Text 13712, 47 rader
Skriven 2011-01-21 07:04:20 av Bob Ackley (1:300/3)
  Kommentar till text 13697 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Government theft
========================
Replying to a message of Robert Bashe to All:

 RB> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12235993

 RB> "India court alarm over 'theft of national money'"

 RB> Now all the government has to do is to make it more attractive to keep
 RB> money in the country, rather than to flee with it.

 RB> Some people never learn that "capital is a shy entity that flees at
 RB> every sign of risk". Particularly those whose main concern is to rob
 RB> the population of its hard-earned money, to profit themselves.

Politicians and bureaucrats in this country continue to assume that regardless
of what they
do with taxes, people's behavior will not change - despite over half a century
of empirical
evidence to the contrary.  A couple of decades ago the US government slapped a
heavy
;luxury tax' on (among other things) pleasure boats; people quite buying them
and the
industry was nearly destroyed.  The tax on gasoline in Nebraska is considerably
higher than
the gasoline tax in Iowa, *MANY* Nebraskans drive across the bridges to fill up
on the Iowa
side.  There are hundreds of similar examples.

And not just taxes.  Years ago, before Nebraska legalized a state lottery and
joined the Powerball consortium, when the Powerball jackpot got up above US$10
million one
couldn't get near any of the lottery outlets in Council Bluffs because of all
the Nebraskans
who drove over to buy lottery tickets.  The first gas station/lottery outlet in
Council Bluffs
had two lottery machines manned by two full time employees that were swamped
when the
jackpot got high enough - the station couldn't sell any gas because the pumps
were blocked
by Nebraska-tagged cars whose drivers were inside buying lottery tickets. 
After Nebraska
adopted the lottery that station quickly went broke.  Now, of course, lottery
ticket sales don't
go up much until the jackpot gets over US$150 million; what a difference 10
years makes...

--- FleetStreet 1.19+
 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:300/3)