KoenigRother wrote:@Gendarme could you Show me examples of a working (in your Definition) Taxation structure? (in honest curiosity)
I do not think our core values really differ. Our disagreements are mostly, if not completely, on facts. I do want to live in a society where even the poorest are thriving, and I am not opposed to government-funded (free) healthcare. I am in fact inclined to support government-funded healthcare, which is something I was against not too long ago when I was a semi-hardcore libertarian, blinded by naïveté. What we disagree on are the fundamental workings of the trinity that is banking, the government, and taxation.
There are three possible sources of income for a government to fund its activities. The first source is the printing of new money which the government then spends into the economy through its activities, such as healthcare. The second source of income is taxation. The third source of income (if it can even be defined as such) is borrowing money. A steady rate of moderate inflation is regarded as ideal by every economist I am aware of except those of the Austrian school of hardcore libertarian economics that unconditionally worship the gold standard. I am not sure if this is true or not, or why this would be the case, but as far as I know there is empirical evidence to support this so let's assume that it is true.
In a healthy society the government would fund its activities (such as providing healthcare) through the printing of new money, and if not enough, through taxation as well. Of course, the government should spend the money in the interest of the people and not lobbyists. There are certainly several layers of corruption, but let's assume, for the sake of simplicity, that the government is for the people. In this scenario, an incredibly low tax rate would be enough to finance the government activities, because the taxed money would be redistributed to the people instead of going elsewhere, and the price of healthcare (among other things) would not be insanely inflated through corruption.
In today's world, the government does in fact keep a steady rate of inflation, but it is not done by the government printing new money. Instead the permission to print new money has been given to the banks from which the government borrows the money and goes into debt. This way the government goes deeper into debt each time it takes a loan and can only pay back the money through taxation or by taking another bigger loan (because there is interest to pay too, of course), as it no longer prints its own money. If this system goes on for long enough, which it certainly has, virtually all money would be debt-money, meaning that it would be mathematically impossible to repay the debt. The debt is not required to be repaid as the government can always take another bigger loan to pay back the loan (when the bond matures), but the interest that grows with every new loan has to be paid periodically, and this is where heavy taxation comes into the picture. Taxation is the means by which the interest is paid to the banks, and the end goal of this complicated scheme.
However, eventually a point where the people no longer can afford to keep up with the rapidly increasing tax rates is reached, and this is when the banks are forced to lower their interest rate to not cause an economic collapse. What we'd expect to see if we look at the historical data is an ever-increasing tax rate until a point is reached where the people no longer can afford it, at which point the banks would begin decreasing the interest rate.
Here is a depiction of precisely this:
[spoiler=Income tax rate in Sweden 1930-2017][/spoiler]
[spoiler=Interest rate in Sweden 1994-2016][/spoiler]
The banks can of course cause an economic collapse at any point by simply raising the interest rate - and surely enough, it has been done.
[spoiler=Sweden]The economic collapse of Sweden in the early 90's
The crisis started 1986-1990 and officially ended in 1994. This graph depicting the interest rate says it all:
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=USA]The oil crisis of 1973
The stock market crash of 1973-74
Recession of the early 80s
Recession of the early 90s
Recession of the early 2000s
The great recession of 2007
These all coincide with the rate hikes of the Federal Reserve depicted in this graph:
[/spoiler]
With every rate hike the wealth of the people is sucked out, just to be followed by a boom-period where everyone is happy that it is finally over. "What a great government we have that got us out of that mess!" However, this cannot go on forever as the people are continuously having to pay more tax and going deeper into personal debt. Disregarding these boom-bust cycles, the interest rate must continuously go down to keep the society functioning - which is what we see from the graphs. Today Sweden's interest rate is at -0.5% (yes, negative!), and USA isn't far off.
Some questions still remain: how?! why?!
Great questions. The history of the USA is a very interesting one as the fight against the bankers was at the heart of the revolution and the following post-revolution era involving people such as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. The history of USA is a great topic in itself that I will leave for another day.