Like Manna From Havens

[acmavm]

http://villagevoice.com/news/0514,mondosplit3,62664,6.html

by James Ridgeway
April 1st, 2005 1:11 PM

<snip>

WASHINGTON, D.C.—No one has ever been able to figure out exactly how much rich people have managed to sock away in island tax havens, fishy investments, and assorted other tax dodges. But an international group called Tax Justice Network, made up of tax experts and economists, reports, according to The Observer of London, that the rich are stashing a whopping $11.5 trillion in tax havens. These assets normally would provide some $860 billion in annual income. Taxable income on the $11.5 trillion could run as high as $255 billion. "This is one of the defining crises of our times," John Christensen, co-coordinator of the Tax Justice Network and a former economic adviser to the government of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, told The Observer. "One of the most fundamental changes in our society in recent years is how money and the rich have become more mobile. This has resulted in the wealthy becoming less inclined to associate with normal society and feeling no obligation to pay taxes."

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Only one more paragraph but you can pretty well get the drift from what I posted.

This is absolutely criminal. The rich are getting the best this country has to offer and they are making those who can least afford it, of which I am one, foot the bills.

I saw a picture of a group of demonstrators when I was young . I really wish I could remember the details. But one was holding up a sign that said "Fight inflation, eat the rich." That shocked me at the time. Not any more. Cannabalism is disgusting, but I finally understand the sentiment behind the sign.

[dcfirefighter]

1. If you tax it, it will leave:

If you tax it, it will leave.

If you tax jobs, they will go overseas
If you tax income, it will get hidden or made elsewhere
If you tax wealth, it will flee
If you tax investment, investors will go elsewhere
But...if you tax land by value, it can't go anywhere. And when you take taxes off of other things, the land value (and tax revenue) increase.

Ever heard of the L-curve? Regarding incomes? Well, land-wealth distribution is even more skewed. A flat tax on land wealth is far more progressive than our 'progressive' income tax.

[fasttense]

2. If you tax it, it will leave?

Then why hasn't the middle class all left? We are taxed to death. True my federal tax has declined a little but the local and state taxes are eating me up. I'm seriously thinking of moving to Canada. At least there I get something for my tax dollars.

[dcfirefighter]

3. Aren't they on the way out?

I think that the evidence is pretty strong that they've been on the decline.

Seems like a good DP campaingn slogan in '08: "Massive Middle Class Tax Cuts!"

[ElectricIron Sweeney]

5. Since when is shit not something?

[ElectricIron Sweeney]

6. Let me disagree

If you tax productive property in relation to its value then the labor to make it productive will be dear, or people will sell it to someone who will make it make profit and taxes. At one time property carried this country, and property was cheap and labor dear. Now labor carries this country, and labor is cheap and property dear. Property is the bank of this country, and even public property is held in trust until someone can get around to exploiting it; and then it will be sold at a loss to the rich. We need to ask if we are or are not a common wealth. If we are a common wealth then all wealth should be returned in the form of taxes to the people. Not doing so will always result in two classes: one which owns and governs, and those who slave. It is the most natural of conditions to seek security for your family, friends and offspring. Not so obvious is finding security for self in the security of all. Security for a few is the cause of insecurity for all, and is the very weakness of this nation within and without.

[ElectricIron Sweeney]

4. Capitalism is cannibalism

All that stuff about the big fish eating the little fish is no shit. It is inevitable for the wealth to be concentrated, and for the political and economic power to become inbred until people lose all respect for law and property and start all over again. You should consider how much labor has come to carry this country, and how that has worked against labor. When property carried this country property had to pay its way. Now, because property does not have to make money to support the government the labor that makes productive property produce has little value, and property can languish for years with a speculative value that puts it beyond the reach of many people. All property that is not residential or personal should be taxed to the max. Property is the ultimate tax loophole.

[dcfirefighter]

7. Sweeny, Sweeny, you're halfway there

If it is my job to manufacture widgets, and you tax widgets, is my well-being not diminished?

If you tax the possession of widgets, won't you reduce the demand for widgets?

If you reduce the demand for widgets, won't you reduce the demand for widget makers?

If you reduce the demand for widget makers, won't you reduce the wages available to the widget makers?

