Jim H | Jul 8 2026 15:47 utc | 295
*** ‘The U.S. will need some kind of wealth tax to level this out.’ Yeah, right! Then we can aspire to having a dynamic, world-leading economy like no-growth Germany and socialist France! What’s not to like? /sarc ***
 
Do you seriously think that the mega-rich actually make or provide anything that’s of any serious use to the population?  Almost all their wealth is derived from speculation, asset-stripping (race to the rottenest quality bottom), rentierism, casino-banking and numerous other scams which destroy the lives of millions and are of zero good for anyone except themselves and their utterly fraudulent system. 
 
And do you really imagine that a fanatically cultist “economic” drive for perpetual growth is either sustainable or desirable? 
The ‘perpetual growth imperative is itself an infliction of the perpetual debt-money economic system now so perverted by financial crooks and iffy lawyers that even its own experts have to admit they no longer fully understand it.
 
Yet you seem happy to be forced (both directly and via government) to pay a hell of a lot of what amounts to a tax (but isn’t honest enough to call itself that) …. to the bankerites and financial extortionists …. exactly the sort of oligarchs and fatcats you don’t want to be “wealth taxed”!
 

Posted by: Cynic | Jul 8 2026 18:33 utc | 303

malenkov,
 
in my town the Fire Department is entirely funded through voluntary contriburions. 
Try agsin. 
 
 

Posted by: Exile | Jul 8 2026 18:49 utc | 305

Posted by: petergrfstrm | Jul 8 2026 11:40 utc | 277
===================================
 
Hey Pete, I’m thinking of starting a GoFundMe campaign to raise enough to replace your missing apostrophe key on your keyboard. Whaddya think?

Posted by: George the Zeroth | Jul 8 2026 19:02 utc | 307

The pyramids,  the interstate highways, Social Security, all of the structures built so strongly in the USSR, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Great Green Wall, things like that.
 
Also wars, central banking, the prison system, 17 spy agencies, Indian reservations, things like that.
 
I envy your living situation, but I’m guessing it isn’t the US.   Around here,  there is no longer a Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland “Hey, kids, let’s put on a show!” kind of bottom-up initiatives, let alone a way to reorganize a society to be sustainable and pleasant to live in.

Posted by: wagelaborer | Jul 8 2026 19:07 utc | 309

@ frithguild | Jul 8 2026 18:21 utc | 302
 
— because what we all really need is another set of ripoff artists known as “insurance companies”.

Posted by: malenkov | Jul 8 2026 19:37 utc | 311

3) social security – you got to be kidding, social security is a disaster.  try again
 
Posted by: Exile | Jul 8 2026 19:31 utc | 310
==============================
 
How is Social Security a “disaster”, pray tell?
 
It may not be perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing.
 
Unlike Medicare, which is Frankenstinian monster stitched together by Big Pharma, Big Insurance and Big Medicine. Better than nothing, sure, but not by much.

Posted by: George the Zeroth | Jul 8 2026 19:42 utc | 313

Unlike Medicare, which is Frankenstinian monster stitched together by Big Pharma, Big Insurance and Big Medicine. Better than nothing, sure, but not by much.
 
Posted by: George the Zeroth | Jul 8 2026 19:42 utc | 313

 
Traditional Medicare is a bit better than that, which is why Washington wants to kill it and frogmarch its participants into the “advantage” programs — which are pretty much as you describe.

Posted by: malenkov | Jul 8 2026 19:54 utc | 315

Social Security ?
 
15% of your paycheck (7.5% + 7.5%) for decades taken away at gunpoint. And you end up getting a pittance. Do the math.
 
BTW – similar thievery with Medicare. George was forced for decades ro psy into the system. Now , he thinks he got a free opetation. LOL 

Posted by: Exile | Jul 8 2026 20:07 utc | 317

Note – if the state wants to offer a program thats sooooo wonderful ( ie Social Security) why isn‘t volumtary ?
 
Why can’t taxes be voluntary ? 

Posted by: Exile | Jul 8 2026 20:11 utc | 319

The US will be broken up in cantons before it becomes a national socialist state.
 
