Forbes just released its annual list of the ten richest Australians. Of the top eight, four inherited their wealth. The other four range in age from 75 to 85, suggesting that new heirs are likely to be joining the rich list before too long.
This pattern isn’t yet representative of the Australian wealth distribution as a whole, but it is becoming more so. Piketty’s patrimonial society is not far away.
There are a lot of things we can do to promote a more equal distribution of opportunity and outcomes, but a return to taxes on inheritance (preferably levied on the recipient rather than the estate) would be a good start.
John Quiggin 
Why not land taxes? Financial assets can be hidden away from the taxman. Land cannot.
Moreover, land taxes would improve the efficiency of land use, and help making housing more affordable.
@Zucchini
Because 200 word blog posts don’t cover every possible topic. Before posting a “what about” comment like this, it’s a good idea to do a search of the blog on “land tax”. You’ll find it’s been mentioned quite a few times.
«more equal distribution of opportunity and outcomes, but a return to taxes on inheritance (preferably levied on the recipient rather than the estate) would be a good start»
But most middle class people feel like millionaires with their suburban properties and hate the idea of a «more equal distribution of opportunity and outcomes», and also hate inheritance taxes, especially on heirs, as many of them are dreaming of their turn as lords of the micro-manor when they inherit those suburban properties.
In most anglo-american culture countries the middle classes want a patrimonial society, as they have bought into the dream of a plantation economy where “productive” middle and upper class property owners (and their heirs when their turn comes) live in comfortable luxury thanks to rents and capital gains, while “unproductive” working class and underclass losers toil endlessly for low pay in a race-to-the-bottom competition with immigrants and foreign workers from very poor countries.
That dream will only end when the middle classes realize that they have been asset-stripping themselves, and that they too will be joining the race-to-the-bottom.
From H MacMillan’s diary an interesting quote:
«As a kind of tranquiliser I am taking a course of Henry James! What a world – how quiet and peaceful and happy it was for the “upper and upper-middle classes”. Now it’s a nightmare. Happily, it’s a much better world for the masses, as has been brought home to me most forcibly in writing the history of the inter-war years.»
Can you afford your own custom tailored tax system to protect your wealth?
And then there is the Russian “take” on capitalism
It costs just a quarter of a million dollars to fill the tank.
Just to reinforce JQ’s point about age and inheritance. If you look at the Forbes list of the young people appearing in the 50 rich list (which includes people in their 50s), only 3 are self made.
Do not think that people with extreme wealth, 50 million and above, have the where-with-all to move their assets out of the country to avoid inheritance taxes. I know a number of people who have become Hong Kong residents for that very purpose.
Remember the the resources super profit tax? How well did that work? At that level you are not dealing with amateurs, Paul Hogan aside.
Do you not think…
Nice idea but is it realistic given we are rapidly moving from a quasi – democratic society to an oligarchical based one where inevitably such a tax would hit ordinary people and not the super-rich? Remember the Golden Rule as the Wizard of Id explained “Them that has the gold makes the rules”. To think we can seriously tax the rich without something tantamount to revolution seems to me wishful thinking.
So what would this revolution involve especially if it is peaceful/conceptual rather than violent which would defeat the purpose an so is a non starter except to recalcitrant Leninists and Tea Partiers?
This emergence of a full blown Australian oligarchy reminded me of something our old futurist friend Joseph Tainter pointed out:
. (see TAINTER, J. A. 2011. Resources and Cultural Complexity: Implications for Sustainability. Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences, 30, 24-34.”
This decline wasnt just about the greedy 0.01%. An interesting phenomenon was the devaluation of the Roman currency over a period of 200 years which can be tracked as the proportion of silver in the coinage.
Sound familiar, at least trend wise? These days we have no silver in our coinage at all, but having discovered money/value is a far more slippery beast our society responded by developing ‘economic instruments’ not only to maintain the status quo but facilitate wealth transfer to the wealthy evenutally from the public purse through bail outs. But even this hasnt worked as we have seen still continuing an extraordinary devaluation of money via fiat money like the CDSs and separately the way shares in companies now dont reflect assets so much as notional short term value placed upon them by ‘the market’ which can evaporate as in 2008 even though no physical destruction of assets has occurred.
