I repeat my statement from another sub-thread that I did not advocate these alternative tax systems, merely present them as alternatives to a clearly flawed one. As such, you cannot infer anything about my ideology from my posts.

However, as you have been kind enough to implicitly confirm your own dyed-in-the-wool status by responding with, "And you're not?", I feel it only fair to define my own stance somewhat more clearly.
I am probably closest to what is commonly understood as a utilitarian, though my position is mutable and as recently as last year I wouldn't have described myself as a utilitarian.

However, the concept of increasing net sociatal welfare by income redistribution I find, in principle at least, to be an undeniably good thing. Taking $100 from the richest person and giving it to the poorest person is a net societal gain, I believe. Where the process ends – how much one should be allowed to take from the rich to give to the poor: equal marginal utility of income, equal average utility of income, equal total utility of income – is an issue I do not have a fully developed stance on yet.

As it is, you seem to reject the entire concept of redistribution. You are dyed-in-the-wool in the sense that you inhabit the very end of the redistributional spectrum, whereas I am dyed-in-the-wool only in the sense that I do not inhabit that same end. Where exactly I stand is not certain.

You are welcome to your position, but I hold no respect for it and have no desire to enter into a debate of its merits. Good day.

The point isn't to "leave" just enough for people to get by on, it's provide for those who don't have enough to get by on. Surely you aren't so callous as to suggest cutting welfare payments altogether?

As far as "tearing down the most productive people goes", either you're a dyed-in-the-wool ideologist or you don't understand the concept of diminshing marginal utility of income.

Neither scenario leaves much scope for reasoned debate.

Several other posters have eloquently pointed out and responded to your fallacious arguments regarding.. well, pretty much everything you wrote is fallacious, actually. But the point I want to address (for the general public more so than for you) is the following:

simply give everyone a basic income (say, US$11000 - the US Poverty Threshold in 2008) and then tax every dollar of income.

Ah, a sort of fiscal perpetual motion machine, then? Why not simply redistribute less of someone else's income to the people who get the freebies, and not collect tax from them? Oh, because you think it's more efficient to involve more money moving around, more tax professionals needed to keep track of who gets what, more record keeping... more friction in the system that generates the heat of corruption, political power grabbing, and all of the rest that naturally comes from more government involvement in money flowing two directions, instead of just one? You aren't working for a government employee labor union's public relations office by any chance are you?

The relevant question is:
Why not simply redistribute less of someone else's income to the people who get the freebies, and not collect tax from them?

And the answer: if I give someone $11,000 and tax him on everything he earns, they have a minimum income $11,000, even when unemployed. If I exclude someone's first $11,000 of income from being taxed, they have a minimum income of $0.

Which is more social?

Though it probably won't stop a further rabid attack, please note that I did not advocate these alternative tax systems, merely present them as alternatives to a clearly flawed one.

A 2.5% flat income tax? 2.5%?? My dear friend, I don't even need the back of an envelope to tell you that you'll never take in enough tax with that to cover even the most basic of public services. Making up the shortfall with a tax on luxury goods won't work because, well, they're luxury goods! Per definition people are willing to forgo their purchase. And, even if they weren't, I highly doubt the turnover on luxury goods is high enough that even a 100% tax would fill the Government's coffers much.

Further, your flat income tax suggestion ignores the ability-to-pay-principle: those who can afford to pay more, should (i.e. progressive taxation). Otherwise you are expecting the weak to carry the same burden as the strong, when the weak should be supported by the strong. Because the weak (poor) spend a greater proportion of their income on the necessities of life than their strong (rich), a flat tax hits them proportionally harder – though it seems counter-intuitive, a flat tax discriminates against low-income earners. Also supporting the ability-to-pay-principle is the decreasing marginal utility of income.

A possible ammendment to your suggestion would be to have a tax-free threshold that would allow everyone to purchase the necessities of life, then taxing flatly from then on -- the tax is then weakly progressive, as with each dollar you earn your average tax rate rises, though the marginal rate remains unchanged. This flat tax has been calculated to be (for Australia) around 40% (I'm going from memory here, so +/- 10%). In any case, an order of magnitude higher than your suggestion.

Another possibility, though less accepted in the anglo-saxon world (a little more so in Europe, where socialism isn't a dirty word), is to simply give everyone a basic income (say, US$11000 – the US Poverty Threshold in 2008) and then tax every dollar of income.

How will we start beach bonfires?

Kindling?

Or for the fact that I have Back Turtle Neck envy.

I, too, wish the back of my neck were protected by a hard protective shell. It might provide protection from the objects people fling at me when I point out their orthographical errors.

