Rents & Taxes

Rent, Verb.

"payment for use of property," mid-12c., a legal sense, originally "income, revenue" (late Old English), from Old French rente "payment due; profit, income," from Vulgar Latin *rendita, noun use of fem. past participle of *rendere "to render" (see render (v.)).

Also from past participle of middle english to "rend or tear", garment, property, possessions. Rent and taxes are related terms.

tax (v.)

c. 1300, "impose a tax on," from Old French taxer "impose a tax" (13c.) and directly from Latin taxare "evaluate, estimate, assess, handle," also "censure, charge," probably a frequentative form of tangere "to touch," from PIE root *tag- "to touch, handle." Sense of "to burden, put a strain on" first recorded early 14c.; that of "censure, reprove" is from 1560s. Its use in Luke ii for Greek apographein "to enter on a list, enroll" is due to Tyndale. Related: Taxed; taxing.

Economic Rent

Rents are taxes on property. Taxes are rents assessed by tax collectors, public or private. In ancient times there was no difference. The lord and master of a property, whether a Squire, Baron, Count, King or Empire, collected rents as taxes owed him as owner. During the medieval times, ownership was usually a contract between the person who lived on a property and the government, embodied in a person. During the enlightenment, property owners conned governments into separating simple ownership from government. They did this by creating central banks and privatizing ownership of land. This allowed Lairds and lords alike to evict millions of peasants from their property to raise sheep or otherwise find more economically productive industry. A landlord could go broke not putting his property to such use, and both broke former lords and evicted peasants emigrated. It wasn't just the nobility. When you read books like Jane Austen you find the "gentry" figured their social status based on how much rent they could collect from property they owned. (See Piketty).

Walling Economics from Politics

In the United States, the landlords had to be more clever. They learned early on that they couldn't just march into a frontier town and take their taxes. That sparked locals to form "Regulator Militia", so they mainly endeavered to wall off economics from politics and use their rental income to influence local and general government. It is no accident that it took a civil war to end slavery. It only didn't end sooner because it became economically valuable. Both the slave and the people empoverished by the best land being in the hands of landlords were paying a premium to landlords for the fact that they owned the more valuable property. Owning valuable property was the source of wealth for the few. Property taxes mainly made it easier for the already powerful to keep their property and force work out of small holders. This system, by its design concentrates wealth due to premiums in the form of unearned economic rent from the mere privilege of owning the more valuable property.

Natures Tax Collector

Henry George assessed the value of rent from property ownership as making the property owner "nature's tax collector." He knew that simply owning valuable property was a source of unearned premiums. Basically property owners are collecting a private tax when they rent property or successfully speculate on property. They have a right to keep "wages of intendency" & a duty to collect and invest the income necessary to maintain or improve their property. They do not have an inalienable or absolute right to aggrandize valuable property, because land ultimately belongs as “natures bounty” in commons between a sovereign and those who work or live on it. An owners right to rent property is tied to "the sweat of the brow" used to keep that property healthy.

Premium from simple ownership versus earned premiums

Economic rent is a premium a person gets for owning something valuable, having a degree, land, buildings, owning stock, owning a business, company, etc... and employing people to use that property. Henry George made a valid distinction between property taken, borrowed, or owned from natures finite bounty and property that is lived on, productive and tended. The reason he did this is that the premium from simply owning part of natures bounty is unearned. Additionally, if one has valuable property, the premium from working that property is not entirely earned. Henry George called properties belonging to "natures bounty" "land", by land he also included Oil, Gas, Coal, though because his supporters came from oil, gas & coal interest that would be obfuscated after his death. He used the word "economic rent" to describe such premiums from working land, employing labor, owning property & renting properties. He described them as premiums and avoided calling them income because he knew property owners would try to confuse the two. After he died they did.

Earned and Unearned Income

If one performed any kind of labor, one has earned one's income. If one earns a premium from simple ownership of property or privilege, that income, some or all of it is unearned. Earned income also comes from when one improves property by one's effort. Such productive property, tools, plant, factories, raw materials, are capital. In the Georgist formulation the three factors are labor, natures bounty (Land) and capital. Capital should not be confused with land when calculating unearned premiums from property ownership. High Rents in Manhattan reflect the valuable monopoly that is land there. The buildings themselves are capital. The way you tell is that the buildings need constant maintenance, sustainment and refresh, to retain their value. That maintenance, sustainment and refresh is earned. Any value over those costs is economic rent.