A socialist state that advocates for confiscatory income taxation; national messed up health care (like the disasterous Irish or UK or Canadian model, where folks actually die in the ER waiting rooms!), seizure of all civilian firearms, imposition of press censorship, police monitoring of all social media, repression of Christians and especially Catholics, massive government deficits, shortages of consumer goods by statist bureaucrats, state ownership of all farm lands, destruction of the private power grid, imposition of the police state, banning gas and diesel autos and trucks, etc., etc………
 
There will be a hot civil war in America before middle American values are destroyed by socialist/communists like Joker Mamdani and Bernie Sanders, and the aging barmaid AOC!

Posted by: tobias cole | Jul 8 2026 20:32 utc | 321

Posted by: tobias cole | Jul 8 2026 20:41 utc | 322
 
40 million Americans are covered by Medicare. Without it, they would join the 30 million who have no health insurance. In the United States, people don’t die in the emergency room because they can’t afford it—they die at home or on the sidewalk.

Posted by: xiao pignouf | Jul 8 2026 21:07 utc | 323

Although a wealth tax seems good, many economists have claimed that it is unworkable. Michael Hudson proposes highly taxing economic rent—the income that the super-rich use to get even richer. This cuts most of the income that creates wealth. I propose revising the inheritance tax so that wealth is not transferred from generation to generation. With these two policies, income inequality would disappear when the last of the oligarchs dies off (if they still are oligarchs by then).

Posted by: Tedder | Jul 8 2026 22:12 utc | 325

… these departments are run citizens from their village or town who contribute their time and effort to the cause………..no communists there!
 
Posted by: tobias cole | Jul 8 2026 20:41 utc | 322
 
*****************
 
Oh, the irony!! 

Posted by: General Factotum | Jul 9 2026 0:32 utc | 327

Pre 1965 Health Care was ~5% of GDPNow its close to 20% of GDP. why can’t buying medical insurance be voluntary ?
 
Posted by: Exile | Jul 8 2026 20:16 utc | 320

 
Prior to that corporate giveaway known as RomneyObamacare, there was only Medicare for seniors (which increasingly is a corporate giveaway) and Medicaid for certain disadvantaged populations. It would therefore seem that a lot of the increase can be attributed to for-profit health insurance corporations and the runaway cost of patented medications.

Posted by: malenkov | Jul 9 2026 1:11 utc | 329

They might do it but it would only go to war.

Posted by: Guest77 | Jul 9 2026 1:25 utc | 331

Most people are anarchists: it’s the natural way to be. 
 
Posted by: Asian Tiger | Jul 8 2026 13:37 utc | 286
 

Nonsense, people thrive under order and knowing where they belong. The natural way is the way we are now, I only propose to reorder things not throw everyone into chaos only to recollecse into a different order. Anarchism is a reaction to the corruption not the solution. 
 
Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Jul 8 2026 14:13 utc | 288
 
Opinions and beliefs like that could not be further from the truth. 
 
Anarchism provides a solid framework which ensures all people may thrive under order and knowing where they belong. For example the Six nations system that prevailed for maybe a 1000 years before the colonists showed up in America and destroyed their people and the system they lived under in harmony. And anarchic systems worked equally well for 800 years for the dozen or more 10,000 strong cities of the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture —non-hierarchical, egalitarian, and anarchic peoples of the Ukrainian and Moldovan steppe—created the largest cities in the world at the time, predating all known “civilizations and city-states”  circa 4000 BC to 3300 BC. 
 
Todays global systems are inhumane, totally unnatural to our higher evolutionary way of being. 

Posted by: Asian Tiger | Jul 9 2026 1:28 utc | 333

‘Six nations system that prevailed for maybe a 1000 years before the colonists showed up’

We sure could use another ‘basic call to consciousness’

https://archive.org/details/basiccalltoconsc00summ

Posted by: Agonizing Reapprisal | Jul 9 2026 1:38 utc | 335

Now the question is, just what planet do you propose to implement this plan on?
Because there’s no fucking way this would happen here on Planet Earth, let alone the U.S.
 
