Friday, September 07, 2007

I’m Pessimistic – Not!

Sure…I know the Cuban government is in the middle of its latest attempt to manipulate world perception. However this time they will fail miserably in their objective. The actual fact is, despite some understandable pessimism from many exiles who say “here we go again,” the entire governing apparatus is coming unraveled. Public transportation has ceased to function. The little bit of food available is rotten and expensive. Tonight will be yet another set back for Raul and his gang when several million Americans get a good look on 20/20 of the real Cuban health care reserved for the vast majority of regular Cubans. These American witnesses to the disgusting Cuban excuse for health care will be forever scarred by what they see. They will never again think favorably of Raul’s pseudo government. The rose will be off the bloom.

The people of Cuba, the majority of people, each day openly discuss the future of Cuba. They want democracy. They want a decent living standard. They want to be able to speak their minds especially about bad government. They do this each day rather than work to produce more for Raul. They do this right in front of Raul’s police who dutifully report back to their boss. So what? Raul can’t do a thing about this wave of discussion about his misgovernment because it is virtually everybody doing the complaining now. He can’t jail and torture his way out of this one, guys and dolls! So he continues with his lame attempt to Fidel ghost write himself out of trouble even appearing to contradict his own brother about economic policy. But he’s just buying time and whistling Dixie. The reason it won’t work is at the end of the day the Cuban people will still be saying, “Where’s the beef?” And at the other end of the spectrum they’ll be asking, “Where’s the toilet paper?”

I can assure you all this much amigos. Raul’s government is only one more catastrophe away from certain death. And the top ten possibilities are:

1. Hurricane
2. Mass Cuban exodus towards Florida followed by U.S. intervention
3. Mass Cuban exodus towards Guantañamo followed by U.S. intervention
4. Plague from accidentally released germ from Cuban germ warfare lab
5. Raul’s untimely death leaving a power vacuum
6. Food riots that spin out of control
7. Loss of free Venezuelan oil
8. Sabotage of key infrastructure
9. Drought
10. All of the above

Clearly, this government has held nothing in reserve for a rainy day and is even bragging recently about how many great new armaments they have been manufacturing. Let Cubans try to eat them to fill their stomachs. No…the only thing Raul’s government still has plenty of is lies and useless rhetoric. It is still less filling with no taste. So cheer up Cubanos! The end of our nightmare is near.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

The Constructive Tax

The Constructive Tax

Usually when you think of taxing you think of some level of destructive interference of the normal course of economic activity. So when you hear that there is a constructive tax it sounds like the mother of all oxymorons. However there is such a concept. The Land Location Value Tax is just such a tax. Here is how it works. Currently you can save a bundle of money letting your property become run down or even boarded up altogether. In the city you can bulldoze your building, rent parking space to a few cars to pay your tax and laugh at the huge tax the office building owner right next door is paying for the same size land footprint in the city. That is because the vast majority of Real Estate property tax is on the building and other improvements and not on the land itself. You hold that land as the prices escalate drastically due to this land hoarding scheme then sell at the peak of the market cycle. Once the Real Estate cycle (commonly referred to as the “business cycle”) goes bust the speculator takes his cash and scarf’s up the cheap foreclosed properties to begin the cycle again. But the speculator creates no actual wealth but rather shifts wealth around generally from the pockets of the poorest tenants and blue collar working class into the speculator’s pocket.

But just a simple shift of the tax burden radically alters the motivations and needs of the land owner, especially city owners of valuable urban land. With the tax removed from the buildings and other improvements then placed of the value of the land size and location the average Real Estate owners would notice very little change. However, the land hoarding parking lot owners and slum lords would see a steep increase in their tax bill as now they would be paying for the same urban footprint as their neighbors who put their land to productive use.

