Why?
He wants to outlaw lobbying at the Federal level. If corporations really loved him, then you'd see that in his political contributions, instead they are backing Mitt Romney:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286

It's easier to call the man crazy, but I still don't see why he is crazy for limiting federal involvement. I voted for Obama, but I fail to see why Ron Paul is such a big pill for people to swallow. If the Bush (real crazy) administration had less control over the 50 states, we wouldn't be in the mess in the first place.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^MonkeySpank:
I love Noam Chomsky; I quote him regularly, many times on videosift, but I disagree with him here. I think Noam Chomsky is confusing libertarian with anarchist. Ron Paul, by definition knows his limits as a POTUS. His constitutional ethics cannot force his rule, or the Fed's rule, onto a state. This is where Noam gaffed.
Ron Paul doesn't dictate what a state should do, with regards to health care, EPA, or anything, but he does have the power to limit the federal government involvement; that's a huge difference from what Noam is saying.
For example, I live in the state of California, and we strongly believe in an environment protection/regulation agency, because we saw how bad it got over here, and we are trying to back out of our mess - think of it as a cancer patient starting to eat healthy all of a sudden. What California wants should not apply to Montana for example, but California can still enforce tariffs on products from other states that infringe on its own policies, outside federal protocols. That's the Tenth Amendment, and that's how it should be.

Yes but he's saying that Ron Paul would cut out federal restrictions. California isn't more powerful than the companies that own it they would have to bow down to them immediately.
Sorry but Chomsky is right as usual. Ron Paul is fucking crazy, what he believe would create a world in which corporations would enslave us completely.

>> ^MonkeySpank:

I love Noam Chomsky; I quote him regularly, many times on videosift, but I disagree with him here. I think Noam Chomsky is confusing libertarian with anarchist. Ron Paul, by definition knows his limits as a POTUS. His constitutional ethics cannot force his rule, or the Fed's rule, onto a state. This is where Noam gaffed.
Ron Paul doesn't dictate what a state should do, with regards to health care, EPA, or anything, but he does have the power to limit the federal government involvement; that's a huge difference from what Noam is saying.
For example, I live in the state of California, and we strongly believe in an environment protection/regulation agency, because we saw how bad it got over here, and we are trying to back out of our mess - think of it as a cancer patient starting to eat healthy all of a sudden. What California wants should not apply to Montana for example, but California can still enforce tariffs on products from other states that infringe on its own policies, outside federal protocols. That's the Tenth Amendment, and that's how it should be.


Yes but he's saying that Ron Paul would cut out federal restrictions. California isn't more powerful than the companies that own it they would have to bow down to them immediately.

Sorry but Chomsky is right as usual. Ron Paul is fucking crazy, what he believe would create a world in which corporations would enslave us completely.

I love Noam Chomsky; I quote him regularly, many times on videosift, but I disagree with him here. I think Noam Chomsky is confusing libertarian with anarchist. Ron Paul, by definition knows his limits as a POTUS. His constitutional ethics cannot force his rule, or the Fed's rule, onto a state. This is where Noam gaffed.

Ron Paul doesn't dictate what a state should do, with regards to health care, EPA, or anything, but he does have the power to limit the federal government involvement; that's a huge difference from what Noam is saying.

For example, I live in the state of California, and we strongly believe in an environment protection/regulation agency, because we saw how bad it got over here, and we are trying to back out of our mess - think of it as a cancer patient starting to eat healthy all of a sudden. What California wants should not apply to Montana for example, but California can still enforce tariffs on products from other states that infringe on its own policies, outside federal protocols. That's the Tenth Amendment, and that's how it should be.

WTF, you are insane, "rape the [C]onstitution"?

Do you know what a corporation is? It is a financial instrument, a pact between society and investors to encourage investing while keeping a person's house and finances shielded from being put at risk by creating products.

