Month: August 2026

Tax the Rich?

(This is just a stub post to collect multiple links.)

Tax the Rich? is the headline, but it’s the recurring issue of how nation states can remain meaningful, when individuals and commercial entities can become bigger, wealthier and more powerful than nation states, and can avoid regulation and taxation by seeking exceptions in weaker states, without strong federal / international commitment. I’m suggesting beyond a certain level of wealth the marginal tax rate should be agreed to be 100% – achieving it is a whole ‘nother set of questions – and how rich is too rich, etc. (How free-democratic nation states, and their supra-national arrangements, operate is the natural end game of Systems / Cybernetic / Governance thinking.)

Note that this has nothing to do with limiting freedoms to earn nor how much funding small or large government needs or deserves, or the general unfairness of grotesque wealth disparities between individuals (though that ought to be an issue) – just a basic pragmatic orderly society question. How can we govern ourselves if … ?

The prompt for capturing this stub today is the emerging consequence of the US (and other) national debts hitting multi-Trillion record highs, and economic commentators warning of potential disastrous consequences. The feature that many are pointing out is that gilt / government bond rates are creeping up to unprecedented levels too. A major lever of government regulation of national finances has been that government treasuries were the lender of last resort – with the steadiest / safest (lowest rate) source of investment funding. What’s changed? Some of the tech-bros can now compete for that lending business. (Check – have I got that summary the right way round? – either way the point is individual entities are becoming “bigger” than nation states in these markets that regulate interest and inflation rates especially in times of national / international financial and banking crises. “Scary” as an actual Bank of England ex-chairman said this morning, ditto Andrew Neil watching the gilts markets yesterday and the debts this morning US 40Tn / UK 3Tn.)

The BBC story on the US and comparison to others inc UK, the key point being that because the US$ is still the main base currency the US can actually get away with the risk for longer than the rest of us. The risks are real if any new political or financial crisis arises.

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Previously here on Psybertron:

Borders vs Business – from last year. (And more on states without national borders – we are nothing – from Matthew Syed.)

General search on Tax the Rich

General search on Wealth

To be continued, somewhere …

(And – reminder – need to read Mark Carney’s “Values”?
Which I did here: https://psybertron.substack.com/p/values-into-action )

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Up to Date on SubStack

All my original postings and notes are on SubStack these days, so here a catch-up posts since my last one here on only recently having read Roger Penrose (1989) “Emperor’s New Mind”. Starting from the most recent:

What’s So Funny ‘Bout
– the Peace, Love and Understanding of Jason Arday?
(First mention, the day after his death.)

Penrose-Hameroff Consciousness
Does their work actually give us any explanation?

Being Against a Good Thing?
Dysmemics – The dangers of mis-memeing a good meme. (Responding to Musk’s claims about “Empathy”)

Intellectual-Social Interactions
Defining Pirsig’s Social and Intellectual Layers

A Welcome Diversion Around Dennett
Dan Dennett’s memoir “I’ve Been Thinking” (2023)

Vive la Difference / Différence / Différance
The significant reality of male / female brain / mind differences.

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Post note: and before I continue, I picked-up some new reading. Loved Arundhati Roy’s writing in her “God of Small Things” though I didn’t write a review much longer than that comment, but I kept an eye on here lefty-feminist activities ever since. Love the person too. In a casual trip to the local bookshop I was passing today, I noticed her “Mother Mary Comes To Me” latest title. The title is a song lyric, a Beatles song. Last weekend’s Sunday Session playlist, was Beatles covers. Apparently her mother Mary didn’t say “Let It Be”. It’s a memoir with 40-odd short, titled chapters I noticed “What’s So Funny [’bout]?” and “Declaration of Love” which put me instantly in mind of my last post about Jason Arday being ridiculed when talking about his “Axis of Love” and his use of song titles and lyrics in his work. Anyway, none of those things are actually connected, but I bought the book on spec and have already started to read. (Read and reviewed here.)

Oh, and wow, the links never end. That post above on my previous reading of Roy, was on the day we experienced the biggest, closest, thunderstorm of our lives in Chattanooga – the lightening bolts and thunder simultaneously exploding on the bonnet of our car while stopped at the lights! Talk about gut-feel. As I type, there’s a welcome rainy thunderstorm crashing around outside, here on the NE coast of England. And an item on BBC R4 “News At One” on the newly licensed Tunny (Tuna) fishing in Whitby, all over the social-media locally in recent months. The first commercial landing of a couple of 2.5/3m long specimens just yesterday, after several months of licensed catch-and-release establishing sustainable stocks and generating sport-fishing income.

Gotta go.

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