The EU leadership is really trying to make Great Britain pay dearly for voting to exit the Community. Like the socialists in American, it’s our way or no way. The left may call the right the “deplorables” but the left are the “intolerables” who refuse to ever consider they might be wrong.

The EU think that is they can make it so bad for Britain, nobody else will leave. They refuse to examine why there is rising discontent within Europe. They refuse to let go of this dream of a federalized Europe to eradicate national identities along with sovereign rights.

The EU intend to be it a mistake that the British will regret and fall to their knees. This attitude is consistent with the constant endeavor to explain all the shortcomings of the EU as insignificant and irrelevant, thereby closing their ears and mind to any possible reform. The EU constantly repeated motto of a federalized Europe will less the risk of war but nobody else takes this seriously outside of Brussels. The “European Project” is creating the resentment that fuels war. With this policy in place, the Community has refused to listen to anyone but themselves. This has led to small issues festering and creating resentment which grows into a huge problem and Brexit that has spun Frexit and all the rest.

The EU refuse to even listen to the British and chose to ignore the speeches of the British Prime Minister, Theresa May. The PM May has announced a clear separation and rejected all interim solutions by the EU, which ultimately would still lead to a dependency upon Brussels. Britain demands that each nation must decide for itself who can immigrate. Just because Merkel allowed the refugees in to help her polls should not subjugate other nations to have to endure a vast influx of something they never voted for.

Britain is not willing to surrender all domestic law to that of the EU. Indeed, EU law is no longer to be applied in Britain. Here we have the EU demanding Ireland retroactively charge Apple taxes simply because their tax rate is less that the highest EU member. That is surrendering everything sovereign to Brussels. Laws are only to be decided by the British parliament – not Brussels. Jurisprudence is a matter for the British courts not the European Court.

Britain is to leave the EU internal market and the EU Customs Union and seeks a free trade agreement to be concluded between the EU and Great Britain. The EU seeks to punish Britain for rejecting its dream. The EU forgets that Trump is now in and a trade deal with Britain will no longer be at the back of the cue as was the case under Obama.

Free movement of people, together with the free movement of goods, free movement of services and the free movement of capital, are the four fundamental freedoms which are regarded as the foundation of the EU. The free movement of persons justifies the right of all EU citizens to settle in the Union and to accept work. However, this has not worked as smoothly as presumed. The cost of living is significantly different throughout the EU. Eastern Europeans, mainly from Poland, have infiltrated Britain working for less money creating competition for domestic workers while foreign companies use cheaper labor in the East to undercut domestic companies on their home-turf.

As the economy turns down and deflation prevails, the threat of foreign jobs is being addressed throughout Europe. Add to this the refugee crisis and you have a power keg throughout Europe waiting to go off.  In view of the high unemployment in almost all countries, domestic citizens have ALWAYS turned against foreign workers as the easy scapegoats for the economic decline. This only merges with the high taxes reducing disposable income.

The EU leaders have nothing to say about the criticisms. They have no clear statement to challenge what is going on. The regulatory nightmare and outright rage that is rising among the people is simply ignored by Brussels. The legal uncertainty with the British exit on the banking system is something nobody even wants to speculate about. How do bail-ins works in Europe if abandoned in Britain? So while the EU thinks by punishing Britain they will discourage others from leaving, they are seriously mistaken. The dream of the EU is dead. It should have remained just a trade union – that was it.

What the Trump Administration is clueless about the ability of the EU to hold it together, they fail to grasp that talking the dollar down will just not work if the political structure of the EU is breaking up.

In the earliest days of the Republic Rome’s taxes were quite modest, and were not direct, but were a property tax or a wealth tax on all forms of property, including land, houses, slaves, animals, money and personal effects. The basic rate was just 1% and sometimes it would occasionally rise to 3%. This was to fund the pay for the army during war. The tax would often be rebated to the people out of the spoils of war. It was levied directly upon individuals, which required the government to conduct a censuses. We have the Biblical account in Luke 2.1-5 where it reads that Caesar Augustus (27BC-14AD) decreed that the Roman Empire should be taxed and that everyone had to return to his own city to pay taxes. So Joseph and Mary returned to Bethlehem and there Jesus was born. In Egypt, we know that there was a 14 year cycle to the census from the time of Augustus. The inhabitants of Egypt were required to submit a declaration to local authorities containing the names, ages, and other identifying information of all co-inhabitants. Indeed, many declarations have survived on papyrus. There are a consistent run of documents showing every census between 33/34AD and 257/258AD, with evidence that this cycle extends back to 19/20AD at the very least.

Direct taxation was impossible in the Roman Empire so there was no income tax. Property taxes were more efficient and could be administered by census. Income taxes were not possible simply because there was not such mechanism at that point in time. Local communities would decide for themselves how to divide up the tax burden among their citizens.  There were the hated Tax Farmers who would pay the tax to the state for a region and then they had the right to collect taxes. States today have taken past-due taxes and sold them to modern Tax Farmers to collect. Britain did that selling the student loans for pennies and the Tax Farmers collect and chase students. The Romans would sell the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder and how they collected the tax was not really the concern of the state. They also had the responsibility of converting provincial taxes, which were often collected in-kind taking property be it grain or animals, and then they would convert those assets into coin to pay the state. The Tax Farmers had to provide sufficient revenues to repay their advance to the state plus enough to cover the opportunity cost of the funds, the transactions cost of converting collections into cash, and the remainder was their profit. In fact, tax farming was quite profitable and
was a major investment vehicle for wealthy citizens of Rome.

Augustus ended tax farming that had dominated the Republican days due to complaints from the provinces of exploitation. The provinces were becoming deeply indebted. Cicero tells us that Brutus saw no problem exploiting others for profit. Brutus was a Tax Farmer and bid for the governorship of Cyprus. It was during this time period that Brutus enriched himself by also skimming taxes and then lent money to Ariobarzanes I (96-63BC) of Cappadocia (modern day Turkey) at 40%, well above the legal lending rate, which was confirmed by Cicero’s documents on Brutus.

The Augustinian tax system was far less progressive than the Republic. The shift moved to a flat tax type of assessment which was based on wealth and population. Tax Farmers had limited times to collect taxes, so they tended to extort the rich for that was easier than converting pigs and chickens from the poor. The Augustinian tax systemgreatly reduced the “progressivity” that is indicative in an income tax today. The Augustus flat tax was thus indexed so to speak to growth in taxable capacity where communities were only liable for a fixed payment. Thus any increase in income accrued entirely to the people as a whole and did not have to be shared with Rome. Individuals knew in advance the exact amount of
their tax bill and that any income over and above that amount was entirely theirs. This tax system promoted economic growth rather than the explotive system of the Republic. Indeed, the civil war supported Julius Caesar because of the burden of taxes and the exploitation of Tax Farmers.

The flat tax of Augustus created the biggest economic boom in Roman history. Augustus once said “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” Indeed, Augustus commissioned several large marble structures, some of which took 40 years to complete. There was evidence that massive marble blocks were constantly being moved through the city, causing congestion in the streets.  Marble-paved public spaces began to appear where marble was previously reserved for sacred temples and houses of the elite. The flat tax system really did create the economic boom as people turned to peace and business – Pax Romano.

The benefit of the Roman Empire was also free trade and freedom of religion until the late 3rd century AD.