It has nothing to do with anything in the Constitution. It REALLY has nothing to do with electing politicians. The only thing that has happened in the last 30 years is that corporations now control elections and put more money into campaigns than individuals. Corporations have realized they can make more profit by buying politicians which reward them with favorable laws and regulations and kickbacks nad contracts at the expense of citizens who suffer from the corporate greed.

Look at the BP oil spill or Enron or corn subsidy or sugar tariffs or bank bailouts or GM bailouts or mortgage crisis. In general, corporations best interest goes directly against a health society and the health and prosperity of citizens.

Modern medicine is extremely effect, especially when compared to none, for every vegetable hooked up to life support there are thousands of people who would otherwise be unproductive that have had their productive years extended. I don't view medicine as unnatural for people because it is an extension of our natural ability to understand and manipulate our environment. Just as regulation is something we can use to manipulate the market to avoid undesirable situations while allowing for continued prosperity.

That is not to say we always regulate properly or fairly, or that everyone in the market benefits equally. The problem with the bailouts was while they averted catastrophic consequences for the majority of people, and inconvenience for the richest.

And therein lies the crux of the problem, the people with the most, those who really created the problem are nothing more than inconvenienced, even if they lose millions they still have enough left to live comfortably, while the average worker who had little to do with the with the shifty policies suddenly have nothing. Further more there are many who benefited greatly by the practices proving if you've got the right acumen, or at least that's the illusion, you can make a lot of money.

Do the majority of people share some blame for what happened, of course, but when you look at who suffers and who had the most to do with the unscrupulous practices, those who had the least to do with it suffer the most. Those who have the most control suffer the least, or worse come out for the better, so why should they change their practices?

And that's why I think regulation has its place, when properly applied it acts as a deterrent for those who would otherwise have little to lose from unscrupulous practices, and gives those who have little control some method of petitioning for change.

As I said before I agree with you in that our regulations piecemeal conglomeration of polices that rob each other of efficacy. However I feel in free market situation you describe the people with the least amount of control suffer the most and the wealth continually gets concentrated in the hands of fewer ad fewer.

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
Regulation, in my natural selection analogy, is like modern medicine: It can sustain companies that should be dead, making those invested in the company happy but having negative effects on the system as a whole.

When the bailouts were fresh news, there were a lot of cries that the free market didn't work. In truth, the free market was working. Those banks had unsustainable practices and they were going down because of it. Would it have been catastrophic when they failed? Yeah. But the recovery process would have started then and there and any banks still standing would have had good reason not to repeat the others' mistakes. Instead the government propped them up and they are back to fucking us.

The auto industry situation isn't much better. Regulation imposes tariffs on foreign cars that get passed on to us in the price. Why? Because American cars suck ass and can't compete on a level playing field. Even with the deck stacked in their favor, the big 3 tank anyway. The government bails them out because of some misguided sense of national pride. They justify it with talk about lost jobs, but it's all nonsense. The demand for cars doesn't go down because car makers go out of business, people who would have bought from the big 3 just have to buy from someone else now. Toyota already employs more Americans than the big 3 combined. The textile manufacturers see no change in business volume as the other car manufacturers increase production to fill in the gap left by the big 3.

Let them tank. Let the jobs migrate. Let failed companies stand as examples to the rest.

I really feel like people are somewhat spoiled. They're no longer willing to see or endure anything "bad", but the old and sick must die to make way for new life, both in nature and in business, and things can get real ugly when you try to stand in the way of that.

I don't think everyone needs to be professionals at any level of market freedom. Even the most ignorant person knows they're being screwed at some point and there's nothing that says the free market can't contain professional advisers and watchdog groups.

What I think government's biggest role ought to be is enforcing a level of transparency so that we all have legit information to make our decisions on. The FDA requires ingredients to be listed on all food items. Some people don't pay any attention to it, but it's there. I'd like to see that sort of thing everywhere.

Regulation, in my natural selection analogy, is like modern medicine: It can sustain companies that should be dead, making those invested in the company happy but having negative effects on the system as a whole.

