I was just pondering this same idea the other day, and had come to a similar conclusion. It seems that a tariff is essentially a consumption tax that is collected early in the process, then paid by consumers, without any violation of privacy, when they make a purchase of the finished goods.
Well said, but the biggest benefit is that all taxes punish behavior, and punishing being economically dependent on foreign trade is much better than punishing income or domestic sales. Because foreign governments can embargo you as leverage over your sovereignty.
One concern is that it can be difficult to get federal government spending low enough to fit within a tariff budget (like the US before 1913). Wait, I guess that's another benefit.
But really state and local gov are still going to rely on sales tax or something much worse like property, income, inheritance...
Land Value Taxes are not a panacea, but the criticism here is a strawman argument. The Dutch property taxes were not a land value tax - they were a tax on property frontage. This is why the houses all started to be built narrow, tall, and deep.
Land value taxes are assessed on the site value of the raw land, not on the improvements on the property. A skyscraper in Manhattan will pay exactly the same land value tax as the same sized parking lot next door. Which is why the parking lot owners can't just sit on the land indefinitely waiting for some juicy property deal to come along - they have to put the land to a more appropriate use for the location.
The incentive is for dense areas to have denser development, because you can spread the costs of the land tax out over more residents. Again, property improvements aren't taxed, so there is no economic incentive not to develop(zoning is a separate issue). Yeah, you might get a ton of crappy tenement housing, but a high supply of mediocre housing does lower the price of renting.
There would certainly be more lots and properties that are abandoned, but this also would increase the supply of land available for potential development. Arguably this could make homesteading great again, and not just in deep rural areas.
I do agree that not being able to own something "free and clear" does not sit right. But the fact of the matter is under any system of property taxation your have to pay your annual tithe to the local government. The downsides may be worth the potential upside.
You don’t have to embrace full Georgism to appreciate the benefits of a land-value tax over that of our present property taxes. It would incentivize housing construction by punishing people just sitting on empty lots indefinitely.
Holding revenue equal, tariffs would have to be very high to compete with a general consumption tax. High tariffs would greatly disrupt gains from trade and presumably lead to in-kind responses from other countries, such that economic isolation increases, making us all poorer as a society.
It’s not workable at scale to significantly tax imports.
Land value taxes erode hereditary ownership. They turn citizens from stakeholders in the nation's future into merchant-minded money-firsters, trying to make a buck out of their children's birthright. Whether other people preserve their land for the future is none of anyone's business.
One major criticism of income taxes is that it disincentivizes working hard.
Property taxes that punish the increased value of making improvements to land do the same.
“Preserving land for the future” ok buddy I’m talking about a parking lot in an urban core.
You can wax poetic about birthright all you want but most young people would prefer cheaper housing incentivized by efficient land use policy.
If you want to criticize all property taxes then fine. If you want to try criticizing an LVT over the system most places have now you’re going to have a bad time. I suppose a flat tax is at least a compromise on punishing value creation, though it doesn’t incentivize creating value either.
Taxing a landholders' asset value is like taxing a saver's bank balance. The intent is the same: how dare you selfishly hold on to what ought to be put to use in the economy to make other people's lives better.
It's far better to tax capital gains on land sales—heavily if necessary.
"First come first serve" is what being a country is all about. There is no need to give an artificial advantage to rootless cosmopolitan migrants by disincentivizing the native inhabitants' ownership of their own land.
Migration frequently happens within a country too.
So unless your country has no increase in population, you're gonna have some structural issues there. (And if your country doesn't have an increase in population, you're probably having a different set of structural issues.)
In my country, large property developers own mega plantations. They usually use the plantations as collaterals to obtain bridging loans for their real estate development projects. Most of the plantations are poorly maintained and don't really make money. Recently, one of them got busted for inflating its valuation fraudulently. Hundreds of acres of supposedly productive farmlands turn out to be unusable swamplands. I don't even wanna describe the hanky-panky of its entire operations. What really irks me the most though is they inflated the property prices to the point if only half of the properties are sold, they've already paid off the bridging loan plus interests (which is ~8% p.a, similar to credit card), while the unsold units are rented out cost-free which is then used as collaterals for the next phase of development. Hence the reason why prices haven't gone down yet despite increasing amount of unsold units every year. This has been ongoing for decades to the point where farmers are being outbidded for the dwindling farmlands and putting everyone's food security at risk!
