{"id":19926,"date":"2016-04-14T11:43:14","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T16:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19926"},"modified":"2016-04-14T11:43:14","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T16:43:14","slug":"avoiding-the-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19926","title":{"rendered":"Avoiding the Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"
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AVOIDING THE ISSUE<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
In the wake of the so-called \u2018Panama Papers<\/em>\u2019 furore, the push-button issue of the One Percent being found able \u2013 OH! THE HORROR! \u2013 to shield some of its wealth from the taxman, regardless of the jurisdiction in which its members have chosen to set up shop, has predictably called forth bad economics, dubious legal opinion, and strident political point-scoring in almost equal measure.<\/div>\n
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All of this has been carefully marshalled to serve the deeper purpose of exploiting our outrage and of suckering us into calling for the ever-eager Revenue Man to be given even more power over the livelihoods and liberties not just of the Music Hall villain \u2018mega-rich\u2019, but also of those of us\u00a0hoi Polloi<\/em>\u00a0who have been inveigled into brandishing our torches and waving our pitchforks against the cast-iron railings surrounding the mansions of the moustachio-twirling plutocrats whom we have been so readily prompted to revile.<\/p>\n

So, in an attempt to redress the balance a little, let\u2019s go right back to first principles and start with the shocking premise that what you earn honestly in free exchange is a sign that your efforts have added some quantum to the sum total of human happiness (or at least marginally reduced its burden of woe) \u2013 a contention which is proven simply by the transaction having taken place at all.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s move to another radical concept: that what you so earn and what you have come to own is, in the first instance, yours and yours alone to dispose of as you see fit.<\/p>\n

Next, let us imagine that We, the People, have agreed between ourselves that there are certain desirable activities which we (perhaps unimaginatively and usually at the cost of much efficiency) do not trust to the market mechanism \u2013 matters such as dispute resolution, the provision of security at home and at our borders, the co-ordination of large-scale projects, a smattering of welfare functions, etc.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AVOIDING THE ISSUE In the wake of the so-called \u2018Panama Papers\u2019 furore, the push-button issue of the One Percent being found able \u2013 OH! THE HORROR! \u2013 to shield some of its wealth from the taxman, regardless of the jurisdiction in which its members have chosen to set up shop, has predictably called forth bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[7380,13259,13305,783],"class_list":["post-19926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-liberty","tag-cobden-centre","tag-panama-papers","tag-tax-havens","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19927,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19926\/revisions\/19927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}