An interesting aspect of the “citizens of nowhere” argument which I rarely if ever see considered is this. Nation states exist in part to protect their citizens and their rights. Citizens of countries enjoy these rights, and the responsibilities that go with them. If there were a clearer understanding that being a “citizen of nowhere” meant you had no rights and no protections, this might change its attractiveness. Perhaps there is a long-term project needed here to examine how international coordination of law, taxation and unconventional enforcement could eventually render being a corporate “citizen of nowhere” about as attractive as the status of those millions of human citizens of nowhere – the refugees risking their lives to enter nations where they will happily abide by the law and pay their taxes so as not to live in fear of their lives?

In terms of taking control of the finance “industry”, there is really no reason at all why this should be in the private sector at all. It is essentially an administrative function and as it is of such strategic importance to the economy, it should be democratically rather than commercially accountable.

Finally, again at risk of accusations of looking backwards, it would be well worth re-visiting some of the inventive taxation devices used by labour governments in the 1960s: In particular, giving earned income (eg wages, salaries, pensions, the profits of active business) more lenient tax treatment than arbitrage and unearned income (rent, interest and dividends) and encouraging investment with generous capital allowances.

From a Minksy perspective, bankers would always try to make additional profit through leverage and that this needs constant virgil as it causes vulnerabilities in the economy. It is not that bankers are uniquely greedy but that they are in a privileged position within any economic structure as direct purchasers of government bonds and their ability to issue fiat currency as they create loans.

The treatment of banks as just another company within an economy is therefore wrong and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy works.

You are correct that the nation state has so far failed to make adjustments to its tax regime to ensure that tax is aligned with the geographic region where the economic activity occurs. OECD BEPS aligns with the location of the buyer. But many issues occur with the location of the seller (and as a result they have located to tax havens). It is important also to reduce tax arbitrage between corporation tax, VAT, withholding tax and income tax in multinational environments.

Those that you ascribe as abusing the system are extracting currency from an economy. There is an inflationary impact into financial assets and property but as this is not captured in CPI or RPI, the central bank does not take any action regarding interest rates. How high would property prices have been if interest rates had risen with property price inflation? By preventing this extract, the currency remains in the economy and is automatically more equally shared.

In connection, it is also worth mentioning that a government can not be insolvent for debts in its domestic currency and so bonds/domestic debt should just be seen as a sign of domestic money supply. The other side of the domestic money supply are the goods and services that is buys. As a result lower productivity could be a sign that monetary value is less into manufactured goods and services and more into financial assets and property prices.

The real tyranny is exporting currency as it is a form of colonialism. De Gaulle in this respect covered it in the “exorbitant privilege” of the US dollar. But it also applies to development aid transfers and maybe suggests why development aid does not yield as much results as expected. It is better to develop countries own institutions and currency than apply a foreign currency (linked to results from Angus Deaton).

So in many ways international cooperation and delay for international cooperation is a fob. We should just get on developing our own economies for maximum benefit of its citizens.

This leads into the political realm and whether the UK constitution is capable of does this under its elected dictatorship – the overlap of the executive and the legislature (Chilcott spoke of Blair’s abuse of this and sofa government). As well as the ridiculously impoverished second chamber. At least UK has a strong judiciary!?! You could also bring discussions of FPTP and party financing affecting lobbying practices – Stephen Byers “I am a taxi” was one of my favorites.

So not only is there a need to reposition finance in its place in society (as creator of fiat currency) for the citizens and not to extract from the citizens but also to reassess the political structures that have failed us in this regard.

I do enjoy following your comments.

Euan