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"The accused admit their crime, you get a quicker resolution, and the government gets more tax revenue. " The problem there is that the government has no need

"The accused admit their crime, you get a quicker resolution, and the government gets more tax revenue. " The problem there is that the government has no need of their 'tax revenue' because no such thing exists in sovereign currency areas like the UK and the US. (As explained by Beardsley Ruml decades ago: http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html) If they don't get it from the fraudster, they'll get it from the next person in the spending chain. It all happens anyway. (And if they divert it, then the downstream doesn't happen and they lose 'tax revenue'). For the integrity of the tax system, tax evasion must always involve significant jail time. It's the most valuable thing you can take away from the people who undertake these sorts of frauds.

astrange 6y ago
It's the public (aka the holders of the currency) who get the benefit of tax enforcement, because it causes demand for the currency and so contributes to it having value in the first place. But there's multiple levels of government and not all of them get to print money; the US federal government does a lot of payments but doesn't give states whatever they want.
- naveen99 6y ago
  Printing money is just taking on debt. Anyone can do it in proportion to their assets and future income. just your interest rates are different. Local governments issuing municipal bonds is essentially printing money.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    Printing money isn't just taking on debt. For fiat currencies, printing money is inflation: a tax on money.
    - neilwilson 6y ago
      All money is debt. Government always spends by "printing money". That's how bank payment and clearing works. So if it caused inflation then we'd have loads of it, and we don't. Whether a bank ends up holding reserves, or holding a government bond is just a difference between a floating rate debt receiving the base rate, or a fixed rate debt receiving the bond rate. Just an interest rate and term difference - nothing else. The last year has completely debunked any question that 'creating money' is inflationary. Believing otherwise is up there with anti-vax thinking.
      - wizzwizz4 6y ago
        Creating money is inflationary when it's not backed up by something like bonds (which temporarily destroy money) or taxes (which permanently destroy money).
        neilwilson 6y ago
        And yet we have 30 years of QE in Japan, and 10 years of QE in the UK and US that debunk that belief as well. If the state creates $100 and you stick it in a drawer, or just leave it in your bank account, where's the inflation coming from? It's 'not spending' that causes deficits in the first place. If everybody spends and never saves then there can be no deficit for any positive tax rate. There is no magic in bonds. It's a myth.
        wizzwizz4 6y ago
        I was with you until “there is no magic in bonds”; you haven't shown that. Bonds are a way for everyone to know that that money is _staying_ in that drawer.
    - astrange 6y ago
      It can be inflationary but it isn’t necessarily - sometimes you don’t have enough users of your currency, because there isn’t enough of it, and it becomes more useful and therefore stronger once you acquire some more users. Even in crypto, Bitcoin is still in its inflationary phase until mining runs out.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

astrange 6y ago

It's the public (aka the holders of the currency) who get the benefit of tax enforcement, because it causes demand for the currency and so contributes to it having value in the first place. But there's multiple levels of government and not all of them get to print money; the US federal government does a lot of payments but doesn't give states whatever they want.

naveen99 6y ago
Printing money is just taking on debt. Anyone can do it in proportion to their assets and future income. just your interest rates are different. Local governments issuing municipal bonds is essentially printing money.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  Printing money isn't just taking on debt. For fiat currencies, printing money is inflation: a tax on money.
  - neilwilson 6y ago
    All money is debt. Government always spends by "printing money". That's how bank payment and clearing works. So if it caused inflation then we'd have loads of it, and we don't. Whether a bank ends up holding reserves, or holding a government bond is just a difference between a floating rate debt receiving the base rate, or a fixed rate debt receiving the bond rate. Just an interest rate and term difference - nothing else. The last year has completely debunked any question that 'creating money' is inflationary. Believing otherwise is up there with anti-vax thinking.
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      Creating money is inflationary when it's not backed up by something like bonds (which temporarily destroy money) or taxes (which permanently destroy money).
      - neilwilson 6y ago
        And yet we have 30 years of QE in Japan, and 10 years of QE in the UK and US that debunk that belief as well. If the state creates $100 and you stick it in a drawer, or just leave it in your bank account, where's the inflation coming from? It's 'not spending' that causes deficits in the first place. If everybody spends and never saves then there can be no deficit for any positive tax rate. There is no magic in bonds. It's a myth.
        wizzwizz4 6y ago
        I was with you until “there is no magic in bonds”; you haven't shown that. Bonds are a way for everyone to know that that money is _staying_ in that drawer.
  - astrange 6y ago
    It can be inflationary but it isn’t necessarily - sometimes you don’t have enough users of your currency, because there isn’t enough of it, and it becomes more useful and therefore stronger once you acquire some more users. Even in crypto, Bitcoin is still in its inflationary phase until mining runs out.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]