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> The world is drowning in cash—and it's making us poorer and less safe. > So what is all that cash being used for? The answer is simple: a large part is feedi

> The world is drowning in cash—and it's making us poorer and less safe. > So what is all that cash being used for? The answer is simple: a large part is feeding tax evasion, corruption, terrorism, the drug trade, human trafficking, and the rest of a massive global underground economy. Don't expect me to be automatically convinced that tax evasion and corruption are making me poorer and less safe. Tax evasion makes everyone except the government richer and corruption makes it possible to buy freedom (such as in countries with drafting). States may profit from trade restrictions individually, but if everyone restricts trade of whatever he wants, world is just driven into Nash equilibrium, where everyone is poorer than without restrictions. Corruption makes it possible to bypass these restrictions by bribing the customs. So corruption also makes us richer.

tormeh 9y ago
>Tax evasion makes everyone except the government richer Oh, really? The alternative to modern taxation is not no taxation, but rather massive taxation where it's hard to evade (for example customs) of the kind we had in the middle ages. While we can come up with arguments for and against this, there is a strong positive correlation between tax evasion and poverty, which means that the burden of proof lies on you. >So corruption also makes us richer So, would you say that the music industry's lobbying in Washington makes the US richer? Corruption is the mechanism by which established players stack the deck against newcomers, avoid environmental and health regulation and so on and so forth. Listen, governments make the world go round. Countries with bad governments become poor. Countries with good governments become rich.
the_cat_kittles 9y ago
show me an example of a great place to live that has no government

tormeh 9y ago

>Tax evasion makes everyone except the government richer Oh, really? The alternative to modern taxation is not no taxation, but rather massive taxation where it's hard to evade (for example customs) of the kind we had in the middle ages. While we can come up with arguments for and against this, there is a strong positive correlation between tax evasion and poverty, which means that the burden of proof lies on you. >So corruption also makes us richer So, would you say that the music industry's lobbying in Washington makes the US richer? Corruption is the mechanism by which established players stack the deck against newcomers, avoid environmental and health regulation and so on and so forth. Listen, governments make the world go round. Countries with bad governments become poor. Countries with good governments become rich.

the_cat_kittles 9y ago

show me an example of a great place to live that has no government