Posted by Tanstaafl on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:07 | #

They will become keenly interested in the real externalities of immigration

Before The Economy seized up I had regularly countered “these people help The Economy” arguments with a very simple retort: “where’s my check?” It was always highly effective. Most opponents immediately abandoned what they could then see was obviously a mendacious argument. For those who didn’t it was a pleasure to rub their nose in the externalities of immigration - the prison “industry” and other facets of the Broken Windows Fallacy (‘La Loi’ de Frédéric Bastiat).

Your proposal would effectively push this point front and center full time.

Nowadays of course with The Economy shedding jobs the genocidal immigrationists have simply shifted to other arguments, mainly “it would be all raysis n sheet” to stop/eject our immigrants. This has made it clearer than ever that the purpose of immigration has never been about benefiting the indigenous populace.

the populous would be very motivated

That should, by the way, be either “populace” or the latin equivalent “populus”.

Posted by James Bowery on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:37 | #

Tanstaafl, thanks for the spelling correction.

Fred, thanks for the vote of confidence.

Posted by L_Tirelli on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:10 | #

I don’t buy the idea of a “citizen’s dividend”. However, I do think the idea of asset based taxation instead of taxation of economic activity has merit. The current system of taxing economic activity motivates rich people to invest in fixed, finite assets such as real estate. This, of course, makes it difficult for everyone else because it increases the cost of housing and what not for everyone else such that it is simply impossible to live in places like the Bay Area while working “normal” jobs.

I believe a tax system should motivate the wealthy (and everyone else) to invest their money into productive enterprise instead of finite assets. Productive enterprise, such as technology, biotech, and space, represents for all practical purposes an infinite resource and is therefor positive sum. We want the wealthy to invest in the “infinite resource” of productive enterprise because it creates opportunities for everyone else. The rich become richer, but the rest of us become richer as well. This is positive sum.

Finite assets, such as real estate, should be taxed such as to discourage the ownership of such beyond, say, 1 or 2 personal residences. This would reduce the mania for real estate ownership which hopefully would keep real estate prices at a reasonable level so that even the poorest of us could afford a comfortable place to live. This help reduce the trend of finite resource ownership becoming concentrated in the hands of a few, to the detriment of everyone else. Also, continual investment in finite assets does not result in continual wealth creation because they are, well, finite.

My 2 bits here.

Posted by James Bowery on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:29 | #

J Tirelli writes: I don’t buy the idea of a “citizen’s dividend”.

Do you have a better way of reducing public sector rent seeking behavior?:

The expenditure of resources in order to bring about an uncompensated transfer of goods or services from another person or persons to one’s self as the result of a “favorable” decision on some public policy. The term seems to have been coined (or at least popularized in contemporary political economy) by the economist Gordon Tullock. Examples of rent-seeking behavior would include all of the various ways by which individuals or groups lobby government for taxing, spending and regulatory policies that confer financial benefits or other special advantages upon them at the expense of the taxpayers or of consumers or of other groups or individuals with which the beneficiaries may be in economic competition.

Posted by Thunder on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:16 | #

L_Tirelli said:

This, of course, makes it difficult for everyone else because it increases the cost of housing and what not for everyone else such that it is simply impossible to live in places like the Bay Area while working “normal” jobs.

We have a serious problem with this in Australian capital cities.  It is very difficult for emergency personnel like nurses, paramedics, police, firemen to find affordable accommodation within a reasonable commute of work.  Buying a home is a pipe dream for many of these people.  Brisbane and environs, Sunshine and Gold Coast have the world’s least affordable housing.  See http://www.demographia.com

Posted by Thunder on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:29 | #

James:

Thanks for explaining this.  Do you mind if I paste the following in a query to the http://www.financialsense.com Q lines?  I would be interested in their discussion of it.

The current economic crisis is caused by centralization of wealth to the point that the populace isn’t simply impoverished, but is so deep in debt that the consumer base has collapsed.  This was caused not by “easy money policies of the central banks” but by the subsidy of wealth built into any society that protects property rights by taxing economic activity.  The would-be upwardly mobile pay the bills—not the recipients of the primary government service:  protection of unnatural concentrations of wealth.  Although it is true that this means the proper source of revenue for the citizen’s dividend would be a net asset tax on in place liquidation value—a tax that eliminates taxes on economic activity—it is not essential to political success that such a tax reform be another plank in the platform of the citizen’s dividend party.

and:

Citizen’s dividends—the replacement of all government transfer programs with a simple cash dividend paid equally to all citizens—is the single-plank political platform that can, in the present climate, be used by a minor party to capture control of virtually any parliamentary government in the West.

Posted by James Bowery on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:28 | #

Any discussion of the idea is welcome in this environment.

Posted by Dan Dare on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:57 | #

James, could you please expand on the concept of ‘public benefits’, what public expenditures would this include? Some would be obvious, direct transfer payments such as welfare, AFDC, controlled access services such as publicly-financed healthcare, libraries etc. But what about other public services such as law enforcement, whose aggregate cost is obviously higher because of the presence of immigrants. How would they be accounted for?

