conservation of Euros

On May 17, 10:27 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 17 May 2010 13:48:28 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:



To the contrary--anti-trust should apply to labor, too.  E.g.
government unions.

Agreed; all unions.

Sure.  A union is nothing more than an attempt to monopolize labor.

Sad day:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Antitrust_Act#Exemptions

The AFL-CIO can only be seen as monopolists. They'd have taken over
the country, except that they killed all their hosts.

James

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 17, 4:01 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 16, 1:11 am, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 5:59 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 3:46 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 02:34:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 12, 7:57 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 10:13:56 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
I don't harvest; I think.
An unconvincing claim. Your "thinking" reflects your indolent habit of
picking up predigested  nonsense that fits your fat-headed
preconceptions.
I've been calling you a fathead for years. You can't even design
original insults.
In this thread you've claimed that the euro can't be stable currency
because it shared across several countries with different economic
strengths and weaknessess, while failing to note that the US dollar is
shared across the united states of America - running from Alaska to
Wyoming (neither of whose economies look much like California's).
But we only have one government.
Your states don't have legislatures and governors?
They aren't allowed to print money or regulate big financial
institutions. Most must balance their budgets. The trouble that
California is in now will be fixed by California. The trouble that
Greece is in now will be fixed by Germany.
Do pay attention. The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece. The EU - as a whole - will under-write Greek borrowing until
that happens. The Germans have had quite a lot of influence on the
requirements imposed on the Greeks in return for the guarantees, but
the Greeks have to do the work.
Do pay attention:
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2010/05/german-parliament-clears....
Quote: "Members of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house, approved a
state-backed guarantee for the loan ..."
It's you who needs to pay attention. The EU - as a whole - is under-
writing the Greek borrowing. The individual memebers of the EU have to
pass legislation to approve their particular country's part of the
package. The Dutch lower house approved the Dutch component recently.
It's still a collective decision.
So, what exactly does "state-backed" mean in your opinion?

That the individual states guarantee that their particular portion of
the loan will be paid by that particular loan if Greece goes bankrupt?
What else would it mean?

Ah, now you are beginning to get it. You wrote above, quote "The EU - as
a whole - is underwriting the Greek borrowing". Which is wrong. For
example if Greece fails to service the debt it now has in Germany the EU
won't pay the Germans back. Their own taxpayers will. And those are
rather pissed right now and for good reason.

Germany is part of the EU. If the Greeks fail to service the debt it
has in Germany, it won't be servicing the debt held in France, the UK
or the Netherlands either, and their taxpayers will be equally pissed.
What is pising off the German taxpayers is that the rescue package is
seen as a source of inflation, and the Germans have been terrified of
inflation since 1923.

Your notion that "The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece" will IMHO not come to pass.

You are making a prediction, based on the little you know about the
situation, heavily influenced by what you've read in the US mass
media. As opinions go, it doesn't carry a lot of weight.

Check the facts. Greece has no industry to write home about, tourism is
declining because countries like Turkey are cheaper, and they can't
print Euros. Did I forget anything? Guess not.

Greece has the world's largest shipping fleet. This may not be an
industry, but it is certaly a source of revenue. Try not to guess this
sort of information - Wikipedia may not be perfect, but it's more
reliable than your imagination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece

They are unlikely to be able to fix the
damage that living beyond their means for years has done.

Why? The US - which has been running a hugge balance of payemnts
deficit since Regan was president - would suggest that you might be
right, but the money market hasn't yet got around to labelling US
treasury bonds as risky investments.

We have an industry. Greece doesn't. HUGE difference.

You've exported a lot of your industry to China. Greece is a small
country - about 11 million people - and it's industry, such as it is,
isn't widely publicised. It is a developed country, and the GPD per
head is about the same as that of France, Italy and Germany.

Open your PC or
whatever else electronic and see how many components in there are from
Greek companies. Open the hood of your car and do same. In fact, open
just about anything.

So what? There's nothing there from Australia either, or Switzerland.

The Greek credit rating has now gone through the floor, and they've
got no option but reform.

But torching the bank buildings isn't going to achieve that.

Political theatre isn't all that productive, but that sort of thing is
a lot cheaper than - say - invading Irak, which was equally rational.

It's other European countries who will fix it, also countries
overseas such as the US (via IMF).

The IMF has a one-size-fits all solution for every country that gets
into serious debt. It does seem to be based on the prescriptions of a
group of particularly unrealistic US economic theorists, and tends to
do serious damage to the real economy in the process of restoring the
credit rating, but international credit rating never did have much to
do with reality, as we got to see when the sub-prime mortgage crisi
hit the fan.

