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Stuart
@olystuart
Funny how easily the "stimulus checks devalue the dollar" narrative took hold when they were dwarfed by the subsidies for corporations and wealthy people's businesses, tax breaks for the rich and running a global empire of 800+ military bases. Could be solved by very high taxes on the rich deleting money supply.
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thoughtcrimeboss
@thoughtcrimeboss
Why do you think high taxes reduce money supply? that money just gets spent by the government on killing people and $10k toilet seats, it doesn't get deleted. True, stimulus checks were just a drop in the massive lake of dollar devaluation. But tax breaks don't devalue currency, that's not how that works at all, in any universe. The federal reserve increasing the supply of currency devalues the $ more than any other cause. The supply of dollars literally increased by 40% in 12 months during Covid. 40% of all dollars in existence for all time were conjured out of thin air by the Fed in one 12 month period, imagine if ETH's supply did that, what would happen to the purchasing power?
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Stuart
@olystuart
Well I believe modern monetary theory is basically correct in terms of how US monetary policy works. So when they spend money or appropriate funds for whatever, that's printing money into the money supply. Same for allowing banks to create $ through loans etc. All inflationary (on the money supply side). Then when the gov collects taxes they are essentially deleted. New $ is printed for expenditures, your tax dollars aren't literally going to pay for things. So to reduce dollar supply, we could greatly increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations (we have done this in the past, they're at historically low levels), and at the same time not increase expenditures equivalently. Deflationary. So tax breaks are inflationary because they are choosing to cut the deflationary piece of the puzzle creating an imbalance.
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Ta'Veren.base 🔷
@chaoticus
An interesting take. This assumes: 1. the money collected is spent appropriately. I don't believe this is happening ($7.5 billion for 8 EV charging stations? Billions of USD lost in "accounting errors?" Loads of other examples). 2. the rich and corporations continue to produce. There are a lot of charts showing that higher taxes incentivizes corporations to decrease production rather than pay high taxes (=low GDP; recession). Then again, maybe this would decentralize industries and allow several moderate-income small businesses to provide demand rather than conglomerates? IDK. 3. the rich and corporations don't find ways to pass their increased costs onto the consumer. Historically they've been very good at this. I like the idea that people/governments would truly function in the best interest of everyone, but as a whole we're all still looking out for ourselves at the expense of others. Right now I'm not optimistic that higher taxes will translate into what you're hoping for.
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thoughtcrimeboss
@thoughtcrimeboss
You have the right instincts about raising taxes. Governments almost never spend money appropriately. I could almost swallow the idea of extortion in the form of taxation by an entity with a monopoly on violence if I knew they would spend the money in the most efficient way to actually benefit everyone. It would still be highly immoral but at least it would be accomplishing something positive. However that isn't the case and never will be, any benefits of government spending is always outweighed by the negatives and the outright waste and corruption. Tax increases on the wealthy are an easy sell to the poor, and the state would love for you to blame Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and your landlord for all your money problems as they destroy your purchasing power through inflation. They say look at how much money these rich people have if we just take half of it and redistribute it they will still be rich! Well they will leave the country and the next year you can't take half their money and then what?
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