That would be more understandable.
D
On 9/28/2011 3:58 PM, Arthur Cordell wrote:
I don't know. It is an idea that seems to continue. It frequently
gets mixed up with the Tobin Tax. Different. Tobin wanted to "throw
sand into the gears of transactions" , to slow things down. The bit
tax is to raise revenues.
The only mistake I made with the bit tax was its name. I should have
called it a "productivity dividend", which is really what it is. A
way to get at that productivity which takes place but is not recorded
or monetized. Of course the word tax gets the teeth gnashing and
the adrenaline flowing. So in retrospect productivity dividend should
have been used.
And so in elections the fight would be over how we distribute the
productivity dividend.
For more on what it is please see
*http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/jibc/9702-05.htm*
Taxing the Internet: The Proposal for a Bit Tax
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Ed Weick
*Sent:* Wednesday, September 28, 2011 3:45 PM
*To:* RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
*Subject:* Re: [Futurework] McKinsey Quarterly article: Measuring
thevalue ofsearch
Interesting, Arthur. Is the idea of a bit tax gaining any real
acceptance?
Ed
----- Original Message -----
*From:*Arthur Cordell <mailto:[email protected]>
*To:*'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'
<mailto:[email protected]> ;
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:*Tuesday, September 27, 2011 9:34 PM
*Subject:*Re: [Futurework] McKinsey Quarterly article: Measuring
thevalue ofsearch
COLUMN: Can a bit tax bring a New Wealth of Nations?
/By _Ottawa Business Journal Staff
<mailto:[email protected]>_/
/Sun, Dec 29, 2002 11:00 PM EST/
At a rough guess, the public sector needs another $20 billion a
year to meet the pressing needs of health, education and defence,
and to renew the crumbling infrastructure that carries our
traffic, carries off our sewage, delivers our water and provides
many other essential services. Maybe $30 billion. A lot, anyway.
Where's it going to come from? Increased income tax? This isn't a
very desirable option, either for the taxpayer or for the economy,
which has to maintain some semblance of equilibrium with low tax
competitors, such as the United States of Affluence. A jump in GST
from seven per cent to double digits? Not a big favourite among
politicians, who would find themselves en masse back in the
private sector the first election following such a move.
There's no painless way to raise the needed funds. Or is there?
One way that has the advantage of being scarcely visible has been
suggested by my friend Arthur Cordell, an advisor to Industry
Canada and originator many years thence of the "conserver society"
tagline, precursor to "sustainable development." His more recent
contribution to socio-economic discourse has been the notion of
the "bit tax."
"The new wealth of nations," Arthur points out, "is found in the
trillions of digital bits of information pulsing through global
networks. These are the physical/electronic manifestations of the
many transactions, conversations, voice and video messages and
programs that taken together record the process of production,
distribution and consumption in the new economy."
If there's a new economy, there should be a new tax base. To
follow the information highway analogy, it would be similar to a
gasoline tax, or a toll on bridges or highways. Why not tax
digital traffic, asks Arthur?
"Whether the digital bit is part of a foreign exchange
transaction, or a business teleconference, check clearance
information, or an ATM transaction, each bit is a physical
manifestation of the new economy at work. So let's imagine a 'bit
tax.' Automatically metered, it will cause fewer collection
problems than most other direct or indirect taxes. Collected by
the telecom carriers, satellite networks and cable systems,
revenues would flow directly to the revenue service of the
respective country."
There are a lot of questions to be answered, of course. Is a bit
tax progressive or regressive? Will it be absorbed by the carriers
or passed on to consumers? Should lower rates apply to some heavy
traffic items such as digital movies downloaded to the home? Can
one nation bring in a bit tax or does it require international
collaboration?
The design of the Internet makes it impossible to determine where
someone making an electronic purchase is located. With a typical
mail-order purchase, the product is shipped somewhere. But if the
information is downloaded from an Internet site, the seller may
have no idea of its destination. And where does the merchant reside?
Where he or she actually has an office or where the computer
server is? It would seem that international cooperation will be
essential to collecting and distributing a bit tax, which should
give considerable comfort to the vanguard of the world government
movement.
As Arthur says, *"The point is to begin a discussion on the sort
of new taxes appropriate for a new economy. A bit tax can lead to
the monetization of all productivity. One result: economic growth
numbers will more accurately reflect the productivity advances
brought by information technologies. With monetization will come
higher gross domestic product and higher revenues to be used in a
variety of ways. *
"New revenues can be used for schools, parks, health care, to
re-train some for new jobs and, for those who cannot be retrained
to provide a continuing flow of income that allows displaced
workers to maintain their dignity - and purchasing power - in the
new economy. This last point is important since purchasing power
is needed to maintain effective demand in our economies if we are
to avoid chronic economic recessions or worse.
*"The bit tax may be one way to more fully distribute the benefits
of the new economy. One way for the productive power of
information technology to bring with it a New Wealth of Nations." *
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of
*michael gurstein
*Sent:* Tuesday, September 27, 2011 9:09 PM
*To:* 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION';
[email protected]
*Subject:* [Futurework] McKinsey Quarterly article: Measuring the
value ofsearch
*Measuring the value of Internet search*
Although the word "Google" has evolved from the name of an
Internet search company into a verb understood almost everywhere
on Earth, the economic value of Web searches has long remained a
mystery, approached through inexact or tainted metrics such as the
number of searches undertaken or ad revenues reported by search
companies themselves. A new McKinsey study takes a wider view. For
a truer reckoning of the way the Web turns our curiosity into a
powerful economic force, read "Measuring the value of search
<http://e.mckinseyquarterly.com/133a7f62flayfousiboeswxyaaaaabxlwp4gsptvgbiyaaaaa>."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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