March 18th, 2017

We really need REAL ECONOMISTS and not SHYSTERS------Kotlikoff trying to assure WE THE PEOPLE that shareholders are actually paying those pesky taxes that used to be corporate tax responsibility is as insulting as lowering wages already too low.  If you are thinking only today's poor will be tied to excessive tax burden then you are not visualizing white collar professionals overseas earning $20-30 a day---the difference between developed nation professional wages and that wage will be called TAXES.

'In the 1950s, corporate tax receipts represented about a third of federal revenue; now they make up only 10 percent'.

'Larry Kotlikoff: I think, and economic theory confirms, that in economics in which capital is mobile, workers bear the corporate tax burden, not via higher prices, but via lower wages'.

We will finish discussion of tax policy with the PERPETUAL TAX REPEAL FOR THE GLOBAL RICH IN US----THE ESTATE TAX. The global 1% has wanted this tax repealed so badly they created all kinds of propaganda around THE DEATH TAX.

'A State divided into a small number of rich and a large number of poor will always develop a government manipulated by the rich to protect the amenities represented by their property. Harold Laski, British political theorist (1893-1950)'.

Let's be clear about our founding fathers and the US Constitution.  The most critical issues  to America being a land of freedom and liberty according to these leaders after the American Revolution----create the inability of individual citizens to accumulate extreme wealth and power bringing back that aristocracy and global corporate power from which American colonists fought to be free.  Keeping legislative power with the PEOPLE AS CITIZENS with sovereign rights and SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE to keep tyranny from our religious institutions.  We hear over and over from our global Wall Street 1% THERE WILL BE NO REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

They are referring to the ESTATE TAX and the MONOPOLY AND ANTI-TRUST laws installed in our US Constitution and Federal law to bring back excessive wealth accumulated in a lifetime to have each generation creating its own professional pathway this being the REAL FREE MARKET economy.  The Estate Tax was the founding father's way to keep extreme wealth and global corporate power out of American societal structures.  CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA with the help of those 5% worked to bring just that to America---and of course the goal is ending the ESTATE TAX as they ignored MONOPOLY AND ANTI-TRUST.

CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA MOVED ALL WEALTH TO THE TOP 1% ---AND TRUMP NO DOUBT WILL NOW MAKE SURE THOSE 1% KEEP ALL THAT WEALTH.

Aristocracy vs Wealth Redistribution-- What Did the Founding Fathers Say?
By talktothemike  
Sunday Sep 30, 2012 · 7:56 PM EST

There are many well-documented misunderstandings regarding the opinions and values of the Founding Fathers. One of the biggest and farthest reaching misunderstandings regards the role of government in redistributing wealth among the American people. Democrats are drided as the Take-From-The-Rich--and--Spread-It-Around folks while the Republicans jump on every opportunity to criticize any tax plan that they see as shifting wealth from the wealthiest to the working classes. "Class warfare!" they cry. "Socialism!" they shout. "Un-American and un-patriotic!"

I listen and wonder if we are witnessing the last  best stand of the American Aristocracy fighting to maintain its unfair advantage, and access to, the economic and political stage.



Shall we call it socialism when govenment uses tax policy and regulation to share the nation's wealth to deliberately cause some level of equity? If so, America has lost touch with vital parts of the original foundation of American democracy.  Men such as Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson, Noah Webster, Theodore Roosevelt, William Gates Sr. and others would disagree heartily with modern conservative claims of "socialism." In fact, according to these men, equitable distribution of wealth in America is one of the founding principals of American democracy.



I think that people who have the good fortune, the skill, the luck to become wealthy in our country simply have a debt, simply have a debt to the source of their opportunity. So I just don't see any problem with an estate tax which recovers from those folks at the time of their death, and at the time of the transfer of that wealth to their progeny or wherever, of imposing a tax which in some part recovers and generates payment of what seems to me to be a very clear and simple obligation. That is why so many of us feel that this is not only an appropriate tax, it strikes me as about the fairest of all. William Gates, Sr., Forum on Estate Tax, Tax Policy Center, 2003.


What a simply wonderful, patriotic idea. If one is fortunate enough to have been born in a time and place that provides the opportunities to amass great wealth, one owes the nation something in return. Why not? America gave you order and structure, saftey and rules, not to mention physical infrastucture. All of these helped lead to your success. And those all have a value. A value that should be returned as a debt paid back. President Obama addresses the same idea in his Roanoke Va. speech from last July.


I’m always struck by people who think, well, [my wealth and success] must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.  If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

 The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together...So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. Barack Obama

We have a great nation that is great because of what we have accomplished together in the name of American exceptionalism.  So when productivity rises, yet real wages drop, somebody is getting the big payoff and it isn't the workers. Conservatives love to quote Jefferson about "a wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” -Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801. I agree, but only in the context of the rest of Jefferson's beliefs. Today, corporate power is so consolidated and powerful that it is the corporate leaders who "take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned" by forcing the working class into jobs that do not pay enough to live on and expecting those workers to shoulder the highest percentage of the tax burden.

The Corporate Aristocracy has elevated itself to an "entitled" position of power and importance. This Aristocracy--this entitlement--is inherently damaging to a democracy.


The causes which destroyed the ancient republics were numerous; but in Rome, one principal cause was the vast inequality of fortunes. Noah Webster


The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. Adam Smith


If there was one thing the Revolutionary generation agreed on — and  those guys who dress up like them at Tea Party conventions most  definitely do not — it was the incompatibility of democracy and  inherited wealth. Stephen Budiansky's Liberal Curmudgeon Blog, October 2010.

Early Americans were all too familiar with European Aristocracy and as they began to conceive this new nation they wanted a new idea based not on Aristocratic order but on shared political power. For that to happen they believed there had to be relative equity in wealth among the citizens of America. There was a strong belief that inherited wealth would lead to a rising Aristocracy with wealthy families consolidating unfair political power. Both Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith, that great Conservative champion, found it impossible to accept that great wealth should be passed on from parent to child. Because of this they stood firm on a redistribution of wealth in the form of an inheritance tax.



