Re: von Mises Institute on Henry George

From: The Trucker (mikcob_at_verizon.net)
Date: 09/04/04

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    Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 16:52:12 -0700

    royls@telus.net wrote:

    > On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 22:55:03 -0700, The Trucker <mikcob@verizon.net>
    > wrote:
    >
    >>royls@telus.net wrote:
    >>
    >>> On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:42:17 -0700, The Trucker <mikcob@verizon.net>
    >>> wrote:
    >>>
    >>>>royls@telus.net wrote:
    >>>>
    >>>>> On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:10:23 -0700, The Trucker <mikcob@verizon.net>
    >>>>> wrote:
    >>>>>
    >>>>>>royls@telus.net wrote:
    >>>>>>
    >>>>>>> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 03:51:21 GMT, Les Cargill
    >>>>>>> <lcargill@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
    >>>>>>>
    >>>>>>>>"Wishing to serve the market" is naive at best - most
    >>>>>>>>foreign governments who target the U.S market ( for
    >>>>>>>>example ) do so by loss leading for decades.
    >>>>>>>
    >>>>>>> Garbage. But even if it were true, how is selling at a loss not
    >>>>>>> serving the domestic market?
    >>>>>>
    >>>>>>Those who own and who derive their income from rents, royalties,
    >>>>>>capital
    >>>>>>gains (land), etc. are well served by the exploitation of cheap
    >>>>>>foreign
    >>>>>>labor. Those who must labor for their income are not well served.
    >>>>>
    >>>>> Of course they are: they are also consumers.
    >>>>
    >>>>They no longer have an income.
    >>>
    >>> Sure they do. Why wouldn't they?

    Because they no longer have a job. All the stuff is being manufactured
    offshore and there are no jobs left here and thus no income for those
    that had been doing the production. At present we produce green house
    gasses and lots of fear and we have little or no actual production and
    nothing for foreigners to buy. Foreigners have on choice but to spend
    the dough we send them on acquiring ownership of our nation. The fact
    that we are indebted to them means they own us anyway. So they own
    all the land and all the bonds and we pay for the military that
    protects their assets. Very nice.

    >>
    >>Their income is much less than it was
    >
    > Nope. _Some_ people's incomes are.

    As I said: Those who derive income from wages are the _some_ that
    are getting a lot less and those that derive income from rents,
    royalties, patents, and trademarks and copyrights are getting a
    lot more. Unfortunately, those suffering the loss are in the
    majority and the wealth disparity continues to rise as the middle
    class and the poor are combined into this large pool of serfs
    who kiss the ass of the rich.

    >>and the price of housing
    >>keeps going up to offset the decreasing price of trinkets.
    >
    > The increasing price of housing is due to entirely different causes,
    > as you know very well.

    Of course, but it is a factor nonetheless: The cost of living
    also includes the cost of retirement, and as the asset prices
    rise and the wealth disparity rises the middle class is destroyed.
    This can be arrested by restoring competitiveness on prices for
    things produced here. There are MUCH better ways to do this like
    increasing asset taxes and taxes on rent while decreasing FICA tax
    and providing some sort of nationalized health insurance, but that
    ain't gonna happen. IT isn't simple enough for the voters.

    >>>>It matters not that the price of
    >>>>goods is one half of what it was when your income is much less than
    >>>>half of what it was.
    >>>
    >>> You are confusing the possible situation of some individuals with the
    >>> overall result for society.
    >>
    >>No. Because of the job losses in manufacturing and in computer related
    >>areas these people now compete for lower paying jobs and that drives down
    >>wages in these lower paying jobs.
    >
    > Wages are constantly being "driven down" in this way as technological
    > progress and increasing accumulation of capital substitute for labor.

    Why should this be? What should be happening is that the work week
    should be getting shorter with the real effect being a stable, if
    not increasing _real_ wage. But that does not happen because the
    owners are pocketing all the rent. (rent being the income from
    monopoly privilege).

    > Yet wages have risen enormously over the centuries of that progress
    > and accumulation, even as the labor prices of goods have declined.

    Make up your mind.... Are wages decreased by capital development
    or are they increased?

    > Competition drives progress, efficiency and excellence. What do you
    > think the Olympics would be like if the best athletes had to give part
    > of their scores to the worst, or if the TV cameras had to spend the
    > same amount of time on the losers as on the winners?

    There is no reason for a zero sum. _real_ capital produces more wealth
    per labor hour but the distribution of this additional wealth is being
    screwed up by patent and copyright and trade name protections such
    that owners derive too much benefit from foreign labor while the
    common people in the USA end up paying ALL the royalties. The people
    here in the US pay all the royalties on drugs and software. Others do
    not pay a fair share of this and if they did they would need to earn
    higher wages. They also do not pay for the protection of their way
    of life (Taiwan, Japan, So. Korea, etc.). These should shoulder
    a portion of the military burden as too should Germany, etc. China
    should be held to account for human rights abuses by denying them
    favored nation status and then taxing their products too.

    AND YES! THAT WILL RAISE PRICES HERE IN THE USA. It will also
    make American labor more competitive across the board and help
    restore the middle class of this nation.

    >>It is a downward shift and the bodies
    >>fall out at the bottom OR in this case the middle class and the poor
    >>just become one big bunch of peasants. If there was a better way to
    >>allocate the gains from comparative advantage and free trade then all
    >>would be well. But that is not happening. What is happening is that
    >>there are fewer and fewer wealthy Americans and these few are getting
    >>more and more wealthy.
    >
    > But that has nothing to do with comparative advantage or free trade.
    > It's rent-seeker privilege and the modern-day version of
    > extraterritoriality masquerading as "free" trade.