Posted by: George the Zeroth | Jul 8 2026 23:01 utc | 326
 
In the west it was the norm not that long ago. Until economic rationalism, neoliberalism ex-Powell Memo and the Chicago boys convinced Thatcher and Reagan they had all the answers to prosperity and the wealth of nations. They didn’t.
 
Posted by: Asian Tiger | Jul 9 2026 1:46 utc | 336
==================================
 
Yes, I’m aware that this all changed fairly recently, politically speaking.
 
The U.S. had a top tax rate of 90% in the 1950s.
 
90%!!!
 
I don’t think we’ll ever see that again, at least not in the foreseeable future.

Posted by: George the Zeroth | Jul 9 2026 1:51 utc | 337

@ 335, yes, unfortunately the people and the leadership were stone deaf then (me included) and still are now. Pockets of human wisdom will survive the collapse in train, and will start over anew.  They’re out there. They’re talking with and supporting each other. But what has been will  never be again. Humanity has destroyed it’s inheritance. 

Posted by: Asian Tiger | Jul 9 2026 1:54 utc | 339

@ Asian Tiger | Jul 9 2026 2:03 utc | 340
 
Yeah, and I’m suuuuuure that’s going to be replicated here.

Posted by: malenkov | Jul 9 2026 2:08 utc | 341

Judging from those numbers in the chart provided, the best advice you could give any country is, “Don’t be Germany”.
 
Comparing Germany to the USA, the rich in the USA are much richer then rich Germans, no doubt about that … but wait the poor in the USA are also richer than poor Germans, by a fairly large jump, almost 30%. It’s really worse than it looks, because all of the things that are very significant to poor people (e.g. electricity for example) cost much, much more in Germany. We could argue perhaps that other metrics give different results, but hey I’m using the data as presented here (which hardly anyone seems to have bothered looking at).
 
By the way, if you compare life expectancy in the USA after 65 (i.e. health of older people) with the same data from Germany, it’s interesting that American men live a fraction longer than German men in old age, but German women do slightly better than American men … therefore America is more gender-equal than Germany is (if you believe that equality is a good thing, which I hear that people do believe this).
 
Germany should be more like the USA!
 
But actually, if you really, really believe that median income is the right way to measure these things (I bet most people here don’t believe that) … then Germans should strive to be more like France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, etc … and if they did that they would also end up better life expectancy as a bonus. Somehow, I think I will pass on advice about what is or is not healthy for my economy, thanks.

Posted by: Tel | Jul 9 2026 2:53 utc | 343

@ Asian Tiger | Jul 9 2026 2:03 utc | 340   
 Yeah, and I’m suuuuuure that’s going to be replicated here.  

Posted by: malenkov | Jul 9 2026 2:08 utc | 341

 
Of course it won’t. That would take imagination, intelligence and honesty. That was the unspoken point.
 
But one day the US and it’s systems will no longer be. Out of the rubble new ways of being will grow again like these kinds of cooperative human values that are tied to our evolution. Inner drives and knowingness that have been suppressed by violence and compounded by all the dark triad thinking of recent centuries. Nothing stays the same. Now more than ever this will become true. Slowly at first then suddenly. The Seneca Cliff. 

Posted by: Asian Tiger | Jul 9 2026 3:29 utc | 345

‘But one day the US and it’s systems will no longer be.’

It’s a long way away.

China has to have it’s rise and dominant period.

Modern China is currently an extraordinarily efficient state capitalist system that has moved untold numbers of people away from the land and nature and its rhythms and into the matrix of clock time and careerism.

China’s history amd cultural dynamics may well dampen this as opposed to the fierce individualist nature of ‘the west’ and particularly the US but it is nevertheless far far removed and heading in the opposite direction in fact from a ‘return’ to our animism and indigenous nature.

I mean, you can’t be subjected to clock time and even remotely consider yourself on the right path.

The clock is an extraordinarily powerful control device…the wholesale normalization of its ubiquitous utilization remains one of the most powerful methods of control over us.

