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Elections are strange animals, Ed, as we in the US once again discovered
a couple of years ago. Good luck to you and your candidates.
Lawry
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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