Such is the existential danger posed by land monopolists... The commies in China are very aware of this danger since China had been through this hell of famines, rebellions and warlords infighting back in the 1800s resulting in the deaths of hundreds of millions throughout that century.
This is why in China only the State own the lands (excluding residential properties) which it leases only to those who have feasible plans on what to do on them. The lease is automatically revoked if nothing is done after 7 years...
Fun fact: Since lands can no longer be collaterals to obtain financing, the banking industry in China has radically transformed itself and operates very differently than the rest of the world. It's kinda similar to how Nazi Germany transformed its banking industry which ended its economic depression and ultimately culminated into WW2... Yes, millions died because Hitler successfully transformed the banking industry. And yes, it's the same reason why we'll have WW3 very soon...
So my take would be, and I might be wrong, the way to go is no taxes on land. Not sure about insurance, you might always need that, but no tax on land would ensure ownership. In Saskatchewan, Pierre Trudeau paved the way for mega corporations by placing a high tax on previously cheap hauling of grain by train. After that, land tax also went up and killed family businesses.
The statement that high tariffs would make a society poorer is observably false. Both England and the United States built their trade empires on internal tariffs while telling every other country that free trade is king.
Tariffs need to be wielded as bargaining chips in trade negotiations. E.g: Exorbitant tariff rate on CBU vehicles but lower rate for CKD vehicles assembled locally. Zero-rated VAT for vehicles that use locally manufactured parts. The latter will be very beneficial for the foreign brands and the local OEM manufacturers
If land-value tax is applied ONLY on vacant land (zero production, zero job creation), then it's fair enough. We try to avoid creating land monopolists who benefits from rentier economy
Excellent. My thinking had been much in favour of tax on consumption (sales tax). At least a whole lot less absurdly complex than current situation, which absorbs incalculable hours of ordinary citizens, accountants, tax lawyers, tax inspectors etc time. i still wonder if there might not be some less burdensome way to admininister a tax on consumption. (Collect it at the point of manufacture maybe). But I will have to consider more this third option. I agree that the current situation is a form of totalitarianism - as well as absurdly complex and and a colossal drain on human energy.
If you haven't yet read it, read The National System of Political Economy. It contains a refutation to free trade on top of advocating for List's system.
Undeveloped lands must be taxed in order to encourage maximum land usage for economic/social benefits and prevent the emergence of land monopolists, and especially, property flippers. We don't want a rentier economy where the wealthy lives off the zero-added value rents they unilaterally imposed on everyone else, be it in the form of physical real estates nor digital e-commerce platforms. When you understand how fiat money originates from debt issuance, you'll understand why it's the root cause of price inflation of everything. Right now, there's too much fiat money getting stuck in 30-40 years mortgages that are used by property flippers to finance the acquisition of a bunch of assembled bricks-and-mortars that doesn't continuously produce anything of value (except rent collections) nor create any jobs for the masses
What I meant by undeveloped lands is vacant lands, abandoned properties, and such. The tax rate starts high but proof of economic activities, such as bank statements, receipts and/or financial reports, is eligible for 80% deduction (for example). Genuine operators won't have any problem to provide these regular paperwork since they're already dealing with it. Land monopolists will have piles of added paperwork to create out of thin air. So, they've 2 choices: Develop the land either to attract economic activities or people to live in or sell it to someone else who's more productive. Leasing to others is also eligible for deduction, but not the max rate available only to productive owners. Capitals invested for any upgrades to improve the land (soil rehabilitation, land reclamation, cut-and-fill, drainage, irrigation, etc) can be reimbursed via cashback spread over several years. The point is: Don't sit on your ass doing nothing hoping to cash out on capital appreciation alone! Be creative and do something with it!
My country already has capital gains tax on properties. It ends up with higher subsale property prices. Many pointed to property sales statistics claiming the margins that's being taxed on remain the same as before. What they never mention is the "high price they bought from the developers include the cashback which always goes into their pockets. E.g: A bought a property worth $100k from the developers which also offers $5k cashback upon confirmed purchasing (either cash transferred or bank approval for mortgage) for that property. However, the valuation only takes into account the sales transaction amount which is $100k when the actual sales price is $95k since the developer pays $5k to the buyer.
What's worse, local governments use that distorted inflated data to justify increasing the land tax on ALL properties, not only to those built after capital gains tax was introduced!! Such is the unintended consequences...
You hurt some feelings but I’m gonna say that you’re right about libertarians. Tariffs used to fund the federal government and had the secondary socially beneficial effect of promoting domestic production.
