bank secrets

[ShadowHM]

Hi,
That is socialist thinking. Consider:
I want food. I go to the grocery store and get it. If I pay the grocer directly, I only need to pay enough to cover his cost, expense, and salary. If I pay through the state, I pay all that, plus the salary of the tax collectors, their bureaucracies, the dispensers of funds, their bureaucracies, etc. Not to mention killing a forest for the wood for the paper for the paperwork. So, I pay much more in taxes than I would in cash to get the same groceries. You can look at it from the standpoint that the groceries are what I get back for my taxes. Or you can look at it from the standpoint that the higher overall price is what I get to support government. Either way, I get to eat less. And my money is wasted.

That was a bit of a leap from eppie's statement. Consider:
I want food. I go to the grocery store and get it. I don't pay directly for the roads that the food travelled to get to me. I don't pay directly for the oversight of the factories that (usually) ensures that the products that I purchase are safe for human consumption. Nor do I pay directly for the truth in advertising oversight that keeps the labels honest. I subsidized the gasoline costs of the farmer and I also subsidized the property taxes on the land it was grown on. But I still pay the grocer directly for the food. I do look at it from the standpoint that quite a lot of my subsidies are, indeed, 'coming right back at me'. My money was not wasted. I got to avoid both sickness and additional costs in my grocery bill.

I just have to jump in now and again to debunk that Yankee knee-jerk 'socialism is state ownership and always a Bad Thing™' reaction. ;)

Please do continue the regular rant about the lack of efficiency in government spending. I would not disagree on that front. I just wanted to register my objection to the mis-use of the one word.