I want you to read this very short piece and seriously contemplate;
1. Why wouldn't most guys (and gals) do this?
2. How much GDP is he producing, and thusly
3. How much is he paying in taxes?
4. Why would he give up that life for the financial, psychological and emotional burdens and risks of marriages and children?
Until the social and financial contract is re-established that men get to keep the majority of the fruits of our labor and are not taxed to pay for other people's mistakes and irresponsibilities, you can expect this to continue.
Enjoy that decline Frost!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u1ZMmQoEzk&t=66m18s The theory this guy poses is incredibly potent. Agricultural society would allow people to appropriate capital(property) and the products thereof to a person. In a hunter gatherer society you'd basically have communism as there was no way to say who was responsible for the successfull hunt.
ReplyDeleteNow to add to that: with evolutionary pressure on men being at least twice that of women, men might have adapted to agricultural life while women are stuck with a hunter gatherer brain.
Just a tought.
Sole-prop, location independent, zero overhead, zero employees, web-based, minimal to no taxation: it's all the way of the future. Well for the smart ones anyway. There will always be plenty of sheep. But yes, this will begin having an effect on the tax rolls and thus the support beams for the burgeoning welfare and police states.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the police state, there is a lot of well-deserved scorn heaped on the welfare state, but have you looked at how much money they are spending on the tools of fascism? Small towns with tiny budgets buying military-grade arsenals and SWAT vehicles while teachers are laid off. Police unions with their overtime fraud and extravagant pensions. Firemen who typically do nothing but grocery shopping and responding to paramedic calls, making six figure salaries. Feds buying expensive drones and surveillance technology, on debt that they don't intend to ever pay back. Price gouging by military contractors with cozy relationships with their bought off congressmen. These things are coming to outstrip the excesses of the welfare state by a large margin.
Expect the drumbeats to grow louder for punitive action against these plantation escapees. Already we have the faux outrage over tax-escaping millionaires abandoning US citizenship...that will start happening more and more. You have open talk among liberal congress members about how it's "disgusting" or "unamerican" or how these people are never welcome back. You have open calls for legislation like exit taxes, passport suspension, etc. It's gonna get crazy.
The rats and roaches that have dined at the trough have only themselves to blame. They've backed us into a corner. Squeezed out by illegal immigration on one end, Corporate globalization on the other. There are very few places for the honest American working man to make a buck these days. It's become a sick, materialistic society that places money above community and dignity.
I'm down with the red pill prescription: go Galt, go MGTOW, go off grid, or go expat.
off topic: your captcha system is maddeningly hard to read. I typically have to cycle through five or six of them before I find a semi-legible one. Really puts a damper on the commenting.
If you do hands-on work like plumbing or carpentry, it's easy to dodge the IRS by taking cash under the table. But what if you're a consultant working for customers you never meet all over the world? Bitcoin. There are now banks outside the US that accept Bitcoin and give you an anonymous ATM card usable anywhere in the USA. If the IRS doesn't shut them down soon, huge cash flows could disappear off their radar screens.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if you live in a mansion and drive your Rolls Royce to fancy restaurants every night, you must be making money somewhere. But if the IRS can only guess your income based on your lifestyle, it's not an income tax anymore; it's a consumption tax.
Only income tax plus "quantitative easing" can raise enough money to fund a welfare state. You just dodged the former, and the latter increases the real value of your Bitcoins!
If you want a family, work very hard in your 20s, save your Bitcoins, and live cheaply on the $15000/yr you declare to the IRS. Take these savings home as "income" in your 30s, when you get deductions for your wife and kids. Let the wife know that if she left, you'd be so depressed that your "income" might dwindle to nothing.
My point really wasn't one of not avoiding taxes, it was more why work in the first place? I actually have no problems paying taxes at the rate I'm at now because I know I make so little, I'm subsidized by the richer classes. I doubt I will ever have the patience or the tolerance to kiss ass to a six figure salary.
ReplyDeleteBut why even aim for that?
Work a minimal repsonsibility job and make my paltry $30,000, get pretty much every penny refunded, and enjoy the benefits of a high taxed society. Don't need a Rolls Royce, got a 1990 Chevy Caprice Classic. Much cheaper to insure.
Bitcoin is a great idea and I hope it takes off and doesn't get shut down. However, as far as getting an offshore bank that will issue you an ATM card usable in the US with Bitcoin funds, I have researched this and all I've come up with so far are some scams where a guy promises these cards for $100 in processing fees, then disappears with everyone's money. Buyer beware! Not accusing 'Dave' of lying but I have yet to find any place that provides the service he's mentioning.
ReplyDeleteAs Cappy as said, the stock market is being propped up by people investing for their retirement and by the fed dumping money into the economy.
ReplyDeletehttp://m.cnbc.com/id/48165921
Which is why I'm slowly pulling my money out into tangible commodities.
James Wolfe says, "Which is why I'm slowly pulling my money out into tangible commodities."
ReplyDeleteI hope he really means "fungible" commodities.
Johnny, I read about it in Forbes:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/05/07/bitcoin-funded-debit-cards/
Captain, watching the welfare state consume itself (with haggy single mothers who rejected you in high school digging through dumpsters) is even more satisfying when you have savings that the government can't see, can't tax, and can't devalue. Who knows, maybe you'll need an operation someday.
Ah yes, fungible. Not a word you hear often, had to look it up. But I actually meant tangible, something I could put my hands on. Stocks might be something you can covert into capital (dollars), but if the stock market was to crash physically or the government should decide to seize those stocks, for the good of the chiiiiiiiildreeen, then they suddenly lose all their value because you can't get your hands on them. Even selling the bloody things it takes days before you actually get your money. When I have a hunk of precious metal in my hand it has value now. When dollars are worthless its value wil not be diminished. My stock certificates will one day be worthless when those companies no longer exist.
ReplyDeleteI seriously enjoy the economic lessons I learn from Cappy and my fellow readers. I majored in Computer Science with a minor in business and a minor in psychology. It gives me an interesting point of view on technology, economics, and how crazy the world is.