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Covid-19 Legislation


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Important article from the Financial Times -not exactly a liberal rag.  However, they are calling for future action

that reminds me of many of the proposals set forth by several of the Dem candidates for president. 

 

 

https://www.ft.com/content/7eff769a-74dd-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca

 

copied in part:
 

Quote

The economic lockdowns are imposing the greatest cost on those already worst off. Overnight millions of jobs and livelihoods have been lost in hospitality, leisure and related sectors, while better paid knowledge workers often face only the nuisance of working from home. Worse, those in low-wage jobs who can still work are often risking their lives — as carers and healthcare support workers, but also as shelf stackers, delivery drivers and cleaners. Governments’ extraordinary budget support for the economy, while necessary, will in some ways make matters worse. Countries that have allowed the emergence of an irregular and precarious labour market are finding it particularly hard to channel financial help to workers with such insecure employment. Meanwhile, vast monetary loosening by central banks will help the asset-rich. Behind it all, underfunded public services are creaking under the burden of applying crisis policies. The way we wage war on the virus benefits some at the expense of others.

 

The victims of Covid-19 are overwhelmingly the old. But the biggest victims of the lockdowns are the young and active, who are asked to suspend their education and forgo precious income. Sacrifices are inevitable, but every society must demonstrate how it will offer restitution to those who bear the heaviest burden of national efforts.

 

Radical reforms — reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades — will need to be put on the table. Governments will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments rather than liabilities, and look for ways to make labour markets less insecure. Redistribution will again be on the agenda; the privileges of the elderly and wealthy in question. Policies until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes, will have to be in the mix. The taboo-breaking measures governments are taking to sustain businesses and incomes during the lockdown are rightly compared to the sort of wartime economy western countries have not experienced for seven decades.

 

The analogy goes still further. The leaders who won the war did not wait for victory to plan for what would follow. Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter, setting the course for the United Nations, in 1941. The UK published the Beveridge Report, its commitment to a universal welfare state, in 1942. In 1944, the Bretton Woods conference forged the postwar financial architecture. That same kind of foresight is needed today. Beyond the public health war, true leaders will mobilise now to win the peace

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11 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

Important article from the Financial Times -not exactly a liberal rag.  However, they are calling for future action

that reminds me of many of the proposals set forth by several of the Dem candidates for president. 

 

 

https://www.ft.com/content/7eff769a-74dd-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca

 

copied in part:
 

.

My wife and I keep talking about the one big positive that can come from this is a "revolution" in how our system works.  I'll read the entire article when I get a minute to share with her.

 

Thanks!

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2 hours ago, TGHusker said:

Important article from the Financial Times -not exactly a liberal rag.  However, they are calling for future action

that reminds me of many of the proposals set forth by several of the Dem candidates for president. 

 

 

https://www.ft.com/content/7eff769a-74dd-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca

 

copied in part:
 

.

 

Basic income is definitely something we need to continue looking into. Yang really got behind the politics of the future. From what I gather wealth taxes are pretty popular but never seem to work and generate way less revenue than they should. There are more efficient forms of taxation we could use.

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10 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

such as??  What do you have in mind?  VAT, Consumption Tax, Nat'l sales tax

 

There are lots of ways we could approach it that would be quite progressive. All of them find ways to tax assets or income without straight up taxing wealth; I believe the latter is more easy to dodge and would encourage people to shuffle around their assets to minimize the amount of qualifying "wealth" they could be taxed on.

 

We could adjust how we tax investment income (what's called an accrual tax)

 

Reforming the estate tax

 

Land-value taxes akin to traditional property tax were something I heard suggested recently that could effectively target real-estate barons without harming the average home-owning citizen

 

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5 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

There are lots of ways we could approach it that would be quite progressive. All of them find ways to tax assets or income without straight up taxing wealth; I believe the latter is more easy to dodge and would encourage people to shuffle around their assets to minimize the amount of qualifying "wealth" they could be taxed on.

 

We could adjust how we tax investment income (what's called an accrual tax)

 

Reforming the estate tax

 

Land-value taxes akin to traditional property tax were something I heard suggested recently that could effectively target real-estate barons without harming the average home-owning citizen

 

Land Value taxes - my concern there would be for the farmer- the family farmer in particular.  The same would be true of the estate tax. 

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To fight the COVID pandemic, policymakers must move fast and break taboos

 

Quote

COVID-19’s economic impact on crumbling GDPs, collapsing tax revenues and ballooning fiscal deficits will be much larger than what has been reported thus far. Any hesitation in throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the health, employment, state aid and financial rescue interventions that are needed will literally kill citizens and destroy the economy. To combat COVID-19, central banks, including the ECB, must cross the Rubicon of monetary financing and immediately transfer the 20%-30% of GDP this will cost into fiscal coffers.

 

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