-->Dottore hat schon recht - es ist die Macht und nicht der Gesellschaftsvertrag.

Timothy Roth ist eine schöne Hoffnung (die wir studieren und pflegen sollten), aber unsere Kinder sollten wir besser nach dem Modell erziehen, das Miesespeter weiter unten einmal eingestellt hatte.

Schmankerl: Explaining taxes to children

[ Börse & Wirtschaft: Elliott-Wellen-Forum ]

Geschrieben von Miesespeter am 26. Mai 2003 22:29:52:
Because I write about politics, people are forever asking me the best way to teach children how our system of government works. I tell them that they can give their own children a basic civics course right in their own homes.
In my own experience as a father, I have discovered several simple devices that can illustrate to a child's mind the principles on which the modern state deals with its citizens. You may find them helpful, too.
For example, I used to play the simple card game WAR with my son. After a while, when he thoroughly understood that the higher ranking cards beat the lower ranking ones, I created a new game I called GOVERNMENT. In this game, I was Government, and I won every trick, regardless of who had the better card. My boy soon lost interest in my new game, but I like to think it taught him a valuable lesson for later in life.
When your child is a little older, you can teach him about our tax system in a way that is easy to grasp. Offer him, say, $10 to mow the lawn. When he has mowed it and asks to be paid, withhold $5 and explain that this is income tax. Give $1 to his younger brother, and tell him that this is"fair". Also, explain that you need the other $4 yourself to cover the administrative costs of dividing the money. When he cries, tell him he is being"selfish" and"greedy". Later in life he will thank you.
Make as many rules as possible. Leave the reasons for them obscure. Enforce them arbitrarily. Accuse your child of breaking rules you have never told him about. Keep him anxious that he may be violating commands you haven't yet issued. Instill in him the feeling that rules are utterly irrational. This will prepare him for living under democratic government.
When your child has matured sufficiently to understand how the judicial system works, set a bedtime for him and then send him to bed an hour early. When he tearfully accuses you of breaking the rules, explain that you made the rules and you can interpret them in any way that seems appropriate to you, according to changing conditions. This will prepare him for the Supreme Court's concept of the U.S. Constitution as a"living document".
Promise often to take him to the movies or the zoo, and then, at the appointed hour, recline in an easy chair with a newspaper and tell him you have changed your plans. When he screams,"But you promised!", explain to him that it was a campaign promise.
Every now and then, without warning, slap your child. Then explain that this is defense. Tell him that you must be vigilant at all times to stop any potential enemy before he gets big enough to hurt you. This, too, your child will appreciate, not right at that moment, maybe, but later in life.
At times your child will naturally express discontent with your methods. He may even give voice to a petulant wish that he lived with another family. To forestall and minimize this reaction, tell him how lucky he is to be with you the most loving and indulgent parent in the world, and recount lurid stories of the cruelties of other parents. This will make him loyal to you and, later, receptive to schoolroom claims that the America of the postmodern welfare state is still the best and freest country on Earth.
This brings me to the most important child-rearing technique of all: lying. Lie to your child constantly. Teach him that words mean nothing--or rather that the meanings of words are continually"evolving", and may be tomorrow the opposite of what they are today.
Some readers may object that this is a poor way to raise a child. A few may even call it child abuse. But that's the whole point: Child abuse is the best preparation for adult life under our form of GOVERNMENT.

· Original

-->Lieber Theo,

Du denkst viel zu kompliziert. All die feinsinnigen Ãœberlegungen, mit Inflation, Deflation, Reserven, Mindereinnahmen, Aussenhandelsdefizit etc. kann man sich sparen.

Diese Leute denken kaltschnäuzig zynisch. So wie Wolfowitz klar erklärt, das mit den Massenvernichtungswaffen haben wir halt gesagt, weil so der Feldzug am einfachsten zu verkaufen war, sagt Bernanke klar, wir drucken Falschgeld, solange wie es halt zu verkaufen ist - und fertig.

Die halten sich mit Bilanzierungsvorschriften, oder Völkerrecht und ähnlichen Komplikationen nicht lange auf. Simpel, straight und direkt - wir rauben das Ã-l und drucken Falschgeld. Wer meckert kriegt eins in die Fresse.

Gruß
R

p.s. verfolge Dein Gold Dinar Programm mit großem Interesse - weiter so.

