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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
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