So this wealth accumulation is a wakeup call but what should be the response i? Tainter’s thesis which is at least worth consideration is problems such as wealth accumulation are an outgrowth of an increasing complex society whereby increased complexity addresses short term problems especially related to economics and sustainability but sows the seeds of further problems in the longer term.
Tainter’s ideas/analysis are interesting and worth considering because he himself doesnt see a fix either and provides a useful starting point for rethinking the problem which indicates:
a. There is no simple fix.
b. Mainstream economists need to start seriously visiting Limits to Growth related ideas.
c. But conversely neo-malthusians need to also seriously examine their own proposals too.
The article above is worth considering along with his other works but many of the key arguement are illustrated by the following extracts:
“Many students of sustainability will find it a disturbing conclusion that long-term conservation is not possible, contravening as it does so many assumptions about future sustainability. Naturally we must ask: are there alternatives to this process? Can we find a way out of this dilemma? Regrettably, as Boulding observed, no simple solutions are evident. Consider some of the approaches commonly advocated:”
“1. Voluntarily Reduce Resource Consumption….. Societies increase in complexity to solve problems, becoming more costly in the process. Resource production must subsequently increase to fund the increased complexity. To implement voluntary conservation long term would require that a society be either uniquely lucky in not being challenged by problems, or that it not address the problems that confront it. The latter strategy would at best reduce the legitimacy of the problem-solving institution, and at worst lead to its demise.”
“2. Employ the Price Mechanism to Control Resource Consumption…..This is currently the laissez-faire strategy of industrialized nations. Since humans don’t commonly forego affordable consumption of desired goods and services, economists consider it more effective than voluntary conservation. Both approaches, however, lead eventually to the same outcome: As problems arise, resource consumption must increase at the societal level even if consumers as individuals purchase less.”
“3. Ration Resources…..Because of its unpopularity, rationing is possible in democracies only for clear, short-term emergencies. This is illustrated by the reactions to rationing in England and the United States during WorldWar II.”
“4. Reduce Population…..it has the same fatal flaw as the first two: Problems will emerge that require solutions, and those solutions will compel resource production to grow.”
” 5. Hope for Technological Solutions….I sometimes call this a faith-based approach to our future. We members of industrialized societies are socialized to believe that we can always find a technological solution to resource problems. …….Consider, for example, the following statements:
• No society can escape the general limits of its resources, but no innovative society need accept Malthusian diminishing returns (Barnett and Morse, 1963),
• All observers of energy seem to agree that various energy alternatives are virtually inexhaustible (Gordon, 1981),
• By allocation of resources to R&D, we may deny the Malthusian hypothesis and prevent the conclusion of the doomsday models (Sato and Suzawa, 1983).
Our society’s belief in technical solutions is deeply ingrained. The flaw here was pointed out by Jevons (1866), as noted above: as technological improvements reduce the cost of using a resource, total consumption will eventually increase. The Jevons Paradox (also known as the Rebound Effect) is widely in effect (Polimeni et al., 2008), among economic levels ranging from nations to households and individuals, including in many sectors of daily life (Tainter, 2008).”
@BilB
The time is ripe for a resources super poor tax rebate now miners want royalty relief as reported today. The miners sure know how to lobby – should be no problem.
As for land taxes, you would find both sides falling over themselves to offer reductions. Lease payments on grazing land are a good analogy where they only ever ratchet downwards a drought at a time and the savings get capitalised so you can borrow more and go broke quicker.
@BilB
Indeed. An inheritance tax is not going to happen for the same reason as the resources super profits tax was trashed – vested interest conning a large number of the not-so-well-off into believing it was a disaster for them.