What this means is these hoarders would bring their under used urban land into more productive use earning wealth to pay for their Land Location Value Tax. To make their urban land more productive to create the wealth necessary to pay the tax would mean construction of some form of building to generate wealth as a business, factory, rental, etc. Since there would be no tax on buildings the decision to build to create more wealth would be a no brainer. Plus other building owners would no longer be punished with higher taxes for improving and renovation of their dwellings so they would have every incentive to hire carpenters, plumbers, roofers, etc. to make their buildings nicer and more useful to filling their needs. Therefore, enormous levels of construction would be occurring in the urban areas and hence the concept of a Constructive Tax is understood. Taxes on income are destructive in that they reduce the incentive to work and require large paperwork overhead costs. Tax on sales of goods and services reduce the market share by the amount of the tax plus the paperwork cost of collecting the tax. Corporate taxes are paid by the customers of the corporations and not the corporation themselves. All tax except the Land Location Value Tax are destructive to the social fabric in an insidiously unseen fashion by the average man in the street. The wealthy have always calculated legal ways around these taxes. Using the Land Location Value Tax to fund our genuinely public needs would remove the one flaw in our capitalist economic system.

But the land baron class of speculators here in the U.S. would never hear of such sensible economic reform. And they have plenty of our cash from the fruits of our labor and not theirs to buy all the influence on Capital Hill to assure that things remain here as they have always been. But Cuba is soon to be a clean slate. What if we opened Cuba to private ventures and relegalized ownership of one’s own labor but implemented this just mentioned constructive form of taxation? I'm betting that if this was to occur combined with the ingenuity and drive of the Cuban people that the island would be flush with widely distributed wealthy people in no time. Then the time of the Cuban people would go from worthless to priceless.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Ignorance

Ignorance

Most people are decent human beings. They go to work each day to earn enough to provide for their family. But living in the 21st Century can be very complex. There are individuals with competing interests who depend on the ignorance of the majority. There I go insulting everybody by calling them ignorant – but please do not take offense. I myself in the past have been ignorant about many things and this losing streak remains intact and unbroken by me even up until this very day. Any man who does not admit he is ignorant about something will one day discover the hard way that he has also been a fool.

If we examine the root of the word ignorance we see the word “ignore.” So if you are ignorant it is because up till now you have “ignored” the facts concerning any number of things. That means there is always hope of rectifying ignorance if you just pay attention.

For example take Cuba. In Cuba they have free health care right? Before answering let’s examine the facts. When you think about regular health care you conjure up memories going back to your childhood of visiting antiseptic clean white walled rooms with a gaggle of nurses and doctors running around attending to their patients. It’s your turn and you go back to a numbered room, strip down a bit and after a while YOUR doctor enters. The doctor begins to work you over poking and prodding using the most up-to-date devices to assess your general health. Sooner or later whether you’re sick or to prevent illness you are getting injections and maybe a prescription for medication. You are on your way to fill that prescription with perhaps a date for a follow up visit to monitor your condition should the situation warrant it. But in Cuba they have a single provider system – the Cuban government. If you are not a gullible tourist with cash or upper echelon party official, meaning the vast majority of Cubans, you go to your local clinic. These are filthy, blood and body fluid splattered, vermin invested rooms where you will find a lack of staff. The doctors and nurses of Cuba have been sent to other countries like Venezuela and Bolivia so the Castro boys can use them to convince those people what a swell deal communism is. So you wait a long while to be diagnosed by staff that does not have the modern tools of the medical trade. The final fact of this “health care service” is there is no medicine available – unless you have cash. So you tell me. Does Cuba have free health care?

But that’s because of the embargo right? Hold on don’t say a bloody word there before you have reasoned out the facts. The fact is the U.S. IS the biggest supplier of food and medicine to Cuba and its sixth largest trader outright. The Castro boys’ Cuban government stole millions of dollars of American property when they seized power in 1959 which even today is still the largest uncompensated theft of U.S. private assets. So naturally with this criminal record we make them pay cash now for everything. Wouldn’t you for goodness’ sake? But they can buy as much food and medicine as they like for cash. So do these altruistic enlightened leaders of Cuba buy penicillin and insulin and adequate food supplies for the people they shepherd? Hell no! They buy ketchup, mustard and salad dressing for their cash paying tourists. Then with the tourists’ money they buy villas in numerous other countries worth millions where they can stash the cash and send their families to live away from the realities of the “revolution.” Anyways that’s the case with Fidel’s and Raul’s kids. So now I again ask you. Are Cubans poor and doing without because of the embargo?