And your alternative would be?

I don't know of one. The IMF does seem to be the best available
solution; it's pretty bad, but better than any available alterative in
the world we have got, in much the same way that democracy - with all
its defects - is the best way of running a country.

Be that as it may, the Greeks have run out of options, and they will
do what every other government has done when they fall into the hands
of the IMF, which is to follow the - stupid - prescriptions.

Obviously that will be much better than what they did so far, and what
got them into this mess in the first place.

Obviously. But it's applying bang-bang control where proportional,
integral and derivative control would let the economy transiton to the
desired state rather faster. Because the IMF is run by American
educated monetarist economists, whose "economic science" has very
limited predictive power, they haven't a hope of implementing any kind
of feed-forward control strategy.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 17, 5:18 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 17 May 2010 07:01:48 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:



Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 16, 1:11 am, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 5:59 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 3:46 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 02:34:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 12, 7:57 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 10:13:56 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
I don't harvest; I think.
An unconvincing claim. Your "thinking" reflects your indolent habit of
picking up predigested  nonsense that fits your fat-headed
preconceptions.
I've been calling you a fathead for years. You can't even design
original insults.
In this thread you've claimed that the euro can't be stable currency
because it shared across several countries with different economic
strengths and weaknessess, while failing to note that the US dollar is
shared across the united states of America - running from Alaska to
Wyoming (neither of whose economies look much like California's).
But we only have one government.
Your states don't have legislatures and governors?
They aren't allowed to print money or regulate big financial
institutions. Most must balance their budgets. The trouble that
California is in now will be fixed by California. The trouble that
Greece is in now will be fixed by Germany.
Do pay attention. The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece. The EU - as a whole - will under-write Greek borrowing until
that happens. The Germans have had quite a lot of influence on the
requirements imposed on the Greeks in return for the guarantees, but
the Greeks have to do the work.
Do pay attention:
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2010/05/german-parliament-clears...
Quote: "Members of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house, approved a
state-backed guarantee for the loan ..."
It's you who needs to pay attention. The EU - as a whole - is under-
writing the Greek borrowing. The individual memebers of the EU have to
pass legislation to approve their particular country's part of the
package. The Dutch lower house approved the Dutch component recently..
It's still a collective decision.
So, what exactly does "state-backed" mean in your opinion?

That the individual states guarantee that their particular portion of
the loan will be paid by that particular loan if Greece goes bankrupt?
What else would it mean?

Ah, now you are beginning to get it. You wrote above, quote "The EU - as
a whole - is underwriting the Greek borrowing". Which is wrong. For
example if Greece fails to service the debt it now has in Germany the EU
won't pay the Germans back. Their own taxpayers will. And those are
rather pissed right now and for good reason.

Your notion that "The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece" will IMHO not come to pass.

You are making a prediction, based on the little you know about the
situation, heavily influenced by what you've read in the US mass
media. As opinions go, it doesn't carry a lot of weight.

Check the facts. Greece has no industry to write home about, tourism is
declining because countries like Turkey are cheaper, and they can't
print Euros. Did I forget anything? Guess not.

They are unlikely to be able to fix the
damage that living beyond their means for years has done.

Why? The US - which has been running a hugge balance of payemnts
deficit since Regan was president - would suggest that you might be
right, but the money market hasn't yet got around to labelling US
treasury bonds as risky investments.

We have an industry. Greece doesn't. HUGE difference. Open your PC or
whatever else electronic and see how many components in there are from
Greek companies. Open the hood of your car and do same. In fact, open
just about anything.

The Greek credit rating has now gone through the floor, and they've
got no option but reform.

But torching the bank buildings isn't going to achieve that.

Their option is to carry on as before, and let the Germans pay for
this round. Reform after this shot of money runs out, and party for a
few more years.

That's not an option. The EU support ws condtional on painful and
immediate reform, and if the Greek goverment doesn't deliver on that,
the support goes away.

It's other European countries who will fix it, also countries
overseas such as the US (via IMF).

The IMF has a one-size-fits all solution for every country that gets
into serious debt. It does seem to be based on the prescriptions of a
group of particularly unrealistic US economic theorists, and tends to
do serious damage to the real economy in the process of restoring the
credit rating, but international credit rating never did have much to
do with reality, as we got to see when the sub-prime mortgage crisi
hit the fan.

And your alternative would be?

Be that as it may, the Greeks have run out of options, and they will
do what every other government has done when they fall into the hands
of the IMF, which is to follow the - stupid - prescriptions.

Obviously that will be much better than what they did so far, and what
got them into this mess in the first place.

Sloman doesn't approve of stupid prescriptions, like producing as much
as you consume.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100517/D9FOHKGO0.html

Although the article doesn't make this explicit, its all about the
economics of "pump-priming" stimulation of the economy, to compensate
for the damage done by the collapse of teh US housing price bubble,
which had conjured up an immense amount of credit out of thin air.

National governments have had to conjure up comparable amounts of
credit by deficit financing to keep the economy running at a
respectable fraction of its potential productivity.

The alternative do-nothing approach, as practiced by Hoover in 1929,
leads to vast tracts of industry standing idle with 25% unemployment,
dramatically reducing production and consumption.

The argument isn't about "producing as much as you consume" - it's
about maintaining consumption and production under circumstances where
both would otherwise collapse.

Managing the transition back to balanced budgets without crimping the
level of economic activity too much isn't a trivial job, and the banks
don't help by bleating about financial responsiblity as if their US
colleagues hadn't created the problem in the first place by being
totally irresponsible.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 18, 12:47 am, Greegor <greego...@gmail.com> wrote:

On May 17, 5:27 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:



On May 15, 10:15 am, Greegor <greego...@gmail.com> wrote:

snip

Sloman seems to be some kind of idealogue,
a sort of cartoon of liberal thought.

What other people might easily recognize as
indoctrination and propaganda, he blithely
considers to be factual scientific education.

Any ideological challenge is an assault on his religion.

Gregor post his opinions without reference to any external evidence,
and complains that what I post - which does refer to objective and
widely recognised facts, which I do point to - is "indoctrination and
propaganda" while it is actually pointing out that his kind of opinion
does reflect his exposure to precisely that kind of misinfomration.

It seems like when liberals live in very liberal places
they start believing their own BS and they get
into the "crowd mentality" or "riot mentality"
where they presume they are superior and
they are large and in charge.  Sometimes they get
so carried away with this they do outrageous
things.

Like invading Irak?

It seems to be akin to "risky shift" in juries
or "confirmation bias" in scientific endeavors.

Police routinely whack a few heads and it
breaks the mental spell.

Reality bashed Dubbya's head quite hard in Irak without breaking the
mental spell that had taken hold of the neo-cons, and still seems to
infest whatever it is that you use instead of a brain.

Consider Sloman's advice and ""proof""
almost as you would advice on US
economics from a Russian Stalinist.

Consider Gregor's advice and **proof** exactly was you would economic
advice from a US monetarist. Not that Gregor bothers to point to
anything remotely ressembling objective evidence to support his silly
ideas. If I thought that he could think, I could claim that it was
because he knows that such evidence doesn't exist, but in fact he
doesn't understand the concept of evidence in the first place, and
thinks that his delusions have to be true just because he believes
them.

Ask him how he likes capitalism!  

Unbridled free market capitalism generates a series of booms and busts
in the economic environment. The free market is a good device for
matching supply and demand, but it does need a stabilising mechanism.
Keynes described one such mechanism which works pretty well, though it
can stall the economy in a state where it grows more slowly that it
ideally could. His followers have worked out some improvements, but
politicians don't like their prescriptions and prefer the plausible
nonsense they get to hear from monetarists, so we get more booms and
busts.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

You praised Marx and Engels.
Are you not an outright Marxist, Sloman?

I can praise Darwin's insights while believing in modern evolutionary
theory, which includes all the stuff about DNA that Darwin couldn't
imagine.

I can similary approve of the useful parts of Marx and Engels work -
their contributions to economic theory and practice - while noting
that their political insights weren't all that useful.

God only knows what an "outright Marxist" might be these days. Greegor
might like to try and identify one as an example of the type.

Chomsky isn't a Marxist - according to Wikipedia "he describes himself
as a socialist who sympathizes with anarcho-syndicalism, but is
strongly critical of Leninist branches of socialism", and Americans
usually understand "Marxist" to represent somebody who endorses the
Marxist-Lenin tradition, which I certainly don't, along with everybody
else who has noticed how that panned out.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 17, 7:10 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 17 May 2010 03:40:11 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 17, 4:22 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 14, 5:07 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 14, 10:42 pm, John Larkin
Productivity is the ultimate benevolence. Technology pushes
productivity.