Yep, a trend back to equality is NEVER going to happen under this system. Mpower’s mention of the term “ratchet” is completely appropriate. The system is now geared to ever ratchet wages downwards and to ever ratchet the profit share upwards. The system is geared to ratchet inequality ever upwards. The system is geared to ratchet taxes up on the poor and down on the rich. The system is geared to ratchet up the stress on the climate and rest of the environment.
There is no end in sight for any of these processes from within the current system. It will push this process until the people break or the environment breaks or most likely both. Those who are still arguing about tax fixes to a grotesquely broken and unequal system are living in the past. There will never be another rapprochement or accommodation with capital anywhere. The historical conditions for such a rapprochement are gone. They were one-off, historically conditioned and are now gone never to return. The dream for a mixed economy compromise has now become a full-fledged delusion.
@John Quiggin
Indeed mentioned a few times, but no discussion about it by your good self.
Chris O’Neill, the smh of 6/2/16 contains an article on land tax. Specifically on the NSW Labor Left trying to sell this idea on the grounds that such a tax is ‘progressive’. No more has to be said to write off this argument. (Joe Hockey is gone and the rest of us do not confuse absolute amounts with the notion of a progressive tax.) Land taxes, other than council rates, is the lazy alternative to the lazy GST increases. End of story.
@Ernestine Gross
How much land value do you, your family and friends own?
Not that I was advocating for a land tax. Check the other thread.
@Ernestine Gross
How much land value do you, your family and friends own?
Not that I was advocating for a land tax. Check the other thread.
@Chris O’Neill
You are free to consult the Land Titles Office.
To return to this thread, it’s heading alludes to content in Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the Twenty-first Century, 2014. It is the role of inheritance of physical and financial assets in wealth concentration that mattered in eras past (patrimonial society) and it has resurfaced in France, the UK, the USA and, as the heading suggests, now Australia.
So, what do you have to say on this interesting topic?
@Ernestine Gross
This does not make the ALP NSW Left look very good.
Land is taxed when you buy it (stamp duty), when you hold it (council tax in UK, rates in Aust) and – except for your primary residence – when it is sold (capital gain). The only additional scope for yet more land tax is capital gain on primary residence as part of probate.
There are various exemptions, but this is the general picture and in places land ownership by foreigners is surtaxed.
The proper means of maintaining a fair society is with income tax. Do not be fooled to think otherwise.
The reason why the pointy end of the income pyramid want to transfer taxation to consumption tax is because they know that beyond a certain base level of expenditure the use for money is to create more money in the relative tax free “investment” world both local but safer off shore. If the money is taxed before it hits the bank account this puts a brake on free spinning wealth creation.
Any family with an income less than 100 thousand will be sucked down by a increased GST with higher mortgages, higher rent, higher bills for every part of their lives, and the option of income magnification through high performing investments (the ultimate cost of which fall on the general populace eventually) never becomes a possibility.
In a world where the race for wealth has ratcheted up to a billion dollar entry level we must retain the progressive income tax drag for our society to retain relatively homogeneous, and fair.
@Ernestine Gross:
You can suck eggs too.
What I said on the other thread, as I pointed out above, is relevant.
@BilB
Of course, the interesting thing is that the vast majority of wealth has not come from income that was taxed but from the capital gain of assets that have either been owned for a long time, have achieved high rates of capital gain with little or no tax, or some combination of both of these.
I don’t believe that to be true Chris Oneil. Can you sustantiate that claim?
@Chris O’Neill
Perhaps you should take the advice I gave, before commenting. Or you could read the post immediately below this one, which includes the observation
As a general observation, Chris, I find your comments to be frequently rude and snarky. Please tone them down.
Actually, Chris Oneil, when I read that more carefully, I think you are more likely to be right. I skip over thd capital gain aspect.
One other tax I have not noticed being discussed this time around is a financial transaction tax. Shock horror to even suggest it.
Thd fact is that we have had financial transaction taxes for years. These are applied to EFTPOS transactions and Credif Card transactions, and they are not small commissions either. Worse yet, who benefits from this hidddn extertion?……….. The banks do!!!
So when the banks gasp at the difficulty of charging a transaction fee on behalf of the government rememder that they have no trouble doing the same for their own superprofit.