There are also the charges to the capital account required to provide additional infrastructure (eg schools, hospitals, jails) that would be unnecessary but for the presence of immigrants.

Posted by James Bowery on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:48 | #

Dan Dare:  It would include any tax credits or “corporate welfare” programs and subsidies as well as “entitlement programs”.  You basically have to get the government out of the business of doling out money more to some than other citizens.  Of course, it will continue to take more from some than other citizens, which is why the tax base needs to shift to a use-fee paradigm as it does with a net asset tax on in place liquidation value of property rights it upholds.

Law enforcement gets into the monopoly on force enjoyed by government.  While I think one can define a system, such as the Actuarial Militia in which a self-armed citizenry, being paid a citizen’s dividend, is primarily responsible for law enforcement—including border enforcement—there will be a long transition time for that in most* societies. 

*The Swiss could do it virtually overnight.

Posted by Frank on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:10 | #

The FairTax that’s so popular among conservatives in the US includes a prebate sent out to American citizens.

Posted by James Bowery on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:15 | #

We can ignore, for the moment, that FairTax places an adult’s “necessities” at $208/month and go right for the jugular:

There are so many bad things about the current tax system that it is fairly trivial to come up with a “reform” that gets rid of a lot of those bad things while leaving the 800lb gorilla.  This gorilla eats the bananas that others produce and keeps slapping on weight, crowding out everyone else in the room and his name is “subsidized unnatural property rights”.

Posted by Frank on Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:44 | #

I’m not a proponent of the FairTax - I was just reminded it gives out prebates to citizens.

Posted by GenoType on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:00 | #

Money for nothing and a Citizenist “nation” for (almost) free…

Easy, Easy money - Dire Straits

From the perspective of the esoterically-inclined, bribing “citizens” is better simply because physicality goes against the grain.

Do you have a better way of reducing public sector rent seeking behavior?:

Yes, but it eliminates remote investment and requires physical work.

Physical work - a “non-starter” in any conservative venue.

Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:36 | #

Very strange that you would read what I said as being “better than” anything other than the other options available at the level of national and, in the case of the EU, international politics.  Your hostility really is enigmatic, GT.

PS: I don’t think Sailer would support a citizen’s dividend because it would tend to drive a wedge between he and the “cognitive elite” whose status would be brought into question by a populace that didn’t quite agree that the contributions of subcons to their dividends was worth the risks of turning over critical parts of society to ethnic networks of questionable compatibility with “the posterity of the founders”.

Posted by BGD on Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:39 | #

Sounds a bit like Social Credit, ALOR, The Money Bomb, Comer and all. If so I assumed all this would die with the ‘Douglas generation’, if that’s not so great, though maybe with the discussion of funding through asset taxes that’s not the aim..

Posted by Making waves on Wed, 05 Dec 2012 01:00 | #

http://www.positivemoney.org/

Posted by Hymie in Afula on Fri, 09 Aug 2013 02:31 | #

James Bowery,

I wonder, what is your opinion of Anarcho-Capitalist doctrine: videlicet, that public “goods&services;” should be abolished as much as humanly possible.

the exemplar is: Why should people who spent all their money on Trayvon memorabilia, then receive fire protection without ever having paid for it?

The counter-argument is: how do you have a WN rulership, if all of the traditional “government” goods and services, are privatized. If (e.g.) publicly-financed juries are replaced by arbitration-agreements…. what exactly, is left?

Posted by James Bowery on Mon, 07 Dec 2015 04:25 | #

Unsurprisingly, the Finns may lead the way:

Finland is considering giving every citizen €800 a month

Posted by James Bowery on Wed, 18 Mar 2020 02:26 | #

So the Europeans may be dragged kicking and screaming into the future by the Trump administration’s being dragged kicking and screaming into the future by a pandemic.

However, the opportunity for stabilizing things with a mere citizen’s dividend is past.  I suspect not even a national-level Actuarial Militia can salvage this train-wreck.  The hyperinflation that, a year before the financial crisis became apparent, I thought might start by mid 2007, was not created by “helicopter money” sent to citizens, but rather averted by “helicopter money” sent to the wealthy to buy the bankrupt household assets of citizens.  I honestly didn’t foresee that much chutzpah exacerbating the centralization of wealth even further for a short term fix.  But that’s the point of chutzpah—it catches we mere humans by surprise.  But the short term fix has been in a metastable state with ever increasing potential energy ever since. 

That’s why I’ve been focusing on local property money.

Posted by James Bowery on Sun, 22 Mar 2020 04:14 | #

And right on cue Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib proposes to expand the quasi-citizen’s dividend to non-citizens.  This byasses the need to provide “a path to citizenship”, which would be impractical in the current environment, as I stated:

The response by the political parties now in power—traitors that they are—would, of course, be to fast-track “a path to citizenship” for immigrants, but they would be doing so in an economic environment far from conducive to popular apathy toward such shenanigans.

Will they be able to pass this and make it permanent under the smoke screen of the pandemic?  “Conservatism, Inc.” is always looking for ways to socialize liabilities—including labor costs—and Trump’s apparent capitulation to that lobby is not cause for optimism.