Lawry:
Is it
possible that there may be no flashpoint this time? Is it possible that the
security of the super-greedy and their perceived legitimacy have been so
well-constructed and embedded in the social consciousness that their
depredations will simply remain invisible, and their bases of power and place
hidden.
Usually, super angry people don't go after the right targets. Like
Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma or some of the militias they're just too primed to
blow something up or shoot somebody. Nothing changes. Innocent
people get hurt or killed and things just become more stupid.
Ed Weick
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 9:45 AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Exit ramp for
Europe
Is
it possible that there may be no flashpoint this time? Is it possible that the
security of the super-greedy and their perceived legitimacy have been so
well-constructed and embedded in the social consciousness that their
depredations will simply remain invisible, and their bases of power and place
hidden.
Without cheers,
Lawry
Maybe, Ed, you are part of the problem.
That may be so. Part of me, the
cussed part, tells me that I shoud let things deteriorate to some
flashpoint. Another part, the compassionate, says yeah but what about
the poor mothers and the older guys from the Ottawa Valley? And yet
another part, the guilty, gnaws at me because I'm retired and have a decent
income. God life is hell when you're comfortable!
Ed Weick
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 3:53
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Exit ramp
for Europe
Maybe, Ed, you are part of the problem.
I'm a masochist. I'll never leave the food bank.
Ed Weick
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 3:09
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Exit
ramp for Europe
Have it your way Ray. But when the gas tax was first
proposed it was fought by vested interests (autos and highway
lobbies). The feds wanted to introduce it first but backed down
under pressure. It was first introduced, I believe,
by Oregon and later by the federal government.
An indirect tax, a stealth tax on network activities if
you will, can go a long way to monetize much of the productivity
that is currently taking place but is not counted anywhere in our
system of national accounts. So we feel poorer than we actually
are. If we could monetize some of this productivity, tax it in
the form of a bit tax and use it to help provide a Basic Income, then
Ed Weick can leave his thankless tasks at the food bank (some pun on
"bank") and can produce his delightful essays for his web
site.
arthur
No, the people who would pay the
bit-tax are the people who now only have the internet for their
lives because the rest of the world is too expensive. It
is the poor who always pay the taxes, whether in rising prices or in
sales tax. Anything else is just
sleazy. When will you reconsider the meaning of
the word "productivity" in terms of mega thinking rather than
minimalism. Do you always want to listen to the
same wallpaper music all of your life? That is why
Philip Glass and Steve Reich are so correct and that is also why
most people either "get it" and listen for personal understanding or
can't stand the fact that it shows how transperent their pants
are. In short, you either listen and say, "That's
right" or you say they are just too dumb to stand and they
say, "You got it and I got it from
you!"
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003
8:57 AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework]
Exit ramp for Europe
This is why we need a tax system which is congruent with
and takes advantage of a networked economy. I have argued
for such a system with the "bit tax" There are other
approaches but the bit tax would be a good first step at getting
at the productivity of networks for the public
purse.
As to tax havens, there is slow, very slow move reform
these places. The political will is lacking since, I guess,
the rich who contribute to political parties have given the slow
down signal to politicians. Too bad, since the tax havens
know that a crackdown is in the works. And have known for
some time. Reforms just seem to die in
committee.
arthur
A French
think-tank, the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales,
thinks that, for Europe, "A slow but inexorable movement onto
history's exit ramp is foreseeable." At the same time, those who
want a United States of Europe have brought forth a Constitution
which is now being fiercely debated. This is the background for
an excellent article by Hamish McRae, the economics editor of
The Independent. For those interested in Europe or of the likely
scope of government welfare spending generally in the future,
the following article from yesterday's paper will be well worth
reading.
<<<< EUROPE CAN'T BUCK THE
MARKET
Hamish McCrae
When economics and politics
clash, economics usually wins. Whether or not the proposed
European constitution means that Brussells will have a say over
British taxes -- and there is so much obfuscation that I don't
think it is possible to know at this stage -- economic pressures
seem likely to push down Europe's taxes to UK levels, maybe
beyond. The politics may be for higher taxes but the economics
are for lower ones.How so?
Well, the pressure on
governments across the whole of the continent will be huge for
the next two generations. Government will be under tremendous
pressure to spend more but also will find it harder and harder
to raise revenue.
This is the result of the clash between
two forces, demography and mobility. The first story can be told
quickly. Continental Europe will become, after Japan, the oldest
region in the world in terms of the proportion of people over
the age of 65. The UK becomes older too, but at a rather slower
rate. The effect of this is that, whereas there are currently
just under three workers for every pensioner in Germany and
France, in another decade there will be only two and a quarter.
