A Brief History of Taxes, Fiat money and The Chinese Proto-Socialist Emperor Who Ruined his Country waaay Before Marx was a Thing
Privacy is a cornerstone of civilization. Most people who are into cryptos value their privacy. The end of financial privacy came up along with the advent of personal income taxes. So let's take a look at the history of taxation for a moment. You can memorize these points when you debate with a commie. Now this isn't a list that covers the entire history of human civilization. I'm just taking portions of history that is valuable to the discussion.
The outrageous Tax rates of Wang Mang of the Xin Dynasty
In 9 AD, Wang Mang instituted a revolutionary land redistribution system, ordering that all land in the empire become legally the property of the empire, to be known as wangtian (王田), in a system similar to the Zhou well-field system. All further land transactions were banned, although property owners were allowed to continue to possess the property. However, if a family had less than eight members but had one "well" or larger property (about 0.6 km2), it was required to distribute the excess to fellow clan members, neighbors, or other members of the same village. Criticism of the wangtian system was punishable by exile.
This was many centuries before Karl Marx and and you could even say he was the first idiot to create sort of a proto-central bank. Yes. This royal idiot (pun intended) started market manipulation to create a Utopia. Of course the name "Utopia" didn't exist at the time. It was the Chinese classic (Zhōngguó gǔdiǎn diǎnjí) he took inspiration from.
In 10, Wang set up a state economic adjustment agency, seeking to control fluctuations in the prices of food and textiles by purchasing excess goods and then selling them when the price went up. The same agency also became responsible for loaning money to entrepreneurs, at the rate of three percent per month.
Of course the rates were several time higher compared to what the FED is offering. In some developed hellholes there is even negative interest rates. After all these are just proto-central banking. But I still didn't talk about the worst disastrous policy of all. This royal Asshat came up with income tax and started state monopolies!!! The tax was MASSIVE. People were really pissed. USSA used to have a top income tax of 92% even Bernie Sanders support that level of taxation even today (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/15/bernie-s/income-tax-rates-were-90-percent-under-eisenhower-/) What do you think happened in the land of the commies???
It was an unprecedented income tax, at the rate of 10 percent of profits, for professionals and skilled labor and he was overthrown 13 years later in 23 AD
People at the beginning of the first century didn't had enough public good in their hearts to swallow a 10% tax. These days even places like HK and Singapore doesn't offer such rates. Emperor Wang Mang also instituted a state monopoly on liquor and weapons. and that didn't help with the Utopian pipe dream expenditures either. By 17 AD imperial coffers coffers were so depleted that Wang instituted six monopolies on liquor, salt, iron, coinage, forestry, and fishing. Now here is some news. IT DIDN'T HELP AT ALL. This is practically captain obvious stuff. But when greed and envy gets coupled with unfiltered stupidity, people loose sight.
Although the tax rates were heavenly compared to the modern days If a person's land exceeded 0.6 square kilometers, those people were ordered to distribute the "excess" land to neighbors or relatives. The end of his times completely rhymes with the modern times. I'll let you read a piece written about this idiot.
The entire empire was already collapsing, but Wang Mang did not care, but rather buried his head in what is old, believing that once he returned the government structure to the old days, the empire will be peaceful. He only sought to establish proper ceremony and music day and night, and he sought to create explanations for all of the Confucian classics by making tortured interpretations, without spending time on the important affairs of state. Before he could complete his ceremonies and music, he was already killed. This kind of behavior is even more childish than a three-year-old child. There is a common contemporary idiom, "foolishness is but a form of trickery." But for Wang Mang, his trickery was only a form of foolishness.
Change a few words and we practically have our commie leaning developed countries explained. This is just one case. I have a habit of putting too much info into my works. So I'll add a few more stuff.
Roman Republic
__ land, homes and other real estate, slaves, animals, personal items and monetary wealth were taxed. It's said taxes are the price we pay for civilization. So how much did this great Roman "Empire" payed in taxes in its earlier days? At the worst conditions (Like the times of 92% taxes) Romans had an almost 31 times lower tax rate of 3% These were the war time tax. When there is no war, taxes were much smaller. they were in fact 92 times smaller than the war time taxes of USSA. Romans were taxed at 1%__
Few Tax Facts on USSA
On July 1st 1862 President Abraham Lincoln got the Internal Revenue Act of 1862 (which was a revision of an earlier flat rate income tax passed in 1861) to combat inflation and finance the war. How did this inflation even occure in the first place? It was through the abandonment of the gold standard. Basically Lincoln became a proto-Nixon and started printing unbacked money out of thin air called Greenbacks. By 1863 there were already $1000 notes. Here is a pic courtesy of Wikipedia:
_This is before a whole lot of inflation and by the time it was 1918 there were 10,000 dollar notes being printed. Now did you think a Bitcoin is Huge? Even under bogus inflation statistics that has been tampered with by changing the methods they are calculated we still get a value close to a quarter million USD. 20 USD were pegged to 1 ounce of gold. If we calculate based on that......
We get 661,740 USD for the above note at today's prices for gold. Imagine carrying 661,740 USD in your wallet as a single note. I do think gold is likely to hit $5000 in the next financial crash. If that happens you are looking at 1.25 million USD folded in your pocket.
The Continental Dollar designed by Benjamin Franklin
Ben Franklin is one of my favorite politicians even though I'm not a fan of politics at all. I just love it how instead of trusting a god, the currency itself just said to mind one's own business. In one way this is just pure Laissez-faire show off coupled with promoting of freedom.
Beyond that the term also tells people to have good business sensibilities. War is destructive. Trade is constructive. Know which one to support.