So my tax restructuring plan?
1. Increase the top tax bracket to half where it was in Howard’s time.
2. Apply a universal adjustable levy to all imported goods and services.
3. Apply a financial transactions tax.
4. Apply a capital gains super profits tax.
@John Quiggin
I did actually. I typed land tax into the blog’s search box and it came up with 3 matches in your articles (including the post immediately below this one) and they were all just mentions of the term (as I said). My problem is that I think it deserves more than just mentions.
For example the fact that introducing a new land tax causes an immediate capital loss to the value of the land that becomes taxed and that this is likely to make the owners fight it tooth-and-nail. An economic rent tax on economic rent from the starting date, on the other hand, would not produce an immediate capital loss.
@Ernestine Gross
Judging by the quality of that argument, sounds like someone with a substantial interest in land.
Wealth. Well it’s only money. Is it so terrible that the rich 1% have > 90% of the “wealth”? That depends on what they do with the wealth, and whether it impacts on the living standards of the 90%.
If the 1% place their money in offshore bank accounts and buy Itallian villas and super-yachts with their small change there is no detrimental effect on the 90% simply because of that alone. The supply of money is more or less infinitely elastic, and so the solution is quite simple: increase the money supply.
Here is where I see the sense in continual government deficits. By injecting money into the economy by deficit spending, the value of money is decreased beyond the normal rate of inflation effects.
Ask yourself this: what would the rich prefer: scarce money or plentiful money? The latter injected into the economy benefits the 90% and disadvantages the 1%.
The current problems have a lot to do with the trend since the early nineties towards government surpluses. This reduces the money supply and squeezes the lower and middle classes. The 1% of course love it.
Advocating for government deficits to be the norm is obviously a tenet of MMT. However, the main argument put forward by MMT proponents, being the mantra “governments with sovereign currencies can never go broke”, is far too crude. Naturally, no one is going to swallow that. Obvious truths are the hardest to accept. No problems, the argument can be made more intuitively.
There are a list of indicators that indirectly support the MMT thesis. Together they build a strong enough case to counteract neo-liberal groupthink. Here are a few:
**USA and Japan, numbers 1 and 3 largest economies, have always run deficits and have massive so-called “debts”.
** Government “debt” after WW2 was really MASSIVE. Are we still paying it off? Are you joking?
** Private sector debt is true debt, government “debt” is not. Private sector debt greatly exceeds government “debt”.
** Money decreases in value over time. Therefore so does debt. Therefore, so does “debt”. This is the key point: Debt is not the same as “debt”.
** People intuitively know that you have to go into debt to “get ahead”. Debt is a good thing. If debt is a good thing, then obviously “debt” is an even better thing.
** Debt is subject to sanctions: the bank can foreclose on your house. “Debt” by contrast is sanction-free: short of another nation invading or bombing us, no entity can ever “force” the repayment of a government’s “debt”.
In effect, government “debt” is like a 500-yr mortgage. Even better. The mortgagor of government “debt” is the government itself.
Obvious when you think about it.
I wonder why Prof. J.Q. won’t address the question of the etiology of wealth inequality and only addresses the question of the symptomatic treatment of it.
I am open to being proven wrong. Maybe Prof. J.Q. has addressed this issue (in which case he can link) or maybe he is about to address this issue. I certainly hope so because I get the impression that he is avoiding the issue. I certainly don’t think social-democratic debate has gone far enough if all we are going to talk about is redistribution after maldistribution. What is needed is some analysis of why the system maldistributes in the first place, whether this is avoidable and in what ways it might be avoidable.
@Chris O’Neill
On a previous thread I made a detailed argument why I consider an inheritance tax to better target policy objectives than land tax. My argument is related to the notion of ‘patrimonial society’ as exposed in Piketty.
The owner of this blog is Professor John Quiggin, not you. You may not have noticed that he systematically goes through various taxes even though he spellt it out for your benefit.