    It is the fact that the worldwide policeman that enforces all this
    free market stuff and patents and copyrights is being paid for by
    American producers as opposed to being funded by those that benefit
    from it.
     
    >>>>All we need to
    >>>>do is control the land prices.
    >>>
    >>> Prices are not the point. Rent is the point.
    >>
    >>The price is a reflection of the rent.
    >
    > And the tax and discount rates.

    As the foreign holders of dollars bid up the price of assets here
    in the US (What else they gonna do with all the dollars) the
    middle class gets the green weenie. The asset owners see a real
    increase in the value of the assets and a lot more command over
    labor.

    >>The rise in the price of
    >>single family homes over the last 25 years has far exceeded any
    >>increase in wages.
    >
    > True. And that's partly the result of declining public recovery of
    > increasing land rents, but even more the result of lower interest
    > rates.

    The fix is to raise the taxes and NOT to increase the interest rates.
    But getting back on topic, the American producer is being hit very
    hard by the difference between wages and asset prices. In order to
    repair this disparity we need to have import duties OR raise taxes on
    assets or on rent. And in the current political climate we are not
    going to see a tax increase on the asset owners.

    >>>>>>That would piss everybody off enough
    >>>>>>to control the size of the bloated imperialistic American
    >>>>>>military.
    >>>>>
    >>>>> Doubtful. History would argue that it would more likely provoke a
    >>>>> trade war, followed by cries for a shooting war.
    >>>>
    >>>>Trade war sounds ok to me.
    >>>
    >>> "If goods can't cross borders, armies will." -- Frederic Bastiat
    >>
    >>Horse crap! We had tariffs and such for a very long time and no war.
    >
    > ?? When?

    1950's, 60's, 70's.

    >>Now we have no tariffs and war, war, war, war forever.
    >
    > ?? No tariffs? What have you been smoking? The USA just lost its
    > third and "final" appeal re its tariff on Canadian softwood lumber at
    > the NAFTA commission. It shows every indication that it will _ignore_
    > that ruling, as it has ignored the previous ones, and keep the tariff.
    > Now, granted, there's not much chance of armies crossing the Canada-US
    > border in anger as a result, but the notion that the USA has no
    > tariffs is just ludicrous.

    This is interesting.... The US puts a tariff on raw wood coming into
    the USA? That's ridiculous and it shows that the rentier Republicans
    are hard at work harvesting the national forests at a profit while
    we could be letting Canada screw up their forests. The Bush answer will
    be to PAY the logging companies to "harvest" the trees here in the USA
    or maybe pay them to NOT harvest trees. Either way the Repugnican
    answer will be to reward ownership by taxing production or raping
    the environment or both.

    >>>>>>> Well, I must say that is consistent with your
    >>>>>>> idea of charging producers a fee for the "privilege" of serving the
    >>>>>>> domestic market...
    >>>>>>
    >>>>>>Ya can't levy a land tax on land in Japan.
    >>>>>
    >>>>> Unless you are the government of Japan. So? Their tax system is
    >>>>> their business.
    >>>>
    >>>>OK. Let me be more clear by saying that you can't levy a tax on
    >>>>land in Saudi Arabia and use the proceeds to finance government or
    >>>>issue a world wide citizen's dividend. The effectiveness of LVT
    >>>>stops at the borders of the sovereignty.
    >>>
    >>> Of course. Again: so?
    >>
    >>So if not for the US military Japan would be part of Russia. Yet they
    >>do not pay for the military that "protects their way of life". They
    >>spend their tax money on infrastructure, education, research and
    >>development, and health care while we foot the bill for the worldwide
    >>police force.
    >
    > Uh, I don't know quite how to tell you this, Mike, but Japan's lack of
    > military self-reliance was
    > _written_into_their_constitution_by_Douglas_MacArthur_.

    I don't know how to break this to you, Roy. But I am well aware of this
    fact. And that is one of them strawman things or a non sequitur.
    I ain't sure which. The fact remains as it was/is: Japan uses its tax
    proceeds to reward the people of Japan thus decreasing the need for
    high wages. It's a kind of "citizen's dividend". The wage earners in
    the USA pay very high prices for health care and perscription drugs
    that is all a part of wages that must be paid by the US employer.

    >>A single tax on land in this sovereignty would not be
    >>appropriate in this situation.
    >
    > OTC, it would be very appropriate. Much more appropriate than
    > tariffs.

    OTC it would NOT be appropriate. Japan should justly shoulder part
    of the expense of the military that supposedly enforces their
    patents and copyrights and brand names and their sovereignty.
    Same with So. Korea and Taiwan.

    >>It seems to me that an import tax is
    >>the only way to get paid for the services of the worldwide police.
    >
    > That is a complete non sequitur. Why reduce the benefits of trade for
    > your own people in order to pay for global military adventures that
    > benefit some cabal of politically connected rentiers?

    I think I have illustrated why I believe that there is no benefit in
    this trade for the vast majority of Americans. Import duties
    are politically expedient and should result in a proper fix
    after a while. It is high time for the American consumers that still
    have jobs to start paying the real price for all this Imperialism
    and Republican fascism. That is the only way I know of to get the
    donkey's attention. 

    -- 
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but
the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough
to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy
is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson.  http://GreaterVoice.org
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