The secondary effect may take awhile to take hold. China took ~30 years to build its entire supply chain domestically (or at least, regionally within the range of 1-week shipping and customs clearance). But... It's better late than never. The West have to be very quick though. China has just decided to vertically integrate the remaining 2 ends of value chain, i.e retail point-of-sales as well as product R&D, along with the last remaining support service, i.e banking and insurance, held by the West... If China gets those 3 before the West can rebuild its entire industrial capacity, the West will be left in the dust of China's wake...
P/s: According to UNDP, all economic activities can be profiled into 44 general categories. China is the only country in the world that has developed the supply chain, domestically and within its regional neighbors, for all such categories. So, beware of engaging a trade war with China since it can backfire in the most unexpected ways... In poker's parlance, the West is currently holding a deadman's hand
Thanks for your reply and yes, it will take some time to turn around the massive cargo ship that is the United States economy- assuming the government has the will to do it.
This is the most forceful criticism of Georgism I have encountered, and it fits with what would surely be a sensible person’s first intuition about land-wealth taxes.
Well lets just keep taxing the crap out of everything as there is NO consideration for shrinking government spending as I am guessing is made up of about 10-15% waste, fraud and abuse. Not to mention how inflationary tariffs might become. Well geez, we get so much crap from China that isn't worth much and do you want to pay more for it?
What will happen with higher tariffs is that the US will price the consumer out of the market and put itself out of the world's economies. I don't see this being the way to go and for certain neither Kommie H nor Trump are economic geniuses. In fact, no one in the government is.
Tariffs also are the tax that least taxes the government itself. At least for the U.S., the government buys lots of domestic labor and domestically produced goods. Think roads, medical care, and military weapons. An income tax taxes all these things so the government is taxing itself.
"You can tax it at the point of sale when it's spent... this makes it harder for small players to run businesses, because of compliance costs."
The VAT system can also be packaged together with accounting and tax filing systems. Business owners can keep track of their business performance besides automate half of the tax filing paperworks. Government can keep tabs whether anyone is hoarding supplies to create artificial scarcity and early warning for supply-side disruptions (up to 6 months early). So, the VAT rate can be as low as 2% (including input VAT deduction) for server upkeep cost. With API plug-in function, other customized systems (e.g: inventory tracking) can be added later on, as per individual user requirements. Those will incur additional costs on the users, of course...
Taxation isn't only as revenue stream for government. It can also be a policy tool to encourage/discourage interests in economic activities, besides subsidies... That's what lifetime bureaucrats often overlook
For the last point, you're assuming that land will be taxed on a per acre basis. In reality, a land value tax would be on the value of land. I probably don't need to be the one to tell you that land in cities is worth much more than land out in the countryside. An LVT would indeed encourage density but it would be by penalizing inefficient land use such as parking lots in downtowns or even just land speculation.
Tariffs suck less than most forms of taxation. All the reasons you cite are correct. They also incentivize the government to do what it's actually supposed to do---maintain the borders. If you don't maintain your external borders you have to maintain a million little borders internally (like gated communities, for instance). The US is actually a nearly ideal country to practice the tariff thing, because most of what's imported isn't really an essential for middle and lower class people. It's different when your country is a heavy food importer, for instance and not a major food exporter.
Canada is going to be in a bit of a bind. Tariffs will happen. America once had no taxes and just tariffs and was wealthy as all get out. Canada will resist. Right, and our dollar, worth about two bits at best, it's going to compete against a strong very strong American dollar? Man is Tim Horton's ever going to fail. Either Horton's gets rid of the Indians and changes a lot, or it goes down along with many others.
I've said it for a few years now, yes, as a last resort, the commie tyrants, like CCP, like a few from Europe, maybe some from America like the United Empire Loyalists who first ran up to Canada after those wars, are going to try and retrench in Canada. It aint smart, it's desperate.
As a Canadian, it's going to be fun seeing all those smug "we're better than those retarded Americans eat some much needed shit.
I was just pondering this same idea the other day, and had come to a similar conclusion. It seems that a tariff is essentially a consumption tax that is collected early in the process, then paid by consumers, without any violation of privacy, when they make a purchase of the finished goods.
Well said, but the biggest benefit is that all taxes punish behavior, and punishing being economically dependent on foreign trade is much better than punishing income or domestic sales. Because foreign governments can embargo you as leverage over your sovereignty.