He was one of the first if not the first economist who pointed to ‘tax expenditure’. After a very long time, tax expenditure items, as identified by Prof Q, are now explicitly on the tax reform table of the current government. You ought to dip your lid rather than making demands on what should or should not be ‘discussed’. Yes, the Financial Systems Review (Murray Report) should be mentioned in this context, too.
You also ought to dip your lid to a government and an opposition who, regarding GST, have shown to be capable of going beyond your method of discourse (presumptions, prejudgements, innuendos, personality politics, playing the player rather than the ball with a lot of empty talk).
Until proven otherwise, I’ll adopt a working hypothesis about your posts, namely ‘no content’.
@Chris O’Neill
This is getting tiresome and insulting. I’ve been banging on about land tax, and the political obstacles to it, for decades. Here’s a recently published piece you could easily have found making exactly the point to which you refer.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/appetite-for-house-price-rises-outstrips-concern-for-equity-20150612-ghmbez.html
Happy to accept your apology, or to bid you farewell.
Again, Ikonoklast, Google is (or ought to be) your friend. I’m getting annoyed by people who seem to think that because their search skills aren’t what they should be, they are free to accuse me of ignoring issues.
Many workers have small investment properties, and presumably many landlords make just a normal living out of rents.
Up to a certain point, this creates no problem where the underlying asset is not capitalised.
The problem arises only when, beyond providing land owners with a normal living or retirement fund, the property is used to extract monopoly rents. It then becomes Capital and all the problems Ikon refers to emerge (ie original maldistribution).
You only get patrimonial society from causes – not symptoms.
John Quiggin,
In that spirit, perhaps this is a good link;
http://democraticmixedeconomy.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/marxism-without-revolution-class.html
I will assume this is still a summary of your comprehensive view of these matters unless further searches by me uncover a more recent and divergent view. To this article, we could add “The Mixed Economy is Back – and it’s Here to Stay” from 2010.
In brief, I would say an analysis of class without fully considering the issues of ownership of production is an incomplete analysis. In turn, implicitly positing the private ownership / public ownership dichotomy as the only ownership possibility set is somewhat limiting. For example, a cooperative ownership / public ownership model is also possible. A tripartite model is also possible with private ownership, cooperative ownership and public ownership all controlling significant sectors of the economy. (Mentally underline “significant” in that sentence.)
Also, in your text you mention “democratic welfare state” and “democratic parties”. These are the only mentions of democracy. Admittedly, in a short article or two, you cannot mention all you would wish to mention for the comprehensive treatment of a large subject. The representative democracy conception of democracy is very limited. Without exploring and implementing workplace democracy comprehensively we are not and will not be a real democracy. Workers need to be in control of productive decisions, not an elite of private owners, managers and representative politicians. This is what is still lacking from mixed economy / representative democracy analysis IMO.
Any suggestion that workers cannot manage enterprises would be entirely equatable to suggestions that workers should not have a vote in representative democracy (since they aren’t smart enough) and that neither should they or their children (compared to the offspring of the elite) be given a tertiary education. Of course, there are stupid workers one would not put in charge of a lemonade stand. Equally, there are many workers who are smarter than their bosses under the current system. Academic workers for example are smarter than their current managerialist masters.
Full democracy, including workplace democracy, will unleash the greatest degree of distributed intelligence. It is often argued, quite incorrectly, that private ownership and markets mobilise distributed intelligence best. This argument falls down on a number of points. Production decisions in our economy are decided in the firm, enterprise or transnational company by an “aristocracy” of owners and managers. They base (some of) these decisions on market data and this market in turn makes “decisions” or indications by the “vote of money” (and by all sorts of corruption and market manipulation). Since money or wealth is so unevenly distributed this amounts to the rich minority having many votes and the poorer majority having far fewer votes. There is no real sense in which market and corporate decisions are democratic. There is also no real sense in which such decisions properly mobilise the distributed intelligence of the entire population.
It is clear enough from the re-emergence of the patrimonial society that wealth and power (as “money votes” and executive power) in the current system are not earned meritocratically. The very fact that an hereditary elite can re-emerge so powerfully from this system indicates the systemic nature of the problem. The elite are the message. The system is the problem.
