Sometime mid-Atlantic and at what feels like late at night (about midnight with more than an hour still to go before touchdown, let alone getting through US immigration) even I have to wonder why I do things like this. There are moments when I have to ask if there isn't an easier way to make a living. But, I have to admit, they don't last long.
As I've been flying I've been reading a new book on the ethics of corporate taxation: new enough that I am still able to comment on the text, and maybe have a little influence. And what I find exciting is that people now want to write such books.
Just as I find it exciting that tomorrow a pile of people, from governments, NGOs, inter-governmental agencies and academia, will meet to discuss how the whole revenue raising process of governments can be made more transparent so that the acceptability of taxation as a legitimate contribution people make to the society that they live in, without their being specific reciprocal obligation from it to them, is enhanced.
Fifteen years ago I could have done neither. That's not just because I was just a newbie on the tax campaigning block, which was itself just coming into existence. It's more particularly because such things were rare, if they happened at all, at that time. The awareness of tax as an issue in the way it is appreciated now did not exist then.
It's easy to be negative about the way the world is. I do my fair share of that on this blog. But I'm pretty darned grateful too. It's been one hell of an opportunity to work on these issues.
We haven't solved them. I make no pretence that we have. Far from it: in some areas we're only just scratching the surface of what still needs to be done if we are to build the inclusive societies that I remain convinced now, as I was when starting out on this work, are the only basis on which we can all live in reasonable harmony with each other on this planet (some way below me at the moment). But at least we're trying.
And let's be clear we have made some wins. Indeed, it's encouraging that every time I see Dan Mitchell of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity in DC he says tax justice has won every battle since 2002, and he's not won anything since we came on the scene. But I note he's still there, even if I don't expect to see him over the next couple of days. That fact alone is a potent reminder that winning battles does not mean the war for tax justice is over any time soon.
And I guess that's why I'm right here, right now, because I had the good fortune to be able to do something I really wanted to do back then, and am still at it, even if I suspect I'm going to wonder which way up I am tomorrow as the jetlag kicks in.
NB Posted after we landed
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Oh Richard, I am slightly disappointed. You are flying all that way for a day with all those carbon emissions to talk? Perhaps better by some internet link. I know many business types fly like crazy (in a past existence I flew weekly to LAX for 2 hour meeting and then straight back so you are not alone for crazy flights!) and I know the havoc it plays on the body.
As for the planet havoc, I’m sure the amount of good you’ll do the planet and people will outweigh the CO2 from the plane, but remember you burn 50x your weight in fuel when flying which means 250x your weight in CO2 being emitted. That’s a lot and scary to me and my children (and they fart a lot!)
That’s scary for me too
And I do use video when possible
And sometimes it isn’t: face to face is needed
And the conversation over the meal
Richard,
I think you’ll find this general guide useful in your exchanges with the ‘cousins’.
https://renegadeinc.com/dear-catalans-a-message-from-the-chairman/#comment-10043
PS. I’m a very infrequent flier, but I usually get to my destination with a filthy cold. (Why don’t they filter the air while they are re-circulating it?) Never had this problem on the Clippers, especially if you sat in the draught near the door.
I recommend extra Vitamin C in large dosage to help stave it off. Once it takes hold it’s too late.
I usually survive pretty well
I wish I could say I was in infrequent flyer
Richard,
Please watch, I think Andy is taking the piss from Worstall’s site. I mean who compares air travel ventilation with clippers? I guess you know and will add him to the auto-block soon as all his other post have been very sucky!
It’s surprising for anyone to appear out if the blue with such enthusiasm but I see no reason to block
Andy may like to mail me
Andy would be more than happy to mail you, Richard.
I’m short an address though. You have the drop on me there I think.
Worstallite mole indeed. Harrumph!
Such issues are nowhere near my agenda
“Such issues are nowhere near my agenda” You refer to the ‘Renegade’ I presume.
It’s more an entertainment piece and not really about the particulars of Catalunya. That’s only the peg to hang it on. It’s really a commentary on how State Capture works and although intended to be amusing I think it probably covers all the bases (as the cousins would say) Many a true word spoken in jest.
It demonstrates quite nicely the point I heard Rory Bremner make in New Labour’s heyday: When political discourse becomes inherently ridiculous it puts comedic parodists and satirists out of business. There is no longer space for them.
pretty hypocritical of you to lecture others on climate change but then fly everywhere including to edinburgh which is easily done on the train. No doubt your advice to the americans is more tax – to a man equipped with a hammer every problem is a nail. Perhaps you ought to consider second order effects – re your absurd entry about homes as tax havens – http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/article.cfm?id=116688&headline=Holiday%20home%20owners%27%20tax%20switch%20hits%20council%20coffers§ionIs=news&searchyear=2017
– i can lead a fool to water but i can’t make you drink
I went to Edinburgh by train
Like everything else you say, that insult is based on a false assumption
Part of the struggle for a just global taxation can only be won by first getting politicians and voters to understand the flow and ebb nature of money. Stephanie Kelton makes this essential point in a recent opinion piece she wrote for the New York Times in which she writes:-
“The problem is that policy makers are looking at this picture with one eye shut. They see the budget deficit, but they’re missing the matching surplus on the other side.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/opinion/deficit-tax-cuts-trump.html
Note at the end of the article Stephanie Kelton informs us she is now a Professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island not too far from New York City.
Thanks for this appreciated
Schofield,
from the linked article by Stephanie Kelton I particularly liked
“The very words ‘debt’ and ‘deficit’ have been weaponized (sic) for political ends.”
I wish I’d written that. But I guess I will (Oscar, I will.)
I liked that too