One of things you cannot help but notice is that pretty much everything in America is some sort of scam run by the managerial class to extract money from the rest of us. The most common way to do this is via cost shifting and you see it in the so-called non-profit rackets. Everywhere you look, non-profits are working the tax code so that Cloud People can live self-actualizing lives, while we get to pay for it. It looks like that scam may be reaching its end.
When New Haven Mayor Toni Harp gazes out her office windows, she can see across the street to Yale University’s idyllic buildings and grounds — none of which are on her city’s property tax rolls.
Yale, a nonprofit despite its $25 billion endowment and sprawling property (it owns about half the land in the city, Harp says), doesn’t pay property taxes. And some officials in Connecticut, including Harp, would like to see that change.
They aren’t alone. City and state officials in other parts of the country, including Maine, Massachusetts and New Jersey, also are questioning whether they can continue to allow wealthy schools like Yale, or big nonprofit hospitals, to remain off tax rolls while they scramble for money to pay for police, fire, streets and other infrastructure and services.
In some cases, they are looking for ways of taxing what until now have been tax-exempt sacred cows.
For a long time now, the Federal government has strong armed states into going along with policies they would never implement on their own. They do this by threatening to withhold Federal funds for thing like roads and education. The result is state budgets have swelled as they take on the burden of the the Progressive fantasies, while the Washington politicians strut around like heroes for having cooked up these programs. The states are now running out of money to pay for this crap, so they are look for new taxes.
Of course, these colleges are working the same rackets. Yale could offer free tuition to its undergrads. They could expand their undergrad population and thus reduce tuition costs. Schools like Yale have the same sized student body they had after WWII, when the country was a third of its current population. Instead of doing those things, they have turned Yale into a five star resort whose primary purpose is to be a money laundering operation for the super-rich, looking to avoid taxes.
All of these cost shifting schemes have something in common and that’s leverage. State governments have been able to hide the cost of social programs through debt issuance. Colleges have become luxury resorts by passing those costs onto graduates in the form of student debt. Young people are holding north of $1 Trillion in debt at the moment, with close to 20% of it technically in default. What that is telling us is that this form of cost shifting is reaching its end as well.
There’s a Assembly of Notables vibe to stories like this because what we are seeing is the beneficiaries of the system desperately trying to keep the plates spinning. The people in power, the members of both parties, all know that either government spending at all levels is sharply reduced or that taxes are sharply increased. In all probability, both will be necessary. The trouble is the people with the money to be taxed are rich and powerful. Yale does not want to pay taxes and it does not want its patrons to pay them either.
As was the case in the French Revolution, what we are seeing in America is the use of debt to perpetuate a system that was evolved for a bygone era. Social democracy, which is what we have in America, is a 19th century concept implemented in the 20th century. Big parts of it are no longer useful, but no one knows how to reform it. There are millions still making a nice living doing busy work in the system and they will fight anything that resembles reform. The result is endless haggling over how to make 2 + 2 = 5.
The most likely outcome of this is we first see state governments begin to buckle. California is, for all practical purposes, insolvent. Illinois is probably going to be the first state to face defaulting on its pension obligations. All but a handful of states are facing very serious debt problems that will require doing what they previous assumed was unthinkable, like taxing hospitals and colleges.colleges. Next up will be a push to get rid of the tax breaks for charitable deductions. That’s when the whole non-profit racket collapses.
What will be interesting to watch is what happened when the people on the fringe of the managerial class start to be cut loose to save money. When hospitals need to cut costs, they will not be laying off nurses and doctors. They will go for the diversity coordinator and the patient liaison officer. Colleges are not going to drop the football team, but they will get rid of the Transgendered Studies people. A whole lot of people in self-actualizing careers will find out they are luxury items, not necessities. That’s when things could get fun.
Or some state governor and state house finally get tired of the blackmail and push back. They refuse to obey some unfunded mandate and when the Feds threaten to stop the payments, they order the state’s employers to stop paying income tax withholding to the Feds and to put them in a state escrow account instead. At that point, the Feds have two choices: fight or acceed to the new order. It’s John Lackland and the barons all over again. Maybe we could call the new compact the Great Charter.
One of the best, most workable ideas I’ve ever seen. You are always such pleasure to read. Envious!
Alzaebo, as always you are far too kind.
From a letter in Academic Questions, the journal of the National Association of Scholars Vol. 28 No. 4 p. 397: “The uber dream job of today’s Ivy League grad is to be the highly paid president of a liberal nonprofit like, say, the Ford Foundation. Think about it! Riding limos to endless soiree’s and galas, inhabiting a world of corner offices and penthouse apartments, owning the status and wealth of a Wall Street banker, and reveling in the fiction that you have bettered the world without ever getting your hands dirty. Come to think of it, that sounds a lot… Read more »
I’ve spent a lot of time studying the Jewish revolts. What is interesting is that regardless of who is doing the talking — Jesus, the Essenes, the revolutionaries — the audience that they are addressing is the “meek,” the “poor,” etc. The Pharisees and the Saducees are seen the managers and Cloud People. The leaders of the various opposition factions took great care to identify themselves as carpenters, fishermen, or stone cutters (Phineas during 66-70 AD).
I liked it, but had to copy it into Word and break it up into paragraphs and numbered bullet points so I could read it.
Shades of Doug. Passion sweeps us!
teapartydoc… there are parallels yes, but… There was nothing in France, pre-revolution like our Federation of State Governments, no? Now the younger generation hasn’t had much civics in school and the progressives try they’re best to minimize it, BUT our country is founded on a Union of States. If there is trouble ahead, it will likely more resemble a convention of states or states banding together to tell the Feds to get bent. Also, property ownership in the US would tend to limit a revolution as too many have too much to lose. Interesting to ponder all the same.
Actually France was a conglomeration of former kingdoms that had been incorporated into the larger kingdom slowly over centuries. The provinces were made up of the more centrally located Pays d’Election which were taxed more directly and the more peripheral Pays d’ Etats which had more recently come into the union, so to speak, and were slightly more independent. They each had their own governors and parlements and local municipal governments. They came more and more under the direct tutelage of the king and royal administration as time progressed.
“When hospitals need to cut costs, they will not be laying off nurses and doctors” The characteristic failure mode for a post-mature institution is *exactly* to cut essential functions to maintain growth of parasitic overhead at its historic rate. This is why the VA is spending big bucks on solar panels and art while letting patients die for lack of funds. It’s why the CDC has endless money for silly-season studies and sincerely pleads poverty as an excuse for never having thought about Ebola. That’s what a dying system *is*: One where bullshit *is* the essential function. One where the… Read more »
My last job, there were four waves of layoffs of IT and revenue-producing types before a single manager was laid off. She did do some stats work. Part of her severance package was a job offer at a higher salary, as a pure manager with no stats duties. I got zapped in that wave (#5). A friend survived to wave seven or eight. He said it was three IT guys and forty managers. Hilarious. Predictable.
No manager will lay off anybody useless. That’s too close to the bone. Start laying off useless people, and YOU might be next. Unthinkable.
3 IT guys and 40 managers? Holy hell, what was the original ratio? One manager per worker?
At the time I was hired, something like that. They were already doomed by then. They’d been acquired by some UK corp with deep pockets and some billionaire’s semi-retarded son for a CEO. The parent lost hundreds of millions on that disaster IIRC. They didn’t really miss it.
Sorry, Z Man, you missed it on this one. Wilbur is correct. Hospitals and clinics have been underpaying and underhiring and overworking nurses for quite a while. The humongous chemical corporation where I spent 30+ years working as a technician started doing the same thing in the Carter and Reagan years. Managers are the very last to go. Peons are expendable and replaceable at lower salaries. Until you have a company with nobody left who actually knows how to do anything.
NHS in Britain verifies your statement.
Admin to providers ratio, 9 to 1.
The largest employer in the UK, with standing queues, Third World doctors, filthy facilities, and the NICE euthanasia program.
Both you and our intrepid stalwart from the front lines, teapartydoc.
Oh, by the way. I disagree with your idea that the diversity coordinator will be the first to go. The universities are running much of health care these days. I just retired from a university system. Look at the colleges. Administration never seems to shrink. With university-run health care systems the lines just get longer. Try ten hours in an ER with an asthma attack three hours before being seen by a doctor, if at all, and going home with a three thousand dollar bill that would have been two hundred ten years ago.
I think you underestimate the type of narratives these institutions will push to protect the managerial class. They will cut the systems that support their institutions to make them appear woefully underfunded. If you cut their budget they will release critical low level staffs and stop performing maintenance. So functionality is greatly reduced and signs of decay start to show. The budget cut will always be trotted out as the reason why things are terrible. They will hope public backlash will be sufficient to have their budgets restored if not actually increased. Only if the initial gambit fails will any… Read more »
@Chad You are correct. That is always plan A with those types. An excellent counter-gambit would be to publicize full, itemized, & detailed: salary, benefit, pension & perk info (limos, junkets, theater tickets, etc) for all employees of the institution targeted. The court of public opinion will not be pleased with the shocking largess bestowed upon these pigs at the trough. A line item listing their “duties” would be helpful, as well. In Wisconsin, full info on all public employee compensation was (still is) available online. Unless you or a member of your family were on the gubbmint tit, there… Read more »
A public prospectus. I want to know who spent what, who got what, who individually signed the order. A wiki of the Connected Industry, down to the dogcatcher. It’s our money, we are the owners. The often suppressed guy touting knowledge of the CAFR system, (Comprehensive Annual Financial Review), says They already have such a listing. ‘Legislative law lists’ shows everybody on the secret payola payroll- and, that means everybody in the system, from the governor on down. Occasionally, they’ll hang some poor schlubb at the bottom of the ladder to keep up the pretense of legitimacy. The Mob runs… Read more »
Did you hear the story about California recently? They passed a law instituting an over watch authority on the budget for the “hi speed railway boondoggle”, actually passed in looney state. Gov. Moonbeam vetoed the idea and said the project needed no more oversight and was doing fine! How’s that for “transparency from the Dems/Libs? The citizens, both left and right are concerned about the cost of this project, and it has only just started, and the Governor say STFU, to everybody!
Agree with Chad. I was thinking the exact same thing. The PC mindset is devoid of reason. The doublespeak is strong in those circles and I seriously doubt “hard choices” would be made “rationally”. There will be pain… and we will all be made to care.
That apparently hardwired idiocy is the result of: indoctrination and paycheck bias.
It is very hard to doubt something that gives you a paycheck. Even more so in hard times. People will go to great extremes to feel good about themselves, even while being parasitical thieves who are destroying the systems which brought us out of serfdom – constitutional democracy and free markets
Yep. The city always starts by cutting the snow removal budget.
As a professor at one of these schools I agree. I teach stats and programming. I think I am pretty useful as a teacher-at least my students tell me that the courses were useful in their jobs. I am also sure that my school would find a way to cut my tenured job before they cut the diversity coordinator or the Assistant dean for black student affairs or the assistant dean for latinx student affairs. Yes those are all real positions that make far more than all faculty.
If you’re a threat (competent, that is)- you’ll get squeezed out by the nepotism.
You should read up on what the French are currently implementing. A tax free year in 2017! Why? Because in 2018 they’re going to force people to submit their taxes via the internet. Employees in France currently pay taxes a year after their income is earned, but the French government is looking at implement the withholding tax system similar to what the Americans currently use on payroll earnings. What that boils down to is in 2017, French workers will pay their taxes on their 2016 earnings and in 2018, they will begin paying taxes on a monthly basis in real… Read more »
I would be a writer but the whole business of tax in the UK for authors (and as far as I know, people in other branches of the arts and entertainment industry) is that taxes on any monies earned comes two years later after publication. There are probably good reasons for this as no doubt the caring ‘n’ sharing arts — many being socialists to the core — like to hold money back from the providers for as long as they can, though I do accept that my planned thirteen-volume world best-seller would take take time to print and distribute.… Read more »
Good. Tax them all. I would wager that 99% of the nonprofit and/or tax exempt sector has been co-opted by the left-leaning, globalist, political elite and serves primarily to keep themselves in power. There’s no coherent justification to give them a tax break for doing so. In practice, the elites will keep the plates spinning until the dollar loses its status as the world’s reserve currency, at which point the system collapses. This will be a long, grinding process of federal encroachment on state and/or local governance in exchange for financing from the federal government. This process inherently favors the… Read more »
I was in New Haven not long ago with my mother. We were there to go to the local IKEA, undoubtedly built with state subsidy as an urban renewal project. This, I will note, is the only reason we ever go to New Haven and I am from Connecticut. Observations: 1. I took the train there from NYC. I always like taking the train, because the tracks run along the back of buildings, so you see things people normally don’t. The Connecticut shoreline has stunning, beautiful, wealthy areas next to pockets of third world level dysfunction and poverty. It is… Read more »
New Haven, exactly so. And to think these dens ‘teaching piracy’ (as Zman accurately puts it) have the gall to accuse us Dirts of the rising inequality.
I see two simple strategies at play.
The first, of course, is repeated Pump and Dump.
The other is Smash and Grab.
For instance, use ‘public’ money’s to herd a bunch of undesirable cattle into a valuable area, eventually the real estate will will be very cheap- then you can make profit rebuilding it, as well.
All the while, skimming off your cut of the public monies, too.
Sorry.
If you think that the gender studies or diversity hires are going before the nurses, teachers or janitors then you haven’t been watching the way the progressive elites actually work.
What part of protected class don’t you understand? The lay off list is complied in order of loyalty, top down.
As I like to say, in the hour of their greatest need people will call out for a nurse, not a diversity manager.
‘People’ lost their voice in hiring and retention a long time ago. Since the GOP isn’t willing to step up in opposition hence the Alt-Right.
Good points as always, Z. I recently read Carlyle’s history of the French Revolution (please forgive the pretentious name-dropping), and was struck by similarities with our present situation. Broadly speaking, they had the same crisis of the elite we have. The whole machinery is make-believe, what Carlyle might call quackery, and as such is destined to fall apart. Quackery is not self-sustaining. The Davoisie, or at least half of them, didn’t get where they are by actually contributing to society. They are parasites on an increasingly frail host. Now, as then, they rely on a mountain of debt. What we… Read more »
Well, the Jacobins are certainly getting louder, aren’t they?
And their Fabian cousin’s are becoming a real pain in the ass.
Fatties don’t do no revoltin’ Unauthorized shopping yes, revoltin’ no.
“Ghettopotamuses”- a favorite.
These assorted Foundations and other non-profits have become much like the medieval Christian Church, soaking up and retaining vast wealth needed by the other estates. King Henry solved his problem by seizing the Church holdings. It may be time for us to consider dissolving the Ford, Carnegie, and other Foundations, and nationalizing their assets. Colleges such as Harvard, Yale, etc. might be seriously taxed, or stripped of their endowments. These colleges would need to cut back on expenses, preferably by eliminating fluff departments and returning to traditional core subjects, and also paying their professorate at rates more according to someone… Read more »
At least the medieval Christian Church believed in God. They didn’t worship the “earth” or magical computer models. So they weren’t all bad.
They believed in god so much they sold indulgences in his name!
We are a body of people whistling past the graveyard of the truth. We forget our past at our own peril. Our origins as both a culture and an idea also. The solution, the remedy lies within each of us. It all begins with each of us. Not the State or any component of government. Not politics, or ideology. It all begins with each of us. The entire construct of the state has nothing to do with peoples self determination and self reliance. It is entirely without exception anathema to the entirety of primal natural sovereign state of the individual.… Read more »
I’ve heard it said that mongrels are heartier dogs than pure breeds. Perhaps that’s one reason Americans have always been so resilient. We’re mongrels, having only just come into being through uncontrolled cross breeding for a couple of centuries. We haven’t been around long enough to be overly fine-tuned into a pure breed. What this means is that we, because we still have feral instincts for survival, are innovative, resourceful and determined. When the reset button is hit – many, many Americans will shift into plan b mode. There are many untold stories of plan b implemented during the horrors… Read more »
Right! As you say about that innate character of dirt people. I think what your saying speaks volumes about the charity of dirt people and the selfless compassion they go to amazing lengths in helping others. It is the stuff that comes from the self, and from the heart too. It begins with each of us. A body of like minded people are naturally indomitable also. It is The Honorable Resistance. We recently had terrible flooding here in WV recently. The outpouring of charity and caring for others was awesome. That charity happened as natural as the sun rises, it… Read more »
This is exactly why I have always maintained that I would rather be left to my own devises in a crisis than herded by the government.
Meema you can join the Honorable Resistance like my family and I have, friends, neighbors. It works, it is contagious. It is like becoming part of a tribe where everyone is looking out for each other. The Honorable Resistance is making the choice. People are beginning to get it. We don’t need no steenkin’ government. All it really does when you get past the fig leaf of legitimacy is steal from you. As a fellow I know who told me in these exact words said: “The fundamental human right to self-defense and its tools does not stem from any piece… Read more »
Judas frickin’ Preist, Doug. That is an open and astonishingly brazen display of pure criminality.
If you ever wanted to kick start tax change, REAL change, in this country, you would have to do little more than compel every American to have to write a big-ass check to the Feds every year like the self-employed do instead of making American employers do the dirty job of tax collecting before the paycheck is issued.
You’d have pitchforks and torches if people had to watch that money actually come out of their own hands.
Been saying the same for 20 years now and heard similar arguments in law school while arguing tax policy. Deductions on a pay stub simply don’t have the same mental and emotional impacts as writing out a big check that depletes, if not wipes out, one’s savings at each tax filing deadline.
Worse than that Al, I’m a died in the wool deplorable. Get’s worse, I’m a despicable deplorable. But it gets even more deplorable, I’m a white right wing, Christian, raaaacist radical mind you. I’m an Alt-Right, 3 percent, AR15 toting’, sovereign, bitter clinging, tea bagging, domestic terrorist yankee who escaped from Yankeedom, crossed south of the Mason Dixon line into Appalacian trailer trash territory, WV of all places, plus I fly a Confederate flag in my front yard. And to top all that cultural marxist apostasy, I’m a heterosexual male and a global warming heretic, a coal miner. (I’m not… Read more »
Late in the thread, but I think I know what’s happening to coal.
It’s the same thing happening to our California Central Valley farmland.
It’s the Smash and Grab.
Eventually, the coal mines will have new owners- and they will be mostly Chinese or New Party Democrats.
Curious, who is buying in the Central Valley? Thanks
Very late, sorry- oil rights, farmland and water right- NP Dems, Chinese, Mexican Cartel
(oil squashed and water stolen, til the small holders are gone and the price is right)
The Chinese generals are taking their money and fleeing Xi’s consolidation, the Cartel is arm in arm with the Pelosi-Brown mafiosi, the black Dems are still doing their diminished part but will never compete with South American and Asian money laundering, excuse me, foreign direct investment.
Thank you alzaebo, appreciated.
Same thing happened here in louisiana, people showed up with food, guv turned them away, said it had to guv approved
These example are some sick shit for sure. I would tell them “These are our families, friends and neighbors. Who the f*&k are you, Stranger? GTFO!”
People will, if left to their own choices, always rally round to help people. Has always been thus, which is why in so many parts of the world, irrespective of whoever runs the government under whatever pretext, ordinary people when encountering the plight of a fellow human will do what they can to help. The problem comes when official ‘help’ is forced upon people in the name of ‘the approved good.’ Government can only arrange numbers and set quotas and therefore has to spend a lot of time measuring and counting so things can be apportioned ‘fairly’ from which they… Read more »
Meema, got any good references/books on the subject. Of course, all we get in da media is gun grabbing and feckless FEMA being a week late with H2O. They gots to organize and account for everything you know but when it comes to billions in foreign aid or other monies disappearing, well, never mind. I’d prefer the attitude of Larry the Cable Guy “Git ‘er done!”
Spending will not decrease. Ever. Taxes on IRA accounts will happen. Low rates at first, of course. A VAT tax will also be implemented, at some point. The VAT will be on top of all other personal taxes, not to replace them. It may replace the personal tax for a few years, then return in graduated form. Officials will still be talking more money is needed for infrastructure, education, poverty even after all the new taxes are raised. It will never end. In 50 years, the average personal income tax rate will be 50%. Taxes on miles driven will be… Read more »
I may stir up some hornets, but along with other nonprofit owners of valuable untaxed property there are the churches. They receive the same services and infrastructure as the private schools and hospitals, but pay no tax. About one third or more of Boston is tax free property. Even if donations remain untaxed as charity donations, they should be required to pay property tax and income tax on gambling and business income. The only thing is I doubt this would relieve the burden on the “dirt people,” but just allow the managers to find more ways to spend it.
Half the churches I’ve been in lately would be bankrupt in a year with that scheme. They would literally be handing the keys to the buildings over to the towns – who would then wonder how to maintain or dispose of a landmark historical building in their center.
Most of those those Boston churches anymore are endowments without congregations, essentially NGO’s. That would be like the State taxing itself. The universities are also working to further the state, obviously. This is why so target rich an environment will remain just as it is.
If they could somehow limit it to only the Catholic churches, I’m sure the MA elite would be on board with this scheme. Everyone else is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Prog.
Z Man. Forget the French, think Henry VIII. When he was broke and the Church was in turmoil generated by the Reformation, hence not all that popular, what did he do_? He started his own church and went where the money of his era was, namely Church lands. He took them all and gave/sold them to new owners i.e. his buddies in exchange for service or money, mostly money. The parallel here_? A national Community Chest for all charitable work funded with a small residue of the confiscated endowments of ALL NGO’s and universities. The Daviosie think having to pay… Read more »
“If the direction American societies took combined the right of total command with the capacity of total execution freedom would soon be obliterated in the New World”–Tocqueville. . More important by far than dealing with government’s spending hunger is severely limiting it’s abilities to tax, or you have, at best (and there will be no best), only entered a cycle. Tocqueville spotted this peculiarly (at the time) American flaw in 1831. “In New England, it is the township assessor who fixes the taxes, the collector who raises them, the treasurer of the township forwards the receipts to the public treasury… Read more »
The scheme operates as follows: The federal government taxes individuals and other entities and uses those monies to bribe to the states to tax the individuals/entities once again to fund programs and services that the federal government prefers. I suppose that’s preferable to federal courts ordering local schools to provide expensive educational benefits of little efficacy, such as mainstreaming non-mainstream students. But I remain unconvinced. If we had entirely local schools, we would lose all the taxes provided by bus companies and their employees. Then, how should we categorize all of the expenses imposed by the regulatory agencies controlled by… Read more »
Not the rich. The Connected.
Those who, having no production cost, no cost of goods sold.
No cost means 100% profit (or 10,000%, as in the prohibition industry).
No costs or risk means endless demands.
Debt plus Taxes equals the essence of Government. End the debt-based financial system and tax exemptions as described above, eliminate taxes on productive labor and tax the bejeezus out of administrative work and a workable society might be the result.
One short term solution would be that every dollar they get has to be spent within a time frame. Say five years. If they raise more money they can keep going but every dollar is time limited or taxed and given back to whoever gave it to the institution or their recitatives.
I used to look up to Gates until I heard him say that none of his charities would go to White people. That…really…pissed…me…off. As far as I’m concerned every dime should be taxed under those conditions.
Another 4 star. Zman, you are absolutely amazing. It’s like you’re reading our minds.
It’s a thrill to hear the truth spoken bluntly in an age of lies. That’s why Trump is doing so well.
Time for a wealth tax!
Perhaps a tax on ‘government’, the Connected, rather.
This is, after all, supposed to be a place where the citizens are in charge.
Tax sales rather than income. If rich people are not spending their money, they are not hogging resources. If they are spending, they are creating jobs – and by spending more frugally than govt, they are spreading the wealth to the most efficient and productive. We’d also have to prohibit deficit spending / sales of bonds/ money printing(QE) – that is where the crooks hide the worst of their theft. Just increase the sales tax every time deficit spending occurs. If we outlawed debt and income tax, the sales tax would have to be about 160%, I guess, based on… Read more »
This is an incredibly stupid idea. Move to EU and see how you like paying 18% on top of all the other taxes.
When hospitals need to cut costs, they will not be laying off nurses and doctors. They will go for the diversity coordinator and the patient liaison officer
Wrong. Really wrong. That’s what you’d hope they do. First, they lay off the maintenance and as much of the janitorial staff as they can. Then they defer needed maintenance. Then they start laying off nurses aides, then nurses. They’ll go bankrupt before they get rid of any administration staff- they’re all needed to run the remaining staff through the mill.
The trouble has been brewing since we elected that Moron Jimmy Carter. Just so you know.
1976? No. 1861, 1913, 1919, 1933. Game, set, match.