Well at least they always have that free education system to fall back on right? Wait a second there fellow before even uttering a word. If all you mean is the schooling there cost you no money then you’d be correct in that flat earth education world. But as we know time is money. In Cuba the government owns your time. They alone hold the power to tell you when and where you should be at all times. Could be Fidel’s birthday and you have a cold. Too bad comrade…you’re waving a little Cuban flag for Fidel today like it or not. Your time is not all the Cuban government owns. They own your body as well. Dr. Molina’s well documented case is absolute proof. The government refuses to allow her to travel outside of Cuba to meet her grandson for the first time for fear of losing their “investment” in educating her brain to become a Cuban doctor. Finally, the Castro government wrote into Cuban law that all Cuban children are the property of the state. So I ask you one that last question once again. Is Cuba’s education system free? Oh by the way they tell you what you can and can’t read, hear or see as well. And you can’t have the Internet either.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Bemba News

Bemba News

The Cuban government is in disarray. Top regime members are now only concerned with making provisions for a final exit leaving regular Cubans in the dark. Therefore in neighborhoods across Cuba citizens are conducting open discussions about what to do next and the possibilities achievable with the blessings of liberty. The police are allowing this to occur meaning they are tired of it all as well. There is word that the public transportation system has ceased to function which gives Cubans a built-in excuse as to why they are not at work. Graffiti demanding change is springing up everywhere. To sum everything up – the old government has lost all credibility. The people no longer fear or believe Raul or any of his top people.

So things being as they are you all should continue to do just what you are doing and you could be on your way to a new life within a matter of weeks. Continue to do nothing to help the regime earn money. Take whatever you need from them for you, your family and your neighbors. Continue to hold neighborhood discussions which you should let flow naturally into electing new leadership. These new leaders are very important representatives for your interests so choose them wisely. Pick honest unselfish individuals who will put your interests before their own. Their job will be first and foremost to be your contacts with the outside world to bring relief to your needs. Next these leaders will make sure that your neighborhoods develop with the influx of money and raw materials in a manner that you are most comfortable. Once your neighborhood representatives have given us the all-clear sign we will bring aid by the boatload. There will begin a flotilla of exiles and others who love Cuba bringing the things that you so desperately need. This includes medicines like insulin and penicillin. The first shipments will have massive quantities of food as well. We will bring the devices that you will need to organize yourselves better like cell phones and computers. Once we are on the ground bringing these initial supplies we will have a better idea of your building needs. Hopefully all neighborhoods in Cuba will be adopted by their own exile or other benefactor who will raise funds and arrange the purchase and shipment of the plywood, nails, bricks, etc. to begin the rebuilding/refurbishing of Cuba.

As for national elections, they will come in due time. You will need the basic upgrades in your infrastructure first. Road are going to have to be rebuilt in your neighborhoods along with water and sewer pipes. At the same time the fiber optic phone/video/internet cable should be laid and gas and electric lines as well. This can be done by forming citizen cooperatives in conjunction with private investors. Essentially, Cubans provide the labor to build this new infrastructure using private investor money then charge a fee for services like here in the US. And like coops here the Cubans would be stock owners receiving dividends along with the initial investors. These contracts are going to be negotiated by your neighborhood representatives. How the work is done and other logistics as you can imagine will be very important for your futures. Again, choose these leaders wisely. If you follow this path you will end up with something very similar to the Swiss canton system where each little village in self governing and whose people live in a manner of their liking. That can be quite different depending on if it is in the middle of Havana or out in the countryside. But that will be up to you.