In 2050, when young people now entering the workforce are
drawing their pensions, there will be fewer than one and a half
workers for each pensioner. In Italy and Spain the ratios are
even worse, for there will be more pensioners than workers by
2050. In the UK they are rather better: we are, as a
country, getting older, but more slowly than the
Continent.
European governments are well aware of the
implications of these changing ratios on their finances for, not
only will the bulging ranks of pensioners need their
state pensions, they will also be a charge on health and care
budgets. However governments find it hard to make even modest
changes. The present bout of French strikes is one response
to minor revisions to pension entitlements. If the protesters
knew the extent to which their benefits would have to be cut,
they would be rioting, not striking. The big fights are still to
come -- and if the pressure is serious in France it will be
greater still in Germany, Italy and Spain.
If demography
adds to the cost of government, mobility cuts its revenues. One
form of revenue, company taxation, is already in serious
decline, as corporations have started to move their activities
to low-tax countries. For the winners this has been wonderful.
Ireland has transformed its economy by attracting mainly US
companies with tax holidays. It does not get revenue directly
from the firms, but it does from the people they employ
locally.
The next stage looks like being the movement of
company headquarters. There have been examples of German
companies moving to Switzerland and US ones to Bermuda. But the
greatest gainer may well be the States, with this
administration's new plans to cut tax on dividends.You can see
why the European Union is anxious to have a reasonable measure
of company tax harmonisation to stop Ireland scooping more than
its share of Europe's pool of foreign investment. But the big
game is not within Europe; it is between Europe and North
America and it is hard to see much tax harmonisation there. For
a firm such as DaimlerChrysler or GlaxoSmithKline, the legal
headquarters could rationally be on either side of
the Atlantic. If the tax advantages became big enough, they
could move.
Over the past 10 years there has already been
a sharp fall in company tax rates. This, I suspect, is a
trend that has only just begun. Company taxes are, however, only
a small proportion of government revenues. Here in Britain the
rate is less than 8 per cent. The big money comes from income
tax (including social security contributions) and consumption
taxes, in particular VAT. So what matters is where people earn
money, and where they spend it.
For the very rich, the
choice of where to live is already very largely determined by
tax. Tax havens including Monaco and the Channel Islands do a
great business. There are people who live in the Channel Islands
but work, in effect, a full week in London without,
technically, ever being there for tax purposes.
Much more
significant is the mobility of the young. You can see this best
in London, which has become a magnet for young professionals
from all over Europe and indeed North America. The South-east of
England has the largest expatriate professional community on the
globe. Continued professional inward migration is one of the
reasons why me UN now expects the population of me UK to grow by
12 per cent over the next half-century. This compares with a
rise of 8 per cent in France and falls of 4 per cent and 22 per
cent in Germany and Italy.
Tax is not the only reason for
professional mobility but it is a significant one. Young
professionals are a hugety attractive proposition for any
country They bring skills, they create growth, they pay tax both
on their income and their spending -- and they are not big
burdens on social security systems. I suspect that one of the
main areas of competition within Europe will be for just these
people and, of course, with the EU's single job market they are
free to move anywhere.
If that is great for Britain, it
is not so much fun for, say, Italy or Germany. The nigh-eartimg
young move out, leaving an even greater burden on the taxpayers
who stay. The only way to keep them will be to cut taxes. And
the more the European economy becomes like the American one, the
greater the mobility of labour.It follows that if Europe is to
become a more dynamic economic region, the result will be
population movements that force down tax levels
everywhere.
You can see early signs of this already. In
Sweden, the highest-taxed country in the world, spending has
afready fallen from its 1993 peak of 67 per cent of GDP to about
52 per cent. The top marginal tax rate is down to about 60 per
cent (it varies depending on where you live), me same as Britain
in the 1980s.
In a more or less closed economy, countries
are free to choose the size of the state sector -- if they want
to pay higher tax and get better services they are free to vote
for that But in an increasingly open economy this choice closes
off. It is already, in effect, closed for company taxation. It
is starting to dose for personal taxation too.
So
whatever the provisions of the European constitution on tax
powers, the reality will be set by the market. Of course it can
try to buck that market. The result could then be rather on the
lines suggested by the Paris think-tank, the Institut Francais
des Relations Internationales. In its recent report World
Trade in the 21st Century, it warned that the EU, even after
enlargement, might shrink by 2050 from its present 22 per cent
of the worid economy to a mere 12 per cent. "A slow but
inexorable movement onto history's exit ramp is foreseeable." It
painted other somewhat more optimistic scenarios -- but it makes
a sombre backdrop to grand ideas about the European
constitution. >>>>
Keith
Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
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