One concern is that it can be difficult to get federal government spending low enough to fit within a tariff budget (like the US before 1913). Wait, I guess that's another benefit.
But really state and local gov are still going to rely on sales tax or something much worse like property, income, inheritance...
Land Value Taxes are not a panacea, but the criticism here is a strawman argument. The Dutch property taxes were not a land value tax - they were a tax on property frontage. This is why the houses all started to be built narrow, tall, and deep.
Land value taxes are assessed on the site value of the raw land, not on the improvements on the property. A skyscraper in Manhattan will pay exactly the same land value tax as the same sized parking lot next door. Which is why the parking lot owners can't just sit on the land indefinitely waiting for some juicy property deal to come along - they have to put the land to a more appropriate use for the location.
The incentive is for dense areas to have denser development, because you can spread the costs of the land tax out over more residents. Again, property improvements aren't taxed, so there is no economic incentive not to develop(zoning is a separate issue). Yeah, you might get a ton of crappy tenement housing, but a high supply of mediocre housing does lower the price of renting.
There would certainly be more lots and properties that are abandoned, but this also would increase the supply of land available for potential development. Arguably this could make homesteading great again, and not just in deep rural areas.
I do agree that not being able to own something "free and clear" does not sit right. But the fact of the matter is under any system of property taxation your have to pay your annual tithe to the local government. The downsides may be worth the potential upside.
You don’t have to embrace full Georgism to appreciate the benefits of a land-value tax over that of our present property taxes. It would incentivize housing construction by punishing people just sitting on empty lots indefinitely.
Holding revenue equal, tariffs would have to be very high to compete with a general consumption tax. High tariffs would greatly disrupt gains from trade and presumably lead to in-kind responses from other countries, such that economic isolation increases, making us all poorer as a society.
It’s not workable at scale to significantly tax imports.
Land value taxes erode hereditary ownership. They turn citizens from stakeholders in the nation's future into merchant-minded money-firsters, trying to make a buck out of their children's birthright. Whether other people preserve their land for the future is none of anyone's business.
One major criticism of income taxes is that it disincentivizes working hard.
Property taxes that punish the increased value of making improvements to land do the same.
“Preserving land for the future” ok buddy I’m talking about a parking lot in an urban core.
You can wax poetic about birthright all you want but most young people would prefer cheaper housing incentivized by efficient land use policy.
If you want to criticize all property taxes then fine. If you want to try criticizing an LVT over the system most places have now you’re going to have a bad time. I suppose a flat tax is at least a compromise on punishing value creation, though it doesn’t incentivize creating value either.
Taxing a landholders' asset value is like taxing a saver's bank balance. The intent is the same: how dare you selfishly hold on to what ought to be put to use in the economy to make other people's lives better.
It's far better to tax capital gains on land sales—heavily if necessary.
And taxes on unearned income such as on arbitrage, capital gains on shares etc.
Well now you’re making a general criticism of all property taxes, not specifically LVT.
Savings in a bank are not rival goods of a ~finite quality that inherently advantages “first come first serve” and locks it in.
"First come first serve" is what being a country is all about. There is no need to give an artificial advantage to rootless cosmopolitan migrants by disincentivizing the native inhabitants' ownership of their own land.
Future generations are a thing my guy.
Migration frequently happens within a country too.
So unless your country has no increase in population, you're gonna have some structural issues there. (And if your country doesn't have an increase in population, you're probably having a different set of structural issues.)
In my country, large property developers own mega plantations. They usually use the plantations as collaterals to obtain bridging loans for their real estate development projects. Most of the plantations are poorly maintained and don't really make money. Recently, one of them got busted for inflating its valuation fraudulently. Hundreds of acres of supposedly productive farmlands turn out to be unusable swamplands. I don't even wanna describe the hanky-panky of its entire operations. What really irks me the most though is they inflated the property prices to the point if only half of the properties are sold, they've already paid off the bridging loan plus interests (which is ~8% p.a, similar to credit card), while the unsold units are rented out cost-free which is then used as collaterals for the next phase of development. Hence the reason why prices haven't gone down yet despite increasing amount of unsold units every year. This has been ongoing for decades to the point where farmers are being outbidded for the dwindling farmlands and putting everyone's food security at risk!
Such is the existential danger posed by land monopolists... The commies in China are very aware of this danger since China had been through this hell of famines, rebellions and warlords infighting back in the 1800s resulting in the deaths of hundreds of millions throughout that century.
