From: johniac@austin.ibm.com (John Iacoletti/100000)
Subject: Re: The end of the Reagan Era
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 00:55:00 GMT
Organization: IBM Advanced Workstations and Systems, Austin, TX
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fred j mccall 575-3539 (mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com) wrote:
: Sorry to inject a little reality into your tirade, but I simply don't
: care to type in several chapters of a book to try to explain it to
: you,

I don't see why not.  You type the equivalent of several chapters of a book
every day here anyway.

: when you don't want to believe it in the first place (see the
: past discussion on the definition of 'flat tax').

Believe or not, I don't ask you to explain things so that I can argue with them.
I have learned a few things from you.  One thing I learned is that "flat tax"
has been defined by convention, and its common definition is what you said it
is.  Until you explained this, I didn't realize the word "flat" applied to
a percentage rate being flat.  I'm sorry if I didn't publicly thank you
for that experience.

: Yes, but you can't make every street a toll street, with collection on
: every block at slightly different rates.  This is the problem with
: user fees.

How nice of you to a priori decide what's impractical.  Maybe we don't really
need the entire country blanketed with asphalt.

: Thank you for the demonstration that despite having looked at it and
: having read it, you still don't understand the idea behind full
: costing and what it is supposed to fix (or behind such simple concepts
: as economic efficiency and pareto optimality).

Thank you for falling back into your pattern of buzz words and pomposity 
when asked straightforward questions.  I'm sure glad you don't teach for a 
living.

: The problem is that,
: given the ability to effectively shove off the external costs on
: someone else, there is no 'better luck next time' because there are no
: market forces to change the situation (unless the guy who is having to
: breath the shmutz from your factory takes a gun and blows your brains
: out). 

If people didn't want to breathe the "schmutz", there would be no factory
workers, and ergo the factory would shut down.  More government is not the 
solution to everything.

: Too cumbersome.  Please describe a toll system for ALL ROADS that
: doesn't require stopping to pay the tolls, that prevents use if you
: don't pay, that doesn't get in the way, etc.

We already did this.  A few different mechanisms were described to you the
last time this came up.  Also, it's doubtful that all roads require the same
level of maintenance.  If nobody uses a road, why waste money maintaining it?

: Note that you ALREADY
: are stopped in order to pay for the gasoline.

Yes, and how convenient the government gets a tax collector free of charge.

: Hey, John.  Teach me everything there is to know about computers HERE
: ON THE NET, RIGHT NOW.  I don't want to have to get or read any books.

I ask you very specific questions.  Your standard "type in a thousand pages"
evasion is wearing thin.  If you don't want to answer, just say so.

--
John Iacoletti       IBM AWS Austin       Internet: johniac@austin.ibm.com
        My opinions do not reflect the views of the IBM Corporation
    "Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age" -- TMBG   "I Palindrome I"
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections