Death & Taxes

Two news items struck me today: the G7 agreement on tax abuse by multinationals which, with the grace of God and a following wind, should ensure that the wealthiest end of the business world pays its way, just like everybody else, by the mechanism of globally-enforced minimum corporation tax. The second was the ruling by a Federal judge in California overturning the state's 32-year-old embargo on the sale of assault weapons on the grounds of unconstitutionality, effectively allowing AR15s to be bought for 'home defense' [US spelling deliberate].

What the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away: on the one hand [on the face of it, at least - I'm a hardened old sceptic, after all] the first major progress in corporate oversight for a very, very long time [if ever] comes through multinational cooperation fuelled by the growing knowledge that economics is not a natural science or a series of mathematical truths that cannot be denied [the pandemic has proven thus] and can be as flexible as we want it to be. The corollary of this is that if economics and therefore economies are to function at all, they must work together globally and to a set of globally-agreed rules. Laissez faire, hands-off economics has to be consigned to history for what it is: a now largely discredited experiment, based on half-baked theories cooked up by self-aggrandising 'economic philosophers' and sold to the gullible and outright cynical as gospel.

On the other hand, we have recently seen as much progress in American politics as we've seen regression in our domestic affairs: it seemed that the States had at last turned a corner from the collective insanity of the Trump debacle and turned towards the path of common sense and empathy. But here we are with an on the face of it mindless application of their written constitution and its Tablet of Stone, the Second Amendment, which states, ambiguously: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” 

In the revolutionary America of the time, reaction as it was to the interference by and governance of the British, this might have made some sense - but in the twenty-first century? Surely the sight of unregulated 'militias' on the streets of American cities in recent times, brandishing openly weapons designed and intended solely for the battlefield; the innumerable school shootings and urban massacres that are part of modern American history etc., would have been taken as lessons to be learnt - lessons that California took to its heart in 1989 - but no, at least not by one American: US District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego. It's both a pointless decision and sets a very dangerous precedent, but I guess the gun lobby still has its teeth - 'from [their] cold, dead hands' indeed: all I can say is, may that prove indeed to be so, and allow the rest of American society to go about its lawful business without fear of some deranged militia-type loon blowing their brains out randomly, even if constitutionally sanctioned.