When the bailouts were fresh news, there were a lot of cries that the free market didn't work. In truth, the free market was working. Those banks had unsustainable practices and they were going down because of it. Would it have been catastrophic when they failed? Yeah. But the recovery process would have started then and there and any banks still standing would have had good reason not to repeat the others' mistakes. Instead the government propped them up and they are back to fucking us.

The auto industry situation isn't much better. Regulation imposes tariffs on foreign cars that get passed on to us in the price. Why? Because American cars suck ass and can't compete on a level playing field. Even with the deck stacked in their favor, the big 3 tank anyway. The government bails them out because of some misguided sense of national pride. They justify it with talk about lost jobs, but it's all nonsense. The demand for cars doesn't go down because car makers go out of business, people who would have bought from the big 3 just have to buy from someone else now. Toyota already employs more Americans than the big 3 combined. The textile manufacturers see no change in business volume as the other car manufacturers increase production to fill in the gap left by the big 3.

Let them tank. Let the jobs migrate. Let failed companies stand as examples to the rest.

I really feel like people are somewhat spoiled. They're no longer willing to see or endure anything "bad", but the old and sick must die to make way for new life, both in nature and in business, and things can get real ugly when you try to stand in the way of that.

I don't think everyone needs to be professionals at any level of market freedom. Even the most ignorant person knows they're being screwed at some point and there's nothing that says the free market can't contain professional advisers and watchdog groups.

What I think government's biggest role ought to be is enforcing a level of transparency so that we all have legit information to make our decisions on. The FDA requires ingredients to be listed on all food items. Some people don't pay any attention to it, but it's there. I'd like to see that sort of thing everywhere.

In reply to this comment by Crosswords:
If you view free market as a processes like natural selection, then everything counts including regulation. Regulation is simply an adaptation to market conditions by certain segments of a population. It is an ability to exert control on the market while avoiding the volatile, risky and harmful consequences other methods might accrue.

There will always be someone/something trying to control market forces in their favor. If you were to eliminate any regulation you would be eliminating one side's ability to exert control, they would be at the mercy of those who control the resources. So I guess in rebuttal to your argument, we either already have free-market working as intended or it doesn't exist and can't exist because anytime you put in a stipulation that you can't do X you're regulating someone's ability to exert control over the market forces.

As far as consumers go, I'm torn by the desire to see people acting more personally responsible and the opinion that you shouldn't have to be a professional in everything. You just can't compete when you're trying to know everything so you can make the right decisions, against someone who specialize in a specific area. At some point you're going to have to appeal to an expert. Unfortunately we have become so used to appealing to the experts its become increasingly easy for the experts to take advantage of everyone else.

Also:
I really think there are numerous systems which can successfully regulate a market but we've got these bits and pieces of several of them that don't work together. The people we've put in charge of this stuff all have such deep emotional attachments to their one economic gospel that they're often unwilling to even honestly discuss things with anyone from a different church.
I can't help but feel that is an exceptionally true statement. Our system of regulations has been cobbled together and broken apart by various ideologues over the years as painful a process it might be I wish we could redo everything in a manner that makes sense for the current market.

The people who demand and benefit from false prosperity are also masochistic in a dumb kind of way. If everyone was smart, we wouldn't have this problem. But they are not. Whether you are intentionally doing something or unintentionally doing something is irrelevant.

Even now jobs (money) dominate over issues vastly more important... Because we don't care...

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Lawdeedaw:
Although you are right, Cain is partially right too. We allowed our bubble to blow up because the middle class and poor were benefiting from the false wealth as well. So too were the rich--who lobbied for the disaster. But it was all of America.
In other words, we demanded stupidly from Washington and they accepted. Even now they want to lower tariffs (I.e., outsource more jobs) and lower taxes (I.e., do the will of the Tea Party.) Crazy.