You might also find this interesting
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/01/john-quiggin-on-the-red-and-the-black/
“There are a lot of things we can do to promote a more equal distribution of opportunity and outcomes, but a return to taxes on inheritance (preferably levied on the recipient rather than the estate) would be a good start.”
As per previous thread, I agree. In the meantime I looked for examples where inheritance tax is levied on the beneficiaries rather than on the estate and is progressive, while making allowances for family relationships (motivation for work and saving).
Germany has an inheritance tax system which comes close to the theoretical properties mentioned.
A short article, sufficient to illustrate the progressive nature of the inheritance tax is in: http://www.expatica.com/de/finance/Inheritance-tax-in-Germany_108115.html
A more comprehensive explanation of the system is in:
Click to access German_Inheritance_Taxes_%28SK00131316%29.pdf
But the system is not considered adequate. A German Court has ruled the Government must legislate by July 2016 measures which deal with the undue concentration of wealth in family enterprises:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-german-court-requires-changes-to-inheritance-tax-law-1418816243
It is going to be intresting to see what the German Government comes up with regarding family enterprises (not listed companies). An example of a ‘large’ family enterprise is Aldi. Another one is Lidl, both are in discount (no frills) supermarket business. Every so often one of them goes bankrupt, eg Schlecker; http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/93529f6e-4769-11e1-b847-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3zdSDSUGI
I must stress here I am not suggesting the German inheritance tax system is a model for Australia. The structure of ‘the economies’ differ. Other tax laws differ. For example, while both Germany and Australia have an agricultural sector with family businesses, there are, to the best of my knowledge no agri-businesses corporations in Germany, while there are in Australia. Moreover the size of the holdings are vastly different. These means potential buyers of family farms are likely to be very different (neighbouring farmers buying parcels of land vs large international agricultural corporations). Agriculture is not an export sector worth mentioning in Germany, but it is in Australia. Both Australia and Germany have a manufacturing sector. But there the situation is the other way around regarding their importance for international trade.
The July 2016 expected legislation is going to be interesting because it is widely known there are a lot of family manufacturing enterprises, which do employ a lot of people across a wide variety of skills. What criteria is the government going to develop to discriminate between family enterprises for the purpose of inheritance tax? My first best guess is that the size of the enterprise, measured in terms of say turnover, or number of employees isn’t going to be the only criterion. Others could involve the active management, technological skills based, of off-springs.
How much inheritance tax has been collected? I can’t answer this question as yet even in an approximate sense. I understand the tax goes to the States (Federation). I haven’t found as yet a data set which provides the aggregates. I haven’t spent much effort on this as yet.
JQ, I submitted a post on the topic of inheritance tax on the recipients containing several links. It is in moderation. Would you kindly liberate it? Thanks in advance.
@John Quiggin
It doesn’t look like the article is still available at Jacobin.
I was able to access the article “The Light on the Hill: A Reply to Seth Ackerman” – John Quiggin. It seems to be still there for all. Sometimes if you delete all your internet search history and tracking cookies, some sites will let you in again. They might be tracking free visits and then wanting to implement paid visits or at least subscriber visits. In that case they stop your visits until you delete your search history and tracking cookies.
The Jacobin article is interesting. I don’t want to repeat what I said above so I will try to be brief and make new points. I can understand “many small steps” advocacy and even accept that that might be the best way to go. However, I would expect a manifesto statement somewhere which describes not a final vision, which is impossible, but a comprehensive vision placed out at the limits of prognostication and advocacy so to speak.
Then again, maybe some wily advocates of “many small steps to an eventual radical change” may not want to be entirely candid about their full vision. In that case how do they share those larger and deeper ideas thus attracting the generally like-minded and those persuadable to a sustained co-operative effort toward goals beyond near goals?
