Shape of Things to Come

As the economic conditions continue to deteriorate to the inevitable collapse, governments at all levels will become obsessed with picking the pockets of the citizen completely clean. There has already been discussion of confiscating private retirement accounts, which has been done in other countries. Pumping up inflation is another way savings are wiped out and that is the plan in the United Kingdom.

But here is an idea that blindsided me and is already law in Louisiana. All secondhand goods are to be paid for by check or plastic from now on. Curiously, pawn shops are exempted. But what about Goodwill and Salvation Army stores? This also effectively outlaws rummage sales and any other private sale, since you would have to have enough money to survive checks bouncing or to have a credit card scanner. Those have fees per transaction to use, by the way.

Asinine barely begins to describe this. Supposedly this is to stop materials thefts and theft in general. Most of the buyers there are shady and doing it off the books anyway, so it will not stop crime. But it will destroy a lot of small businesses.

So why pass this law?

I suspect the real answer is that it is all about taxes. It is easier to keep track of what should be taxed because checks, debit cards, and credit cards are all traceable. They want a chunk of unreported “black market” sales that go on all the time between private citizens. The legitimate businesses already keep track of that and pay their taxes, but there is an attitude among some legislators that there is a huge underground economy that can bring in big revenue streams.

To some degree, they are right and that is why a national sales tax replacing the income tax would be very effective. But an individual state doing this will just encourage legitimate buyers to stop buying and criminals will do one of two things: money laundering and shopping out of state.

I feel assaulted by dangerous waves of stupidity.