Re: POLI: Encouraging Tax Evasion

my inner geek (geek@ifeden.com)
Thu, 15 Jul 1999 09:03:27 -0700

The Baileys <nanotech@cwix.com> wrote:

> I hate to rain on your plan but U.S. taxpayers (if that is what you are)
> are taxed on their worldwide income. Moving servers, intangibles, and
> even business offshore only makes sense if your repatriation is nil or
> you're avoiding nexus issues.

We're moving into an era where money can be backed by military force rather than gold reserves.

The U.S. Treasury just *PRINTED* an extra $200 Billion in cash in case there's a currency shortage due to Y2K bugs. Why don't they use that currency to pay for Defense Spending and U.N. Debt? I doubt there will be inflation with all the price wars going on here on the internet and on web-based e-commerce driven electronic storefronts.

They have the printing presses, spy satellites, cruise missiles, and directed energy weapons (both nonlethal and destructive).

So, if they came right out and said, "Ken's right. We don't need your money- keep it." there would be outcries of coup d'état from the veterans and nontechnologists. It seems like the people in power (behind the scenes) are actually quite libertarian and decentralists, enthusiastic about completely private e-commerce. But when it comes to publicly acknowledging the end of federal taxation: they evade the issue and return to emotions of national pride and loyalty.

It seems like the only way to really get this done is large scale civil disobedience in a nonchalant manner, with an attitude that the system is in a transition state, and we're still civil and orderly.

For example, use a large international body with no formal government ties (http://www.worldbank.org/) create all the electronic infrastructure needed for international e-commerce that's completely outside of government juristiction. It would be a pro-social proenvironmental (cashless) economy.

I'm a layperson, obviously simple-minded on this matter. But tacit acknowledgement of common sense economic and civil liberties seems to be the most sensible migration path out of this bureacratic hell of complexity piled on top of complexity.

Incidentally, what if the Defense Department (or NATO, or ex-Warsaw Pact) Technologists had all the resources in place to track every living human on the planet simultaneously. Instead of carrying a walet, the citizens x,y,z coordinates could become their account i.d. The wealth would never leave the person, so to speak. What do you think?



geek@ifeden.com