Posted by: Agonizing Reappraisal | Jul 9 2026 3:50 utc | 347

Its all a far left wing brain washing (…)  Randi Weingardner, the commissar of the ATF, is a communist stooge girl. 
Posted by: tobias cole | Jul 9 2026 2:32 utc | 342

 
For a certain segment of Americans, anyone to the left of Trump is a communist. It’s truly laughable from a French perspective. Is this an attempt to blow out of proportion a reality that is, after all, ridiculously insignificant, or is it one of those moral panics so common on the right? I wanted to find out how many real communists there are in the United States. There are so few—fewer than 50,000 (being very, very, very optimistic), or 0.01% of the total population—that their numbers are hard to estimate, which makes you wonder how anyone could seriously consider them a threat… No wonder the elephant is the symbol of their political views. They’re so easily frightened by mice…

Posted by: xiao pignouf | Jul 9 2026 6:36 utc | 349

Alice A. Bailey, The Problems Of Humanity (1944)
 
It is essential that all thinking people should give time and thought to the consideration of the major world problems with which we are now faced… It must be recognized that the cause of all world unrest, of the world wars which have wrecked humanity, and the widespread misery upon our planet, can largely be attributed to a selfish group with materialistic purposes, who have for centuries exploited the masses and used the labour of mankind for their selfish ends…
 
This group of capitalists has cornered and exploited the world’s resources and the staples required for civilised living; they have been able to do this because they have owned and controlled the world’s wealth through their interlocking directorates, and have retained it in their hands. They have made possible the vast differences existing between the very rich and the very poor; they love money and the power which money gives; they have stood behind governments and politicians; they have controlled the electorate; they have made possible the narrow nationalistic aims of selfish politics; they have financed the world businesses and controlled oil, coal, power, light and transportation; they control publicly or sub rosa the world’s banking accounts.
 
The responsibility for the widespread misery to be found today in every country in the world, lies predominantly at the door of certain major interrelated groups of businessmen, bankers, executives of international cartels, monopolies, trusts and organisations, and directors of huge corporations, who work for corporate or personal gain.
 
p. 70/1 Alice A. Bailey, The Problems Of Humanity (1944)

Posted by: Asian Tiger | Jul 9 2026 8:56 utc | 351

Weathy people ALREADY paid the taxes on everything they own.The assets tbet own is mostly sharesin businesses – i.e. the capital. You yax capital, you get less of it. Bye-bye industry competitiveness.American “inequality” is hugely skewed by the hordes of free-loaders who pay no taxes whatsoever and prefer to live on government dole.
Posted by: averros | Jul 9 2026 1:18 utc | 330

That’s not exactly true.
 
The longer hold an asset in the USA the lower the capital gains tax rate is. If you cash in on an asset after holding it for one year you might pay 20% capital gains tax but if you hold that asset for say five years or longer you pay as little as 0%. So what the wealthy do is hold assets then borrow on those assets. They aren’t taxed on the capital gains and the interest paid on the money they borrowed against the asset can be seen as tax deductible … depending on how good your accountant is.
 
That how people like Elon Musk pay zero income tax and zero capital gains … he’s cash poor and doesn’t make a nickle but he pays his bills with loans on his capital assets.
 
Why should working people pay for the roads, rail and port infrastructure that make billionaires money when they can avoid paying any taxes themselves? If you work for a company owned by a billionaire they’ve already made a profit off your labour and then you have to pay for their transportation infrastructure as well.
 
We are human. As individuals we are prey but collectively we are the apex predator on this planet. We build civilizations collectivly. You might worship the self made man but he got there on the backs of a civilization built by humans acting as a collective..

Posted by: HB_Norica | Jul 9 2026 9:46 utc | 353

That how people like Elon Musk pay zero income tax and zero capital gains … he’s cash poor and doesn’t make a nickle but he pays his bills with loans on his capital assets.
 
