Which is Worse: Taxes or Fiat Money? \ stacker news ~econ

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Which is Worse: Taxes or Fiat Money?

1110 sats \ 26 comments \ @kepford 4h econ

Taxes are theft.
Fiat is manipulation of the base money in an economy by a few.

If you could snap your fingers and eliminate one forever but no other which would you choose to eliminate?

Fiat - (No money printer)52.4%

Taxes - All Taxes (but not fiat)47.6%

21 votes \ 20h left

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43 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatbad 1h

I can't believe this poll is so close.

Fiat is the obvious answer.

I'm shocked. I'm disappointed.

Now I understand why more Bitcoiners aren't fighting to end fiat. They haven't read the must-read book list, apparently. They simply haven't done their homework, I guess.

183 sats \ 6 replies \ @optimism 4h

That one was easy: taxes. They generally don't let you opt-out of these whereas opting out of fiat is the act of spending it.

100 sats \ 5 replies \ @kepford OP 4h

And yet... one has opposition and the other is invisible.

Virtually no one even understands fiat.

Most people have a much better understanding of taxes.

67 sats \ 4 replies \ @optimism 4h

Fair, but I think that that is the best reason to choose taxes.

Remove fiat you shall still be coerced no matter how much you learn about taxes
Remove taxes, all you need to do is learn to get rid of that fiat asap.

100 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford OP 4h

This is why I asked the question. Good point. I still disagree but it gets us thinking doesn't it?

My thought is that if you eliminate fiat its dead forever because of bitcoin. And fiat is MUCH harder to fight than taxes.

Taxes are not invisible and if you take away the fiat tool to fund spending and special interests you take away a LOT of power from the state and its cronies. Then you have a situation where taxes will become more pressured as the source of funding things. People are far more likely to push back on that vs. the complex and largely invisible fiat system.

I will add though that one of the worst things about Democracy is how it clouds our thinking about taxes. Under a king people have no illusion what is happening. The King is levying taxes to do what he wants. Much easier to see that it is a forcible taking. Theft.

But we are propagandized to believe that WE are the government in a democracy(or whatever you think the US is). We the people and all that. How can the people steal from themselves? Unless you kill democracy and instead have a voluntary free society its gonna be hard to get rid of taxes.

This is why I don't think this question is an easy one.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 4h

And another thing people have a hard time thinking through is that eliminating taxes doesn't mean you don't pay for services the state is now providing. Its just not gonna be theft.

Its not theft when I voluntarily pay for someone to take away my garbage. That is a fee for service.

Those of us who have studied some econ probably could agree that some things the government provides would be more expensive under a free system. But most if not all would be better and we'd have choice instead of fear of imprisonment.

52 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 3h

If you live in the US, many of the things the govt provides would be more expensive. Simply because your money printing is absorbed by foreigners. If you live outside the US, very much less so.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 4h

Your choice only makes sense if choosing taxes means Bitcoin or gold or land or even stonks are no longer available because of that choice. Like: you won't be taxed but you aren't allowed to spend your fiat; that would make it a different story, because then there is no wealth preservation anymore, just "credits" that get devalued.

It is super easy to hedge against fiat without that, because you just need to spend it. Many bitcoiners still have fiat jobs (I don't but I should; it's one of my mistakes.)

Taxes though; I remember getting the knock on the door. And the threats. And then I had to go to court. And waste tons of money to defend myself against a wrongful government action because their automated system was extrapolating past income on me. Without taxes, I would have been spared that, so maybe I'm biased.

160 sats \ 2 replies \ @justin_shocknet 3h

Hard to come up with a decision framework because both are emergent and closely related, fiat is a type of tax.

Arguably fiat distorts the economy more in practice, but not inherently.

I'd also argue fiat is already gone in the material sense, the party is over we're just cleaning up the mess and the economy is nursing a hangover.

Taxes are whackamole, not sure anyone would prefer reversion to the inevitable alternative of serfdom/feudalism. History has proven that scarcity forces trade-offs and we get the trade-offs we deserve.

