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dr_bar wrote:"Wounded to get millions in compensation"By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph

"Hundreds of troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be awarded millions of pounds in compensation following a ruling by the Government that they are victims of crime not war."


What an interesting concept.

Is this also done in other countries?

Can American and Canadian soldiers wounded by insurgent
raids claim compensation from their governments as well?

Is this a good policy?

Amazing.

The best that may come of this is increasing the cost of war and the quickening of the bankruptcy of the government reducing its ability to wage it.

Personally, I see no reason for loyalty to an employer whose sole purpose in employing you is to exploit you as effectively as he can…

I assume you’re a union employee. I can’t imagine anyone feeling so powerless and exploited lasting long at a job otherwise. Have you considered a career change?

Well, that's a matter for debate, Kal. ( ) There is good evidence to suggest that all taxation, including income tax, is ultimately borne by the employer. It's a complicated argument but briefly: a broad increase or decrease in income tax is generally followed, over time, by a corresponding increase or decrease in the level of wages and salaries. Studies show this to be so.

All of governments cost are ultimately borne by the privately employed employee. Public employees may pay taxes but it is with other taxpayers money. Business pays taxes but as a cost of doing business ultimately always passes those cost on to the consumer.

That is, there is a mechanism that maintains the general level of disposable income.

The other way that government finances its activity is through the misunderstood tax of inflation. While they point the finger at ‘greedy’ business, the truth is that inflation is an increase in the money supply greater than any corresponding increase in the overall economy. Although the number of units of money one earns is generally increasing in an inflationary economy, the purchasing power of the money has decreased enough (because more money is chasing a corresponding smaller number of goods and services) to actually leave one poorer than they were before. This is how war is financed. This is why 2 generations ago a 1 income blue collar family could buy a home and raise their children. Now 2 incomes and less children are a struggle for many. Wait until the debt incurred by us, because we allow our governments to do it by the demands we place on it, come due to our children and grandchildren. I’d call that immoral.

That's not so hard to understand since wages are really just prices (the price the employer pays for the labour of the worker.) Like other prices, wages are subject to market forces. If anything like an increase in income tax affects the cost of maintaining the worker at the conventional level then market forces come into play. That means that all taxation is ultimately a tax on profit. The bigger an employer's wage bill the more tax he pays. (Putting a 'tax' on wages is actually a very recent phenomenon, and historically it was always assumed that taxation had to be borne by the propertied classes who collectively own the entire productive machinery of society.)

The idea that, in the long term, income tax doesn't actually come out of your wage or salary is counterintuitive, but there seems to be a lot of evidence to support it. Studies have been done in a number of western countries. Governments like people to think they have a financial stake in their society so it's not a piece of information that gets noised around much.

Just as "poo poo" rolls downhill, all cost at every stage of private production must be included and passed along in the price of the product or production stops. This does not hold true for public enterprises and is the primary reason for their inefficiency.

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote:Personally, I see no reason for loyalty to an employer whose sole purpose in employing you is to exploit you as effectively as he can…

I assume you’re a union employee. I can’t imagine anyone feeling so powerless and exploited lasting long at a job otherwise. Have you considered a career change?

Hi Kali.

No, I do not 'feel' powerless and exploited as you suggest. And I generally get along very well in my job. If these sorts of personal inadequacy are the only things you can imagine to explain my opinions then I have to tell you that you are suffering from a failure of the imagination. Another way of putting this is that you appear to have a highly prejudicial understanding of points of view which differ from your own.

(I am, by the way, a member of a union, though, to my shame, a very inactive one. And to contextualise that for you, I'm British, so a very high percentage of my work colleagues are union members also. You don't have to have a chip on your shoulder in the UK to be a member of a union. Nor in the US come to that.)

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote:Well, that's a matter for debate, Kal. ( ) There is good evidence to suggest that all taxation, including income tax, is ultimately borne by the employer.

All of governments cost are ultimately borne by the privately employed employee. Public employees may pay taxes but it is with other taxpayers money. Business pays taxes but as a cost of doing business ultimately always passes those cost on to the consumer.

That contains a series of assertions, Kali, mere acts of faith. I see no evidence for them, either from you or in the world at large.

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote:That is, there is a mechanism that maintains the general level of disposable income.

The other way that government finances its activity is through the misunderstood tax of inflation. While they point the finger at ‘greedy’ business, the truth is that inflation is an increase in the money supply greater than any corresponding increase in the overall economy.

Now here we agree...

kali wrote:Although the number of units of money one earns is generally increasing in an inflationary economy, the purchasing power of the money has decreased enough (because more money is chasing a corresponding smaller number of goods and services) to actually leave one poorer than they were before. This is how war is financed. This is why 2 generations ago a 1 income blue collar family could buy a home and raise their children. Now 2 incomes and less children are a struggle for many. Wait until the debt incurred by us, because we allow our governments to do it by the demands we place on it, come due to our children and grandchildren. I’d call that immoral.