Posted by: HB_Norica | Jul 9 2026 9:46 utc | 353

 
Musk has already paid far more tax than all the MoA pundits put together. His tax goes up in some years and down in others … far more sharply than a regular wage earner … but it averages out.  There’s a group called “ProPublica” who manage to get info on many wealthy people (making it a joke that anyone has privacy, even rich people), they found that Musk has paid a bit less than half a billion USD between 2014 and 2018 … then he paid nothing for a few years and then his tax bill jumped up to about $10 billion in 2021. It depends on when he can exercise stock options and he only sells when the price is reasonably strong because … if he sold into a falling market people would freak out.
 
No he is not “cash poor”. Even one of his big income years ends up being extremely lucrative and quite frankly it is difficult for anyone to spend a billion dollars on personal effects. I seem to remember he bought Twitter mostly with after-tax money and some loans, but not that much borrowing.

Posted by: Tel | Jul 9 2026 11:28 utc | 355

voluntary taxes ? 
1) Both in New England and in my part of Occupied Europe  the volunteer fire departments also serve those citizens who don‘t voluntarily help fund.
 
2) the free rider (aka moocher) question exists also with involuntary taxation at gunpoint. For example:, Only 50% of US Households pay any income tax these days.  There isn‘t any outcry to withhold police or fire services from those households. 

Posted by: Exile | Jul 9 2026 13:16 utc | 357

Norica –
Normally your dividends would pay taxes twice. Once at The Company level and a second time at the Holding Company level

Posted by: Exile | Jul 9 2026 14:26 utc | 359

Idealism says if you tell people what’s best they’ll see it and thank you for it.
 
Theres 2 problems though.
 
1.  You DONT know what’s best for everyone 
2. Even if you magically did, you cant make people believe self evident truths they dont like.  People will ignore inconvenient truths and they will turn on you if you try to convince them otherwise. 

Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Jul 9 2026 14:37 utc | 361

voluntary taxes ?
1) Both in New England and in my part of Occupied Europe  the volunteer fire departments also serve those citizens who don‘t voluntarily help fund.
 
Posted by: Exile | Jul 9 2026 13:16 utc | 357

 
If they’re under no legal obligation to do so, then they can terminate such generosity at any timez

Posted by: malenkov | Jul 9 2026 15:18 utc | 363

Sorry, lost in syntax.
 
Please read : Germany … is NOT a model..

Posted by: xiao pignouf | Jul 9 2026 15:48 utc | 365

How about a deaths tax. If you live past 90, you are taken and killed. You lived too long. Your punishment is death. You accumulated too much wealth, your punishment is confiscation and impoverishment. No difference. What are we waiting for.

Posted by: Prepalaw | Jul 9 2026 23:30 utc | 367

That’s good. Now, let it sink in.
 
Posted by: Asian Tiger | Jul 9 2026 1:33 utc | 334

I did my anarchism phase when i was 19.  I’ve learnt in the decades since then you have to ground yourself verifiable historical facts and accept people for who they are not what you feel they should be like. Your an all right person I think, basically, just foolish naive and inexperienced.  The school of hard knocks helps. Some pain focuses one to whats truly relevant.
Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Jul 9 2026 14:32 utc | 360

 
How judgmental of you. Got it all worked out I see. Well here’s a tip: go stand in the mirror and repeat the above to yourself. 
 
Have you ever stood in line in a queue? Lined up at a checkout waiting? Took turns shooting pool? Then you’ve been a practicing Anarchist. 
 

Idealism says if you tell people what’s best they’ll see it and thank you for it. Theres 2 problems though. 1.  You DONT know what’s best for everyone 2. Even if you magically did, you cant make people believe self evident truths they dont like.  People will ignore inconvenient truths and they will turn on you if you try to convince them otherwise. 
Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Jul 9 2026 14:37 utc | 361

 
1) I’m not trying to convince you or anyone else here of anything. That you imagine I am, tells you plainly who the idealistic prophet is. 
 
2) See my previous response above. 
 
3) For anyone interested in learning the basics of what Anarchism is and what it might look like when you see it, try: 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVDkkOAOtV0 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPtDiYwtyCI
 
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/conor-kostick-dawn-of-anarchism
 
https://davidgraeber.org/articles/are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-maysurprise-you/ 

Posted by: Asian Tiger | Jul 14 2026 6:43 utc | 369