearly 4 years as well and in > that time I met very very few people who wanted to end rent control. But as I understand the context above, you are talking about the past. Therefore, your experience in the present is only ancillary to his experience in the past (assuming he has it of course. if not you're both just playing academics. ;) ) -- the time in question AIUI. Times change. > Every year there are people protesting the rate increases on the steps > city hall. The people are not going to accept rent control being > elliminated much longer. And why should they? THey see rents rising > and are being told that rent control is being elliminated. Of course > it isn't and that is the reason the rents are so high, but most people > do not understand that. Right. That's understandable. But the issue at hand is whether or not in the past, sticking to an all or nothing proposal would have resulted in all versus resulting in nothing. I am sure people complained about the very same thing regarding rent rates "back then" as well; so I see the people being against it being extant in that time period as well. A related cause is the elimination of city/county zoning laws. It is easier historically, to chip away at them versus wholesale repeal, until such time as what is left constitutes a wholesale repeal of course. Ultimately, most of history shows us that the incremental approach works far more often, and with far less violence I might add, than all or nothing. Wholesale sea changes usually require an event of great magnitude to provide massive motivation. It's part of the Libertarian Delusion(tm) that if only we stuck to all-or-nothing, we'd get or have gotten all. In reality, most all-or-nothing demands wind up with nothing. Those that result in 'all', upon detailed analysis show that significant advance work was done, making it not truly all or nothing. not unlike "overnight successes" in entertainment --band suddenly becomes number one "overnight" and is reported as such despite the years playing holes in the wall and subsisting on beer and pretzels. ;) Cheers, Bill _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
