Day 4 --- 7/1/10

So much for improving on my late arrival...

I joined the class in the middle of a discussion about low income housing needs especially the 'social obligation' aspect of it.

Is low income housing an 'obligation'...if a developer or local government decides to revitalize a specific area for varying reasons like crime reduction, tax base boosting, strategic changes etc, should they also be responsible for relocating the existing constituents? I, for one, am strongly in favor of forcing such decision makers to bear the consequences of their choices... If the local government or the developer chooses to develop an area, then they must be forced to provide an alternative location to the existing dwellers even if the reason for the relocation is a 'social good' like behavior alteration like crime reduction.

Other articles we discussed focused on the topics of industrial markets, tax and government trends.

On industrial markets:

most people agree that the current signal from the sector in particular and the economy in general is mixed. There are signs of recovery from the deep recession although these signs are erratic in many cases and are yet to be proven stable and lasting.

On taxes:

I submitted an article regarding the philosophical base of taxation. The article mainly revolves around the dilemma as to why earned income is taxed at a much higher rate than investment income (like dividends and capital gains) and inheritances (estate tax). While there will always be a segment approach to any government policy including tax policies, that fact that income earned through hard work (like 16 hours a day, two or three jobs, six or even seven days a week) is taxed at a rate higher than investment income seems hard to conceive.

On government trends:

I also submitted an article on the government technology trends. The article is a continuation of our previous discussion on cloud computing and social networking. We discussed about how some municipalities are utilizing social networking like facebook, twitter and YouTube in order to bolster citizen participation in governance.

We also discussed the canadian economy and its focus on banking regulations. We discussed how the relatively stricter banking regulatory framework helped ease the impact of the financial meltdown that 'haunted' the global economy.

Another interesting topic we discussed was a proposed commercial rent tax in San Fransisco.