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There's an argument, that I have seen explored a little at Zero Hedge, that printing money would be better than taxation.
This is an exotic argument that I have not had a chance nor even the ability (yet) to properly wrap my brain around with it.
A first thought:
Eliminating taxation, of course, would likely anger the poor (they pay low taxes, except various consumption taxes). Envy and resentment would likely prevent this idea of eliminating taxation altogether.
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I am already convinced that gold ought not be linked to currency (that is, no "Gold Standard"). A Gold Standard would function poorly IMO. Gold's best and highest value use is as a Store of Value.
Gold <> Money in that sense. Most define money as roughly filling three roles: Unit of Account, Medium of Exchange, and Store of Value. But, we are perhaps soon at the point of monetary failure, the US$ will not (cannot) fulfill those three roles of "money".
That's actually an interesting idea. When you print more money then you devalue all the money in existence. Which would turn out to be like a tax on all existing money. Everyone who owns money of that kind has less value later. Which means rich people would pay the same percentage than poor people. Higher taxes for rich persons.
I think the poor would not have a problem because the rich pay more in numbers.
The only problem with that is that it would hurt the economy of that country. The currency needs to be stable. If the currency gets devalued then it would lead to losses in economy from export. The businesses would get the same amount of currency but it's worth less. And when the currency would rise in value it would be the opposite. The import would be hurt because they would pay more value than they should.
So i fear that option will never be tested.