More or less I agree, but I can also see how people could manipulate the tax codes to favor certain faiths. An example might be that a lot of churches could be listed as landmarks due to their age and/or history. This would provide public funds or tax exemptions to maintain them, this might not be on purpose in terms of giving religious preference but it would clearly favor religions that have been around longer and have a bigger foothold in the country (IE Christianity). And yeah, I think that the churches need to be treated like secular charities in terms of keeping things transparent and open.

The problem that I have is that there's a nagging fear I have about this sort of thing being used selectively to punish or empower various churches. We already have issues with people violating the laws involving separation of church and state, if we give them potential power to tax a church or religious order punitively there are some real risks. I find myself in a rather odd situation where I can't find a good central point to work from on this.

 The solution is to have a tax system that is straightforward and taxes everyone and everything at the exact same rate- regardless of whether it is religious, charitable, business or individual. Many secular organizations abuse the 501(c) tax laws as well. When you start allowing legitimate exceptions, abuse is impossible to prevent. We need to stop looking at the tax code as a method of encouraging or discouraging certain actions or organizations. The tax codes sole purpose should be to collect the money that government needs to operate. There are several ways this could be done. I support a consumption tax although I would be willing to support a flat income tax if that is the best I can get. 

As far as property taxes, I think your concerns about certain churches getting taxed high are unfounded. We already have a situation where certain religions are denied exempt status while others get it automatically. Small churches sometimes have a hard time proving they are a religion, while the Catholic Church is going to get an immediate rubber stamp even though they don't use a lot of their property for mass. We promise not to prohibit the free exercise of religion, we do not promise to make it easier for you to exercise religion than to own a small shop. If a church can't afford to be on the expensive side of town, then just like a business with a storefront, maybe it has to be built somewhere else. If there is any blatant attempt by a county to tax a particular church out of existence there is already an extensive system set up to appeal property tax bills all the way into the supreme court system (the vast majority of appeals are settled when you go to the informal board of revisions, very few even go to the state level because counties don't like wasting money on court fights). I just don't see it as any kind of realistic problem.  

If a church disappears because they cannot afford their taxes, maybe it should disappear. They have to meet regular bills for things like electricity, gas and maintenance for their building so I don't think taxing them the same way you do everyone else puts any kind of undue burden on them. If a church is so small they can't raise that much money they can always just meet at someones house. 

Exempting churches from taxation simply forces me and you to subsidize them. 

I kind of get the feeling that we'd get things like that instead. I don't know...on some level I feel that tax exemption needs to be addressed but I have issues with removing it entirely. One thought might be to treat them like a nonprofit organization or similar charity and require the same level of transparency?

I agree with you in most cases, it's more I look at small churches in various small communities. I do wonder though it it's an issue where we have a lot of public very wealthy churches and some small ones, but meh. Though the IRS versus the Catholic church if this came out would be an interesting legal battle.

And unfortunately we live amongst a government that likes to socially engineer, so flat anything is impossible.

^ lol. A system which has stood thousands of years isn't going to fall on your say so.
Unsustainable my ass.

Of course, it is far better to be a sheep and follow the ideology of the mainstream political groups and media instead of deciding for oneself what to believe.

Since you seem to subscribe to the theory that minority opinions are more likely to be wrong, why aren't you a theist? One should only believe what is popular, is that the case?

And Vastet isn't this classic Strawman. I never claimed the system would fall because of my say so. I said it will collapse because funding is unsustainable. People, capital and property could not move around the world as easily as they can today for the the past thousands of years. So instead of trying to refute this claim, you make up a strawman that I said the world system would collapse because I say so.

The global debt clock

Again you're making shit up. You claimed that I think the world would collapse because "I say so", inventing a persona of me. The arguing against this instead of my point that funding under the current system is unsustainable which is position a lot of economists take.

So if things are always going to be the same, then why are you even here. The stated goal if this site is to be a force wipe out religion and other irrationality. But according to your logic, since they've been around for thousands of years we'll always have them. History proves this to be the case, so the fournders of this web site must be idiots for ever thinking anything else could be possible.

That only bolsters my point. Wealth is not going to be tied to resources. Instead wealth is tied to intellectual property. How does one tax software or prevent its export or prevent a progammer, doctor or inventor from moving to another country?

When humans are able to cononize space, do you want to send out tax collectors to pay for the welfare state on earth?

No wealth was tied to farming, mining and industrial plants which could not easily move.

Bullshit. Wealth is tied to land first, property second, and intellectual property a distant third. In correspondence with need.

Bullshit. Until rotating crops were discovered farms had to move constantly. It's simple: grab seeds and a shovel and start walking. And industry had no problem moving. The only thing you mention which could not easily move was mining, and yet even they were forced to when mines went dry or were damaged beyond use.