Wait wait wait. I didn't vote for deregulation. I certainly didn't vote for banks to lobby congress.
I don't even think the Republican voters who did vote for deregulation knew that they were voting for bubbles and the biggest recession in generations. They certainly were told differently by Republican politicians, and the corporations who love them.
The people who promote the idea that markets are self-regulating were and are liars. Scam artists. Frauds. Yes, people were suckers for believing them. But I don't blame them for being naive and trusting, I blame the predatory fucks who used them to screw all of us out of our savings and livelihoods.
Cain wants people to mostly blame the victims of the scam for believing in the scam...all the while promoting the original scam itself!

Why on earth don't we have Q.I. in the U.S.? Why do we always copy imbecile British shows and put high tariffs on the smart ones?

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

Although you are right, Cain is partially right too. We allowed our bubble to blow up because the middle class and poor were benefiting from the false wealth as well. So too were the rich--who lobbied for the disaster. But it was all of America.
In other words, we demanded stupidly from Washington and they accepted. Even now they want to lower tariffs (I.e., outsource more jobs) and lower taxes (I.e., do the will of the Tea Party.) Crazy.


Wait wait wait. I didn't vote for deregulation. I certainly didn't vote for banks to lobby congress.

I don't even think the Republican voters who did vote for deregulation knew that they were voting for bubbles and the biggest recession in generations. They certainly were told differently by Republican politicians, and the corporations who love them.

The people who promote the idea that markets are self-regulating were and are liars. Scam artists. Frauds. Yes, people were suckers for believing them. But I don't blame them for being naive and trusting, I blame the predatory fucks who used them to screw all of us out of our savings and livelihoods.

Cain wants people to mostly blame the victims of the scam for believing in the scam...all the while promoting the original scam itself!

>> ^Phreezdryd:

Wall Street didn't constantly lobby to remove any restrictions on their highly risky and/or fraudulent activities that led to almost collapsing the American economy, and sent damaging shockwaves throughout the world economy.
Oh wait, they did.


Although you are right, Cain is partially right too. We allowed our bubble to blow up because the middle class and poor were benefiting from the false wealth as well. So too were the rich--who lobbied for the disaster. But it was all of America.

In other words, we demanded stupidly from Washington and they accepted. Even now they want to lower tariffs (I.e., outsource more jobs) and lower taxes (I.e., do the will of the Tea Party.) Crazy.

>> ^vex:

>> ^quantumushroom:
Greed: when you don't want the same things I want, in the exact same amounts

greed
n.
An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.
Source: The American Heritage Dictionary


Like wanting to send your kid to the best schools? Deserves and needs is a loaded word, as is greed. The real problem with this video is that capitalism isn't about wages, it is about ownership of things. The ONLY reason you can talk about wages is because of the price model that capitalism follows. Talk of wages in other systems and mixed systems is very difficult.

Of note, the 70s break is also very close to the end of the gold standard for the US. Also, corporate charters have nothing to do with capitalism, per say, but of governments. You could have communists corporations, or even households, I know my house is mostly a communism. I find this video's title, and most discussions of capitalism foul play, as no one is actually talking about not owning the fruits of their labor; the heart of capitalistic intent. Banking, wall street, and other economic features could be expressed differently in capitalism, in other words. They aren't PART of the ESSENTIAL structure, but emergent from the economic and social conditions of our day. You can cause mutations, however, that look like anomalies. Retirement funds are an example. The start of the idea of the retirement fund was in WWII. Wages were locked, but not intensives, and thus, the unnatural birth of retirement funds were born. After wages were unlocked, the slowly died. The same could be said of loans, wall street, and corporate explosion. Years of inflationary Fed policy has aggregated enough wealth in concentrated vestibules as to drive the democracy of the dollar into the tyranny of the aristocracy.

