Socialism: Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Capitalism: Is it good or bad?

Regulation: Do we need it? If so, how much? Is there a point where it's too much? Why?

Taxes: what do you think of them?

I don't really know much of anything about economics, but taxes are good shit. Wouldn't have roads without them. I'd be happy paying virtually any percentage of my income so long as it left me enough to live off of and save, and so long as the money was being spent effectively. My main concern currently is that our public schooling is largely shit, and it needs to be fixed. I'd pay more if it were needed to achieve that (though I think that our current spending here in California is not very efficient).

Also, sales tax needs to be included on the fucking price tag. It's apparently illegal to display the total price here, and I hate it.

It never made sense to me why they didn't include the tax in the advertised price. I guess you could say, "people think they're getting a better deal," but they'd be paying the same amount either way.

If anything, I would firmly say the past month or so of stock market exploding has been for libertarianism what the collapse of the USSR was for communism.

As far as socialism, I think it would be better to include some kind of merit-based system, in that if you need more than some state-provided limit, you have to work for it. Ideally this would appease the conservatives who recoil in horror at the S-word (though not people like my mom, who think that people on welfare are sticking it to her whenever she interacts with them at work).

Over here, I don't think I've ever seen tax not included in the price, that aside I think taxes are great. I pretty much treat my tax return as every year I get a $2000 or so bonus rather than looking at it as money that I never got finally been given to me.

Which is fine, unless you're big on investing, in which case you would be losing money.

$2000? Damn. The IRS over here is basically NOT who you want to hear from. A bunch of papers for what, less than 100 dollars? Not only that, but things get mixed up pretty easily when it comes to taxes, at least for me.

Let's just say that I'm not a big fan of taxes, but taxes are important for things getting done in our community and government, so I deal.

Socialism? I don't believe it's a good thing if there is absolutely no competition involved. Competition is needed in society. So I guess I'm for socialism, but not communism. There needs to be a median between the competition versus people getting what they really deserve (which can come up as relative, but that's another story).

I think I already answered your inquiry on capitalism in my socialism answer...

Regulation: There can't be too much regulation and there can't be too much independence. Total independence = chaos, Complete regulation = slavery.

For clarity, I don't like the IRS. I only like taxes themselves. Like I said, public roads don't grow on trees.