Bummed about the election and the direction the country is heading? Well, there is a solution for that.
But how. How do you withdraw from Leviathan and still live your life? I'd rather not sell everything and build a Unabomber style shack in the countryside. Plus my bread is paid for with your tax money, as I work as a defense contractor in this Company town. If I was completely in the private sector around here most of my income would come indirectly from that same pile of tax money. Say I was a cobbler... I'd end up fixing the shoes of government workers and government contractors.
I'm looking for ideas. Legal ones. For instance, I can't just NOT pay my income taxes and thus get thrown in the hoosegow.
If you'll recall, most of the strikers in Atlas Shrugged still lived 'on the economy', but at a sharply reduced level of production. The only ones who lived in Galt's Gulch were those too well known to live incognito. To "Go Galt", you first reduce your consumption to the 'need to have' level. Then reduce production to meet those needs, nothing more. The government exists on it's cut of the surplus, and they can't take what you don't make.
ReplyDeleteDon't have a good idea over here either... sigh
ReplyDeleteI think John is dead on. Reduce your consumption of stuff so you can reduce your taxable income and purchases. Starve the beast.
ReplyDeleteYou don't need to stop producing, just reduce the amount of your production that feeds the beast, i.e., develop untaxed revenue streams.
ReplyDeleteI, uh, hear that a good number of professionals have been able to shift a chunk of their salary to unreported income paid in cash from a slush-fund shell company (set up by the employer to serve the same purpose for him).
"Yeah, I still have a job but my salary got cut by a bunch." Gee, that's terrible.