A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly  absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every  generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from  posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural. Thomas Jefferson


There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death. Adam Smith

If developing laws and tax policies that redistributed wealth with the specific purpose of creating relative equity among the citizenry were priorities for the Founding Fathers, how would they feel about the current marriage of politics and economics in our country today? Would they be horrified by the American Aristocracy and its spokesman, Mitt Romney's comments about the 47%?  Would our Founding Fathers, knowing even then how extreme wealth corrupts democratic institutions, condemn or accept the Citizens United ruling? Would the Founding Fathers shake their heads at the lowest tax rates going to those who, by luck of their own birth, inherited their wealth as well as to those who do no actual work for their gains?So I wrap up my thoughts on this topic (for now at least) with the following. I believe it articulates exactly what is happening today in American national politics.



A State divided into a small number of rich and a large number of poor will always develop a government manipulated by the rich to protect the amenities represented by their property. Harold Laski, British political theorist (1893-1950).


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The right wing has these several decades played this DEATH TAX on lower-income property owners making it all sound so onerous to a wide expanse of citizens when in fact it only hits .2% of American people. Those shouting loudest used propaganda about family farms when these 'family farms' were generally BIG AG AND EXPANSIVE FARMS. Republican states created that estate tax burden via STATE ESTATE TAX LAWS that did indeed hit smaller property owners---here we see BIG AG state IOWA and there is Maryland and PA----using estate tax law to harm smaller property owners while that .2% that Federal estate tax laws target ----worked to stop real estate monopoly.


If we want to reverse the burden of estate taxes hitting smaller property owners we would start by ending state estate taxes.


Looking locally at Baltimore where an UnderArmour PLANK has established a McMansion estate----we can imagine very quickly the expansion of that estate as our Falls Road citizens already have and VOILA---we have that Medieval aristocracy owning land as far as the eye can see FOREVER. That was what CITY STATES back then were about----one very rich landed aristocracy owning all real estate in that FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE CITY STATE.


This is what the US Constitution and founding fathers wanted to stop ---it is what Federal laws written around estate taxes are meant to curb---and if a citizen of modest wealth is trapped by estate tax burden it is likely tied to state estate taxes.


Will You Have to Pay Taxes on Your Inheritance?



Inheritance Taxes, Estate Taxes, and/or Income Taxes May Affect Your Inheritance


By Julie Garber
Updated September 25, 2016


NOTE: Tax laws change frequently and the following information may not reflect recent changes in those laws. For current tax or legal advice, please consult with an accountant or an attorney since the information contained in this article is not tax or legal advice and is not a substitute for tax or legal advice.
A common question that comes up when I speak with the beneficiary of an estate or trust is whether or not the beneficiary will have to pay any taxes on their inheritance.
Before this question can be answered, the beneficiary needs to understand that the term "taxes" actually encompasses three different types of taxes: inheritance taxes, estate taxes and income taxes.


Whether or not your inheritance will be subject to inheritance taxes, estate taxes and/or income taxes will depend on many factors, so let's tackle each of these types of taxes separately.



State Inheritance Taxes

The good news for most beneficiaries is that they will never have to worry about inheritance taxes because only six states currently collect them - Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In addition, in all of these states property passing to a surviving spouse is exempt from inheritance taxes, and only Nebraska and Pennsylvania collect inheritances taxes on property passing to children and grandchildren.


So, if the decedent you are inheriting from didn't live in Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey or Pennsylvania or own real estate in any of these states, then you won't owe any inheritance taxes.


This is true even if you, the person receiving the inheritance, live in one of these six states.
And, even if the decedent lived in one of these states or owned real estate in one or more of them, you may or may not owe inheritance taxes depending on your relationship to the decedent. In addition, usually inheritance taxes will have to be paid before you can receive your inheritance check, so the amount that you are paid will already be reduced by the taxes that were due.

My State Inheritance Tax Chart gives a brief overview of the inheritance tax laws in the six states that collect them, while the links provided above associated with each state name give detailed information about the inheritance tax laws of each state.


State Estate Taxes and Federal Estate Taxes

The good news is that for federal estate tax purposes the 2014 estate tax exemption was $5,340,000 and the 2015 estate tax exemption is $5,430,000. Thus, if the decedent's estate you are inheriting from is valued at less than the applicable exemption amount for the year of death, then you won't owe any federal estate taxes.


With regard to state estate taxes, currently only a handful of jurisdictions collect them - Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Washington. So, as with state inheritance taxes, if the decedent you are inheriting from didn't live in any of these states or own real estate in any of these states, then you won't owe any state estate taxes even if you, the person receiving the inheritance, live in one of these states.


On the other hand, if the decedent lived in one of these states or owned real estate in one or more of these states, then the value of the estate must exceed the state estate tax exemption before any state estate taxes will be owed.


Currently the state estate tax exemptions range from a low of $675,000 in New Jersey to a high of $5,430,000 in Delaware and Hawaii.  But even if the estate will owe state estate taxes, usually these taxes will have to be paid before you can receive your inheritance check, so the amount that you are paid will already be reduced by the taxes that were due.

My State Estate Tax and Exemption Chart lists the current state estate tax exemptions in the jurisdictions that collect them, while the links provided above associated with each state name give detailed information about the estate tax laws of each state.


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When the global Wall Street pols MOVE FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE ending all our US Constitutional and Federal legal history and take WE THE PEOPLE back to being colonial one thing that goes with that and is never discussed is PRIMOGENITURE-----that is tied to concentration of inherited property and yes that includes women being allowed to inherit real estate.

So our states are the sight of these property rights laws as national sovereignty is dismantled by ONE WORLD so too is state sovereignty and all that has legal standing is that CITY STATE or US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones.  We have shouted for over a decade how all property rights ---eminent domain laws disappear giving global corporations and the wealthy aristocratic land owners all rights to expand or use real estate in these Foreign Economic Zones anyway they want. 