Progressive Taxation

No one should be taxed on gross income no matter the source. No one should be harmed by taxes, nor should taxes lead to depreciation of properties real value. Taxes should always be figured on net income and net premiums. If a landlord or building manager tends the buildings he manages. All those costs are justly part of the rent he/she charges tenants. Taxes on land value should fall on the premiums gained from owning the property. Thus the rentier should pay progressive taxes on the economic rent he/she receives. One can link the zero tax rate to a calculated poverty level and allow cost of transport, food consumption, maybe donations, and personal shelter costs to go untaxed completely. One then sets up a system where no one pays taxes on that portion of income. But anyone making more than that pays maybe 10% of the net above that amount.

zero tax on net income less than 40K$.

Say:

10% on net income more than 40,000 (40K$) and less than say 100k$,

20% on net income over 100K$ and less than 200k$

30% on net income over 200k$ and less than 1M$

40% on net income over 1 Million (1M$) and less than 10M$

50% on net income over 10M$ and less than 100M$

60% on net income over 100M$ and less than 1 billion$

70% on net income over 1 Billion dollars

... And index these rates to inflation. These are just examples for discussion.

If one performs some kind of labor or work, one has earned at least part of that premium. If one's premiums are privileged, not all of it. The underlying principle goes back to the middle ages; “Do your duty or pay a duty”

Modern Money and Progressive Taxation

We privatized ownership markets (stock markets) and money, long ago. But the constitution gives government sovereignty over our money supply. The Federal Reserve only makes sense as an arm of the Treasury. As a private bank, it has too much power to engage in mischief. Wealthy people live on rents from owning banknotes and debt. When the economy does well they do well. When it collapses they take property from both workers and capital, but they and the rest of the rentier class wind up wealthier than before the crisis started. At this point the business cycle is an intentional feature not a bug in our system and is an instrument for taking wealth from working people, in other words, exctracting economic wealth using debt.

Money as debt is not innocuous. Federal notes are useful backed by token money. Backed by government debt, they are a means to extract rents from tax payers. Backed by personal or corporate debt, they are time bombs. Avoiding risk is avoiding responsibility.

Public Capital

The Fed should be supporting public capital (highways, railroads, transport in general, communications and energy) thru supporting local and federal government solvency. Not enforcing "balanced budgets" that treat capital and natures bounty as if they were merely costs. The current system treats cities and states as less important than banks, GM, Ford, etc.... This is a worldwide phenomenom as the system of States are continuously held accountable for doing the right thing. The current system is based on extorting companies by stripping sovereinty from them over their own finances.

Related readings

Creative Normalization vs Dehumanization

My inner professor, just now, was giving me instructions in a dream. A group. I call them ABBA 2.0, because the music was all ABBA, but the group were mixed race, some LGBTQ. Maybe some were the grandkids of the original ABBA singers. It doesn't matter. It was the oversoul [God?] lecturing me in a dream. It was a dream, or vision.

Humanizing vs Dehumanizing

The songs and events were humanizing the singers.  They, go about their lives, singing songs while loving, living, driving around the Universal City in a tardis like van [bigger on the inside than the outside].   Abba 2.0 was singing these realities. And my professor oversoul was judging;

This is good.

Music, theater, Tv, are all propaganda. They can share uplifting matters of faith; love, goodwill, beauty, goodness, general good gain, personal gain.

Versus Evil

Lurking in the background is awareness, that forces of darkness are always trying to reverse the script. People who prejudge and dehumanize other humans, usually do so seeking a pretext to deny, take, refuse, destroy. They will push a narrative of conflict, limited resources, the other as perverse, inhuman, out to get you. We need Abba 2.0 to push back. The Zombie apocalypse is not a real thing. But seeing fellow humans as zombies, gives killing an excuse.

Anyway, Abba music is playing in the back of my head. I can go back to sleep.

Christopher Holte

 

Getting Progressive Taxation Right

Suggestions:

Gross versus Net Taxation

Taxes should not fall on a person's basic expenses [gross not net]

Allow people to deduct food, shelter & work expenses

1. First Home mortgage or rent.

2. State taxes.

3. Transport to & from work & commerce.

4.  Capital goods should be deferred or deducted for everyone.

A. Deferred over a million dollars value.

B. Deducted if LT Million$.

5. Genuine capital investment has a cost or depreciation. Investments that don't depreciate are actually economic rent.

6. Define strictly & focus taxes on economic rent.

7. Economic Rent should be taxed progressively. 

Rates

1. Social Security & Medicare taxes should be calculated on everyone & subsidized for people with a net income less than 30k$. [2020 equivalent]

2. Payroll differentials should be subsidized for employees making less than 30k$ net or 15$ per hour net.

3. 2 can take the form of Food, Transport & Shelter credits.

