From: baruch@nynexst.com (Robert Baruch)
Subject: Re: Funding the govt.....(Re: Just a few...
Reply-To: baruch@nynexst.com
Organization: NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 16:02:16 GMT

In article 28117@athena.mit.edu, tyadav@athena.mit.edu (T.Y.) writes:
> ============================
>  baruch@nynexst.com writes:
> >When I pay my income taxes, I certainly don't do it out of duty or respect!  I
> >do it because the government has a nice jail cell and a shiny pistol waiting
> >for me.
> 
>  Yep, every time I fill IRS papers, I can almost sense the mafia
>  guy pointing the shiny pistol and say... you know too much....    :)

(snicker)

> 
> >When I have said that without taxes, the government would be reduced to
> >donations, I should really have said that government is reduced to selling
> >a service, which people can either purchase or not purchase.
> >
> >>  Sales tax seems most reasonable. If you get more property, you need more
> >>  protection, so you pay proportionally more.
> >
> >A "tax" is usually meant to signify a _mandatory_ giving up of wealth.  So
> >if you get more property, and you must pay taxes on it to get more protection, 
> >this is another way of saying that if you get more property, you must pay
> >for it's protection regardless of whether you want it or not.  Sounds like
> >Mafia stories, doesn't it?
> 
>  Yes, but here is the difficulty. The final product you or I use has gone thru
>  a lot of value addition steps - from raw materials, to say this monitor
>  you are right now gazing at.

I agree to that.

>  Now, all thru these steps, it would be
>  difficult to know how many citizens would want protection service and how
>  many wouldn't, don't you think so?

Is there really a necessity to know it?

>  As our society becomes more and more
>  knowledge/thought based, the levels and intermediate stages, products need
>  protection increase.

Funny, I can't seem to parse that sentence!

>  In absence of future protection needs, wouldn't some
>  arbitrary "protection price" need be added to the value addition prices.

Not so arbitrary.  If you buy protection, you buy it for some well-defined
amount of cash (or equivalent value in goods).  This protection would
reasonably be spread out over the products created -- passing the cost of
protection on the next user.

> 
>  In other words: you may choose no protection for the property
>  you purchase/possess - I agree with this. But does that mean the property
>  you are going to purchase shouldn't implicitly include the property's past
>  protection costs? My first thoughts are - it would/should.

Sure.  Suppose I want to sell my land, along with it's protection.  If person
A doesn't want to buy the protection part of it, then I am free to deny him
the sale (since what am I going to do with protection for the land and no land?).

If person B does buy the land with protection, and then throws away the
protection, he can later sell it without that protection.  He can choose
to sell it at whatever price he wants -- he could, for example, include
his cost of buying the original protection (even though it doesn't exist
at the time of B's sale).

Now, as to whether the cost of prior protection (which presently isn't present)
*should* be put in, you must ask yourself if the cost of car insurance should
be added in when you sell your car.  As far as I can recall, there is no
necessity to purchase the same car insurance policy as the car had...

--Rob


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