Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.96.981205091121.9680A-100000@ux1.cyberenet.net> Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 09:49:44 -0500 From: mailto:tuandbob@cyberenet.net Subject: Re: DEVEL-L Digest - 3 Dec 1998 to 4 Dec 1998 To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
On Sat, 5 Dec 1998, Automatic digest processor wrote:> For years now, people have been advising an international tax on "hot
> money" transactions, with the proceeds going to economic development
> and environmental protection in LDCs -- since most assuredly those
> transactions are communicated electronically, why not mobilize the
> entire wired world for a flat tax on e- mail?
> a) all overhead costs of collection and distribution -- the real
> Tobin tax -- to be borne by the financial industry;
By the time it gets passed through, your checking and savings account charges would double or tripple. Do you really believe the tax will be paid out of the financial industries bottom line?
> b) $.01 per Kbyte on an interim basis could provide a baseline
> figure for not only total revenue flow, but also the social impact:
> who's going to whinge the most? (To whom?)
If the sender had to pay the tax, it might cut down on some of the self aggrandisement posting... If sender and receiver had to pay you wouldn't be able to give internet accounts away. That's why there are laws against junk voice mail calls to cellular phones, because the receiver has to pay for something they didn't solicit. Wonder how quickly anti spam laws would pass if the recipient had to pay for each message. "Yeah, let's put Filthy McNasty Polluting Politically Unpopular Company out of business! Just have everyone send them email, they'll go broke from the tax."
> c) this could progress to one dollar for commerce-to-commerce, 10
> cents for NGO-to-NGO, with logrithmic subdivision for com-to-org,
> org-to-individual, etc.
You think prices are high now?
Signs of the Times:
Monthly Bake Sale and Car Wash sponsored by Mrs. Jones 5th Grade Class to pay Internet tax bill.
Daily Blat headline: Parents of School Class Found Responsible for Students One Gazillion Dollar Internet Tax Bill From Class Project.
Or, how about "House for Sale, T1 line to house, 100 kb/sec lan in all rooms, Internet Tax Forfeiture Sale.
Yeah! Right!
Would blather like that, or this reply, be distributed if the sender had to pay for each address? Hmmm, let me think about this again... To blazes with the 1st Amendment, it's only in the USA anyway. The rest of the world doesn't have a right to say what it thinks.
Oh dear, I've become what I detest, long winded, rambling, and pompous! Come on Y2K!