Day: December 22, 2008

Land Value Taxation–An Answer To The Problem

In the 19th Century, American economist, Henry George proposed the idea of the Land Value Tax and he immediately got opposition from “mainstream” economist because it is pro-community.  That opposition continues today, modern economist are the high priest of a political system that is pro-wealth and pro-elitist.  They prefer privatization and the exhaustion of all the natural resources.  Land is a natural resource because unlike manufacturing more cannot be produced.

One of the easiest ways to generate income for public programs is the Land Value Tax.

Traditional forms of revenue generation are not doing the trick.  They are unreliable and not very equitable.  Plus the taxes are on the backs of those that can least afford it.  This proposal does not stifle the free markets, labor or production.  For those reasons the Land Value Tax (LVT) is more than capable of funding government and its programs while not penalizing the people.

Taxes penalize the people, the workers, tax codes reward people for avoiding their tax obligations.  The only way to make a government self-sufficient is the LVT.  At present the only answers are taxes such as payroll, excise, sales, but the truth is that all taxes and tax schemes that are proposed then passed have done little to help the financial health of a state.

When the LVT is used then most other taxes can be eliminated altogether.  It will revive the housing sector, the production sector and the consumer sector.  For when the people have more cash on hand they will spend it, something that is not going to happen if there is an increase in taxes.  And the increase will do little to bail out the government from a monetary meltdown.

The benefits to the community are numerous, among them are:  1) economic–the LVT encourages land to be put on the market at lower prices–will lead to an end to land speculation, 2)–social–the tax revenue will benefit the whole society from education to public works, 3)–logistics–the tax is not easily evaded and easily collected.

The best answer to reviving a community, city or state is to impliment the LVT.  Without it there will be constant shortfalls in revenue which will mean more cuts to services to the community. Then other taxes will need to be raised to make up for the shortfalls.  The LVT can and will avoid any of this suffering.

Who Can Go Without Utilities?

Utility service was cut off to 1 in 20 households in the US in 2007, and 1 in 5 were behind in their utility bills, according to a survey released Wednesday. These figures portend a dire situation for the current heating season as families struggle to cover expenses under the impact of the deepening recession.

The survey was conducted by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), a non-profit organization of state utility regulators. Results were compiled from statistics submitted by utility commissions in 41 states and Washington, D.C. It is the largest sample size ever analyzed by the organization, and covers roughly half of all US households.

The termination of gas or electric service to a household spells extreme hardship, with families and individuals forced to go without heat, hot water, lighting, or cooking facilities. Unsafe methods of coping with the lack of power—including the use of space heaters, candles, and the rigging of unauthorized connections—pose a risk to health in the form of poor nutrition and sickness and the danger of fire and asphyxiation. House fires resulting in death are the most tragic outcome and a frequent occurrence in the US.

More than 5.7 million US households had their electricity terminated in 2007, accounting for 4.7 percent of all electric customers. Of these, 1.9 million—or 33 percent—did not have service restored in the reporting year.

Gas service was cut off to 3 million customers in 2007, a termination rate of 5 percent. This rate was double the 2.5 percent cut off in 2001. More than half of these customers—or 55 percent—were unable to have their service restored during the year.

Yet another problem that will grow with the deepening economic crisis.

Hunger Is Growing

As the economic crisis deepens, its human toll is becoming more evident. A new survey of food charities in the United States has revealed a dramatic increase in hunger. Feeding America, the largest hunger-relief organization in the US, says that a growing number of families face difficulties in securing adequate nutrition. Meanwhile food banks have proven ill-equipped to meet the increased demand caused by layoffs and increased food costs, and many have collapsed or have restricted the allotments of food they make.

In a nationwide survey of 160 local food assistance programs, with operations covering virtually every county in the US, Feeding America found that there has been a 30 percent increase in requests for emergency food assistance, and that every food bank has seen an increase in demand for food relief. An opinion poll commissioned by the organization and released simultaneously found that a growing number of low-income families lack sufficient nutrition.

