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Perhaps the savvy campaign manger might eventually realize that the
untapped (and probably uncontested) source of votes is in the slummier high rise
area?
L
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
I'm doing some work with a candidate for
municipal council during the forthcoming election. One of the first
things his campaign manager, a very savvy lady, did was divide the ward into
areas in which people vote and areas in which they don't vote. She used
statistics from the city to help her do this. About half the people are
known to vote and they live in the well heeled parts of the ward.
Naturally, my aspiring politician friend will concentrate on them and not
bother much with the people who live in the high rises or the slummier
areas. Question: How to get the people from the slummier areas to vote
so that the smart young lawyer who lives in one of them and could change
things can get elected?
Ed Weick
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 10:23
AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Exit ramp for
Europe
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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