17 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford OP 3h

It is a hard decision and I left it pretty open ended.

I could have been more clear about meaning fiat and not "the dollar" which doesn't have to be fiat and wasn't originally (to my knowledge).

I mostly think that taxes are easier to fight than fiat. But if you killed fiat bitcoin would mean it would be forever dead. But really, if I think about that then I start to think its just a matter of time till fiat is dead anyway. So maybe taxes would be a better choice.

39 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 3h

Yea I don't think the dollar when people say fiat. I immediately go back to diluting gold coins with other metals... been a problem since at least Roman times... likely longer.

I'd disagree and say fiat is much easier to circumvent, you don't have to hold it, you can always adopt a different unit for your own personal balance sheet/earnings statement. People with a clue have done this with gold and lands throughout history, regardless of the prevailing currency. The only tool necessary to circumvent it is knowledge, which between the speed of information today and Bitcoin having less negative trade-offs than gold is why fiat is party is already over in my view.

I think it's incumbent to say if you'd get rid of something you propose an alternative and can defend that alternative as workable. I like to think I'm fairly creative and well-studied in history, but I still couldn't articulate anything other than perhaps post-scarcity that makes better trade-offs than a minimalist tax regime.

2 sats \ 6 replies \ @Undisciplined 4h

Taxes are the "full faith and credit" part of fiat and I think it dies pretty quickly without them.

59 sats \ 5 replies \ @kepford OP 4h

Fiat is not the dollar.

The dollar was once pegged to gold.

I didn't say the dollar. I said Fiat.

Guess I should have been more clear. Common confusion.

42 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford OP 4h

Additionally, you could eliminate the FED and NOT eliminate the Treasury. Coining money is not fiat.

See most people have no clue about how the dollar works. I'd say most bitcoiners don't. And I'm not an expert in the slightest. But the many hours I've spend learning about the history of the US money system and economy I know that we once had a non-fiat system here.

Banks issued notes. Dollars are just notes issued by the treasury and were backed by gold. Of course there is trust involved but its entirely different from fiat.

Today since bitcoin exists and doesn't require trust (other than in the protocol / network) we could and likely would eliminate the dollar.

7 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 4h

Coining money wouldn't be fiat if the denominations matched the value of materials used.

Pennies and nickels are worth more than their face values, but dimes and quarters much less. Dimes and quarters are fiat because their value comes from government decree.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 4h

Sure. But again, you are describing fiat and mixing that with the coinage. It would be fiat if the coins were traded for arbitrary set amounts. Unless they were treated like paper notes. IE, backed by a physical asset. After all, even paper has a value. Its just very small.

43 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 4h

I get you, but I think fiat currencies would fail much faster without taxing authority behind them.

Part of the demand for fiat is that people have to pay their taxes in it and a lot of the willingness to buy the bonds that are part of creating more fiat is knowing theft can be used to guarantee the nominal yield.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 4h

Maybe. I can see that being possible.

58 sats \ 1 reply \ @TNStacker 1h

Same thing

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 55m

I like it. But I accounted for that in the choices.

78 sats \ 1 reply \ @nichro 3h

Fiat is worse. Let them be forced to tax people 99% to find their promises and wars and let's see how apologetic the sheeple remain

12 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 3h

Indeed, this is a thought I've had. Force the state to be more open about what they are about.

58 sats \ 1 reply \ @m0wer 3h

I chose fiat not thinking about myself but about the whole world.

Most people hate taxes already and try to avoid them. But I also think most people won't ever realize about the fiat scam on their own.

So overall I think fiat is way more harmful than taxes in our world today.

24 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford OP 3h

I agree. Worldwide, the world mostly is harmed more by this than we in the US.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BeeRye 2h

taxes

taxes,taxes,taxes

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @guerratotal 2h

Taxes, simply put, if you have to pay to maintain something that was never yours... as simple as that, if you stop paying taxes on a piece of land you would lose it, if you stop paying your car you would lose it, your house, etc. Taxes are things of the devil, something satanic.