In a chilling statement on social conditions in the US, 72 percent of surveyed food charities said that they are unable to meet the current demands of local communities for assistance. In most cases, the charities have responded by offering smaller distributions to the hungry, and some have been forced to close down.

In its survey of households, Feeding America found that nearly two thirds of low-income households—defined as having an income at less than 200 percent of the official poverty level—said that within the past year “their food didn’t last and they could not afford to buy more.” Forty percent “ate less than they felt they should,” and 36 percent “cut the size of meals or skipped meals because there wasn’t enough money for food.” A large majority of low-income respondents, 70 percent, said that they are reducing food spending, while 62 percent said they make multiple shopping trips for food “because they didn’t have enough money to buy everything at one time.” In New York City, in 2008, nearly 40 percent of all households said that they had faced difficulties in procuring sufficient food for their families, a sharp increase over figures from 2007.

Sad stats indeed.  But the worse is yet to come……

The Legacy He Wants?

President George W. Bush is leaving with one of the lowest approval ratings in the history of numbers. During his final months on the job, the controversial commander-in-chief has given several interviews that have revealed how he views his legacy. Here are some highlights…

Soul not for sale
One of the president’s most interesting sound bites came during his interview with FOX News. He said: “I didn’t compromise my soul to be a popular guy.” The quote is an acknowledgment that the president is well aware that he’s about as popular as taxes and chicken pox. Bush went on to say that he would have liked to have been more popular, but he’s proud that he didn’t sacrifice his integrity.

What Bush regrets
During a rather candid interview several weeks ago, folks heard something truly surprising from the president—an admission that he was wrong. Bush said that his “biggest regret” was that he and his team got the intelligence wrong in Iraq. As the Washington Post puts it, “The self-criticism is notable for a president who has long resisted looking back at his time in the White House and once was unable to provide an example of a mistake he had made in office.”

GW is pushing hard to rewrite some parts of history under his adminstration.  Right now he is not doing so well, telling half truths about his days in the WH.  Maybe history when it is written wuill be kind, remember the diasterous days of Carter and Ford?  They are not seemed as that bad now….so maybe there is hope for the GW.

What Now For The UAW?

Some of the more astute and honest commentators on the “bailout” of the American auto companies announced Friday by President Bush have pointed to a critical aspect of the plan to shut plants, wipe out jobs and bring the wages, benefits and work rules of United Auto Workers members in line with those of workers at nonunion foreign-owned companies in the US.

“The result,” writes Warren Brown in Saturday’s Washington Post, “will be a smaller General Motors and Ford in America, a bigger and more robust GM and Ford overseas, and barring the birth of a truly international labor union, a United Auto Workers that is a union in name only.”

Brown goes on to say that the “restructure-or-perish talk” from all sections of the political establishment, from Bush and Obama to congressional Democrats as well as Republicans, is “justification for helping the car companies continue doing what they have been doing all along—downsizing and, in the process, hastening the effective demise of the UAW.”

The article quotes labor historian David Montgomery as saying that getting “down to the level of foreign companies undermines the meaning of having a union in the first place.”

Such statements appearing in the press point to a fact that has become all but undeniable. What remains of the historical past of the UAW and the rest of the official unions as workers’ organizations is a purely terminological remnant. In the social role they play, they are organizations through which the demands of the government and the corporations are imposed on the workers. They in no way carry out even the elementary tasks historically associated with unions—mitigating the exploitation of the working class by improving wages and working conditions.

The collapse of the unions and their transformation into open and direct agencies of the corporations and the government is the end result of a protracted process. The roots of their degeneration can be traced all the way back to their origins in the 1930s. Despite arising out of mass struggles of the working class, the UAW and its sister industrial unions rejected a struggle against the framework of capitalism and opposed the building of an independent political party of the working class. After World War II, they joined the Cold War anti-communist witch-hunt, purging socialist and left-wing workers who had played a decisive role in the sit-down strikes and militant battles that built the unions.

Is this just a remake of the union into nothing but the mouthpiece of the corporation?  Will the labor movement ever return?