...but your application is far too abstract. You cannot make these sorts of comment without locating them in particular historical and economic contexts. War has been financed by many means - inflating the currency being only one of them.

And I would also add that inflation is caused when an excess issue of a paper currency chases an unvarying number of commodities (or more strictly, transactions of an unvarying total value) - not a declining number. If the number of commodities is declining simultaneously with an excess issue, then you are probably describing the conditions of an economic recession. In a recession everything falls: production falls, prices and wages fall. And they fall for reasons quite distinct from inflationary ones.

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote: ...The idea that, in the long term, income tax doesn't actually come out of your wage or salary is counterintuitive, but there seems to be a lot of evidence to support it. Studies have been done in a number of western countries. Governments like people to think they have a financial stake in their society so it's not a piece of information that gets noised around much.

Just as "poo poo" rolls downhill, all cost at every stage of private production must be included and passed along in the price of the product or production stops. This does not hold true for public enterprises and is the primary reason for their inefficiency.

There is a simple logical response to this Kali. If an employer could simply pass on his increasing costs by increasing the price of his product then no business would ever go bust. Employers often do go bust when faced with increasing costs. Ergo, it is not the case that costs can simply be passed on at will. Even the mystifications of conventional capitalistic economics should convince you of that one.

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote:Well, that's a matter for debate, Kal. ( ) There is good evidence to suggest that all taxation, including income tax, is ultimately borne by the employer.

All of governments cost are ultimately borne by the privately employed employee. Public employees may pay taxes but it is with other taxpayers money. Business pays taxes but as a cost of doing business ultimately always passes those cost on to the consumer.

That contains a series of assertions, Kali, mere acts of faith. I see no evidence for them, either from you or in the world at large.

Think about it.

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote:That is, there is a mechanism that maintains the general level of disposable income.

The other way that government finances its activity is through the misunderstood tax of inflation. While they point the finger at ‘greedy’ business, the truth is that inflation is an increase in the money supply greater than any corresponding increase in the overall economy.

Now here we agree...

kali wrote:Although the number of units of money one earns is generally increasing in an inflationary economy, the purchasing power of the money has decreased enough (because more money is chasing a corresponding smaller number of goods and services) to actually leave one poorer than they were before. This is how war is financed. This is why 2 generations ago a 1 income blue collar family could buy a home and raise their children. Now 2 incomes and less children are a struggle for many. Wait until the debt incurred by us, because we allow our governments to do it by the demands we place on it, come due to our children and grandchildren. I’d call that immoral.

...but your application is far too abstract. You cannot make these sorts of comment without locating them in particular historical and economic contexts. War has been financed by many means - inflating the currency being only one of them.

Taxes and inflation - that’s it. Government debt is just differed taxes or inflation on current inflation.

And I would also add that inflation is caused when an excess issue of a paper currency chases an unvarying number of commodities (or more strictly, transactions of an unvarying total value) - not a declining number. If the number of commodities is declining simultaneously with an excess issue, then you are probably describing the conditions of an economic recession. In a recession everything falls: production falls, prices and wages fall. And they fall for reasons quite distinct from inflationary ones.

Agreed.. That’s why I said comparatively.

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote: ...The idea that, in the long term, income tax doesn't actually come out of your wage or salary is counterintuitive, but there seems to be a lot of evidence to support it. Studies have been done in a number of western countries. Governments like people to think they have a financial stake in their society so it's not a piece of information that gets noised around much.

Just as "poo poo" rolls downhill, all cost at every stage of private production must be included and passed along in the price of the product or production stops. This does not hold true for public enterprises and is the primary reason for their inefficiency.

There is a simple logical response to this Kali. If an employer could simply pass on his increasing costs by increasing the price of his product then no business would ever go bust. Employers often do go bust when faced with increasing costs. Ergo, it is not the case that costs can simply be passed on at will. Even the mystifications of conventional capitalistic economics should convince you of that one.

You don’t think I’m so stupid as to not understand this. Production stops when capital realizes product does not or will not sell for a profit. Whether this is at the consumers end or the producers end is not the point of those 2 sentences. The 1st introduces the 2nd which is my point.

As to the mystifications of conventional economics. I believe they are purposefully mystified to confuse and convince the public to believe and follow the self serving experts. Any interest in Austrian economics?

kali wrote: All of governments cost are ultimately borne by the privately employed employee. Public employees may pay taxes but it is with other taxpayers money. Business pays taxes but as a cost of doing business ultimately always passes those cost on to the consumer.

sv-wolf wrote:That contains a series of assertions, Kali, mere acts of faith. I see no evidence for them, either from you or in the world at large.