4. Social Security accounts available to everyone thru retail or postal banks.

5. 0$ rate on net income less than 50k$

6. 10% rate on portion of income LT 100K$

7. 20% rate on net income over 100k$ and less than 200k$

8. 30% rate net 200k$ - 400k$

9. 40% 400k$ - 800k$

10. 50% 800k$ - 1,200k$

11. 60% 1,200k$ - 10M$

12. 70% 10M$ - 100M$

13. 80% 100M$ - 1B$

14.  90%  GT 1B$ 

All taxes should be indexed for inflation

Expanding and reforming the Judiciary

Four sets of inter-connected principles govern our country,

Federalist principles

The notion that people are stronger when they pool resources and work together across geographical boundaries and subboundaries.

Commonwealth Principles

The notion that some things are common to everyone and should not be individually monopolized:

The Commons

Common Law

Common Good

etc...

Republican Principles

Separation of Powers

Representation by subdivision and population

Res Publica -- our thing. John Locke translated the term to mean commonwealth.

Democratic Principles

The notion that “we the people” should participate in and have a say in Government.

“Judges...shall hold their Offices during good Behavior.”

The existence of an independent Judiciary is derived from Republican Principles. It is based on hard won observation that judges should be independent of executive power and hold their offices "during good behavior." It is up to both the legislature and the Judiciary, but first in the court of the legislature, to define what "during good behavior" means. The principle of separation of powers implies that Judges can only judge what good behavior is, if that is well defined by the legislature based on long standing principles.

Defining “During Good Behavior”

Congress has a duty to legislate the definition and parameters of what “during good behavior” means. They have done this somewhat. There is a code of Judicial ethics that applies to all the Federal Courts except the Supreme Court. That is odd. For the most part Judges hold their offices until resigning due to some scandal or being arrested. Congress can exercise judicial review over them. But often that goes awry as it tends to be policiticized in the process and to have nothing to do with their fitness as judges. This results in impeachments being rare and usually only following outrageous conduct. But the "on good behavior" implies that it would be constitutional for mechanisms to be created for the Judiciary to police itself. But first we must consider what the judiciary is, or should be.

The Judiciary is the Justice System

The founders argued about the formation of the Justice department. This is because, technically almost everyone working their is part of the court system. Judge, Jury and Executioners, all are part of the Judiciary, and thus are, or should be, officers of the courts, subject to strict standards of behavior higher than those of civilians. So technically should legislators be when passing laws that will impact the courts. The founders wanted the National Attorney General to be an officer of the court and to be independent of partisan politics or self interested actions. They left him as a "subordinate" officer of the president in the hopes that the President would have the judgement and virtues necessary to keep his job scoped (focused) on enforcing the laws of the country. The courts have considerable civil and criminal powers as a result. When those are bent to self interested purposes they become subversive of good government. So the issue of how to police the police remains fraught with peril and unresolved, as Executive, legislature and judiciary, are all too self interested to police themselves. I propose an administrative mechanism to correct this problem.

Administrative Law and Enforcement

Thanks to Trump we've seen the potential for abuse embodied in runaway executive power. The flaws there, were there all along, but it took a wannabe dictator to see how easy it was to subvert them.

Officers of the court have a duty to be filial to letter and spirit of law

No system is sailor proof. That is why administrative actions need to operate as if they were trial courts. Further, they need to operate as Jury Trial courts, if necessary, in order to be fully fair to both the people as a whole and those being scrutinized. We need every officer to be subject to periodic scrutiny. The courts and their officers are “officers of the people” and therefore should be accountable.

Entry Points

The law has to specify entry points and affirm that people have a right to substantial due process. Otherwise substandard due process becomes a checkoff point for the efficient tyranny of runaway legal process.

Informal Adjudication

There are informal judicial proceedings that may involve people otherwise not in the court system. Anyone who can, can and usually does moderate simple disputes. If substantive agreement between the parties can be achieved, a simple contractural agreement should be able to memorialize the informal adjudication. When judges are engaged in informal adjudication, the same rules should apply as when an Umpire calls strikes in a baseball game. Except, if agreement fails, then that becomes the entry point for formal judicial process. Judges should be encouraged to seek agreements in private disputes. Those agreements should be binding unless deception, force, threats or bribes were used to achieve them. They can be private unless there is a public interest in the outcome.

Formal Adjudication Entry Points

When agreement is not achieved or affirmed in writing, deception, force, threats or bribes occured, or there is significant public interest in an adversarial procedure occuring, then that is the entry point to formal adjudication. The first stage can be an informal Judged trial. If the parties agree to be bound by the judges decision, then that should be respected. If not a person should have a right to a jury trial. This goes for all judicial type proceedings. Informal or formal, all such proceedings should have at least two counsels available. One for each defendent, one for each person pursuing the matter. This should be true for administrative judging as well as traditional courts. Anyone with judicial powers, must be a judge and member of the judiciary, in order to hear any kind of formal case. And anytime a defendent or subject requests a jury the trial should use that jury.

