Must view for U.S. citizens.......JIM ROGERS says raise interest rates

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After reading your post I can see we do agree on some things.


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Yeah, honestly, I think it's mostly semantics.


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You say taxes are needed so our governemnt can back the "obligation" of our money. I am aware of no obliagtion of our money, they simply state money is legal tender for all debts public and private.


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The question is, why is it legal tender? What prevents us from transacting in some other currency? Why do we place any faith in dollar?

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Banks, not Government, used to be the issuers of our currency, bank notes, which represented physical deposits of gold and silver.


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Note that inflation is generally much worse under these conditions. If you allow anybody to issue currency, you'll have completely absurd levels of inflation or deflation, depending on the level of economic confidence (in that effective monetary policy at any given time will always be the opposite of what you desire). If you allow anybody with gold to issue currency, you're letting gold-mining firms control the monetary policy.

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Taxes are not needed to support a currency, they are needed to pay for spending which has spiraled out of control.


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Taxes in a general are necessary to support a national currency - specific levels of taxation are not.

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Our income tax system is complicated, unfair and panders to special interests. We need a consumption tax to support government activities that will greatly reduce cheating and collect from the underground economy. A negative income tax for low income earners would also be a good idea for those of whom the consumption tax is too onerous.

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I do agree that the idea of income tax is flawed and isn't even progressive in practice - it's designed to maximize taxation of middle-class and upper-middle class professionals, mostly because it's easiest group to extract money from. It makes no effort to incentivize behavior based on externalities or match cost with revenue (note that those two statements are on some level equivalent). If I were to design a system, income tax would be replaced by a combination of taxes on consumption, rent, transactions, etc. But that's all beside the point that Ron Paul is a loon and not a serious candidate.