I assure you, the incomes of the rich are increasing. Their taxes could be raised in order to pay off the national debt. -------------------- [reply] Not in terms of consumer purchasing power. You are quite mistaken. What is (or was) increasing are capital gains most of which are unrealized that have become "collateral" for increasing consumer loans, especially home mortgages against "equity." That is what is (or was--the "sharp uptick" in interest rates over the last month is worrisome) keeping the economy going. The actual purchasing power required to fully amortize the increasing debt does not exist. Because of this, loans in general do not amortize but can only feed on themselves in Ponzi-like fashion. This is especially true for the rich whose income is mostly on paper not in cash. A much larger percentage of the income of the middle class is in cash, which makes it much easier to collect taxes from the middle class.
And why should the national debt be "paid off" rather than amortized as each specific obligation comes due. Debt is a useful and necessary tool of finance and there's no reason it shouldn't be for government too. Debt itself is not the problem; the problem is the impossibility of amortizing the debt as demonstrated through A + B. You go to a restaurant--somebody goes into debt to somebody. It's inherent to doing business of even the most basic kind. You pay before you eat, the restaurant is in debt to you. You pay after you eat, you are in debt to the restaurant and the restaurant is in debt to the electric company and the phone company and the landlord. In a dynamic-- that is to say living economy there's always debt, which in the broadest sense means nothing more that contractual obligations that contemplate future performance. An economy that does not utilize debt is a very primitive economy indeed. It can hardly be called human; it would have to be more on the order of the pre-programmed ants that are the universal dream of socialists like yourself. In terms of debt nothing distinguishes government debt from the private sector except the way it keeps its books. Normally a firm going into debt is disbursing more cash than it is receiving yet is booking a profit. Government books that as "deficit." It's the difference between accrual and cash accounting. -- By government profit, I do mean a surplus - although profit -------------------- [reply] It's certainly not the standard term. -- is the correct term if social services and education are spun off to faith based organizations and income redistribution happens within the firm rather than the society. -------------------- [reply] Which will happen only if there is one big firm like in Soviet Russia or North Korea. What really happens there is that there is very little to "redistribute" because there is so little that is produced. But you seem to think it can happen through the "privatization" of government services and "workplace democracy." I do not agree. -- What remains are energy and mineral extraction, land leases and sales and profits from government research (which would be licensed rather than given away to manufacturers). This excess would be distributed. Michael Bindner -------------------- [reply] That can happen only in "kind" because the money isn't there. So back to primitive barter. Great! ____________________________________________________________ Get advanced SPAM filtering on Webmail or POP Mail ... Get Lycos Mail! http://login.mail.lycos.com/r/referral?aid=27005 --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84IaC.bcVIgP.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html --^----------------------------------------------------------------