This is why in China only the State own the lands (excluding residential properties) which it leases only to those who have feasible plans on what to do on them. The lease is automatically revoked if nothing is done after 7 years...
Fun fact: Since lands can no longer be collaterals to obtain financing, the banking industry in China has radically transformed itself and operates very differently than the rest of the world. It's kinda similar to how Nazi Germany transformed its banking industry which ended its economic depression and ultimately culminated into WW2... Yes, millions died because Hitler successfully transformed the banking industry. And yes, it's the same reason why we'll have WW3 very soon...
So my take would be, and I might be wrong, the way to go is no taxes on land. Not sure about insurance, you might always need that, but no tax on land would ensure ownership. In Saskatchewan, Pierre Trudeau paved the way for mega corporations by placing a high tax on previously cheap hauling of grain by train. After that, land tax also went up and killed family businesses.
The statement that high tariffs would make a society poorer is observably false. Both England and the United States built their trade empires on internal tariffs while telling every other country that free trade is king.
Tariffs need to be wielded as bargaining chips in trade negotiations. E.g: Exorbitant tariff rate on CBU vehicles but lower rate for CKD vehicles assembled locally. Zero-rated VAT for vehicles that use locally manufactured parts. The latter will be very beneficial for the foreign brands and the local OEM manufacturers
If land-value tax is applied ONLY on vacant land (zero production, zero job creation), then it's fair enough. We try to avoid creating land monopolists who benefits from rentier economy
Excellent. My thinking had been much in favour of tax on consumption (sales tax). At least a whole lot less absurdly complex than current situation, which absorbs incalculable hours of ordinary citizens, accountants, tax lawyers, tax inspectors etc time. i still wonder if there might not be some less burdensome way to admininister a tax on consumption. (Collect it at the point of manufacture maybe). But I will have to consider more this third option. I agree that the current situation is a form of totalitarianism - as well as absurdly complex and and a colossal drain on human energy.
If you haven't yet read it, read The National System of Political Economy. It contains a refutation to free trade on top of advocating for List's system.
Thanks for that - will have a look!
Only people who own no land (who ought to have no right to vote) would be in favor of a land tax. A land tax is a wealth tax—it's like taxing savings.
Undeveloped lands must be taxed in order to encourage maximum land usage for economic/social benefits and prevent the emergence of land monopolists, and especially, property flippers. We don't want a rentier economy where the wealthy lives off the zero-added value rents they unilaterally imposed on everyone else, be it in the form of physical real estates nor digital e-commerce platforms. When you understand how fiat money originates from debt issuance, you'll understand why it's the root cause of price inflation of everything. Right now, there's too much fiat money getting stuck in 30-40 years mortgages that are used by property flippers to finance the acquisition of a bunch of assembled bricks-and-mortars that doesn't continuously produce anything of value (except rent collections) nor create any jobs for the masses
When you say "undeveloped land" you mean "other people's productive farms that immigrants want to build slums on", right?
If you don't want property flippers, tax the capital gains. Punishing B for what A is doing is retarded and evil.
What I meant by undeveloped lands is vacant lands, abandoned properties, and such. The tax rate starts high but proof of economic activities, such as bank statements, receipts and/or financial reports, is eligible for 80% deduction (for example). Genuine operators won't have any problem to provide these regular paperwork since they're already dealing with it. Land monopolists will have piles of added paperwork to create out of thin air. So, they've 2 choices: Develop the land either to attract economic activities or people to live in or sell it to someone else who's more productive. Leasing to others is also eligible for deduction, but not the max rate available only to productive owners. Capitals invested for any upgrades to improve the land (soil rehabilitation, land reclamation, cut-and-fill, drainage, irrigation, etc) can be reimbursed via cashback spread over several years. The point is: Don't sit on your ass doing nothing hoping to cash out on capital appreciation alone! Be creative and do something with it!
My country already has capital gains tax on properties. It ends up with higher subsale property prices. Many pointed to property sales statistics claiming the margins that's being taxed on remain the same as before. What they never mention is the "high price they bought from the developers include the cashback which always goes into their pockets. E.g: A bought a property worth $100k from the developers which also offers $5k cashback upon confirmed purchasing (either cash transferred or bank approval for mortgage) for that property. However, the valuation only takes into account the sales transaction amount which is $100k when the actual sales price is $95k since the developer pays $5k to the buyer.
