There is industrial strike action scheduled for next week in Finland, with a lot of services affected, including flights. With about 300 colleagues arriving at the start of the week, most of them won't be able to leave again, so they will have to extend their stay. As you can imagine, the cost is pretty extreme to make the changes, and it is going to be disruptive, but that is life.
The industrial action is a response to the government's austerity measures, where they are making a lot of cuts that will likely have the greatest impact on low-income people, which is par for the course. But, I am also not a big fan of the economy as it is anyway, so regardless of what they do, something has to change.
In Australia, there is also a tax change being debated, where they are potentially getting rid of the highest tax bracket, essentially putting more money in the pockets of the already well off and very rich. This would essentially see billions of dollars taken out of the governments tax coffers. However, the election promise to do so is set to be broken, which really is no surprise.
Personally and since taxes aren't going anywhere, I am in favor of a single, flat tax rate, where everyone pays the same, no matter what is earned. I don't know what that rate would be, but for instance, something like 25% is workable. And, I think that it should be the same for companies, where the company pays the same percentage as the employee. This system where a company can wind down their obligations with creative accounting practices to around 10 percent, but their employees can be paying upward of 40 percent, is ridiculous, and it adds in a lot of unnecessary loopholes.
Simplify it.
But, it is more than just simplifying the tax system for fairness, it simplifies the conversation around tax systems and then pushes the conversation into other areas that are likely more pressing. For instance, taxes on investments. Should the tax on investments be higher or lower than the taxes on work performed? Of course, investors would want lower, but perhaps it should go the other way. Perhaps it shouldn't be as lucrative to earn passively, but there should be incentive to increase working income, where there is a direct relationship between action and value generation.
I love passive income, but at some point, value has to be physical in the sense that it makes an impact on our lives. In my opinion, the economy is so unhealthy because we have a "profit at any cost" system, where the incentive is to generate wealth, but it doesn't have to generate wealth. This means that society and the people within it will inevitably suffer, because the focus is about creating efficiencies, reducing costs, generating more wealth for the inputs - higher profits.
And, it is because of this drive for profits that we have not only such enormous wealth gaps, but also gaps in so many parts of our society and outcomes. There has to be incentive to benefit from being the best, or better than most and scale down, but the differences may be too extreme, especially when "the best" isn't tied to the health of humanity and is instead driven by influence and market manipulations, as well as government-created conditions.
Look at some of the largest companies in the world, and how they make their money. Other than the value they generate for the employees of the company, are they creating things that really benefit society? Social platforms, pharmaceuticals, oil companies, consumer goods distribution... Are we fundamentally better off because of them, or are they catering to a demand that is doing more harm than good? And, even if they are doing more good than harm, is the good enough, or are there other activities that could make more of a positive impact?
While I don't have many answers to these questions, my point is that while governments spend an inordinate amount of time jigging tax systems, and people spend an ordinate amount of time discussing them, if we are really looking to improve the outcomes of society, we need to look elsewhere. Tax systems are not the answer, yet they are a point that has been elevated as if they are going to improve society. Instead, we need to look at the entire economic model, and look to see what we are incentivizing, and why.
Economic incentives should be driven by what makes us better as a people, which means that we have to also shift the incentives of demand. Demand drives supply, so if we aren't willing to change our demand behaviors, our outcomes are going to keep being incredibly unbalanced. However, while all individuals make an impact, the incentives to make behavioral demand changes for better outcomes, have to be aligned.
But, with so much noise and confusion due the engineered complications in the economy, we aren't having the right conversations about what we should do. Instead, we are arguing over insignificancies, whilst the massive loopholes are being leveraged to generate immense wealth for a few people and corporations.
One thing to remember is, if you are poor or even in the mid-range, a tax break is not going to make you rich, or ease whatever struggles you have by much. If you are already rich, you will get richer. A good view of this is by looking at wealth distribution now.
Wealth distribution in the United States in the third quarter of 2023
In the third quarter of 2023, 66.6 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.6 percent of the total wealth.
Taxes are not the answer that helps the most economically vulnerable people, because they are playing with so little wealth, it doesn't matter much. Taxing the rich doesn't help, because the richest will, be finding ways to reduce their taxes through corporate mechanisms. But, if to get rich, it meant having to do something that benefited people, now that would make a difference.
Government handouts, are never going to lead to a healthy society. The only way to create a healthy society, is by demanding a healthy society. Not from the government, but from the goods and services we buy, and the corporations we support. And of course, in the jobs that we do.
We are all misaligned.
Will we ever change course for the better?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