As it is, I rely on *ducks*

"It's amazing how the coalition fed us the bullshit of historical consecutive surpluses and 'fiscal conservatism' but managed to DOUBLE the national debt to a trillion dollars in ten years."

Dude, were you asleep during high school economics? National Debt = Government (Public) Debt + Household & Business (Private) Debt. If the Coalition did one thing right (and it may very well be one of the few things), it's eliminate the public, i.e. Government debt. Which they did through, yes, consecutive surpluses and fiscal conservatism.

If the private sector wants to go and borrow bucketloads of money to buy cheap shit from Taiwan, that's not the government's fault. Or would you like the state to "direct" your spending via more taxes so that you don't increase the current account deficit? From there it would only a short hop to "directing" your internet usage.

the most rational decision would be the one that makes the most optimal trade

The most optimal? Is that like the most highest, most best, and so forth?

In the economists' sense, rationality is choosing the optimal option – all sub-optimal choices are irrational. Which is what GP Monnet has already said.

As far as your points regarding freedom and information go, I can't really understand how you read those arguments into the GP's post, so I'm not going to address them. The GP seems perfectly capable of defending himself at any rate, at least on the subject of economics.

(For the record, I have read Adam Smith ^_^)

Only one way to block BitTorrent.

There, fixed that for you.

Probably due to fragile egos about not being real scientists.

Yeah, because "Peace" and "Literature" are both much more scientific than Economics. It also doesn't seem to bother the judges from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, who choose the winners in the fields of Chemistry, Physics, and.. err.. Economics. How about that.

Fastest rising
      1. wer kennt wen -- social networking site (general)
      2. juegos -- no freaking idea (no, I will not google it!)
      3. facebook
      4. schüler vz -- social networking site (schoolkids)
      5. studi vz -- social networking site (students)
      6. jappy -- social networking site (general)
      7. youtube
      8. yasni -- person search engine
      9. obama -- a very tanned man (thanks, Berlusconi!)
    10. euro 2008

Most Popular
      1. ebay
      2. youtube
      3. wetter -- weather
      4. gmx -- E-mail provider
      5. google
      6. video
      7. wikipedia
      8. web.de -- E-mail provider
      9. bild -- German tabloid
    10. telefonbuch -- telephone book

Also, Austria
Fastest rising
      1. teilchenbeschleuniger -- LHC
      2. gina lisa -- contestant on Germany's next top model
      3. peking 2008
      4. euro 08
      5. barack obama
      6. schülerVZ
      7. jÃrg haider -- Austrian right-wing pollie who died in a car crash, drunk off his nut, and was later discovered to be gay.
      8. iphone
      9. heath ledger
    10. wahlkabine -- voting booth

Austrian most popular
      1. youtube
      2. wetter
      3. google
      4. orf -- Austrian TV Station
      5. ebay
      6. wikipedia
      7. herold -- Austrian Yellow Pages
      8. routenplaner -- route planner
      9. immobilien -- houses/property
    10. gmx

I notice that several countries have the term "google" in their top 10 google searches. WTF? Who goes to google and then types in "google"?

It is not the stuff we eat. It is the stuff our food eats

If we grow less stuff-to-eat so that we can grow more stuff-to-burn it comes out to the same thing, doesn't it?

I think the OP's point is that the South American version uses existing waste products rather than changing the production mix to produce more, well.. waste products.

Given the quality of American beer, I'm surprised they drank half of it before throwing it away.

If we were talking about something being sold, product differentiation would be one means of attempting to achieve some form of price discrimination.(1)

That part of the equation doesn't apply here (though it will to any of the car-analogies cropping up), but product differentiation is still a recognised way to build brand loyalty by creating (perceived) differences and thereby value.

People don't use Firefox and think "Gee, isn't Google great?" – that's the (a) reason for Chrome.

A further reason is that having R&D in your own company can have positive synergies (apologies for the buzzword, but it applies here) with other projects, which don't occur from simply supporting external development.

Those are mid-to-long-term strategic considerations, while combining the projects simply to save money would be rather more a short-term oriented decision. Which isn't necessarily a criticism.

(1) Price discrimination is the concept of charging each buyer the full extent of what he is willing to pay for a good, rather than the same price as everyone else. For example, school-children don't have much money to pay for cinema tickets, and wouldn't come if they had to pay adult prices. They're still willing to pay more than the costs they incur, though, so the cinema operators increase their profits by charging them less. You'll see it all around if you pay attention.

so (SchÃuble) tries to push the law through this way.

Where it will, again, be voted down. Democracy at work – yay!

Next story!