Numbered points are so much easier to deal with than quotes.

1: I didn't say they didn't make it easier, I said the impact was in no way as significant as was being presented. They just weren't.
Ships have been around throughout recorded history. Only planes and trains are new. They have increased efficiency and speed of travel somewhat, but they hardly were so great as to reform the entire trading industry. Far greater was the impact on tourism and war.

2: I challenge you to show me a single species which does not utilise capitalism, knowingly or otherwise.

3: I challenge you to show me a single social species which does not apply rules which fosters social interactions.

4: Intellectual property can vanish with a single law. It will vanish in the face of revolt or certain types of disasters. The land will still be there regardless, as will the resources. Just because a few people got rich by patenting natural processes does not mean it's the be all of commerce.

5 & 6 are just strawmen.

1: No it hasn't. Everything works effectively the same as it did a thousand years ago. It's just faster and safer.
The fact is that most transport of goods occurred in such small areas a plane would actually have added costs to trade. There was no need or use for any of the technology you name other than train and automobiles. Both of which had analogues.

2: Humans, like all mammals, have always claimed territory and possessions in a free market. Even if the claiming of territory is as primitive as peeing on a tree or drawing on a cave wall.
Try again.

3: So social welfare doesn't have rules? News to me.
And you're both still wrong. Social programmes don't have to be instituted by government. Historically it was religions which provided charity. The christians were and still are a charitable organisation.

4: Land cannot be taken away by anything. It's still there. It also can't be copied. Without it you can't have human life, let alone intellectual property, so land is still the more valuable.

1: Your response presupposes everyone in the world had desire and use for international trade, which is so ridiculous that the term doesn't adequately describe it. Give people a thousand years ago cars and watch nothing happen globally. International trade wasn't possible, regardless of technology, until the infrastructure for it was laid down between the 16th and 19th centuries.

2: Actually that's half of capitalism. Without property capitalism can't function at all. The other half is the free market.

3: And he's a fucking idiot for suggesting that social programmes are the problem. If a church that doesn't collect taxes can do it than a government that collects taxes will have no trouble at all.

The real unsustainable element is the American Empire. Plenty of countries have sustainable social programmes. The US included. You just have to stop spending TRILLIONS of dollars and thousands of lives on stupid wars.

1: I am simply pointing out your absurd claim that "everything is the same" as it was 1000 years ago. Which groups our current system is desirable for is irrelevant. It does exist and it makes our economy remarkably different than it was 1000 years ago. What is transportation if it isn't infrastructure? Know what was built from the 16-19th centuries? Ports, roads and then railroads and everywhere they were built it radically changed the economy. Which is why you always find big cities in areas where they built ports or were a major junction of a major road or railroad.

2: Privately owned property is a necessary but not sufficient condition to have capitalism. Free markets have rarely existed at any time in human history and are not a necessary condition of capitalism. Free markets are only necessary in laissez-faire capitalism. Regardless, the primary determinant of whether a system is capitalist, mercantile, communist, socialist, feudal or something else has little to do with property or markets. The primary feature which distinguishes them is how ownership of the means of production is determined.

3: Governments today provide social programs at a much broader scale than churches ever did. There has never been anything on the scale of government assistance that started in the early 20th Century. I agree with you though that it is not necessarily unsustainable. The US model clearly is and so is the model adopted in many European countries (Greece, Spain, Portugal etc. all come to mind). The US model is unsustainable for a number of reasons.

4: Lol, you should be laughing at yourself. It is funny that you don't even realize it.     

1: You said, "And it was about as easy to move people and capital 5000 years ago as it is today. It took weeks or months instead of hours or days. Big deal." Yes, big deal. Our ability to move people around the world in a day and capital in minutes has made huge differences in our economy. Speed and safety are important factors when you are talking about how an economy works. 

2: To an extent, yes a relatively free market always exists. Although I wouldn't call a black market "free" (some do) because when you are under constant threat of being punished if you are caught, that puts a variety of restrictions on you such as when and where you can sell, what methods you can use (those that won't get you caught) and your ability to advertise. It is restricted by the threat of government police power, and often by people inside the market who use violence to control it taking advantage that you do not have the protection of government police power. The drug market is a good example of a black market that is not "free" by any stretch of the definition. The drug cartels essentially become governmental managers of the economy, complete with establishing rules, prices, supply and punishments. Regardless, as I pointed out a free market /= capitalism. 

