2011/8/6 Craig Haynie <[email protected]>: > You propose to end war with a > global democracy, but wars will never end as long as we give the power > seekers the ability to wage war.
I have not seen a war in 66 years, because I live in civilized and rich country. Believe me, war is something that is only reserved for poor people. If we end poverty, we will end all wars. Rich people do not war with each other, because every rich nation has resources to throw hundreds of H-bombs over the border. > You propose to end poverty with a > global government, but poverty will never end as long as we give the > power seekers our money. That is untrue. Most of the Western European country have laid poverty long time ago into past. E.g. in Denmark has minimum negative income like social welfare $1,850 in month and in addition to that income depended unemployment compensation is up to 70-90% of the income when you were employed. I doubt that typical American McJob laborer does have net income much more than $1,850 per month. Of course if you have such a high social welfare, there is no need for anyone to benefit from it, because there is zero unemployment in Denmark and lowest public dept among western countries. Negative income tax is just simplified social welfare that is completely free from bureaucracy and free from those people who posses political power. Negative income tax is so simple to do in practice that we need to just write a computer program that automatically transfers fixed amount of money to each citizens bank account. There is absolutely no need for power hungry individuals, who spent you tax dollars as they wish. On the contrary negative income tax will nullify governments, because we do not need them anymore to ensure public medicare and welfare. I think that this is why you have hard time to understand what negative income tax is, because you are so used to that how American government spent their money. But this is only American problem. We have excellently working systems here in Europe with zero poverty. And negative income tax is just final step towards nullifying all governments altogether as an obsolete relic of the past. > The value you place on ending poverty, comes at the expense > that someone else places on the value of their money -- for if they > agreed with you, then they would donate their money to your cause. That is not true, because negative income tax returns everything back to Steve Jobs. No matter how rich you are, you only need one iPad. But If we tax 50% of Steve's income and distribute all money to the poor, that means that Steve can sell one million iPads more annually. This will increase greatly Steve's net income. Probably even more than he is paying taxes. This logic is applied in all levels of income classes, namely negative income tax increases amount of jobs and salaries, and thus everybody will benefit from it. Rich people will, as always, benefit the most, but also poor people income will quadruple. And from poor end of spectrum it does not cost even a dime to quadruple once income, although social benefit is huge. > The solution is simple: we need to start treating other people as > equals. So build a moral code with equality as an axiom; and apply > whatever theory you develop, equally to everyone. In order to treat people equally, we need to ensure that everyone has basic needs fulfilled. You cannot be equal and hungry at the same time. Hunger is the most oppressive and tyrannical dictator! It does not give any merci. - Jouni
