cross-posted from: https://kbin.earth/m/[email protected]/t/2771990
As data centers are shut down by angry mobs and AI surveillance cameras are ripped from their poles, the world’s tech billionaires and CEOs are waking up to the reality that the masses are, broadly speaking, not on board with their plan to automate the world with AI.
Dont down vote me to oblivion, but ive been told they (gov) dont need our taxes one bit. If they need money they print it. Taxation is a scam, basically, and the majority goes to war, right? Or used to.
Why is it I still in 2026 can’t easily see where every single cent of my taxes goes? Why? Because it goes directly in government pockets is why.
“I’ve been told”
brilliant.
By the very bestest most smartestest people, I’m sure
Thats actually why i said it. I never said it was true.
The person who told me it is also not reputable either. I just wanted to bring it up because who knows if its true or not? We dont know what hapoens behind the scenes.
what would you like to know because i have written a few laws.
You think laws apply to government, billionaires, or cops?
i’ll take that as a no.
I mean sure I’m here to learn. I just have 0 belief that any law is binding anyone in those groups, based on who us walking around free right now who should be in prison for life or worse.
no you’re here to complain.
I won’t waste either of our time then. I just have no belief that laws are followed by the modern monarchy, thats all.
I won’t downvote, but whoever told you that was telling stories. Yes, money gets mishandled at times, and we’re currently in a period of absurd corruption, but overall governmental programs are very efficiently run compared to a lot of private sector since there’s zero need for profit.
The government is also essentially the largest negotiating body in the country for bulk rate bids.
Which is a leading cause of inflation. It’s very conservative financial behavior. Budgets need to be balanced. Republicans don’t bother and tend to leave the mess for whoever comes after. Democrats aren’t a ton better, but budgets are at least considered, and the only time we’ve ever had a surplus budget in my lifetime was under the democrats.
Its amazing how the psyop works to brainwash us into thinking government is less efficient than private corporations. This is an argument I have a lot with people who worship musky and think he should run the world.
Right, we are currently in awful inflation even now!
Its hard to explain to people that what theyre saying is false though. How can we prove tax money really goes where they say? There doesn’t seem to be actual proof.
The only thing worth noting is private industry with publicly traded options will always need to show quarter over quarter profit (or best effort to do so) as a literal legal obligation to shareholders. They have a legal obligation to profit as much as possible within legal limits, and even skirting them where legislation is up for debate. That means in the long run, going private will never be the cheapest option.
The government has no such obligation, and no need to profit. Their only “shareholders” are the American people, and voting essentially makes us the board to remove them if we feel their choices are not to the public benefit.
taxation removes money from the overall monetary supply. Central banks can’t ‘run out’ of money and do not require that spending be ‘matched’ to a tax base. There is a practical limit on how much money can be printed, in terms of productive capacity but also inflationary pressure, but mostly the boomer narrative of ‘fiscal responsibility’ is there to discipline popular expectations about social services and public spending generally. The logic of austerity is a leash around the neck of the working class, working silently to condition them to interpret spending which benefits their class interests as being ‘irresponsible’.
Well yes but printing it is a horrible idea cuz inflation.
That stuff has a name, and it’s called MMT, modern monetary theory, and it’s generally considered a bad idea.
Yes, the government can in principle just print money, but that has consequences, and they’re not pretty. The understanding of the problems this was causing has been the historical reason for the independence of the central banks from the executive branches.
There is a branch of the left that doesn’t like the idea that there are limits to public spending, but now that Trump is trying to take control of the Federal Reserve we just might find out how much of a bad idea it is to have the central bank under the executive.
The shortest version of why MMT is very dubious at best, is that if you print too much money you get inflation, and MMT proponents acknowledge this. You know how they suggest controlling inflation? By levying taxes. And there you go, taxes are back.
BTW the breakdown of how your tax dollars are spent is here: (at least if you’re in the US, which it sounds like you are)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_States_federal_budget
Thank you, I will read up on this!
you were told incorrectly.
Apparently so