Think about it.

A trite and patronising remark, Kali. Do you have an argument against my original point, or don't you? I have given this considerable thought over many years and happen to believe you are wrong for the reasons already stated. More about this below.

kali wrote:Although the number of units of money one earns is generally increasing in an inflationary economy, the purchasing power of the money has decreased enough (because more money is chasing a corresponding smaller number of goods and services) to actually leave one poorer than they were before. This is how war is financed. This is why 2 generations ago a 1 income blue collar family could buy a home and raise their children. Now 2 incomes and less children are a struggle for many. Wait until the debt incurred by us, because we allow our governments to do it by the demands we place on it, come due to our children and grandchildren. I’d call that immoral.

sv-wolf wrote: ...War has been financed by many means - inflating the currency being only one of them.

Taxes and inflation - that’s it. Government debt is just differed taxes or inflation on current inflation.

Ultimately, yes, direct taxation or indirect taxation (borrowing and issuing bonds etc), or skimming off value through inflation. But it is not the major reason for the decline in Blue Collar incomes. Big American corporations have been waging a very deliberate war against labour for decades, using the global economy and high-power propaganda to put a downward pressure on wages in absolute terms. And in contrast to Europe, there is very little effective legislation in the US to stop them - though even here the power of labour to resist is being eroded. More or less everything about the capitalist system is immoral, not just the uses to which inflation is put.

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote:And I would also add that inflation is caused when an excess issue of a paper currency chases an unvarying number of commodities (or more strictly, transactions of an unvarying total value) - not a declining number etc...

Agreed.. That’s why I said comparatively.

Almost - though not quite. OK. I won't quibble.

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote:...The idea that, in the long term, income tax doesn't actually come out of your wage or salary is counterintuitive, but there seems to be a lot of evidence to support it...

...all cost at every stage of private production must be included and passed along in the price of the product or production stops. This does not hold true for public enterprises and is the primary reason for their inefficiency.

sv-wolf wrote:There is a simple logical response to this Kali. If an employer could simply pass on his increasing costs by increasing the price of his product then no business would ever go bust. Employers often do go bust when faced with increasing costs. Ergo, it is not the case that costs can simply be passed on at will. Even the mystifications of conventional capitalistic economics should convince you of that one.

You don’t think I’m so stupid as to not understand this. Production stops when capital realizes product does not or will not sell for a profit. Whether this is at the consumers end or the producers end is not the point of those 2 sentences. The 1st introduces the 2nd which is my point.

If this is all you meant, then your comment is gratuitous and bears no relationship to the quote from me with which you originally prefaced it.

However, to go back to the point of my remark, by stating this you are openly acknowledging that all costs cannot be passed on to the consumer and, as you put it, when they cannot, production must stop. If that is the case, by what logic do you then assert that business taxes are invariably passed onto the consumer (rather than being bourne out of profit). And by what logic and with what evidence do you assert that income tax on employees is a burden upon employees alone. These are the points I am trying to tease out of you. Here is what you wrote:

kali wrote:All of governments cost are ultimately borne by the privately employed employee. Public employees may pay taxes but it is with other taxpayers money. Business pays taxes but as a cost of doing business ultimately always passes those cost on to the consumer.

kali wrote:As to the mystifications of conventional economics. I believe they are purposefully mystified to confuse and convince the public to believe and follow the self serving experts. Any interest in Austrian economics?

Well at least we can agree on something, though I suspect that agreement is superficial.

As to your question on Austrian economics - none at all.

Cheers Kali

(Try being a little less rude and we might get on better! )

I kept wondering why the Bush administration, has over the course of the war, kept switching the labels it uses to describe the conflict. In some cases it is not a war (in order to insulate prisoners we take from the Geneva convention and related issues), in other cases we are at war. In recent months, the administration has had to address this double-standard terminology... but they were able to get people to go along with it for quite a while.

sv-wolf wrote:

kali wrote: All of governments cost are ultimately borne by the privately employed employee. Public employees may pay taxes but it is with other taxpayers money. Business pays taxes but as a cost of doing business ultimately always passes those cost on to the consumer.

sv-wolf wrote:That contains a series of assertions, Kali, mere acts of faith. I see no evidence for them, either from you or in the world at large.

Think about it.

A trite and patronizing remark, Kali. Do you have an argument against my original point, or don't you? I have given this considerable thought over many years and happen to believe you are wrong for the reasons already stated. More about this below.