There was always in inherent fear of this tyranny coming to exist in a free market. A sorts of driving off the cliff. I fear that the fear of this reality caused those of a liberal persuasion to make the argument for safe guards to prevent this unknown quantity, and for good reason. Life, she has a cruel irony at times. The problem, as I see it is the safeguards are too distant from our eye, and our care. Those things made to make the system immune from this hypothetical situation has enabled those evil doorers great ability to carry out that goal. Far from our eye and care, they manipulate taxes, tariffs, rules and regulations meant to stave off their evils in their favor. The most powerful were able to bypass the rules meant to stave off their existence. They, in effect, created their existence from the process meant to keep them from existence, anti-entropy. Now, they have so much to loose that subtle reform will be very unlikely.

So high the unwilling to fall then to let it happen.

It will take the outcry and action of 300million people to fix, the manipulation of politics will no do. This will take action of feet than laws, lives than rules, actions than decisions. The objective clear, the voice unwavering, the resolve unfaltering. A march will not bridge it, a man will not solve it, a law will not stop it. Only with the lifeblood of your everyday action will you dent it. This is why I believe that REAL capitalism is the answer. Only with 300 million legislators can you avoid the tampering. The moral penance for daily dollar more greatly considered. Less reliance on bodies that fall prey to the hidden tampering of interested powers. Our safeguards imploded, our nations blood exploited.

Individual redemption must be claimed by the individual, always corrupted the voice that speaks for another.


(edit, typos sigh)

just another person clinging on to hope that the current system won't fail, because he's doing quite well out of it thank you very much. It already failed good sir, that's why the protesters are in the streets, and they aren't stopping any time soon.

For anyone repeating the 'protesters have no demands' rhetoric, perhaps try reading? These were posted 10 days ago.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.



Once you've read them, and realize that there are actually demands, and that they have been posted for quite a while now, understand that the movement, by necessity has to be leaderless, so coming up with demands needs to be done in an organic fashion taking into account a variety of viewpoints - this takes TIME. On that note, expect the demands to change and improve with time, those demands are just a snapshot. The whole point of the protests is that things have just gotten rediculous, there are so many issues the Government is not dealing with, so what would be the point of protesting against just one issue?

Protests can involve more than one issue? How unthinkable!!!

1a. The ravages of globalization are the result of a lack of effective regulation. We can’t regulate the world, but we can end the international trade agreements that pit our labor against 3rd world slaves. We can create public sector jobs to take up the slack for the failings of the market. We can tariff the fuck out of countries (looking at you China) that pollute the environment and lower the value of labor. It’s not a matter of skilled vs. unskilled jobs. Unemployment is hitting the working class and working poor alike. Much of the current disparity is between people with similar levels of education.

1b. Huge double standard here. You recognize private contributions to society as things of value, but you are blind to the benefits the public sector provides you every waking (or sleeping) moment of your life. Whatever satisfaction you provide your consumers pales in comparison to the security, infrastructure, safety standards, constitutional rights, court system, labor protections and other benefits that have allowed you the opportunity to live, work and thrive in this society. You take these things for granted because you’ve never known a life without them. Spoiled libertarian brat (is there any other kind).

2. I believe there is a lot of truth to this.

3. Obviously this is important to you, but I’m not getting the significance of the article you linked to or it’s political or scientific ramifications? Some scientists are skeptical about a controversial hypothesis. Are they holding up the creation of a master race of brilliant chess playing super-Jews? I’ve got enough to read at the moment. Give me the cliff notes version.

I don’t want to live in a society of slaves and masters. I don’t want to live under absolute socialist equality either. A hybrid system that strikes a compromise between the benefits of socialism and capitalism, run with the oversight and transparency of a working democracy would be best.

The market should be free to do it’s thing just so long as it does not become harmful to society (and itself). When the market fails to create jobs, the public sector should step in. When markets pollute or exploit, the public sector should step in. The public sector should also handle services that are too important to gamble away in the private sector like health care, social security and education.

It really comes done to whether or not you believe that humans have a moral obligation to care for one another. I do absolutely. I don’t want to be anyone's slave or master. I don’t want to be a millionaire. I’d just like to live in a country that doesn't punish the meek and powerless for being meek and powerless.

Don't tell blankfist, but you are a much better debater than he. Good chatting with you, Chilaxe.

