You
mean after we legalize marijuana and other "drugs" at the same time watching
"reality TV"
I am
thinking not so much that there will be super-angry misguided people, but that
there will be super complacent and passive disgruntled people, with nothing to
ignite or lead an effort to redress the problem....
What
do you think?
Lawry
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
|