"In 1939, about 15% of the people paid income tax. That's all, period. At the end of the war, we had 80% of our families paying income tax."
Also note this:
The Federal Reserve is not an agency of the federal government, but it has been given power to regulate banks and financial institutions. FED is 100% owned by private banks.
FED is a "For profit" company. It pays a guaranteed 6% return to its banker shareholders. The source is the same one above.
I don't know how many people even know this fact. There is no public good when it comes to FED.
https://steemit.com/economy/@d-zero/10-mind-blowing-facts-on-the-federal-reserve-us-economy-and-nature-of-money-from-a-austrian-economist-newbie
Interesting I didn't know that event in China.
I really manage my own hypothesis about high taxes. According to my vision, high taxes are a mechanism that the Central Bank uses to absorb the monetary mass that they put into circulation. That is, the Central Bank buys 1,000 million sovereign bonds issued by the Government, which introduces them into the economy through public spending, which generates inflation unevenly in the economy, as described by von Mises in his theory of money and the credit, but then the State collects around 800 million in taxes, and pays the Central Bank all that money, so that the total money supply only increases 200 million, redistributing capital and directing the economy in a centralized manner. In such a way that inflation does not increase too much from one moment to another, but that allows the Bank and the government to manage the economy as they want. If the State becomes bigger, it will need more money from the Central Bank, so the money issue will be higher, and to control that, they need to raise taxes, keeping inflation low so that the industrial and commercial sector can make a precise economic calculation.
Definitely the system is more complex than as I have explained here, however, as I said, I think taxes do not have the same purpose that they had in past times.
In the past this was not possible because there was no paper money in the West, although I think that in China they had already invented it.
Good publication, Greetings!
I think what you say plays a considerable part. Mainly I think we have bunch of disjointed idiots seeing one short term trick after another and trying to implement a bunch of them. Looking at the consequences your theory totally fits the bill and even if it wasn't the original goal, I'm sure there have been praise about pulling off what you've described.
Yes, when I realized this system, I thought it was a brilliant plan, and that only a considerably bright mind in economic terms could have designed such an economic plan, however, it seems to me that such a system could only have been created based on the trial and error.
The first tests began during the price revolution, when the private banks of London began to use banknotes, then the Stockholms Bank was the first to use paper money without backing it entirely in gold, but his bank went bankrupt. I imagine that at that moment the inexperience of the bankers led them to overestimate their credit capacity, however, at that moment they realized the power they could get, so they went to the King of Sweden and convinced him to create the Central Bank of Sweden, the first central bank in the world, from there it expanded to London, and suddenly these bankers were producing money through fractional reserve banking and redistributing capital into the hands of the men who would develop the first industry in the world, the industrial revolution.
They financed Napoleon and the Spanish-American revolutions with Francisco de Miranda because they needed to remove the Catholic monarchies to implant their central banks and implement an industrial model that was not compatible with the model of feudal aristocracy.
And they were successful, The French monarchy fell, and the Spanish Empire lost its colonies. The first bank in Venezuela was the British Colonial Bank administered by the son of Francisco de Miranda, the first leader of Spanish-American independence. Then they spread to the United States and Russia, and then the entire financial network was one.
Since then, these bankers have been playing with the economy, a few decades ago in Japan was designed quantitative easing, a more sophisticated mechanism to continue injecting credit to the economy but reducing the risk of generating the dreaded inflation.
The mechanism that they use I describe a little better in this publication, in case you are interested:
https://steemit.com/politics/@vieira/the-hand-of-the-invisible-men-how-the-social-hierarchy-works
I'm sorry to have extended, I started writing like crazy.
Thanks for sharing. Here is something from me: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5CL-krstYn532QY1Ayo27s1
It's actually from a primarily gaming channel and there were few bits of economic ignorance due to Keynesian brainwashing. But overall it was good.
No big deal. It happens to a lot of smart people.
Oh, I did not know that YouTube channel, I'll take a look tonight.
that's why I favor a consumption tax on new items with a universal prebate to make it non regressive.
We should tax things more we want less of, like vice. conversely we should tax things less we want there to be more of, like income.
It's tricky to decide which things are needed less. Personally I'd say "things that can potentially hurt" be considered for this "vice" tax. So drugs, liquor, smokes, weapons can be put in the list. These things do not break the NAP but can potentially lead to or aid the violation of NAP.
those things all create externalized societal costs so it makes sense to have users pay those, except guns. Legal guns save society money. They should be tax free.
Income tax is one of the worst poisons on this earth. It hits right were it hurts the most, movement. It will also causes nice, potentially increasing value loss when paired with other taxes.
War, hate and force!- steemilicious
A lot of nuggets packed in this history lesson. Wonder how things changed after the percentage of families paying inocme tax jumped from 15% to 80%...
" I just love it how instead of trusting a god, the currency itself just said to mind one's own business." 😂
Thank you. I wish more people understood this.
I find it hilarious that all the FIAT detactors never mention the booming times of Tally sticks and the preceding Colonial Scripts which when Franklin went before the Parlament and was questioned on how there is no wanton suffering and poverty pouring out into every corner of America, like London, he explained that they issue their own money. Nobody that swears by commodity backed money can resolve the conflict of dwindling supply and the poverty and suffering that came with commodity backed king mandated coinage, which is THE reason, not any other reason before or above it, that America went to war over the divine right of kings. The problem though is that hardly anyone who utters the word money and currency can appreciate the LOLS of "commodity backed currency" and the needless ire at FIAT money.
You should include that the "federal government" is not a public agency, but a for-profit Private Corporation chartered by the UN and bankrupted recently after being the successor to 2 other bankrupt governmental service corporations.
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
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