WesBurt
Wed, 10 Nov 1999 14:57:08 -0800
To: Members of the Thirteenth Tribe (the Law givers) and friends on several
mail lists
Dear Mr Measday, AKA UK subject, resident in Switzerland between 1980 and
1996:
Thanks for writing again. My previous post, "Who cares?-3," evoked only a
sullen silence from the Thirteenth Tribe on the "three URLs for a proper
conceptual framework" and some chatter about Basic Incomes, a Global Minimum
Income, the end of nation-states, and URLs for various web sites dealing with
these approaches to a stable and prosperous globalization process. In a
message dated 11/09/1999 10:34:01 PM EST you, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, write:
<< Begin Measday note, including two (WSB: comment WSB) s by Wesburt >>
Dear Mr Burt,
Intrigued by your thesis.
(WSB: In an earlier post I stated my thesis this way: "So I am free to speak
my
mind, as if I were independently wealthy, on subjects which employees are
often fired for discussing. That is, how the corporate rules for pricing new
products are not applied to pricing new members of the workforce in the
United States, but seem to have been applied since 1946 to the workforce
in every industrial nation except the UK and the US." Is this the thesis
you are Intrigued by? WSB)
However I feel the interest would be in
getting
more up-to-date statistics and construct an embarrassment curve as
different countries' establishments are shamed into telling the truth. Does
Bill Gates 'work', by the way?
Presumably he types on his computer, talks to people. Many 'unemployed'
people do this, I believe, so 'work' is not a description of a functional
activity.
The last rate I saw in a Geneva newspaper was approaching 7% in certain
hot spots and averaging 4% around the country. I suspect it has declined
since. I also suspect the meaningfulness of work/non-work has declined as
the information economy kicks into OECD economies. Your emails are
blind-copied to me, by the way, so presumably you are sending them.
(WSB: Your two addresses, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> and <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
have never been on my blind copy list. But you
responded to Mr. Reuss' second opinion to list Futurework,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Subj: correcting the misinformation about Switzerland
Date: 99-10-27 19:46:19 EDT
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christoph Reuss)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED]),
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
before I included his second opinion in my post. I am pleased that you
are receiving my posts, but also curious about who on list Futurework sends
them to you. Please send me a copy of one of the blind copies, when you
have some time to spare. WSB)
MM
<< End Measday note, including two (WSB: comment WSB) by Wesburt >>
Your idea, Mr Measday, of "an embarrassment curve as different countries'
establishments are shamed into telling the truth," sounds like a constructive
step toward greater public awareness of why our national economies act the
way they do with 4 to 10% unemployment of their workforces and a 2-3%/year
decline in the value of their currencies. It had been my expectation, or
wishful thinking, that Figure 1 at URL
<http://www.freespeech.org/darves/bert.html>
would become such "an embarrassment curve" by showing the performance
of several nations mapped by GNP per capita (Dollars/year) as a percentage of
the highest
GNP per capita and total tax rate as a percentage of each nation's GNP
(Dollars/year). It seems
obvious to me, with my background, that the public policy factor which causes
the wide range of performance among nations with 20 to 40% tax rates is the
adequacy of children's allowances to parenting families, as shown by the
hollow diamonds for each nation.
On the other hand, I firmly believe that the wide range of performance of
nations in the 50 to 70% tax rates is caused by the public policy factor of
direct taxes as a percentage of total (public revenue) taxes. My only firm
data on this
policy factor is for the late USSR, which proudly announced that 92% of the
public revenue was collected from indirect taxes on plants and businesses
while only 8% was collected from direct taxes on personal income. In a
communist state, the functions and expense of management (G&A rate)
amount to about 30% of total sales while GNP or value added (total sales less
material purchased from other industries) is 40% of total sales, according to
Wassily Leontief, 1966, Input-Output Economics. So the USSR probably had
a total tax rate of 75% of GNP, and should be corrected on Figure 1 to show
the true picture of our laboratory of nations.
I touched on this question in my previous post when I commented as follows:
"(WSB: Why not call it an example of a Universal Basic Income, as advocated
by Philippe Van Parijs of BIEN in France, Ian Ritchie of UBINZ in New
Zealand,
and more recently, by Sally Lerner, Tim Rourke, and Prue Hyman on list
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. How do the Swiss operate an UBI that
works well with a 32% of GDP total tax rate while other proposals call for a
50%
to 70% of GDP total tax rate comparable to that of the late great USSR?
Probably by installing an adequate "children's allowance" and an adequate
"mother's allowance" after World War II to stabilize the Swiss domestic
market
and then waiting for the GDP per capita to rise to its natural level of 140%
of US GDP per capita, before establishing the "food&shelter&TV" allowance for
every
member of the Swiss workforce. WSB)."
To my mind, this sustaining feedback from people in production to people in
development, together with the ratio of direct to total taxes, are the only
two parameters in a national economy which can vary the performance of a
nation from that of a Switzerland.to that of a Russia.
Of course, I might be mistaken. But that is for members of the Thirteenth
Tribe to say.
Looking forward to some hate mail and some dialog.
Kind regards,
WesBurt