What's worse, local governments use that distorted inflated data to justify increasing the land tax on ALL properties, not only to those built after capital gains tax was introduced!! Such is the unintended consequences...
You hurt some feelings but I’m gonna say that you’re right about libertarians. Tariffs used to fund the federal government and had the secondary socially beneficial effect of promoting domestic production.
The secondary effect may take awhile to take hold. China took ~30 years to build its entire supply chain domestically (or at least, regionally within the range of 1-week shipping and customs clearance). But... It's better late than never. The West have to be very quick though. China has just decided to vertically integrate the remaining 2 ends of value chain, i.e retail point-of-sales as well as product R&D, along with the last remaining support service, i.e banking and insurance, held by the West... If China gets those 3 before the West can rebuild its entire industrial capacity, the West will be left in the dust of China's wake...
P/s: According to UNDP, all economic activities can be profiled into 44 general categories. China is the only country in the world that has developed the supply chain, domestically and within its regional neighbors, for all such categories. So, beware of engaging a trade war with China since it can backfire in the most unexpected ways... In poker's parlance, the West is currently holding a deadman's hand
Thanks for your reply and yes, it will take some time to turn around the massive cargo ship that is the United States economy- assuming the government has the will to do it.
How do you manage that with with trade between many city-tates, of which many are landlocked?
This is the most forceful criticism of Georgism I have encountered, and it fits with what would surely be a sensible person’s first intuition about land-wealth taxes.
Well lets just keep taxing the crap out of everything as there is NO consideration for shrinking government spending as I am guessing is made up of about 10-15% waste, fraud and abuse. Not to mention how inflationary tariffs might become. Well geez, we get so much crap from China that isn't worth much and do you want to pay more for it?
What will happen with higher tariffs is that the US will price the consumer out of the market and put itself out of the world's economies. I don't see this being the way to go and for certain neither Kommie H nor Trump are economic geniuses. In fact, no one in the government is.
"Lowest possible cost to the consumer Uber Alles" is a good part of what got us in our current mess.
Tariffs also are the tax that least taxes the government itself. At least for the U.S., the government buys lots of domestic labor and domestically produced goods. Think roads, medical care, and military weapons. An income tax taxes all these things so the government is taxing itself.
"You can tax it at the point of sale when it's spent... this makes it harder for small players to run businesses, because of compliance costs."
The VAT system can also be packaged together with accounting and tax filing systems. Business owners can keep track of their business performance besides automate half of the tax filing paperworks. Government can keep tabs whether anyone is hoarding supplies to create artificial scarcity and early warning for supply-side disruptions (up to 6 months early). So, the VAT rate can be as low as 2% (including input VAT deduction) for server upkeep cost. With API plug-in function, other customized systems (e.g: inventory tracking) can be added later on, as per individual user requirements. Those will incur additional costs on the users, of course...
Taxation isn't only as revenue stream for government. It can also be a policy tool to encourage/discourage interests in economic activities, besides subsidies... That's what lifetime bureaucrats often overlook
For the last point, you're assuming that land will be taxed on a per acre basis. In reality, a land value tax would be on the value of land. I probably don't need to be the one to tell you that land in cities is worth much more than land out in the countryside. An LVT would indeed encourage density but it would be by penalizing inefficient land use such as parking lots in downtowns or even just land speculation.
Tariffs suck less than most forms of taxation. All the reasons you cite are correct. They also incentivize the government to do what it's actually supposed to do---maintain the borders. If you don't maintain your external borders you have to maintain a million little borders internally (like gated communities, for instance). The US is actually a nearly ideal country to practice the tariff thing, because most of what's imported isn't really an essential for middle and lower class people. It's different when your country is a heavy food importer, for instance and not a major food exporter.
Canada is going to be in a bit of a bind. Tariffs will happen. America once had no taxes and just tariffs and was wealthy as all get out. Canada will resist. Right, and our dollar, worth about two bits at best, it's going to compete against a strong very strong American dollar? Man is Tim Horton's ever going to fail. Either Horton's gets rid of the Indians and changes a lot, or it goes down along with many others.
I've said it for a few years now, yes, as a last resort, the commie tyrants, like CCP, like a few from Europe, maybe some from America like the United Empire Loyalists who first ran up to Canada after those wars, are going to try and retrench in Canada. It aint smart, it's desperate.
As a Canadian, it's going to be fun seeing all those smug "we're better than those retarded Americans eat some much needed shit.
Curious... What's your opinion about realized capital gains tax?