I never ever said you were right wing. & You didn't stipulate that you were talking about sales tax, there was no way I could have known you meant sales tax.


In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:
@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Peroxide" title="member since February 17th, 2007" class="profilelink">Peroxide I am hardly right wing, and many state use something other than income tax. Usually sales tax, which is at a flat rate. So, it is already there to be seen really. The US government used to subside nearly completely on tariffs as well, which is also flat. Long tradition of flat, sales taxes around the world, so I don't know exactly what you mean by your comment. Consumption taxes seem more fair as it taxes people who do and use things as they do and use them. Which I think was one of the arguments that was being thrown around as to the level of fairness. If you drive a gas hog of a car, you pay more consumption tax....makes sense to me! If you wanted to make it progressive, you could change the rate on certain things, or offer food stampish things to people that are low income, basically forfeiting their tax back to them in the way of rebates. Lots of different ways to handle it. I just know that now, I can't file my taxes without the help of a computer. And even then, I don't know if it is right. At any time the government could audit me and really, I wouldn't know how valid their claim would be. How many of you are sure that you aren't guilty of tax fraud? Have you read the X million lines of tax codes?

I can't find any info about sales cost collection. I don't know if that study you're siting costs of enforcement as well.

Income tax, from the stats I saw, was over 98% efficient, even with an IRS around to enforce it. The other issue is the latency of collecting sales tax compared to income tax. It allows the gov't to avoid borrowing money so soon, or during times of surplus, the gov't could actually gain interest on that collected money.

Regardless, it's still very difficult to fashion a consumption tax that is progressive enough anyway to allow for a healthy economy.

>> ^snoozedoctor:

Admittedly, I haven't read much about administrating sales tax before, but this study from WA State seems to contradict your numbers. For small retailer the cost of collection was around 6% and that went down to less than 1% for large retailers. That would seem very efficient. Would it be different if it were a National Sales tax? Asking, cause I don't know the answer.
http://dor.wa.gov/content/aboutus/statisticsandreports
/retailers_cost_study/default.aspx
>> ^heropsycho:
The problems with consumption taxes are:
A. Not progressive enough, which could admittedly be overcome, but how you could would be tedious. What are retailers gonna do, ask to see your tax statement everytime you buy something? It would have to be based on type of purchase, which would be very difficult to structure it to be progressive enough.
B. As I've mentioned numerous times, sales taxes cost too much to collect. Income taxes are over 90% efficient. For every dollar charged, it only costs less than ten cents to collect and enforce income tax. Last I checked, it costs about forty cents on the dollar to collect and enforce a sales tax. You'd then have to charge everyone more taxes to make up for the inefficiencies.
That's honestly where I'd advocate abolishing sales tax within every state, and have the state legislature raise everyone's income tax a small percentage, so everyone would pay slightly more in income tax, but no sales tax. If done correctly, everyone would pay less in taxes overall, and the state governments would get more in tax revenues due to eliminating inefficiencies inherent in a sales tax. That should be something everyone could get behind.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
@Peroxide I am hardly right wing, and many state use something other than income tax. Usually sales tax, which is at a flat rate. So, it is already there to be seen really. The US government used to subside nearly completely on tariffs as well, which is also flat. Long tradition of flat, sales taxes around the world, so I don't know exactly what you mean by your comment. Consumption taxes seem more fair as it taxes people who do and use things as they do and use them. Which I think was one of the arguments that was being thrown around as to the level of fairness. If you drive a gas hog of a car, you pay more consumption tax....makes sense to me! If you wanted to make it progressive, you could change the rate on certain things, or offer food stampish things to people that are low income, basically forfeiting their tax back to them in the way of rebates. Lots of different ways to handle it. I just know that now, I can't file my taxes without the help of a computer. And even then, I don't know if it is right. At any time the government could audit me and really, I wouldn't know how valid their claim would be. How many of you are sure that you aren't guilty of tax fraud? Have you read the X million lines of tax codes?