Not patronizing or trite. I heard only your assertion against with no reasoning or explanation. Show me a government cost that is not eventually borne by the privately employed employee. All public employees income comes from taxes, a fee or tariff of any kind is just another name for tax. All taxes on business are part of cost of production and are passed on to consumers. Even public employees private spending is still the earnings of a private sector employee either through current tax revenue or future tax revenue through issuance of public debt.

kali wrote:Although the number of units of money one earns is generally increasing in an inflationary economy, the purchasing power of the money has decreased enough (because more money is chasing a corresponding smaller number of goods and services) to actually leave one poorer than they were before. This is how war is financed. This is why 2 generations ago a 1 income blue collar family could buy a home and raise their children. Now 2 incomes and less children are a struggle for many. Wait until the debt incurred by us, because we allow our governments to do it by the demands we place on it, come due to our children and grandchildren. I’d call that immoral.

sv-wolf wrote: ...War has been financed by many means - inflating the currency being only one of them.

Taxes and inflation - that’s it. Government debt is just differed taxes or inflation on current inflation.

Ultimately, yes, direct taxation or indirect taxation (borrowing and issuing bonds etc), or skimming off value through inflation. But it is not the major reason for the decline in Blue Collar incomes. Big American corporations have been waging a very deliberate war against labour for decades, using the global economy and high-power propaganda to put a downward pressure on wages in absolute terms. And in contrast to Europe, there is very little effective legislation in the US to stop them - though even here the power of labour to resist is being eroded. More or less everything about the capitalist system is immoral, not just the uses to which inflation is put.

I agree with the 1st part of above paragraph. Our governments are beholden to, and actually now set up as, corporations. The legal ‘personhood’ that corporations enjoy is a mistake. Laws intended to protect peoples rights have been extended to them.

As to capitalism. Are you saying it is inherently immoral?

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote:And I would also add that inflation is caused when an excess issue of a paper currency chases an unvarying number of commodities (or more strictly, transactions of an unvarying total value) - not a declining number etc...

Agreed.. That’s why I said comparatively.

Almost - though not quite. OK. I won't quibble.

Honestly, I appreciate your careful reading and understanding.

kali wrote:

sv-wolf wrote:...The idea that, in the long term, income tax doesn't actually come out of your wage or salary is counterintuitive, but there seems to be a lot of evidence to support it...

...all cost at every stage of private production must be included and passed along in the price of the product or production stops. This does not hold true for public enterprises and is the primary reason for their inefficiency.

sv-wolf wrote:There is a simple logical response to this Kali. If an employer could simply pass on his increasing costs by increasing the price of his product then no business would ever go bust. Employers often do go bust when faced with increasing costs. Ergo, it is not the case that costs can simply be passed on at will. Even the mystifications of conventional capitalistic economics should convince you of that one.

You don’t think I’m so stupid as to not understand this. Production stops when capital realizes product does not or will not sell for a profit. Whether this is at the consumers end or the producers end is not the point of those 2 sentences. The 1st introduces the 2nd which is my point.

If this is all you meant, then your comment is gratuitous and bears no relationship to the quote from me with which you originally prefaced it.

However, to go back to the point of my remark, by stating this you are openly acknowledging that all costs cannot be passed on to the consumer and, as you put it, when they cannot, production must stop. If that is the case, by what logic do you then assert that business taxes are invariably passed onto the consumer (rather than being bourne out of profit). And by what logic and with what evidence do you assert that income tax on employees is a burden upon employees alone. These are the points I am trying to tease out of you. Here is what you wrote:

As at the beginning of this thread, you ask me to explain myself while you submit “The idea that, in the long term, income tax doesn't actually come out of your wage or salary is counterintuitive, but there seems to be a lot of evidence to support it... ”

As to teasing out points. Please quote then paraphrase.

kali wrote:All of governments cost are ultimately borne by the privately employed employee. Public employees may pay taxes but it is with other taxpayers money. Business pays taxes but as a cost of doing business ultimately always passes those cost on to the consumer.

kali wrote:As to the mystifications of conventional economics. I believe they are purposefully mystified to confuse and convince the public to believe and follow the self serving experts. Any interest in Austrian economics?

Well at least we can agree on something, though I suspect that agreement is superficial.

As to your question on Austrian economics - none at all.

Cheers Kali

(Try being a little less rude and we might get on better! )

Rude? We’re exchanging ideas. You should see how I treat family

Kal wrote:

Anarchy, Democracy and Communism all fall down with the human factor. Not one of these systems has been run in this world without being corrupted.

Agreed!

jackM50black wrote:I kept wondering why the Bush administration, has over the course of the war, kept switching the labels it uses to describe the conflict. In some cases it is not a war (in order to insulate prisoners we take from the Geneva convention and related issues), in other cases we are at war. In recent months, the administration has had to address this double-standard terminology... but they were able to get people to go along with it for quite a while.

US republicans are unsurpassed masters of label and language manipulation of the religious red state populace.