On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 23:46:50 -0600, Bill Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, 2004-10-11 at 14:54, Travis Pahl wrote: > > > > It's gotten smaller many times, and the trend has been downward for > > > decades. Only the Social Security tax has been increasing, masking the > > > reductions in the income tax. > > > > Spending has increased despite small ups and downs in tax levels. And > > social security is an income tax as well. Again you are using > > governemnt classifications to mask the true nature of things. > > The nature of things is irrelevant in many political decision making > processes. The nature of them both is theft, but that argument goes > nowhere with the public -- the voters.
The fact that it is theft is not the point of what we are discussing. The point here is that big government and government supporteres often try to treat SS and income tax as two seperate things when they are in essence the same. Both are examples of government taking a percentage of your income. But only one is included when they say what your income tax is. Whether the person thinks it is theft or not is not really important. Well it is, but it is not important to the point I am trying to make. When stating what percent the income tax is, we should include SS. > Indeed, a skilled communicator > can use the definitions the government provides to bring people to > oppose them where they would not have in the general "true nature" case. Sure you can. But an even more skilled communicator would at some point in the discussion point out the problem with the government definitions and get the person to begin using the correct use of the words that will help stop the governments redefinition from becoming even more entrenched. > > > > >> How convenient of you to pull evidence from your crystal ball. > > > > > > >You are doing the same by argueing that somehow this renaming of rent > > > >stabilazation method will someday lead to a free housing market in > > > >NYC. > > > > > > There IS a free rental market in NYC, existing alongside the regulated one. > > > The free market keeps getting bigger and the regulated one smaller. > > > That's not future, that's recent past, thru now. > > > > There is not multpile markets for one commodity. > > On what planet? > > Let us walk through this particular example as I understand NYC > arrangements. > > Some land owners participate in the government regulations, meaning they > have limits on what they can charge, etc. for rent. Others choose not > to. Nope not really. You are suggesting that owners have a choice in the matter. They either have old apts and have no say, or when they built apts they could build with really high taxes and have no control in rent from the government but of course have high rents to pay the higher taxes or accept gov control but pay lower taxes. In all cases the government is using coercion to get the owners to accept governments prices. > So some tenants, by definition, participate in one or the other market, > and in some cases both. If the supply and demand side of those markets > develop where one is favored over the other, it will increase faster or > subsume the other, But that in no way changes the existence of two > markets. I suppose one could play semantic games and say that those are > two aspects of the same overall market; but then you'd have to say the > overall market is in fact a free market -- and I suspect you'd object to > that (indeed I might as well). Of course it is a sematics game. That was my point from the begining. Regular use of the term market in this context refers to a market for each commidity. Goodman started playing with sematics by saying that rent controlled and non rent controlled apts are two seperate commidities and thus there is a free housing market in NYC. People looking for housing in NYC do not see it as two seperate markets. > > I know what the past has given us, but it does not mean that the trend > > will continue. You beleive it will. I beleive it will not. > > Meanwhile other cities that got rid of it without these stupid plans > > and have enjopyed free housing markets for deccades now. Why you > > refuse to beleive that it could have been true in NYC had they not > > kept fighting for what was completely right rather than accepting a > > stupid small step is beyond me. > > Maybe he has a better grasp on NYC politics than you. Maybe he does. But I do not think he does. I grant that he has lived there longer, but I have lived there for nearly 4 years as well and in that time I met very very few people who wanted to end rent control. Every year there are people protesting the rate increases on the steps city hall. The people are not going to accept rent control being elliminated much longer. And why should they? THey see rents rising and are being told that rent control is being elliminated. Of course it isn't and that is the reason the rents are so high, but most people do not understand that. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Libnw mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw > http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw > _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
