The wet season. It’s fire-safe to moto in woods. And safe to hike in nearby woods without encountering crowds. While I love riding routes through woods on gravel, I see myself riding pavement through the winter. But taking woods routes on foot, as I like to hear the rain and wind. I had a brisk, nearby hike recently heading out from the neighborhood. Or walk, rather. But what’s the difference.
Last moto into the woods was well over a month ago:
Skies are darkened for the next few or more months. Slippery season. A rare snow. Tires fine. But hiking shoes are bald enough to be dangerous: I recently learned the lesson that there would be a huge payoff to spend money on new foot tread. Will do soon. I did better at absorbing my surroundings on the walk instead of having my mind so off-trail. It can’t be forced, that’s for sure. But can be chosen. Streams of consciousness. The sounds, sights and smells of the woods interest me in part because of the idea that they’ve not changed, and probably look, smell and sound the same as when humans weren’t yet around to even be buying shoes or riding moto. Although I should probably read the natural history of my area so that I know how long it’s been the system it now is.
Still a wandering mind though, sporadically during hike. Returned to earlier thoughts about how landlords of residential rentals indirectly extract money from businesses by necessitating higher wages for employees — doing this by hiking the employee’s home rent. This has me thinking that employees’ landlords are actually “taxing” the businesses (employers) that the landlord’s tenants work for; the business who employs the residential landlord’s tenant has nothing to do with the residential building, other than indirectly (through the employee) paying money to the residential building owner (investor-residential landlord). Wage increases are to cover unregulated rent hikes, so wage increases are the way the business/employer pays “tax” to the residential landlord of the employer’s workers. Another way to view it is the business employing the residential tenant is “subsidizing” the residential landlord’s investment return on their residential rental property.
There’s tax, and there is “tax”. Taxes (without quotations) are actually collected by federal and state/local tax agencies, and oftentimes this money collected goes back to the public in the forms of national park ownership and maintenance, public libraries, public schools, police and fire services, roads, etc. — things most everyone has access to regardless of income. But “taxes” are business-imposed, under-regulated consumer costs like insurance premiums, mortgage interest, and rent hikes — things that some people benefit from while others are preyed upon by or excluded from, depending on their relative position to the product or service in terms of their income or status. So, “taxes” are really private sector taxes (you can remove the quotation marks by adding “private sector” in front). So, again, there are taxes collected (that sometimes return to the public in the form of a national park, fire service, roads, etc.), and there are private sector taxes (typically in the form of insurance premiums, credit card interest, mortgage interest, hiked rent).
Taxes = Money collected from people and businesses by federal or state/local taxing agencies. For example, income tax, payroll tax, property tax.
Private Sector Taxes = Money collected from people and businesses by the business sector and landlords. For example, under- or unregulated rent hikes, insurance premium hikes, co-pays, deductibles, predatory interest rates.
Taxes, which oftentimes return to the public in the form of parks, police service, roads, and fire service, are opposed by people on the right. But private sector taxes, in the form of insurance premiums unaffordable to many, hiked rent, co-pays, deductibles, and predatory interest rates, are not opposed by people on the right, because it’s CEOs and landlords taxing everyone, rather than the government doing it. But the CEO or landlord would never recycle the funds back to public service, unless it would make her/him richer, such as starting a private foundation that gives her/him tax advantage. People on the right are fine with paying private sector tax. Wealthy people on the right are fine with it. But what’s odd is that poor and working class people on the right are fine with it too. On the right, the rich, middle, and poor are all pro-private sector tax, while they are anti-tax (anti-government tax, which ironically could benefit the poor and working class when recycled back to public service).
So, lower income people on the right are okay with private sector tax (under-regulated insurance premiums, for example) even if it leaves them without health care or health insurance, or adequate housing, or gets them fined for driving without auto insurance, which is just unaffordable to many. They are okay with paying money (private sector tax) to the wealthy. Yet they oppose taxes and regulation that could make housing affordable and give them access to health care. The middle and poor on the right are good people who have been tricked.
And, again, wealthy people on the right are okay with private sector taxes (under-regulated insurance premiums, predatory interest rates, hiked rent, for example) because they can access health insurance and are in some cases enriched by the under-regulated premiums charged to the masses, and they avoid fines because they can afford auto insurance and are in some cases enriched by the under-regulated auto insurance premiums, and by predatory credit card interest paid by the masses.
The related oddity this creates on the right is that the wealthy, and the middle and poor on the right that they prey upon, are somehow all three in political harmony with each other and collaborate to support the same candidate that will further enrich the rich and keep the middle and poor down. That is, these three sub-groups of people on the right — the wealthy, middle, and the poor — will all get behind the anti-tax, anti-government political candidate who will then only benefit the wealthy despite what they promise the middle and poor.
A similar irony happens on the left as well though. Wealthy liberals and centrists share interests, goals, and actions with wealthy people on the right. And some working class and poor people on the left vote for these wealthy liberals and centrists that are produced and propelled into office by the DNC. What happens is the DNC protects the wealthy from middle and lower-income people/voters on the left. Specifically, the DNC expels its progressive candidates during its primary races and then takes their votes (the votes to be cast by middle and lower-income people on the left who would have voted for their progressive candidate that was expelled by the DNC). Whereas the RNC doesn’t have to step in with this particular shenanigan because on the right, the lower- and middle income people are in political harmony with wealthy people. That is, middle- and low-income people on the right are also — like the wealthy on the right — anti-tax and anti-government: attitudes which favor their wealthy counterparts that are preying on them with those very attitudes.
It seems then that anti-taxers are only partially anti-tax: they tolerate private sector tax (or support or benefit from it if they are already wealthy), while being vehemently opposed to the government taxing anyone.
Thoughts on Trails 