-->>The Fleecing of a Nation (brought to you by 'the we just want government out of our lives crowd)

The Enronization Of Public Policy
Filed June 4, 2003

Has there ever been a clearer, more irrefutable example of our political leaders' lack of a moral compass than the clandestine, eleventh-hour elimination of a promised child tax credit for almost 12 million of America's poorest children?

It's a move that is so cold-hearted and so profoundly dishonorable that it could only have been made by people who have lost all moral direction.

A magnetic compass should always point north; a moral compass should always point out what is moral -- and immoral. Heaping billions on the rich while ensuring that one out of six American kids doesn’t get a penny is dead wrong.

But that's exactly what Congressional Republicans did -- and what President Bush signed off on.

This is not a right/left issue. It's a right/wrong issue. But the GOP's self-appointed morality czars have been deafeningly silent on this bit of economic indecency. I guess Bill Bennett was too busy shaking the hands of every one-armed bandit in Vegas to notice.

Adding to the obscenity is the fact that while the Congressional hatchet men were hacking up the $3.5 billion child tax credit in the name of keeping the total tax cut under $350 billion, they let stand billions in corporate tax dodges and accounting cons, including the use of offshore tax havens.

The White House labeled this particular piece of supply-side porn the Jobs and Growth Act. I guess the Leave No Corporate Loophole Behind Act didn't focus group as well.

The last few years have shown us what happens when an entire subculture loses its moral compass: Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, WorldCom, et al. And it's becoming increasingly clear that the current administration has embraced the unethical ethos of the corporate oligarchy from which so many of its members came -- and which all of them continue to serve. The same inability to distinguish right from wrong that characterized the corporate scandals is now dominating public policy.

It's the Enronization of Washington.

Want more proof? How about the unprecedented aircraft-leasing deal currently being put together by the Pentagon and Boeing -- a plan that uses the same kind of accounting sleight-of-hand popularized by the gang at Enron. Here's how it works: instead of the Pentagon buying the 100 new jets it wants to use as aerial refueling tankers directly from Boeing, at an upfront cost of $138 million per plane, a special-purpose entity created on Wall Street will purchase the planes and lease them to the Air Force.

That way the Pentagon gets to acquire the planes without having to dip into the Air Force's limited procurement budget, and Boeing gets to reap billions in new military contracts without having to show the debt associated with the shady deal on its balance sheet. It's an off-the-books win-win deal for them both -- but a losing proposition for taxpayers, who'll end up forking over an additional $8 billion to cover the interest payments on the leases.

The sleazy new deal is being put together by the good bankers at Citigroup -- the same outfit that helped Enron defraud shareholders out of, what do you know, also $8 billion. Who says irony is dead?

Then there is the news that, in an effort to ensure the passage of its cherished tax-cut plan, the Bush administration buried a highly damaging study -- commissioned by its own Treasury department -- that found that it would take either the permanent elimination of all future federal discretionary spending or an immediate and permanent tax hike of 66 percent to cover the upcoming retirement and healthcare needs of aging baby boomers. You think that bombshell might have put a little damper on Bush's tax cut orgy?

This is exactly the kind of skullduggery corrupt corporations used to conceal potentially disastrous news from investors -- like Adelphia hiding its $3.1 billion loans to the Rigas family in tiny footnotes in an earnings filing.

Like many disgraced companies, the White House has proven adept at playing fast and loose with the numbers in order to mislead its"shareholders" -- the American people. Take the administration's shifty use of"averages" to make it seem like the new tax cut benefits everyone -- claiming that"91 million taxpayers will receive, on average, a tax cut of $1,226," when, in fact, the majority of households will receive a tax cut of $100 or less. Or the way it used sure-to-be-repealed"sunset clauses" to make it seem as if the president was reasonably settling for a $350 billion tax cut, when the actual price tag on the new bill will be close to $1 trillion.
Sogar den Soldiern vom Pentagon fällt ein Buchhaltungtrick ein:

It's the kind of economic book cooking that would do ol' Kenny Boy Lay proud.

It's time to expand the Right's definition of immorality beyond sex, drugs, and rock and roll to include lying, cheating, and callous indifference to those in need.

CEOs lying to investors to pad their own pockets is bad enough. Political leaders lying to the American people to pad the pockets of their big buck contributors is immoral -- and intolerable