Administrative Hearings

Administrative hearings are sometimes necessary to establish regulations, review petitions for citizenship, etc.... I believe they further should be used to scrutinize candidates for office and periodically review office holders. Such bodies should have the power to inquire, subpoena, do accounting reviews and scrutinize past performance to determine candidate or office holder fitness as prospective officers to receive a job or continue in office.

Informal and Formal Scrutiny

This is a judicial function and an administrative function. It therefore should be performed within the judiciary, as a regular function with an informal process followed by formal process if contested. It is not about criminal behavior or even civil torts, but about whether someone is behaving with integrity and is fit for their job. Therefore while it should use juries to weigh fitness for office, matters of crime and damages should be referred to different bodies and different judges. In the case of elected officers, the information should be published to the voters because the voters are the ultimate judges, through recall petitions or elections.

Oversight

In the case of unelected officers, hiring or firing decisions should be in the hands of the chain of command and the information also published. In any case such courts should have no power beyond subpoena and order enforcement (contempt of court or seizure of evidence). It would have the power to forward evidence of wrongdoing to an ordinary court. No judge should be involved in his or her own case or of someone related to them or in their own chain of command. Admin courts would receive IGs and be established in regulatory and oversight agencies. The body of rules in the law and not subject to over-ride.

Voir Dire

The judges would be subject to the same scrutiny. Juries would come from the jury pool and be selected by voir dire. The investigators would be selected from local journalists, and Government investigators, in a similar manner.

Codify regulations

Congress must establish a strict definition of what "during good behavior" means and let administrative courts enforce it. If they want to be really effective, they'd include themselves in the scrutiny laws.

I'm not a lawyer, so the details behind this probably need some work.

Expand the court

The Supreme court does not have to be 9 members. It could be 12, 13, or 15. But more importantly all judges, including the ones on SCOTUS should be subject to the same rules that define "during good behavior" for the entire judiciary and judicial impeachment [firing] should be the remedy for violating those rules. That should not take an amendment to COTUS.  Moreover, one of those rules should be no judge may be a prosecutor or judge in his own case.

The beauty here, is that were the courts to rule they don't have the power to police themselves, they still would [and should] have the power to report an impeachment recommendation to congress. The house could pass the bill to the Senate & the case record would already be available.

Given the amount of corruption revealed since Citizens United, the Congress might not even need to expand the numbers of judges, just remove badly behaving ones.

Fernando

I woke up in a dream where I was walking back to my house in the snow and a neighbor started singing Fernando. I woke up singing along. The song is about the Mexican Revolution, which started near El Paso with young people wanting a less corrupt government. The version I had was a medley of Abba voices & a baritone male.

My Great Grandpa was there in El Paso. My grandpa was a baby. My Great Granddad was a railroadman who had friends who were probably involved in the Mexican Revolution. But he was warned about the dangers and moved back to Vermont. 

The Mexican revolution exposed both the ideals and hypocrisy of our countries. Some of the major fighting started just across the border.  And Wilson sent Gen. Pershing to intervene in the war after Pancho Villa raided our side of the border.  Our involvement in WW1 was largely inspired by German efforts to get Mexico to attack us - or British efforts to make us think Germans were doing that. Influence operations are not a new phenomena.

div>https://t.co/IzPtQl7PAZ

Out the Door

I walked out the door

and wandered into the night

I looked up at a star far away

and felt alone

Above me twinkled the lights

Images tell me they are suns

children of other nights

so far away, also alone.

Don’t fill the world with fear

We don’t have enough years

to live all our dreams,

life is fearful enough

why live the nightmares?

I don’t know today

How can I know tomorrow?

When we have each other

why hold onto sorrow?

The nights are dark, the nights are cold

inside it is warm,

let us stretch our muscles, warm our hearts

don’t let them burn like aching coals.

Old wounds remind us of too much foolishness.

But old pleasures comfort.

Old aches tell us we are still here.

I ache therefore I am.

You are my love,

I am a Descartes of Pain

We get used to it.

We hurt therefore we are alive.

We get used to it.

The illusions never hold,

unless they are skillful.

I’m getting old.

Chris, written in early summer, 2011.

Why aren't they investigating Q?

Facebook is going after "Q" groups, taking them down, etc.... But those groups aren't the problem, "Q", whoever that is, is the problem. It's not an anonymous individual, somewhere there are servers and a team preparing and "dropping" Q Drops... doing propaganda...

As long as those exist, Q goes its merry insane propaganda, black and gray, conspiracy fomenting, way. Take out a "Q group" and q fanatics will get their fix elsewhere. It will get all the more popular.

I'm convinced Q is an FSB Team, working with American hires.

No hard evidence, and other folks are dealing with this insanity too.

For more:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2020/08/is-qanon-fsb-active-measure.html?m=1