Monday, 12 October 2009

"Support Vaclav Klaus" petition

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My latest blogpost: "Support Vaclav Klaus" petitionTweet this! Posted by Mark Wadsworth at 15:38

9 comments:

DBC Reed said...

It appears there may be hope in another direction:Times Online 11 October 2009 New taxes seal Green deal says the Irish coalition government has committeed itself to site value taxation.My reading of situation is that the Greens are insisting on this in return for their support of Fianna Fail.Emer O'Siochru is triumphant on Land cafe.9 The Irish had a debate between taxing capital values of houses or the land underneath If only!
According to the MW theory some disaster should now be visited on the Irish like the First World war on UK after 1909.( The roof fell in financially for GB when Snowden passed the full Land Tax Finance Bill,leading to years of emergency government!)
I amm slightly shocked tell you the truth.Can't be true. Can it?

12 October 2009 at 17:06
Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, taking a step back, we missed a right old trick there. I hoped that we'd be able to use three or four years of house price crash as free advertising as to why not taxing land values is a bad idea. But the other side have seized the initiative à la Shock Doctrine and see this as a reason to reduce property taxes even further, and even subsidise property ownership.

As to Ireland, don't forget
a) there's an election coming up soon and the current govt is none too popular;
b) the EU managed to buy a "Yes" vote (through advertising and the big ECB bail out); and
c) the ECB wants its money back, so low and stable house prices (on which the ECB loans are ultimately secured) which LVT would encourage is the last thing they want.

So the ECB/EU will just harness the Home-Owner-Ist vote and/or subsidise the current opposition to make sure that FF/The Greens are chucked out before any of this can take effect

12 October 2009 at 18:36
DBC Reed said...

Agreed The Homeownernists and the banks have got too much invested in mortgages,which keep the "hard-working families' " noses to the grindstone to let the Irish get away with this,so there's bound to be some interference in Irish politics south of the border and even north where they have their rates on the capital values of houses, which, as you know, could be converted to LVT valuations by a residual method so simple that it could be self-assessed.
You might, if things run to form, expect some major scandals before the election if not a security scare .Lets see.This could be a test of the conspiracy theory that powerful forces oppose LVT.

12 October 2009 at 19:58
Lester Taylor said...

I must admit I am unsure about this. Vaclav Klaus works for the Czech people, not the EU super state. Just as you would wish our politicians to make decisions for our benefit, Vaclav Klaus should be left to make decisions to the benefit of the Czechs.

Why do we assume that what is good for us is good for Czechoslovakia? That is their decision.

If we are now relying on him to save us all from the EU then it is game over already. Just look at the response to previous 'no' votes.

Even if the UK generation of today pulled out of the EU lock stock and barrel, there is always tomorrow's generation and the one after that.

The only thing that can now stop this hideous creation is for all of Europe to reject it as one and shut down every department and starve it of funds.

But, that would take a sort of European co-operation that the EU can only dream of.

12 October 2009 at 20:07
James Higham said...

I signed the giant postcard at the conference but I'll sign this too.

12 October 2009 at 22:08
bayard said...

I've never understood the British attitude to the EU. The choice has always been presented as "in and obeying spinelessly every daft directive that issues from Brussels, nay improving on them" or "out". How about "in and telling them to stuff anything we don't like", or have I missed a point somewhere?

12 October 2009 at 22:41
bayard said...

I've just reread my comment and realised that the last PM I can remember standing up to any other country about anything was Margaret Thatcher......

12 October 2009 at 22:46
Mark Wadsworth said...

Bayard, one of my UKIP chums was in Italy (I think it was Italy, it doesn't really matter which EU country it was), and pointed out that they weren't complying with some daft EU-rule or other. The Italians fell about laughing and asked him whether he meant "English rules".

"No", he replied "I mean EU rules. Why do call them English rules?"

"Ah," replied the Italians, "We call them that because only the English are stupid enough to comply with them".

12 October 2009 at 22:50
Dick Puddlecote said...

Heard that at the EU building in January. It's an 'in' joke amongst EU employees from other nations.

We truly are a laughing stock.

13 October 2009 at 00:33

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