Free ports
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I’ve heard various tory mp’s saying that the high skill, high wage economy will be achieved through free ports. From the little I’ve read about free ports, the two seem mutually exclusive. I’ve looked around the site and I cant see much about free ports. Do we have any articles about them?
ThanksFunnily enough in the North East we used to have a high skill and high wage workforce, they were called miners and shipbuilders, I wonder what happened to them?
There’s quite a few articles on the internet.
This is map of successful freeport bids:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/990321/Freeport_Location_Maps.pdf
All privately owned, no regulations, freedom for capital to do what it wants.“Funnily enough in the North East we used to have a high skill and high wage workforce, they were called miners and shipbuilders, I wonder what happened to them?”
Miners and shipbuilders were paid high wages?!
Health and safety, workers rights and other protections are just unnecessary costs in the eyes of these people. This article gives an insight to the thinking behind them.
https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/brexit-why-free-ports-are-race-bottom-workerI contacted a member who I knew had worked in Bermuda which I thought was a “free port”. Here is what he says:
“Regarding Free Ports or even Free Zones, I consider them to be in the same category as a Free Lunch, ie to be taken with a pinch of salt, as I don’t know of any instance where a worker or any working class organization has ever proposed any of the above.
Bermuda was not technically a Free Trade Zone as far as I understand it, simply a free MONEY zone for big business masked by the sovereignty of a tiny society that sanctimoniously declares that they are entitled to structure their tax laws to suit the needs of their citizens. Bermuda can thus be a tax haven if their corporations are Bermudian corporations simply going about their humble businesses. “We have no income tax” they can honestly declare, because government revenue is all raised by VAT and other non-income tax methods.
So tax avoidance rather than tax evasion.
Free Ports and Free Economic Zones are an attempt at ameliorating the tax burden on participating corporations, and IMHO do not work due to ‘Newtons Third’ – for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. I found a great article on this which I include here:https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/trade-freeports-free-zones
Saint Thomas and saint croix were called free zone because when you bought any merchandise you did not have to pay any sales tax it was like an army store Peoples travelled to buy liquors and big bottles of whisky or scotch without sales tax In that time airlines ticket were very cheap Some others ports have something similar and gave the merchandise inside the airplanes and some merchandises were cheapers than the retailers store. The main objectivewas to attract tourists and investors Several years ago those islands were attractions for investors to avoid paying taxes. Citibank ( Citicorp) and Chase ( JP Morgan ) hada large international banking operations in Nassau
The article is interesting, the tories are either idealistic about free ports or totally aware of the realities of these zones. I imagine varying shades of both, depending on the mp in question.
Like someone here wrote, Free Port is free lunch I have been in all those places in the Antilles and it is a different reality
The areas that some of these places cover is staggering. I’m starting to think of them as footholds for the anarcho-capitalists. This document from the gov’s freeport bidding prospectus shows the size of these areas.
George Monbiot casts his eye over freeports
“…this was never about improving our lives. On the contrary, it’s about subordinating our needs to those of favoured capital…”
How different was “Semi-Autonomous Region” (SAR) from freeports?
Forget free ports, try charter cities. This is an interesting article:
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