3. Quite simply because we are paying out more for our social programs than we collect in taxes to pay for them. In about 20 years, our trust that we built up will be gone and we will be paying twice as much as we collect in taxes. Add in that our "trust fund" consists entirely of US Treasury Bonds which have to be paid back using our general tax fund, which we also spend more than we take in, and you have a serious financial shortfall. You can't have a system which routinely pays more to recipients than they ever pay in to it. In the US our social security and medicare taxes are theoretically separate from the general fund, and both programs are not collecting enough to cover promised obligations. As our massive debt builds and we pay more in interest, we will reach the point where even 100% tax rates will not be sufficient to pay the promised benefits plus interest. 

The solution is simple, raise taxes, cut benefits or some combination of the two to make the numbers balance and start making actual payments on lowering the debt. Politically, it has proven impossible.

I would say that their welfare programs had a lot to do with the governments that are failing. It is by far their number one expense. Unlike the US, which has a very expensive military that comes in a close second and can be at least partially blamed for our budget problems. The bottom line is that long term, governments have to balance their budget. Spending money on a welfare state increases that expense and for most modernized countries makes up the largest portion of their expenditures. It isn't impossible to balance the budget with significant social programs, but it does mean higher tax rates and managing the expenditures. Several countries manage to have low levels of debt with social programs much more generous than the US, such as Australia, Sweden or Norway. 

3: I don't understand how you are paying more in social programmes than you take in taxes. It couldn't have always been that way or the US would already be bankrupt. There has to be an underlying problem which has created this scenario. With the EU, their programmes are so costly because of immigration, which I would say is the real problem. The social spending is a symptom. You don't have the immigration problem, certainly not to their extent anyway. So why has social spending overcome income? What changed and when?

Cutting benefits can't answer the problem, as benefits are already well below the poverty line. Someone on welfare struggles to pay rent, let alone get groceries. You'd simply be increasing police costs by restricting social spending.
Higher taxes is just shifting the burden, and would compell many to leave. Others to defraud. Unless taxes are at historically low levels I can't see an increase truly helping all that much.

1: Exactly, and there is no doubt that trade between China and England today is a lot more prevalent than it was. When something is easier to do, it occurs more often and at a lower price. The Oriental Railroad was a big deal, not because it created a trade route that didn't exist before, but because it made the same trade route easier, safer and cheaper. (I should say a portion of the route) Easy, safe and cheap matter a lot in economics. In the case of the Orient Express, it caused a much larger number of tourists to make the journey because for some odd reason, tourists prefer easy, safe and fast travel compared to hard, dangerous and slow. Whether it is good for the environment or not is a completely separate issue; nice red herring though. 

2: We have not always had an economic system characterized by private ownership of goods. Much of human history, ownership of goods was determined by the government, most often by a king, emperor or guild. The idea that a private citizen could own property is a relatively modern and European one (about 16th century). 1,000 years ago, you could not own property unless you had a personal connection with an aristocratic family, no matter how much money you had. 

3: People live a lot longer now. You live longer and you draw more in benefits than originally predicted. The system was set up with the idea that people died around 67 years old on average, so the system only planned to pay benefits for 2-5 years. Now, people routinely live 10-15 years after they start collecting benefits, but the taxes have not been raised enough to compensate. The other problem is that we have the "baby boom" generation because people fucked a lot before going to WW2 and after returning causing a large spike in the American birthrate. We have a lot of people retiring who never paid enough money into the system and are just now reaching the age where they start collecting benefits. Our birthrate has been falling dramatically since then, so there are fewer working age people supporting a larger number of retirees and taxes are still at a rate appropriate for a large ratio of workers to retirees. When the system was created, there were 41 workers to support 1 retiree. Now there are 2.9 workers to support 1 retiree. By 2030, there will be 2 workers to support each retiree. 

When I say "cut benefits" the solution to me seems obvious. We offer social security to everyone Bill fucking Gates will get social security benefits. Guess what, he doesn't need it. We don't have to lower the amount of benefits, just cut off those who have attained enough wealth to care for themselves without them. Make it into a straight welfare program that only benefits those who have no other options. If you are a millionaire, you don't need it. If you planned for your own retirement and have a pension, you don't need it. Those 65+ are the wealthiest segment of our society, it is senseless to give them welfare payments. Yes, there are people who are old and completely broke, fine, help them. That doesn't mean you have to give money to the person who lives in a million dollar house just because they survived to be 65. Simply means testing Social Security and Medicare so only those below poverty levels got aid would dramatically lower our expenditures and probably make it sustainable.

I also think the age could be raised to 70 to reflect the better health of people since the programs were created, which would solve the problem. The big obstacle is that the 45-65 age group is currently the largest population in our society and they also have the highest voter turnout. The baby boomer generation is the biggest group of selfish, worthless, money grubbing SOB's this planet has ever seen and they don't give a fuck who they hurt as long as they get their cash. They want their Social Security check even when they are sitting in a fucking mansion with a million dollars in their bank account.

