Category Archives: Private Property

Google Goes Galt

Britain, Business, Economy, libertarianism, Natural Law, Private Property, Taxation

Hurray. Google Goes Galt, as a sickly Starbucks (what do you expect from people who burn their coffee beans) prepares to “‘voluntarily’ hand more money over to the UK Government.”

With their unbounded enthusiasm for state power, British protesters prefer that their omnivorous state own what belongs to Amazon, Starbucks and Google. But Google Big Guy has other ideas. Libertarian ones.

“Google boss: ‘I’m very proud of our tax avoidance scheme'”:

The head of the internet giant Google has defiantly defended his company’s tax avoidance strategy claiming he was “proud” of the steps it had taken to cut its tax bill which were just “capitalism”.
In an interview in New York Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chairman, confirmed the company had no intention of paying more to the UK exchequer. … “It’s called capitalism. We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this.”
He also ruled out following Starbucks in voluntarily handing more money over to the UK Government.
“There are lots of benefits to [being in Britain],” he said.
“It’s very good for us, but to go back to shareholders and say, ‘We looked at 200 countries but felt sorry for those British people so we want to [pay them more]’, there is probably some law against doing that.”

For a background on the British assault on tax havens, please read “Could Her Subjects Be Making Kate Middleton Sick?”

A Free Lunch, Or The Last Supper?

Business, Europe, Labor, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Private Property, Regulation, Welfare

Permanently tethered to the welfare state, Europeans are unwilling to make the connections between the regulatory state and steep prices, high unemployment, and a declining standard of living. It would seem obvious that the greater the cost of doing business, the less business will be done. But not to the individual who is motivated to keep the gravy train chugging along.

He wants to get that free lunch, even if it is his Last Supper.

Via John Stossel:

In Europe …workers … get “vacation do-overs”- if they are sick on vacation, they get additional paid time off to make up for it. In Spain, employers must give 24 months of severance pay after they fire someone. No wonder companies don’t hire. [Unemployment among youth there is 50 percent.]
America doesn’t have mandatory vacation time, but we still have 170,000 pages of rules.

Want to expand your business? The costs to a proprietor of adding new workers will be prohibitive, often in excess of the workers’ productivity.

In Italy, it is near impossible to fire an employee once he has been hired. If he steals and worse; the onus is on the business owner to prove his case before he can fire the offender. Bad work habits and low productivity don’t constitute cause for dismissal.

In all, a European business is better off staying small. Don’t reach for the sky. Limp along below the regulator’s radar.


MORE.

Could Her Subjects Be Making Kate Middleton Sick?

Britain, Business, Natural Law, Private Property, Taxation

Great American enterprises like Amazon, Starbucks and Google have braved Britain’s (UK, England, whatever is the politically correct term for that nation of shopkeepers) punitive labor laws and onerous regulations; invested capital in that place—only to have British ingrates complain bitterly.

What is the “tax shaming” public protesting, NOW?

These businesses have found creative ways of keeping more of what is rightfully theirs: their private property, their profits. It is just and good that property remain privately owned. Efficiency is secondary to the issue of natural justice. Still, more private property in the hands of its owners means greater prosperity for all.

When Brit Mike Buckhurst wails that he feels “very passionate about this because at one point in my life I was a top rate tax payer and I paid my tax in full,” he is expressing envy, nothing else—envy that The Other Guy is keeping more of what belongs to him, when he is not.

A good person would be glad about any private property that remains with those who rightfully own it.

(Btw, in loserville—where the US is headed—you are in the “higher” tax bracket when you earn £34,371!)

Yes, British protesters, with their unbounded enthusiasm for state power, prefer that their omnivorous state own what belongs to Amazon, Starbucks and Google.

Tax havens are just that: havens. Laws regulating how people use their rightful capital are unjust laws. The official line always omits, moreover, that wealth in the hands of its rightful owners enriches all sectors of the population more than funds in the sticky paws of officials. Keeping more of one’s income is not “harmful” to the rightful owners of capital, or to the beneficiaries of its investment, which include any and all bar the taxman.

The junta of high-tax governments is always leaning on jurisdictions like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the Isle of Man. If the junta has its way, not only will there be no place left to run to, but by eliminating what tax havens offer, these governments will have eliminated tax competition, and with it the imperative to downsize their fiefdoms.

MORE @ “The War on Tax Havens.”

Could her British subjects be making the Duchess of Cambridge (Kate Middleton) sick? They sure make me sick.

UPDATED: Fix The Shoreline, Roll Back the Sea, Uncle Sam (Cap-In-Hand Chris Christie Agrees)

Government, Political Economy, Private Property, The State, Welfare

A Staten Island resident who lost it all in Hurricane Sandy could be heard demanding, on Huckabee’s Fox News show, that the government fix the shoreline. If it does that small thing, she and her plucky neighbors would gladly rebuild.

Yes, Uncle Sam, roll back the sea for the good lady, will you?

Another Huckbee guest complained that FEMA aid and private home insurance did not cover the cost of a new home. Kick in the difference, will you, Unckie Sam?

“Where I am going to spend Christmas?! Where do I put decorations up? Where do I put a Christmas tree up?”, demanded a gentleman who attended a FEMA town-hall meeting in New York, earlier this week. A neighbors chimed in, complaining that the lion’s share of the help she has received—and the only assistance matching her needs—came from her neighbors.

This you bemoan? Is it not a lesson for you?

Pundits soon turned to the question of suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And most agreed about the “wisdom” of “governmental immunity,” intended to “stop people from suing the government and government employees and officials in many cases.“

Indeed, legislators have used their position to pass laws exempting themselves and many others from liability. (In the event that you sue the state, guess who pays? We The People.) And the people want more of this corruption? (They will soon get doctors who can’t be sued.)

Let’s see: The victims described are surprised to have received close to no assistance from an entity whose employees are impervious to litigation, and immune from public shaming or loss of employment.

FEMA “victims” are surprised to have received the finger from an entity which is fortified by failure. The more a government agency fails, the more likely it is to receive more taxpayer funds.

In the bureaucracy, incentives are always inverted. Failure results in success: in more funds, more training, more time off. Failure will never see the closing of a government agency, or the firing of nasty, inefficient, over-paid, affirmatively appointed official.

These victims (and all those who demand from government what it cannot and will never give) refuse to comprehend that because of its very nature—a system without the imperatives of private property—government will never allocate or conserve resources efficiently.

Why on earth would anyone seek to interact with such an entity? (I have a good ideas why.)

UPDATE (Dec. 5): Predictably, Gov. cozy-up to Obama, cap-in-hand Chris Christie is on board with the mindset described. Two days ago he “announced that he has formally requested federal approval of 100% reimbursement for state and local government costs associated with debris removal and emergency protective measures that continue in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.”

Who said local was best? Not this big, fat ponce, to whom re-election is everything.