Returning from a short break

Usually, one does not enjoy returning from a holiday, but this time I am happy because I am meeting with my valued readers. The holiday was short, but even if it had been long, not much would have changed in the world agenda regarding Turkey. Of course, this situation unfortunately does not apply to the people of Palestine. When we look at the approximately two-week period that has passed, we can see some situations when we magnify the generally stagnant appearance with an electron microscope. 

First and foremost, the August 30 Victory and Aviation Day was celebrated. May this victory, which has risen as a symbol of incredible resistance against world imperialism, be blessed and happy for us all! State officials, including the President, appeared before Atatürk. How sad it is that, despite the pithy expression of the Great Savior and Founding Commander-in-Chief Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, "The truest guide in life is science," the understanding of today is that "the most guaranteed way to remain under state protection and in power is ignorance and religiousness, in which turbaned brains are buried." Whether we call it the project of the imperialist or our own choice, the result is unfortunately this. 

In the context of the Middle East project, which has been carried out by orderlies in line with the long-term plan and orders of the imperialist, the force that has been in conflict with the state for nearly half a century has entered into an arm-wrestling match with the state in an environment created in accordance with the imperialist's project. It seems that the arm-wrestling, which has been going on without clarifying the ambiguous issues surrounding whether the goal is the destruction of the nation-state structure or the creation of a status of living freely as equal citizens within the nation-state, will continue, and perhaps Atatürk came to mind as a show for the public to mask the supporting power or the imperialist! 

TÜİK (Turkish Statistical Institute), as if to say a creature of habit cannot change its ways, has announced that the economy grew by 4.8 percent in the last quarter. Leaving aside academic debates such as whether the values and rates are monetary or adjusted for inflation, when we look at the rate alone, it does not look too bad. However, such statistics are always open to abuse. I do not think that growth figures alone carry much meaning without clarifying what share of the income the top one percent or five percent of society receives, and conversely, what share the bottom ten or even twenty percent receives from the national income; and similarly, without discussing how far apart the lowest and highest income brackets are from each other. Without closing this discussion, I cannot help but share this point with my valued readers. Such rates are averages that reflect the general situation. As such, it means that some of our citizens or groups have shifted (or been pushed) below the given rate, while some groups have been pushed above it. I leave it to the valued readers to decide which group is or is not related to political circles and tenders. It must be clearly stated that if the middle class in a society erodes, the bourgeois democracy tram, which is already not worth much, will completely derail. In such a situation, the wealthy segment supports politics and takes refuge in it, while the poor and impoverished segment is deemed worthy of an income below the hunger or poverty line, like an allowance, and submits to increasingly fascist politics. And this is called democracy! 

In recent days, the Chinese delegation held its annual meeting in Istanbul this year. On the occasion of this meeting, our Chinese friends gave a valuable award to our esteemed professor, Prof. Dr. Korkut Boratav. This award made not only our Professor but also all his friends, colleagues, and students happy, because we all know with all our hearts that our Professor, who has made very valuable contributions to our economy and to all of us with his work, is worthy of such a gift. 

While the rapidly developing China catches the eye of all of us, it also excites us all as to whether a new imperialist power is being born in our world, or whether it is developing as a new focus that will shed light on socialism, which was also the dream of Rosa Luxemburg. Although it is currently unknown where China, which has a dual socio-economic structure, will drift in the future with such an unstable balance, the current snapshot appears to be that a counter-power to the existing imperialist power is rising. At least I see no harm in saying that my opinion is currently in this direction. Well, when we look at where China's importance comes from for developing, peripheral economies like ours, the most important issue that occupies my mind is that it holds the view of growing together by helping in capital and other areas, rather than destroying by exploiting like capitalist imperialists. Let us hope that the capitalist world does not tarnish this decent appearance of China with its own terrible logic. 

As I finish today's article, I thought I would devote the last topic to the latest fair value definitions in my field, public finance, and the property taxes that will rise on top of them. What can I say, when there is no foreign capital inflow and the government cannot collect taxes from the capital it has created itself, it has come to the point of hoping for both indirect taxes, penalties that can be considered oppression for a state, and finally the property tax we are experiencing. Property tax is an exception to the current structure, which is an "income taxation system," because property tax, just like the motor vehicle tax, etc., is a type of direct tax taken from wealth or wealth transfer. This type of tax taken from wealth is accrued and collected at a per-thousand rate on the assumption that it is taken from the potential income of the wealth. So, what does this mean? The debtor of the tax is, naturally, the property owner. However, since the property owner will transfer the burden to the tenant to one degree or another depending on market and mutual relationship conditions, the burden will be placed partly on the primary taxpayer and partly on the tenants. This result will emerge according to the power of the strong to ride on the back of the weak. Please think about it, in whose favor is the power relationship between the landlord and the tenant? Let us leave this situation to market conditions and suffice it to say that the result can be formed according to relative powers and bargaining situations. We need to discuss it in much more detail in the future, but firstly, real estate is not and should not be a savings tool; and secondly, rents should not exceed one-fourth or at least one-third of the household's income. In a country or city where rent is above the subsistence or poverty line, there remains neither morality nor a clean citizen who has not committed a crime! Moreover, this brutalizing situation is not helped by Friday sermons delivered with swords, nor by the Imam Hatip education system, which is being expanded and imposed on almost all young people!

Starting from where we left off next week, see you then!