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[chronicfreetime]

I waited in line at the main county library for almost four hours to vote today. I was really just there because Christina wanted some company, since I'm quite confident that the line will be much shorter at my precinct's polling place on Tuesday. We have only 5670 people registered in our precinct, and it's open for 12 hours; the counter on the

Comments

[richie73]

Reading your post gave me a small enlightenment experience. I've never thought about taxes and government spending in those clear and simple terms.

[chronicfreetime]

Don't worry, I've got plenty of economics students on my friends list who will doubtless introduce some complications :)

5am?

[kiwitayro]

did you really post this at 5am?

you guys didn't come back for Foliage(tm) this year! i kept expecting an email...

oh, and last question... what do you do? like, for fun, money, whatever. just nosey. :)

cheers!

Re: 5am?

[chronicfreetime]

did you really post this at 5am?

Yes. I didn't really plan to be up so late, editing takes me too long.

you guys didn't come back for Foliage(tm) this year! i kept expecting an email...

Yeah, well... we want to see you guys again, but we have competing travel destinations :)

oh, and last question... what do you do? like, for fun, money, whatever. just nosey. :)

I work as a programmer right now. For fun... reading, eating, board games, arguing, and more programming.

[chronicfreetime]

That throwaway parenthetical is the important bit, though. Artificially altering the natural market demand by government-enforced redistribution can never do anything except harm.

That's a very purist libertarian/ancap position. I think redistribution can do good, although the forced cure is often worse than the disease.

Anyway, I recognize that those effects are important, but I am trying to show that the government's effect on individual purchasing power is much more a question of spending than of taxes. Therefore libertarians should favor a Democrat President when a Republican Congress appears inevitable, because total spending matters much more than tax rates.

Aside from (arguably) necessary commons infrastructure, such as public roads, police, a defensive military, etc, what should the government purchase that would be more useful than what the market would otherwise be allowed to decide if the taxes were not collected?I would also put water and power distribution in that category of natural monopoly infrastructure which is

[invasive]

Good points... and in addition, I say "BOO" to our fractional reserve system, the biggest racket I can think of.