How much longer can Industry survive in its present form?

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » 27 Dec 2005, 15:36

Jev and Isenhand,

Just out of curiosity what sort of things do you thing the British Government/Bank of England might get up to? Do you see these moves as part of a European change or in Isolation to Europe?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 28 Dec 2005, 11:20

isenhand wrote: If you have no income then you pay no income tax and, as the tax office is just a bureaucracy, it is of no interest to them if you barter or not unless it comes under some tax of gifs etc..

You'd still have to pay council tax. However, if you were unemployed you'd be eligible for council tax benefit (and housing benefit if you were still paying rent/mortgage). Unfortunately I don't think council tax benefit would cover 100% of your bill (but could be wrong here). As long as central government revenues are sufficient to keep your dole coming you could use it to cover the difference between your council tax bill and benefit. So, you could conceivably survive by doing your own thing while keeping the local council happy by filling in lots of forms at the local DSS.

Oh, and you'd probably have to attend 6 monthly "re-start" meetings where you'd have to pretend that you actually want a job etc - you may even get sent for the occasional interview where you'd have to do a "Spud" (seen Trainspotting?). However, over time you'd probably come under decreasing pressure to find work as the DSS's expectations of finding work for people shifted in line with the declining economy.

isenhand · Post by **isenhand** » 28 Dec 2005, 13:50

Joe wrote:
isenhand wrote: If you have no income then you pay no income tax and, as the tax office is just a bureaucracy, it is of no interest to them if you barter or not unless it comes under some tax of gifs etc..
You'd still have to pay council tax.

Good point but where there are rules and regulations there are ways around them.

DamianB · Post by **DamianB** » 28 Dec 2005, 19:43

isenhand wrote:
Magnus wrote: Just out of curiosity does anyone know how the Inland Revenue and government would react to an individual who dropped out of the system by working a bit of land they owned and bartering the produce they grew for all their basic needs(food clothing & shelter etc)? It is of course a purely hypothetical question. Their official status would be ?unemployed? I guess.
If you have no income then you pay no income tax and, as the tax office is just a bureaucracy, it is of no interest to them if you barter or not unless it comes under some tax of gifs etc..

Unfortunately, if barter becomes prevalent, the IR will tax you on the notional value of your trades. I'm pretty sure that LETS systems have to register with the IR and assign a sterling value to the unit of exchange. In the UK we also have a headcount/property tax which takes no direct account of income.

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » 30 Dec 2005, 13:57

Hi DamianB

It would seem you can?t honestly drop out of the political and economic system. The laws of the land sure make it hard to prepare for a post peak world. John Seymour in his last book Retrieved From The Future suggest that when the supply of oil becomes tight in the UK there will inevitably be another Civil War in England. He see's a popular revolt by citizens demanding the right to land and to grow their own food against a government/army/large scale agri-business struggling to maintain power but with no practical vision for the future.

isenhand · Post by **isenhand** » 30 Dec 2005, 16:09

Property ownership is something I have been thinking about today. It could be a problem if things were to go really bad. It also makes it difficult for individuals to start building for the future. Compounded with the problem that our present institutions are not capable of handling nay crises if one was to develop.

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 30 Dec 2005, 17:04

DamianB wrote:Unfortunately, if barter becomes prevalent, the IR will tax you on the notional value of your trades. I'm pretty sure that LETS systems have to register with the IR and assign a sterling value to the unit of exchange. In the UK we also have a headcount/property tax which takes no direct account of income.

There is quite a bunch of "if's" in the following, but nevertheless: If a mutual credit system really "takes off" it will be impossible to tax as long as there is an Internet around. A true and robust monetary system is only a matter of keeping and moving information, and there will always be ways to do that. Just look how successful the copyright industry has been in quenching file sharing. Not!