Life's Better Ideas

Occasional links to, and comments on, ideas that I think will make this a better world, and remarks about things that need fixing, too.

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Location: Denver, Colorado, United States

Friday, July 06, 2012

Stuff you should know about government and political issues

Government has a monopoly on the legal use of force and violence.

More laws lead to less trust. Low Trust societies fail.

Excessive regulation and subsidies distort and hide risks, but do not eliminate them. These risks will eventually reappear in a more destructive form. (See housing and student loan bubbles.)

Wealth is unlimited, but to get more without hurting someone,  you have to create it. Taking it from other people is morally wrong.

Corporations don't pay taxes. If you buy a car for $30,000 and the company makes $3,000 profit, their tax is about $1,000. Where did they get the money to pay the tax? They got it from you, the purchaser.

Giving the government more things to do is putting all your eggs in one basket. It's impossible to fix if it breaks, and it will break.

The more things you want the government to do, the more fights you'll have. The more fights you have, the more money it takes to win the fights. If you want to get the money out of politics, don't ask the government to do stuff, demand that they do less.

Creating jobs is simple, not easy. Here's how: Find a product or service you like, one lots of people want, and that no one else is providing. Create that product or service and sell it to people who want it. You've now created one job. As you get too busy to do all the stuff you need to do to create and sell that product or service, hire someone else to do part of your job. Now you've created two jobs. Repeat as necessary.

Added:

Changing the government is hard. You have to convince your representative to change, and she has to convince half her colleagues to change, or you have to convince half the voters in your district to change. Wouldn't you rather spend time with your family? Changing the private sector is easy. You fire them and find someone who will do it your way.

Added:

People in government hide behind a wall of sovereign immunity and cannot be held accountable for their actions. That's why government should be much smaller than it is today.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Heaton said...

You've got my vote for congress,David. Subsidies are a way of taking money from the consumer and giving it to a corporation. They hurt the consumer and distort the market. Free trade is a great way to facilitate peace among nations, and places like Hong Kong jumped decades ahead of neighboring China when they did the sort of things you're talking about.

1:35 PM  

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