4: To the drugs, how much control they have over the prices is directly proportional to the control they have as a supplier. I have lived in areas where a single gang has a monopoly, and yes, they have near absolute control over prices. If you want a different supplier, you have to drive a long distance, something most drug users are not willing to do. In an area where a gang has loose control, or there are several different gangs, you have a more competitive market and therefore generally lower prices. Obviously, the situation varies by city. When I was in Chicago, if you wanted cocaine it came through the Latin Kings one way or the other- you either bought from them or they got a cut- and anyone dealing outside of them showed up dead. I know they took some heat from the police since I lived there, so I don't know if they still maintain that monopoly or not.

Here in Ohio, we don't have any gangs that are strong enough to have a monopoly so drug prices are far more dependent on how stupid/desperate the dealer thinks the customer is than anything else. I don't think the weed market experiences as much violence as coke or heroin markets simply because it is widely available and thus harder to control. Any idiot with a basement can grow his own pot and we have several decent pot farmers right here in Ohio. Can't buy an ounce here though, that is a felony. You ask for an oz. and you will get a little under 20 grams (which the dealer will assure you is an ounce and charge ounce prices), better off buying two halves.

But I've never heard of a gang getting terribly upset about someone selling pot in their territory. Probably because it is so prevalent and any transaction less than 20 grams is at worst a $100 fine- it is essentially legal as long as you carry less than 20 grams. Harder drugs like cocaine on the other hand are an automatic felony with jail time leading to a smaller and therefore more controllable market for gangs. Can't tell you who sells it here though because I never bought any here, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole market was controlled by a single cartel.  

1: Lol, if you say so. 

2: I didn't say anything about equality. The main differentiation in economic systems is how ownership in the means of production is determined. It is absurd to claim that a feudal system where a King grants land is the same as a capitalist system where ownership is determined by a market. There are differences between feudalism, mercantilism, marxism, socialism, communism and capitalism. That is why we have all those different words. 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism

3. Welfare for the moms with tons of kids costs us a little roughly $400 billion a year, a lot of money but hardly something that will bankrupt us. Social security and healthcare are our significant expenses and probably will bankrupt us. Those are the programs I talk about when I say they will bankrupt us, I will let EXC clarify for himself. 

A day late, but...

4: Violence in the drugs trade almost totally depends on the government and its policies. If weed is a low priority for cops then it isn't too dangerous. But if a gram can net you 10 years then people will kill over $10.

Coke and heroin are special cases. Extremely addictive and dangerous for all concerned parties, the price reflects that. I'm sure pricing is a bit more contrived under the circumstances. The consumer is irrational and willing to sell their kids into slavery for a hit, means the producers pretty much have full control over the prices.

But instead of competition you have to worry about sell outs and crazy desperate people at your door, so the price is still not fully under their control. It has to be within reach of the customer or you end up with a destroyed house and cops looking you up. There's no such thing as loyalty with the hard shit.

Taxing a religion to destroy it is something I am unaware ever happened. And as the custom of not taxing temples goes back to at least the Roman Empire there have been plenty of opportunities. I have come across many legal methods to put non-christian temples out of business by Constantine and his successors but I have not found special taxation as a method. Maybe mobs to loot and burn them were simply more efficient.

If taxation were tried one would expect the rules for non-profit organizations would apply. And if they are allowed to average out earnings across member churches one would expect there to be no profits and therefore no taxes.

Yes, million dollar parsonage, a fleet of Mercedes and a private jet for the head of an organization does stretch the concept of non-profit but not that much different from other non-profits where salaries are inflated to cover taxes and perqs.

BTW: When people tell you a flat tax is a good idea ask after charities, religions and such and will they have the same tax.

I would also like to see an objective analysis of the principle that the benefits to society exceed their tax value as revenue sources.

It is true that the extreme welfare mom/dad cases with 10+ kids make up only a small percentage of our fiscal problem. Their negative effect is mainly psychological. Group moral and morality is destroyed when just a single person or small group is allowed to cheat the system or create an obviously unfair advantage. These are just the extreme cases of the general problem of too many people taking in more in services and payouts than they put in.

I bring this up to show that two irrational concepts are going to bankrupt all levels of governments, namely birth right entitlements and taxation based one's physical location. There is no correlation of cost and benefit with either of these concepts in place.

Owning a gold mine isn't really a good way to get wealthy all they easy and cheap gold has been mined already. It knowing how to mine gold. That work can be done anywhere in the world. So why is taxation based on physical location and income and not services rendered?