No, I did not miss the point. Commodities, like gold, are given value by the supply and demand for them. Using gold as currency does not eliminate inflation. Inflation may still occur when using gold as well as deflation, which is arguably worse.Harvester wrote:Operative, now imagine that $10k GE investment denominated in gold, not dollars that depreciate. You missed the point; investments denominated in fiat dollars are losing 4 to 10% a year (official stats are fudged) to inflation, which America did not have for a hundred twenty some odd years.
Dollars are also an indicator of value. The Federal Reserve controls the supply in order to match the demand in as efficient way as possible. If the Federal Reserve makes the right moves, then inflation stays in check.
Nonsense. The 1913 act most certainly did include earnings from labor. So did all of the Revenue Acts during the Civil War period.Harvester wrote:There are no court cases precisely because "income (for Income Tax purposes) does not include earnings from labor" and the working people were not assessing themselves as having received income.Famspear wrote:Why, in the 1920s and 1930s, do we see ZERO court cases where people came in and said "Hey, wait a minute, income does not include my earnings for my labor"?
More nonsense.Harvester wrote:I agree, but let's not confuse terms. Everyday income (all the money I made) is very different from "income" in the Revenue Acts.Famspear wrote:These people, who did owe and pay income tax, tended to be people with relatively high incomes.
Even more nonsense.Harvester wrote:No, and Yes.Famspear wrote: Now, Harvester, do you really think that the people of that period with high incomes simply paid tax on income they thought was not taxable? Don't you think the high income people in the 1920s and 1930s could afford tax lawyers and accountants to advise them?Well I'm sure they did object, but they were a minority for starters. And those who really knew the score, or were pulled aside with "hey it's OK to support this, it only taxes your investments in national banks /corporations, it's just an excise on income encompassed by the Revenue Act," knew it was no big deal.Famspear wrote:If income in that period was understood to mean only unearned income or interest income, then why didn't anyone object -- especially the relatively high income earners in the private sector?