Often by being who they are and supporting the incrementalists. There are quite a lot of poly and non-binary-gender people supporting same-sex marriage, for example, even though a lot of the pro-SSM campaigners explicitly exclude them from the debate (and often try to stop them supporting it). It’s not because they’re going to be affected by SSM much, but because they see it as a necessary step on the way to marriage equality and eventually to marriage based on consent.
It’s a case of (loudly) supporting the bits you agree with, which quietly mentioning to those you’re supporting that you want to go further than they do. Often very quietly, so as not to frighten the bigots who have been persuaded that this one small step does not presage the end of the world. Also, not arguing with those who want to make nasty comments about the radical changes. For example, I’d rather not derail this thread into an SSM discussion, I’m just using it as an example.
@Moz of Yarramulla
So it’s entirely possible to say “I support inheritance taxes” and also caveat that with “… as the most likely progressive change to the tax system in the near future” and continue working towards a sustainable, equitable tax system in the more distant future.
@Ikonoclast
I can’t go to the site; I get this message
“This webpage is not available
ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH”
Any suggestions?
@Moz of Yarramulla
I take your points. Some clearly play a much more subtle game than I do. I am a blunt and simple man.
@Ikonoclast
Blimey, thanks for the link.
“Marxism without revolution” what a mess, but I will have a better read asap.
It is an old post, and I am sure that blogging authors want to be held to what they claimed some 5 years ago.
Ivor:
but of course, that is what is happening with valuable land such as in Sydney and Melbourne and, less reliably, in other big cities. Every landowner in those markets has monopoly ownership of their piece of land. Monopoly characteristics exist when there is a finite supply viz, land near a particular location (location, location, location).
@Julie Thomas
ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH
Technoblog says (I will put the FIX information first);
FIX / SOLUTION FOR THIS PROBLEM
– Try non-secure non-encrypted website version, if available* (e.g. http://example.com – no s letter after http) – My comment: Try this fix last as it might be slightly risky.
– Upgrade to Windows Vista or newer Operating System, if possible.
– Use Firefox browser for these particular websites.
My comment: Try this fix first. Firefox is great!
– In Chrome 40 there was a temporary solution to manually over-ride minimum SSLv3 version support by visiting chrome://flags hidden internal settings, but this feature is removed in recent Chrome editions and no longer works.
*Note: many websites today exclusively use secure HTTPS versions, redirecting you automatically to https and no plain http version is available at all.
General Info:
“- This error occurs only in websites which use SSL encryption and HTTPS secure protocol for access and information exchange (e.g. when URL address starts with https://example.com)
– Additionally, it only occurs in websites that use SSL certificates with SNI (Server Name Indication) and ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm)
– Specific components in latest SSL certificates are not supported in older operating systems (like Windows XP) in browsers such as Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.
– Firefox seems to ignore the mismatch errors and websites will work just fine (other less known and popular browsers may or may not work, as well)”
@Julie Thomas
I got “trick moderated” so here is another attempt at reply.
ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH
Technoblog says (I will put the FIX information first);
FIX / SOLUTION FOR THIS PROBLEM
– Try non-secure non-encrypted website version, if available* (e.g. – no s letter after h t t p) – My comment: Try this fix last as it might be slightly risky.
– Upgrade to Windows Vista or newer Operating System, if possible.
– Use Firefox browser for these particular websites.
My comment: Try this fix first. Firefox is great!
– In Chrome 40 there was a temporary solution to manually over-ride minimum SSLv3 version support by visiting chrome://flags hidden internal settings, but this feature is removed in recent Chrome editions and no longer works.
*Note: many websites today exclusively use secure HTTPS versions, redirecting you automatically to https and no plain http version is available at all.
General Info:
“- This error occurs only in websites which use SSL encryption and HTTPS secure protocol for access and information exchange (e.g. when URL address starts with h t t p s)
– Additionally, it only occurs in websites that use SSL certificates with SNI (Server Name Indication) and ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm)
– Specific components in latest SSL certificates are not supported in older operating systems (like Windows XP) in browsers such as Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.
– Firefox seems to ignore the mismatch errors and websites will work just fine (other less known and popular browsers may or may not work, as well)”