Media ... Bloomberg News
TPB Letter to the Editor ... July 23, 2012

Romney Outsmarts Obama in Fight Over Multinational Taxes

COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Peter Burgess
Romney Outsmarts Obama in Fight Over Multinational Taxes
To: view@bloomberg.net

Dear Editors

I am a little surprised at your piece under the title 'Romney Outsmarts Obama in Fight Over Multinational Taxes' (URL ... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-22/romney-outsmarts-obama-in-fight-over-multinational-taxes.html)

I was put off by the headline ... but then you are a media company and I should expect that a headline may not reflect what is actually in the body of the article.

There are bits of the article that are absolutely right ... the global tax system is in a terrible mess.

However the system that exists at the present time which has resulted in a social and economic deterioration of the United States will not be fixed by reform of the tax system without also reform of the broader social and economic system.

Adam Smith wrote a very long time ago when shortage was the dominant characteristic of the economy of the day. Modern productivity means that we can use available resources to produce a surplus of most everything. However there is a dysfunctional system for allocating resources to what is most needed ... the money profit capitalist market system only allocates resources to what makes money profit ignoring as much as 50% of the needs of the world's people This is immoral and insane. We can do better.

As far as I can see few,, if any, of the well known figures in politics, finance or economics are addressing this matter. From my perspective it is clear that there is huge waste when 50% of educated youth cannot find work ... a problem in many countries and essentially ignored by the financial and political elite, not to mention the educational community. I argue for a value oriented capital market where money profit is complemented by a true value metric so that capital can be allocated not only to economic activity that makes profit but also economic activity that creates value for society.

The mathematics of a modern derivative are complex ... the maths of true value would be very much simpler and easy to understand.

A value driven market might end up giving society a 'race to the top' rather than what we have at the moment which is a 'race to the bottom'.

Peter Burgess
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Peter Burgess
Meaningful Metrics for a Smart Society
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