[ElectricIron Sweeney]

8. Widgets isn't property

If you own property you have the obligation to use that property for the common good. It is necessary to extend to people equality of rights, but not so for property. It should be assumed, rather, that every combination for the production and accumulation of wealth is against the public interest, and the burden of proof should be on the company to prove otherwise. Worry about someone being diminished? I worry about business hiding behind human rights that human beings die for every damned day with a shortsighted view to profit that has made every crime against people and environment possible. Property should carry the society, and not the reverse. Tax productive property, protect domestic labor from slave labor, and labor will be worth good wages, and productive property will earn money or change hands. Not taxing productive property is the worse thing to happen to this country since the death of Lincoln.

[dcfirefighter]

9. Widgets are property

Just like cars, clothes, refrigerators, lathes, presses, computers, grainaries, houses, office buildings, and factories.

If I am a factory-builder, and I earn my wages by building factories, won't a tax on factories hurt my wellbeing?

If you tax a factory, you may be right, it may become productive, or change hands. Or the company that owns it might cut it's losses and knock down the factory. And the next time that a company wants to build a factory, they'll think twice, or perhaps find some third-world country to build it in.

There's already an incentive to use labor built-capital, it's called opportunity cost.

BUT, if you tax natural-capital, which is more than land, but the land example is good, the owner cannot choose to destroy it, or move it to some third-world country. The owner can then put the land to good use or sell it to someone who can. Eventually, all the available labor will be employed on the best land in the best locations, and the rest of the land will be unclaimed, wilderness. Either way you have full employment and no taxes, direct, or indirect, on labor.

If you tax the use of the atmosphere, or the waters, as a dumping-ground, you'll get less dumping.

[ElectricIron Sweeney]

10. Are we a common wealth

If we are, and I understand we are, then we all own the property within. We cannot look idly by at any endeavor which may result in the inequality of people. If we allow people to gain wealth then it should not be at the perpetual expense of society. Who can say where capital is born not covered with blood? If initiative is to be rewarded then that reward should be a life lease.
If we look at the property of ancient times it was inalienable. No one could be said to own property under feudalism, not in Europe, and not in China. The modern theory of property is one that was forced upon people under duress. If democracy is to have any currency it must first afford equality to all, and then right every inequality. What each man can be said to own is the produce of his own hands and it is through wages that each is cheated of his due. Should that theft then be made perpetual?
If you do not tax productive property you encourage waste. If you do not tax productive property you make all real estate a bank that makes every inch of property more scarce. If property is more scarce workers must work that much harder for space to live, and inventive ambitious people who might use their talents for the benefit of all must sell themselves for a poor wage. When wages pay taxes then less of wages are available for every purchase, and so we have credit. As Marx is supposed to have said: Every employer wants the wages he pays low, and the wages others receive to be high. They act in concert to keep wages low and people working for scratch every moment of their lives. For the long term survival of society taxes on productive property serves, and taxes on wages hinders. Eat your widgets if they are real.

[dcfirefighter]

12. Woah, man

If i am a maker of widgets or some other wealth, to tax the product of my wealth (the widgets) is to take money from me.

I am all for the taxation of natural wealth: there is only so much of it around, you must compensate the rest for your exclusive rights to it.

There are no exclusive rights to a widget: someone else can make one for you.

If you tax productive property, you'll have none of it, unless it's the natural wealth that cannot be destroyed. If you tax the natural wealth that cannot be destoyed, you will, as you have asserted, have the productive use of said natural wealth.

Good lord man, if I'm a farmer, and cultivate the earth with my bare ands, you'll not tax me. But if I build a plow, and become more productive, feeding more men per hour of my work, you'll tax me more?

[ElectricIron Sweeney]

11. Factory builders

by the by, I have built many factories, and lived to see some of the buildings upon which I spent and risked my life torn down and depreciated. I don;t appreciate the waste of my time and life, and it was only because my labor was so cheap that this indignity was done to me. There is plenty of good property out there in neighborhoods with the life sucked out of them. There are places that look fine that are so poisoned you can't stand on them without becoming ill, and all because it is so cheap to keep land and so cheap to walk away from in any condition. Capital has no eyes for the future. It is 20 20 on the past and mister Magoo for tomorrow. We should give them eyes. Let them know they will be held responsible for every death they cause and every child they maim, and mean it. There is no place in Europe like the inner city or Appalachia, and all these places have given up great wealth and life to the wealthy. The difference here from there is that here is allowing capital to have ADD. It is mindless, anarchic, and without consequences.