So, in Baltimore we see our working and middle-class homeowners seeing their homes landing on late tax sale lists to be auctioned for what are ever-rising property taxes while corporations and the rich are paying little or nothing.  We are watching just what we are saying above----that transference of power over property rights and ownership from US Rule of Law to that of old world wealth.



'With Thomas Jefferson taking the lead in the Virginia legislature in 1777, every Revolutionary state government abolished the laws of primogeniture and entail that had served to perpetuate the concentration of inherited property'.

Primogeniture



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Look up primogeniture in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Part of a series of articles on
Monarchy


Primogeniture (English pronunciation: /praɪməˈdʒɛnᵻtʃər/) is the right, by law or custom, of the legitimate, firstborn son to inherit his parent's entire or main estate, in preference to daughters, elder illegitimate sons, younger sons and collateral relatives. The son of a deceased elder brother inherits before a living younger brother by right of substitution for the deceased heir. In the absence of any children, brothers succeed, individually, to the inheritance by seniority of age (subject to substitution). Among siblings, sons inherit before daughters. In the absence of male descendants in the male-line, there are variations of primogeniture which allocate the inheritance to a daughter or a brother or, in the absence of either, to another collateral relative, in a specified order (e.g. male-preference primogeniture, Salic primogeniture, semi-Salic primogeniture).


The principle has applied in history to inheritance of real property (land) as well as inherited titles and offices, most notably monarchies, continuing until modified or abolished.


United States and Canada
In the United States, the colonies followed English primogeniture laws. Carole Shammas argues that issues of primogeniture, dower, curtesy, strict family settlements in equity, collateral kin, and unilateral division of real and personal property were fully developed in the colonial courts. The Americans differed little from English policies regarding the status of widow, widower, and lineal descendants.[19] The primogeniture laws were repealed at the time of the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson took the lead in repealing the law in Virginia, where nearly three-fourths of Tidewater land and perhaps a majority of western lands were entailed.[20] Canada had the same law but repealed it in 1851.[21]

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As we say REAL free market economies do not allow extreme wealth and extreme corporate monopoly and that is why for centuries we have seen taxation policies in place to assure against this.


Global Wall Street are heading back to the DARK AGES with property rights so don't buy the DEATH TAXES bit----we will need to reverse what I am sure will MOVE FORWARD----that includes US cities as Foreign Economic Zones doing the same with property rights and taxation.


Estate tax and the founding fathers



You can't take it with you
Oct 14th 2010, 21:44 by Lexington

MY FRIEND the Liberal Curmudgeon strikes again:
If there was one thing the Revolutionary generation agreed on — and those guys who dress up like them at Tea Party conventions most definitely do not — it was the incompatibility of democracy and inherited wealth.

With Thomas Jefferson taking the lead in the Virginia legislature in 1777, every Revolutionary state government abolished the laws of primogeniture and entail that had served to perpetuate the concentration of inherited property. Jefferson cited Adam Smith, the hero of free market capitalists everywhere, as the source of his conviction that (as Smith wrote, and Jefferson closely echoed in his own words), "A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural." Smith said: "There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death."

The states left no doubt that in taking this step they were giving expression to a basic and widely shared philosophical belief that equality of citizenship was impossible in a nation where inequality of wealth remained the rule. North Carolina's 1784 statute explained that by keeping large estates together for succeeding generations, the old system had served "only to raise the wealth and importance of particular families and individuals, giving them an unequal and undue influence in a republic" and promoting "contention and injustice." Abolishing aristocratic forms of inheritance would by contrast "tend to promote that equality of property which is of the spirit and principle of a genuine republic."

Others wanted to go much further; Thomas Paine, like Smith and Jefferson, made much of the idea that landed property itself was an affront to the natural right of each generation to the usufruct of the earth, and proposed a "ground rent" — in fact an inheritance tax — on property at the time it is conveyed at death, with the money so collected to be distributed to all citizens at age 21, "as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property."

Even stalwart members of the latter-day Republican Party, the representatives of business and inherited wealth, often emphatically embraced these tenets of economic equality in a democracy. I've mentioned Herbert Hoover's disdain for the "idle rich" and his strong support for breaking up large fortunes. Theodore Roosevelt, who was the first president to propose a steeply graduated tax on inheritances, was another: he declared that the transmission of large wealth to young men "does not do them any real service and is of great and genuine detriment to the community at large.''

In her debate in Delaware yesterday, the Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell asserted that the estate tax is a "tenet of Marxism." I'm not sure how much Marx she has read, but she might want to read the works of his fellow travelers Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Herbert Hoover, and Theodore Roosevelt before her next debate.

_____________________________________________
'US, 1839: Mississippi allows women to own property in their own names. It is the first state to do so'.


When we see recent articles with Obama as pictured positively in these kinds of tax or in this case women's rights issues LILLY LEDBETTER and wage for example remember this---Obama campaigned as left social progressive and served as a raging far-right wing global Wall Street pol and he set the stage for all rights of US citizens gained over 300 years-----from white unlanded men----to women---to black and brown citizens---TO DISAPPEAR. We do not allow global Wall Street outlets like THE GUARDIAN which write good articles sometimes while interjecting PROPAGANDA like that image of Obama and Lilly Ledbetter fool us.
Where Trump and global Wall Street pols are going with dismantling ESTATE TAX laws and all laws meant to keep extreme wealth and power in check are going is BEFORE AMERICA'S INDEPENDENCE. While we shout against Trump our US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones are MOVING FORWARD with ending centuries of property rights for 99% of WE THE PEOPLE.


Women's rights and their money: a timeline from Cleopatra to Lilly Ledbetter

When did women get the right to inherit property and open bank accounts? How long did it take until women won the legal right to be served in UK pubs? Our timeline traces women’s financial rights from ancient societies to the present day

Women had plenty of financial rights in ancient Egypt, but it’s been a little woozy ever since. Photograph: Uncredited/AP

Suzanne McGee and Heidi Moore
Monday 11 August 2014 16.15 EDT Last modified on Monday 23 January 2017 07.17 EST


Many modern women in the US and Europe never question their right to open a bank account, own property, or even buy wine or beer in a pub. These rights, however, were hard won: for much of history, and even up to 40 years ago, middle-class women were not allowed to handle money; even having a job was seen as a sign of financial desperation. In the lastest addition to our Money and Feminism series, we trace the modern history of women and money.



Ancient Egypt, 3100 BCE and after: Women hold equal financial rights with men. As scholar Janet Johnson writes, “Egyptian women were able to acquire, to own, and to dispose of property (both real and personal) in their own name. They could enter into contracts in their own name; they could initiate civil court cases and could, likewise, be sued; they could serve as witnesses in court cases; they could serve on juries; and they could witness legal documents.” Women don’t always exercise these rights, Johnson says, because of social factors.

Biblical era, 1800BC and after): Under Jewish law, women have the right to own property and sue others in court without a man representing them. Wives can’t inherit directly from their husbands – unless it is a gift or they have no children – but daughters can inherit if they don’t have brothers. The Book of Numbers, the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, lays down an early law of personal finance: “If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.” Sons who inherit are expected to use the estate to support the women in the family.
Ancient Hinduism, 1500BC and after: Women have the right to control stridhan, or property before marriage, which includes gifts from parents, friends and strangers as well as earnings from her own work. Divorce is not allowed and inheritance laws favor male family members.


Ancient Greece: Women’s financial rights are constrained compared to earlier societies. Women are not allowed to inherit property or take a case to court unless a male guardian is in charge. Women can, however, trade and engage in industry, such as tavern-keeping, although work in the classical watering hole is reserved for the lower classes.


Ancient Rome: The pendulum swings back as freeborn Roman women are allowed to divorce, own property and inherit. Divorce is easy to get – presaging the Christian opposition to splitting up marriages – but the husband has the legal right to keep the children.


The Visigoth conquest of Rome catalysed stark changes to women’s rights across the tottering empire. Photograph: Mary Evans Picture Library/Ala/AlamyByzantine Empire, AD565: The Justinian laws – named for the emperor, known as “the last Roman”, who created a template for modern western civil law – allow women to be married without a dowry. Some working women, including prostitutes and tavern-workers, do not have the right to marry Roman citizens and can only be kept by Roman men as concubines. If a woman cheats on her husband, he can divorce her and “keep the pre-nuptial gift, the dowry and one third of any other property she possessed”. Justinian’s wife, the Empress Theodora, a former actress and wool-spinner, left her jobs when the emperor courted her. She is widely credited with influencing him to expand property and divorce rights for women.


The Middle East, AD600s: Islam is founded in Arabia and allows women the right to inherit estates, own property and initiate divorce. As in Jewish law, when a parent dies the eldest son receives a double share of the inheritance. Men can inherit half their wives’ estates, unless they have a child, in which case men only get 25% of the estate.

Europe, 800s: Anglo-Saxon laws allow women to own their own property, before and after marriage. In Norse societies, women are also allowed to conduct business as equals with men.


Laws in parts of medieval Europe allowed for women to have greater property and business rights. Photograph: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty ImagesEngland, 1100s: English common law, a combination of Anglo-Saxon and Norman traditions, leads to the creation of coverture, which is the belief that married men and women are one financial entity. As such, married women cannot own property, run taverns or stores or sue in court. Those financial rights could be enjoyed, however, by widows and spinsters. Over time, coverture is corrupted into the view that women are property of their husbands.


Americas, 1718: In Pennsylvania, women are able to own and manage property – if their husbands are incapacitated.
Russia, 1753: Russian women are granted the right to what’s known as a “separate economy”: the ability to earn their own income and retain it for her own use, independent of her husband. That meant he couldn’t demand that she turn it over to him to drink or gamble with, or, say, to support a mistress. A little over a decade later, Catherine the Great establishes the first state-financed institution of higher education for women, the Smolny Institute in St Petersburg.


Americas, 1771: New York becomes the first US state to require a woman’s consent if her husband tries to sell property that she brought to a marriage. The act also required the judge to meet privately with the woman to reassure himself that the signature wasn’t forged or her consent coerced.
France, 1791: Revolutionary France gives women equal inheritance rights (although they lose them later, when the monarchy is restored).


Marie Antoinette, a cautionary tale in personal finance, inadvertently fed the flames of a revolution that briefly allowed women in France the right to inherit property. Photograph: CorbisUS, 1839: Mississippi allows women to own property in their own names. It is the first state to do so.


US, 1844: Married women in Maine become the first in the US to win the right to “separate economy”.
US, 1845: Women gain the right to file patents in New York.
US, 1848: Married Woman’s Property Act is passed in New York. It is later used as a model for other states, all of which pass their own versions by 1900. For the first time, a woman wasn’t automatically liable for her husband’s debts; she could enter contracts on her own; she could collect rents or receive an inheritance in her own right; she could file a lawsuit on her own behalf. She became for economic purposes, an individual, as if she were still single.


Iceland, 1850: Iceland becomes first country to institute

Iceland: great scenery, early to women’s rights. Photograph: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

US, 1862: The US Homestead Act makes it easier for single, widowed and divorced women to claim land in their own names.
In the same year, the California passed a law that established a state savings and loan industry that also guaranteed that a woman who made deposits in her own name was entitled to keep control of the money. The state recognized the full financial independence of women – and in 1862 the San Francisco Savings Union approved a loan to a woman.



UK, 1870: UK passes the Married Women’s Property Act.
US, 1872: Illinois grants freedom of occupational choice to both men and women. But when Myra Colby Bradwell, who studied as her husband’s law apprentice to pass the Illinois bar, tries to practice as a lawyer, the US supreme court rules in 1873 that the state doesn’t have to grant a law license to a married woman.


US, 1880: Mary Gage opens a stock exchange for women who want to use their own money to speculate on railroad stocks. Meanwhile, notorious cheapskate Hetty Green, aka “the Witch of Wall Street”, is consolidating her own fortune.
France, 1881: France grants women the right to own bank accounts; five years later, the right is extended to married women, who are allowed to open accounts without their husbands’ permission. The US does not follow suit until the 196os, and the UK lags until 1975.

Workers at the Saltaire Woollen Mill, Bradford, North Yorkshire, England in the late 19th century. Photograph: AlamyUS, 1908: Oregon limits the workday for women to 10 hours – with the implication that women are too fragile to work much longer than that, or they are needed at home.


US, 1919: First Women’s Bank of Tennessee (Clarksville) opens to cater to women customers only. While the bank employees and directors were women, its shareholders were male.


US, 1921: Alice Mary Robertson of Oklahoma becomes the second woman in Congress, running on an anti-feminist platform including an opposition to women’s right to vote and education on maternity and childcare. She saves special scorn for the League of Women Voters “or any other organization that will be used as a club against men” and says “I came to Congress to represent my district, not women.” Showing that having and getting money are crucial for all women, even in politics, she loses her seat for not appropriating enough cash for her district. She serves for two years before being voted out of office.


UK and US, 1922: The UK finally allows equal inheritance.
In the US, suffragette and activist Rebecca Felton, of Georgia, becomes the first woman to become a US senator. At 87-years-old, she serves for one day. She calls out southern men for an excess of chivalry and too little concern for women’s rights, writing, “honeyed phrases are pleasant to listen to, but the sensible women of our country would prefer more substantial gifts.”


As Scarlett O’Hara also learned in the eternal fight between Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes, it’s better for women to trust the man who delivers and forget the man who has only great manners and honeyed words. Photograph: Silver Screen Collection/Getty ImagesUS, 1924: Wyoming elects the nation’s first female governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross.


US, 1938: The federal minimum wage is born with the Fair Labor Standards Act, wiping out common pay differences between men and women for hourly jobs.
UK, 1956: Civil service reforms in UK give men and women who are teachers and have other government jobs the right to equal pay.
India, 1961: India bans dowries for women before marriage and allows women to sue if her husband’s family harass her for the money. The anti-dowry law goes largely ignored.


US, 1963: The US passes the first legislation requiring equal pay for equal work, but it would need to be expanded in 1972 to salespeople, executives, administrators, etc.

President Lyndon B Johnson advocated for civil rights, and is here with Martin Luther King Jr at the signing of the Civil Rights Act. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesUS, 1967: Lyndon B Johnson’s 1965 affirmative action benefits are expanded to cover women.
US and UK, 1968: It becomes illegal to place help wanted ads specifying gender in the US; in the UK, a strike leads to the 1970 Equal Pay Act.


US, 1969: Colgate-Palmolive lays women off from their jobs rather than put them in physical work, “to protect our ladies”. In Bowe v Colgate-Palmolive, an appeals court rules physical labor cannot be limited to men.
US, 1970: Schultz v Wheaton Glass: a federal appeals court decision makes it illegal for a company to change a job’s title so that they could pay women who held the position less than male workers.


US, 1972: Katharine Graham, scion of the company that owns the Washington Post, becomes the first woman to become CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Katherine Graham, shown here with author Truman Capote, faced down US officials who threatened about the Watergate revelations that she was ‘gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published’. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images1974: Equal Credit Opportunity Act passes in the US. Until then, banks required single, widowed or divorced women to bring a man along to cosign any credit application, regardless of their income. They would also discount the value of those wages when considering how much credit to grant, by as much as 50%.


US, 1975: The first woman-owned commercial bank opens in New York City – First Women’s Bank, at which Betty Friedan had an account.
Ireland, 1976: Irish women are finally able to own their own homes outright.
US, 1978: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act is passed in the US. Until the law was put into effect, women could still legally be dismissed from their jobs for becoming pregnant.

US, 1980: Sexual harassment is first defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, although a court had heard the first case in 1977.
US, 1981: The last vestiges of a husband being able to keep a wife in the dark (at least legally) vanish, thanks to Kirchberg v Feenstra. A husband is told he doesn’t have the right to unilaterally take out a second mortgage on property held jointly with his wife.


Leading supporters of the Equal Rights Ammendment march in Washington on Sunday, July 9, 1978, urging Congress to extend the time for ratification of the ERA. Photograph: Dennis Cook/APUK, 1982: Women are allowed to spend their money in English pubs without being refused service.


France, 1983: France requires companies with more than 50 employees to carry out comparative salary surveys.
Japan, 1985: Japan passes an equal employment opportunity law, although the lack of penalties draws criticism.
UK, 1986: The UK enables women to retire at the same age as men (and take well-compensated factory night shifts)
US, 1993: The Family and Medical Leave Act becomes law in the US.


US, 2007: The supreme court rules in Ledbetter v Goodyear that women have to sue for discriminatory pay as soon as it occurs and can’t bring a lawsuit for pay discrimination if more than 180 days have passed. The case was based on Lilly Ledbetter’s career at Goodyear, where after decades of work, her pay as a supervisor was lower than the lowest-paid man of comparable seniority.


Norway, 2008: Norway requires companies to ensure that 40% of its board members are women.


US, 2009: President Barack Obama signs the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration act, which allows people to sue companies for pay discrimination even if more than six months have passed.

Lilly Ledbetter, being hugged by President Obama here, is a modern women’s wage-activist. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesUS and India, 2013: The National Women’s Law Center publishes a critical progress report about the wage gap between men and women titled “50 Years and Counting: The Unfinished Business of Achieving Fair Pay”.


In India, statistics suggest that, on average, one woman is killed every hour in a dispute over a dowry.
US, 2014: Nearly two-thirds of minimum-wage workers are women and the movement to raise the wage sweeps the country. In a success for the US “Fight for 15” movement, Seattle raises its minimum wage to $15, and several other cities and states raise their minimum wage ceilings too – but many still lag, and the federal minimum wage is still at $7.25 an hour, or a poverty-level wage. Minimum-wage bills languish in both the House and Senate.

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'In 2013, 120 of the 3,780 estates subject to the tax were farms and businesses, according to the Tax Policy Center. That’s a little more than 3 percent'.

Here we see that global 1% claiming the estate tax is killing the average American family----know what is causing 120 estates to sell out? It is lost jobs---lost small business income----it is all kinds of back economic policies taking middle class family wealth.
What WE THE PEOPLE must remember is this----Trump was not elected he was INSTALLED through fraudulent Republican primaries and general election ---as was Hillary's win in Democratic primary----so there is no legitimacy to whatever he does as President---IT MATTERS TO PURSUE ELECTION FRAUD AND ELECTION RIGGING as many Americans have been these few years.
Any vote to end an estate tax or inheritance taxes tied to centuries of holding extreme wealth and power at bay is tied as well to MONOPOLY AND ANTI-TRUST LAWS so don't allow this MOVING FORWARD.
Also do not believe for a COUNTRY MINUTE a Hillary or Schumer is against these repeals---that is 100% left social progressive POSING.



Estate Tax Repeal Would Be a Bonanza for Trump and His Cabinet

by
Sahil Kapur
December 9, 2016, 5:00 AM EST December 9, 2016, 2:39 PM EST

• Republican lawmakers see chance to end so-called death tax
• Issue may test president-elect’s populist campaign themes

Estate Tax Repeal: How Trump Cabinet Picks Would Benefit


President-elect Donald Trump, who won the hearts and minds of millions of working-class voters, may help deliver a multibillion-dollar bonanza to America’s wealthiest families.


The Manhattan businessman’s election offers congressional Republicans their best chance in years to eliminate the estate tax, which he and others call the “death tax.” Abolishing it would save more than $20 billion a year for the millionaires and billionaires the tax applies to -- including the Trump family and several of the people he has chosen for his administration.


“A lot of families go through hell over the death tax,” Trump said during his presidential run. The tax’s opponents say it forces some families to sell their farms or small businesses in order to pay up. Studies suggest that only a small percentage of estates fall into those categories.

Wiping out the estate tax has been a longstanding goal for Republican lawmakers, and the party’s sweeping victories in the 2016 election have brought them thrillingly close to achieving it. But there are potential stumbling blocks. Their narrow margin in the Senate leaves few votes to spare. And Trump may have a hard time reconciling his populist campaign themes with a tax break for America’s richest.


Under federal law, the tax, which is levied at a 40 percent rate, applies only to estates worth more than $5.45 million for individuals and $10.9 million for couples. Estates worth less than that may be passed on to heirs tax-free. Last year, just 0.2 percent of estates of people who died were subject to the tax, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington-based research group that’s a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.


‘The Forgotten Guy’

Trump “campaigned as someone who’s going to help the middle class, the forgotten guy, but every policy he’s advocating -- huge tax cuts for the wealthy, estate tax -- all for the top .001 percent,” said Representative Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from Manhattan.

America’s wealthiest “hit the jackpot” with Trump’s election, he said.
Since Trump’s election, House Ways & Means Chairman Kevin Brady and Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch have repeated their desire to repeal the estate tax. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have long supported its elimination. Passage in the Republican-led House is assured. In the Senate, a decade-long estate tax repeal can pass with 50 of 52 expected GOP senators under a special mechanism called reconciliation, while 60 votes could end it for good.


“The death tax on family farms, small businesses, ranches and estates has crippled hard-working families for far too long,” Hatch told Bloomberg News in a statement.

In 2013, 120 of the 3,780 estates subject to the tax were farms and businesses, according to the Tax Policy Center. That’s a little more than 3 percent. The same year, estates valued above $20 million paid an average tax rate of 18.8 percent -- many achieve a lower effective rate through tax-planning strategies, including giving some of their fortune away to charity.


Windfall to Leaders

At that 18.8 percent effective rate, repealing the tax would be a large windfall to the leaders-in-waiting of the Trump administration.
Trump’s estate would save $564 million, based on his estimated net worth of $3 billion. Trump disagrees with that net-worth estimate, which Bloomberg News compiled in July; he has said his net worth exceeds $10 billion. If so, his savings would increase -- to as much as $1.9 billion at an 18.8 percent effective tax rate. Trump’s transition team didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.


Trump’s Commerce secretary choice, Wilbur Ross, might save about $545 million, based on his estimated net worth of $2.9 billion. Ross is the chairman and chief strategy officer of WL Ross & Co. LLC. Richard DeVos, the father-in-law of Trump’s education secretary choice Betsy DeVos, might save $900 million, based on his estimated $4.8 billion net worth. Richard DeVos is co-founder of Alticor Inc., the parent of closely held direct-seller Amway Corp.  Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick to head the Small Business Administration, and her husband, Vince McMahon, who together founded World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., might save more than $250 million based on their shared net worth of at least $1.35 billion. The nominees’ net worth estimates were compiled by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Repealing the tax would also benefit Treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin, who held shares in CIT Group Inc. worth more than $100 million as of Dec. 2. And Gary Cohn, who is said to be Trump’s choice for his chief economic policy adviser, would leave his position as president of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. with $266 million of stock and awards amassed during his years at the investment bank, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.


Early Test

The looming estate-tax debate may be an early test of how Republicans deal with the electorate’s populist-over-elite mood. In interviews, Republican senators and congressmen played down the tension between Trump’s populist image and repealing the estate tax.
“Every president who’s ever had the office is going to have tension between their campaign and reality,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican. “How he handles that tension is up to him. But there’s nothing new about a president campaigning one way and having to govern another.”


Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said on Thursday he expects an estate tax repeal to be included in the budget reconciliation beginning in April. Others want it to be part of a comprehensive tax overhaul package. GOP aides said many are waiting for guidance from Trump.

Some conservatives caution that upper-end tax breaks are politically problematic.
“Trump would do well to craft a tax-reform agenda that is populist in a very visible, obvious way that delivers tangible gains to middle-income voters,” said Reihan Salam, executive editor of the National Review, a conservative magazine. “I believe that coming right out of the gate and focusing on high-end tax cuts might prove costly.”

Democratic Opposition

Democrats overwhelmingly oppose reducing the tax — presidential nominee Hillary Clinton campaigned on raising its rate to 65 percent for couples worth $1 billion. “I’m against” repealing the tax, said incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “To do it would sure help out the wealthiest few in America.”

GOP leaders are thus wary of over-promising. “Every tax bill is going to have a lot of tension and a lot of problems because the Democrats are not real enthused about things,” Hatch said in an interview. “We’ll just have to see. But we may be able to do some things.”

The politics of repeal may depend on which description of the tax reaches the public. A Gallup poll in March found that 54 percent of Americans favored eliminating it when told it’s a tax paid when a person dies. But researchers have found that people are more likely to support it -- and to want it to be increased -- when told who it affects.

“It becomes a question of how effective Democrats are at reframing that issue beyond this notion of a death tax,” said Norman Ornstein, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
____________________________________________


Baltimore City tax sale list is out. Contact the city to see if you are ok. These are the rules the city should follow in regards to tax sale. There is no legislature or policy or procedure that states the city can sell your real property. ****If your property has been foreclosed because the city has sold your tax lien, that money is yours not the city's. Baltimore City has made a lot of money keeping this money because this has never been made public. Now it's PUBLIC.
** If you can't pay your taxes or water and your house is paid off contact me asap. Check with your grandparents.
_________________________________________


A friend comments: 'the list is in Wednesday's paper and it's thick'.

Trump will no doubt end Estate Tax but that is not where WE THE PEOPLE will be fighting----the fight starts with US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES where all US Constitutional and Federal laws are dismantled and tax policies having any justice for the 99% are going to die.
Below we see how repressive home and land ownership is becoming in a Foreign Economic Zone. Maryland has a double-whammy with GROUND RENT and fees designed to control real estate ownership and setting permanent taxation around property------
WE THE PEOPLE CAN REVERSE ALL THIS EASY PEASY----WE HAVE CENTURIES OF FEDERAL LAW PRECEDENCE IN COURTS AND ON RECORD THAT DOES NOT SIMPLY DISAPPEAR.




Real Property Tax Bills


The largest portion of the City’s revenue, about 28 percent, comes from real property taxes. The City sets an annual real property tax rate. For fiscal 2015/2016, the rate is $2.248 per $100 of assessed value.
The value of each parcel in the City is set by the State Department of Assessments and Taxation. The City’s real property tax for the parcel then is determined by multiplying the City’s tax rate times the State’s assessment. For example, the City tax on a property assessed at $100,000 is $2,248.
Through its real property tax bills, the City also collects the State’s real property tax and remits it to the State. The current State tax rate is $.112 per $100 of assessed value. Exemptions and credits may reduce the total taxes due on a property.
It is the owner’s responsibility to provide the bill to his or her mortgage lender.


Bills Arrive in July

The City mails real property tax bills on July 1 each year. They are due when issued but the City allows a discount of ½ percent if paid on or before July 31. Interest of 1 percent and penalty of 1 percent per month are imposed if the City taxes are not paid before October 1. The existence of a pending assessment appeal does not excuse non-payment. If an owner’s appeal is successful, then the City will refund the appropriate amount plus interest. Revised bills can be paid without interest and penalty if paid within 30 days of issuance.


Paying in Installments

State law permits real property taxes on owner-occupied residences and some small business to be paid in two equal installments, the first payment due in July and the last payment before January 1. A small service fee is added to the second installment.
Because real property tax bills are issued each year, a property owner is responsible for knowing that taxes are due and for paying them – even if the owner does not receive a bill in the mail.


Obtaining Tax Information

Tax information, including open balances and the address where the City mails an owner’s bill, is available online at BaltimoreCity.gov, by calling 410-396-3987, or by visiting Counter 2 in the Wolman Municipal Building, 200 Holliday St., and any weekday between 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The City also accepts advance payments on the next year’s real property tax bills.


Tax Sale

If taxes on non-owner occupied properties remain delinquent by at least $250, or by at least $750 for owner-occupied residences, then the property becomes eligible for inclusion in the next annual tax sale. The property owner will receive a Final Bill and Legal Notice by mail from the City in early February.

______________________________________________


We will end this discussion on tax policies with this quote from Ben Franklin which is used by right wing to support the ideal of taxing the poor not once, not twice but heavily because that is what will get them to work.

'This law was not made by the poor. The legislators were men of fortune. By that act they voluntarily subjected their own estates, and the estates of all others, to the payment of a tax for the maintenance of the poor, incumbering those estates with a kind of rent charge for that purpose, whereby the poor are vested with an inheritance, as it were, in all the estates of the rich. I wish they were benefited by this generous provision in any degree equal to the good intention with which it was made, and is continued: But I fear the giving mankind a dependance on any thing for support in age or sickness, besides industry and frugality during youth and health, tends to flatter our natural indolence, to encourage idleness and prodigality, and thereby to promote and increase poverty, the very evil it was intended to cure; thus multiplying beggars, instead of diminishing them'.


We talked of how our current payroll tax system was created to PRE-PAY citizens' needs from retirement, health care, disability and talked about how these few decades of CLINTON, BUSH, OBAMA all those pre-paid accounts have been looted with fraud---have been used to support the unemployed who would RATHER BE FULLY EMPLOYED----- so the perversion of our ability to support ourselves is created by that 5% to the 1% ---not by laziness and spoiling social programs. Please work to get rid of these frauds and corruptions and our poor and working class will EARN ENOUGH TO PAY TAXES----

We notice Franklin highlighted the need of the rich to provide THAT ECONOMY for the poor and to provide the wages from which taxes can be taken........


ALMOST NO ONE WANTS TO SIT AROUND ALL DAY WITH NO TASK AT HAND.

On the Labouring Poor

Posted by Benjamin Franklin on 1 April 1768, 9:36 am


SIR, I have met with much invective in the papers for these two years past, against the hard-heartedness of the rich, and much complaint of the great oppressions suffered in this country by the labouring poor. Will you admit a word or two on the other side of the question? I do not propose to be an advocate for oppression, or oppressors. But when I see that the poor are by such writings exasperated against the rich, and excited to insurrections, by which much mischief is done, and some forfeit their lives, I could wish the true state of things were better understood, the poor not made by these busy writers more uneasy and unhappy than their situation subjects them to be, and the nation not brought into disrepute among foreigners by public groundless accusations of ourselves, as if the rich in England had no compassion for the poor, and Englishmen wanted common humanity.
In justice then to this country, give me leave to remark, that the condition of the poor here is by far the best in Europe, for that, except in England and her American colonies, there is not in any country of the known world, not even in Scotland or Ireland, a provision by law to enforce a support of the poor. Every where else necessity reduces to beggary. This law was not made by the poor. The legislators were men of fortune. By that act they voluntarily subjected their own estates, and the estates of all others, to the payment of a tax for the maintenance of the poor, incumbering those estates with a kind of rent charge for that purpose, whereby the poor are vested with an inheritance, as it were, in all the estates of the rich. I wish they were benefited by this generous provision in any degree equal to the good intention with which it was made, and is continued: But I fear the giving mankind a dependance on any thing for support in age or sickness, besides industry and frugality during youth and health, tends to flatter our natural indolence, to encourage idleness and prodigality, and thereby to promote and increase poverty, the very evil it was intended to cure; thus multiplying beggars, instead of diminishing them.
Besides this tax, which the rich in England have subjected themselves to in behalf of the poor, amounting in some places to five or six shillings in the pound of the annual income, they have, by donations and subscriptions, erected numerous schools in various parts of the kingdom, for educating gratis the children of the poor in reading and writing, and in many of those schools the children are also fed and cloathed. They have erected hospitals, at an immense expence, for the reception and cure of the sick, the lame, the wounded, and the insane poor, for lying-in women, and deserted children. They are also continually contributing towards making up losses occasioned by fire, by storms, or by floods, and to relieve the poor in severe seasons of frost, in times of scarcity, &c. in which benevolent and charitable contributions no nation exceeds us. — Surely there is some gratitude due for so many instances of goodness!
Add to this, all the laws made to discourage foreign manufactures, by laying heavy duties on them, or totally prohibiting them, whereby the rich are obliged to pay much higher prices for what they wear and consume, than if the trade was open: These are so many laws for the support of our labouring poor, made by the rich, and continued at their expence; all the difference of price between our own and foreign commodities, being so much given by our rich to our poor; who would indeed be enabled by it to get by degrees above poverty, if they did not, as too generally they do, consider every increase of wages only as something that enables them to drink more and work less; so that their distress in sickness, age, or times of scarcity, continues to be the same as if such laws had never been made in their favour.
Much malignant censure have some writers bestowed upon the rich for their luxury and expensive living, while the poor are starving, &c. not considering that what the rich expend, the labouring poor receive in payment for their labour. It may seem a paradox if I should assert, that our labouring poor do in every year receive the whole revenue of the nation; I mean not only the public revenue, but also the revenue, or clear income, of all private estates, or a sum equivalent to the whole. In support of this position I reason thus. The rich do not work for one another. Their habitations, furniture, cloathing, carriages, food, ornaments, and every thing in short that they, or their families use and consume, is the work or produce of the labouring poor, who are, and must be, continually paid for their labour in producing the same. In these payments the revenues of private estates are expended, for most people live up to their incomes. In cloathing and provision for troops, in arms, ammunition, ships, tents, carriages, &c. &c. (every particular the produce of labour) much of the publick revenue is expended. The pay of officers civil and military, and of the private soldiers and sailors, requires the rest; and they spend that also in paying for what is produced by the labouring poor. I allow that some estates may increase by the owners spending less than their income; but then I conceive that other estates do at the same time diminish, by the owner’s spending more than their income, so that when the enriched want to buy more land, they easily find lands in the hands of the impoverished, whose necessities oblige them to sell; and thus this difference is equalled. I allow also, that part of the expence of the rich is in foreign produce or manufactures, for producing which the labouring poor of other nations must be paid; but then I say, that we must first pay our own labouring poor for an equal quantity of our manufactures or produce, to exchange for those foreign productions, or we must pay for them in money, which money, not being the natural produce of our country, must first be purchased from abroad, by sending out its value in the produce or manufactures of this country, for which manufactures our labouring poor are to be paid. And indeed if we did not export more than we import, we could have no money at all. I allow farther, that there are middle men, who make a profit, and even get estates, by purchasing the labour of the poor and selling it at advanced prices to the rich; but then they cannot enjoy that profit or the incomes of estates, but by spending them in employing and paying our labouring poor, in some shape or other, for the products of industry — Even beggars, pensioners, hospitals, and all that are supported by charity, spend their incomes in the same manner. So that finally, as I said at first, our labouring poor receive annually the whole of the clear revenues of the nation, and from us they can have no more.
If it be said that their wages are too low, and that they ought to be better paid for their labour, I heartily wish any means could be fallen upon to do it, consistent with their interest and happiness; but as the cheapness of other things is owing to the plenty of those things, so the cheapness of labour is, in most cases, owing to the multitude of labourers, and to their underworking one another in order to obtain employment. How is this to be remedied? A law might be made to raise their wages; but if our manufactures are too dear, they will not vend abroad, and all that part of employment will fail, unless by fighting and conquering we compel other nations to buy our goods, whether they will or no, which some have been mad enough at times to propose. Among ourselves, unless we give our working people less employment, how can we, for what they do, pay them higher than we do? Out of what fund is the additional price of labour to be paid, when all our present incomes are, as it were, mortgaged to them? Should they get higher wages, would that make them less poor, if in consequence they worked fewer days of the week proportionably? I have said a law might be made to raise their wages; but I doubt much whether it could be executed to any purpose, unless another law, now indeed almost obsolete, could at the same time be revived and enforced; a law, I mean, that many have often heard and repeated, but few have ever duly considered. SIX days shalt thou labour. This is as positive a part of the commandment as that which says, the SEVENTH day thou shalt rest; but we remember well to observe the indulgent part, and never think of the other. St Monday is generally as duly kept by our working people as Sunday; the only difference is, that, instead of employing their time, cheaply, at church, they are wasting it expensively at the alehouse. I am, Sir, &c. MEDIUS.

Gentleman’s Magazine, April, 1768