USA & UK Tax Wars Heat Up

The Anglo-Saxon model is attracting some fierce critics. Economist Milton Friedman, Prime Minister Thatcher and President Reagan ushered in Monetarism, Greed is Good, Light Touch Regulation, The Big Bang and The Free Markets in 1980. Thirty-two years later, the great and the good are wondering if it was the right policy for democracy; and billionaire Warren Buffet proposes that even the loftiest of the super-rich aristocracy should pay the same tax-rate as middle-class families.  President Obama has the temerity to take up the baton for America. http://www.barackobama.com/buffett-rule/tax-fairness. His impertinence will enrage our lords and masters who really should not be taxable at all - and who have the absolute right to empty the nations' coffers into secretive, anonymous, locked and impenetrable treasure chests in tax-havens, bankrupt the nation and then tell us we are bust, out of cash, lazy and unwashed - and must borrow it all back from them on their terms - or else! They have trillions hidden away and even complain, if the central banks pump pathetic bits of liquidity back into the starved economies through Quantitative Easing, that it will diminish the value of their cash. They urgently need our protection.

I am afraid this is my current hobby-horse, so as long as the media focuses on wealth, business and taxes you may have to suffer more articles on this topic. There is a neat slide short show with pictures, which explains the money-economy. www.noelhodson.com/Money-Wars-2012-V5SHORT.pdf which is also on You Tube with music.

Polly Toynbee, one of Britain's most celebrated and influential commentators, battles on - today with an article "Stand up to the super-rich, Osborne. I'm on your side" where she analyses the conundrum created by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, who is reducing the tax relief on millionnaires' gifts to charities in the forlorn hope that he can collect a bit more tax from them. Ms Toynbee asks whether the generous gifts they make should be out of taxed income - as applies to the UK middle-classes - and thus feed the government more cash, or given full tax-relief as it is today, thus feeding the charities and by-passing government. George Osborne will be greatly pleased to have Ms Toynbee's public support. The Banns will be read, starting next Sunday, in Westminster Abbey.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/pollytoynbee?INTCMP=SRCH

Of course - several of the tax-relieved charities are not what Joe Public thinks of as charities. They only dispense charity to their own family and friends - usually via tax-havens.

What has all this to do with the Future? I think these issues are leading to massive global socio-economic changes that, allied to the Internet, will result in societies that do not need the Money-Economy. We are witnessing the beginning of the end of money. - 17 April 2011.

• $7.6 OR $32 TRILLION OFFSHORE?
• TAX HAVENS WRECK GLOBAL ECONOMY