Lawry:
>Perhaps that answers the question, then, of why these voters don't
vote: they are ignored in future elections because they >haven't voted in the
past?
Personally, even though I have to support my candidate (family
connections), I'm betting on the smart young lawyer who lives where many of the
non-voters do and enjoys living there so much that he wouldn't live anywhere
else (at least not yet). Anyhow, there are two seats to be won, so I
needn't feel disloyal to my candidate. He's certainly second best.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 2:16 PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Exit ramp for
Europe
Perhaps that answers the question, then, of why these voters don't
vote: they are ignored in future elections because they haven't voted in the
past?
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 think she probably knows that. Her husband used to Mayor.
The problem is time. With so little of it, you concentrate on the
known voters.
Ed Weick
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 12:57
PM
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
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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