Perfectly true. But it doesn't do a thing to ensure that the benefits
of increased productivity are equally shared between capital and
labour.

Obviously it's extremely critical how and when those benefits are
shared.  Labor does not deserve all the proceeds of my innovation,
risk, and investment simply because I hire them, guarantee them a
regular check when I get none, and insulate them from the predations
and petty ministration of their rulers.  Showing up for a paycheck at
a factory does not entitle you to the factory.

Freedom means you can start something yourself, if you want those
rewards and are prepared to take those risks; government means you
can't, to a larger and larger extent.

Society as whole provides the environment where you can hire
technically educated employees, communicate with them, and have them
travel around and get looked after when they get sick.

Your taxes support that society. Try setting up an innovative business
in a third world country where the tax rates are lower (or easily
evaded by bribing the right people).

Showing up for a paycheck at a factory doesn't entitle you to the
whole factory, but the last hundred years has demonstrated that the
optimum split for rewarding capital versus labour comes out at around
fifty-fifty.

My business spends a tad over 50% of revenues on salaries, retirement
funds, benefits, and insurance/other worker-related fees. 22 to 24% is
parts. Most of the rest is rent, professional services, utilities,
subcontracting, things like that. Then there's the heap of fees and
taxes. We're small enough that we can expense capital equipment
purchases, so we do.

In a good year, that leaves a few per cent for profit, the return on
capital.

Where's my 50:50 split?

You are plowing it back into the business -"expense capital equipment"
- which you presumably own. You don't seem to be exracting a
commercial rate of return on the equity that you have built up in the
business, but if the business is becoming more valuable, year by year,
and you own it, the increase in value could be seen as your return on
capital.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 17, 10:48 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 17, 3:09 pm, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 12:57:38 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 17, 12:29 am, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Sun, 16 May 2010 21:09:07 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 15, 9:27 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 14, 10:52 pm, John Larkin

jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 11:29:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 14, 5:18 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 14, 9:51 am, John Larkin

jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 22:16:49 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 13, 5:02 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 13, 8:20 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

The argument for progressive taxation is usually put in terms of those
with the broadest shoulders carrying more of the load.

Right.  That's how the Little Red Hen got a hold of all the other
animals' bread, greedy thing that she was.  She had broad shoulders.

This falls a
long way short of Marx -

Marx was kind of an idiot.

"The average price of wage labor is the minimum wage, i.e..,
that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely
requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer."
  --The Communist Manifesto

 See what I mean?

Yeah, he wouldn't understand a female plumber making $150K..

What created our modern wealth was engineers applying science.

Yep.  They made machines to relieve human toil, to improve the human
condition.

Evil capitalists.  Marx the Moocher should've stopped 'em.

Some of the capitalists were quite evil, as Martin Brown has pointed
out elsewhere in this thread. Trade unions were one of the mechanisms
that reigned in the greedy, evil, short-sighted minority.

No. Competition did.

Comptetion was one of the other mechanisms, once anti-trust
legislation had forced the greedy, evil and shorted sighted
capitalists to compete rather than conspire.

Conspiring is harmful.  Why, though, is it bad for capitalists, yet
infinitely good for labor?

Conspiracies among competing capitalists are inherently unstable. Like
OPEC, the players have competing interests; squabble, the alliances
fall apart, and they resume competing for advantage.  It's a beautiful
thing.

James Arthur

So we don't so much need anti-trust laws, as long as murder is
illegal?

To the contrary--anti-trust should apply to labor, too.  E.g.
government unions.

Agreed; all unions.

Sure.  A union is nothing more than an attempt to monopolize labor.

True. But non-unionised labour is almost always in a hopelessly weak
negotiating position vis-a-vis employers. By definition, employers
have capital, and are better placed to survive a strike or lock-out
than the workers and their families. Futhermore, the employer is often
a single organisation, which can practice divide-and-conquer on non-
unionised workers in a way that the workers can only dream about.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 18, 6:35 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 17, 10:27 pm, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 13:48:28 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:

To the contrary--anti-trust should apply to labor, too.  E.g.
government unions.

Agreed; all unions.

Sure.  A union is nothing more than an attempt to monopolize labor.

Sad day:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Antitrust_Act#Exemptions

The AFL-CIO can only be seen as monopolists.  They'd have taken over
the country, except that they killed all their hosts.

Don't be silly. Unions are alive and tolerably healthy in Europe, and
are quite sensible enough to function as benign symbiotes.

The one time that I got to function as a - very low level - trade
union representative, most of the - very limited - time I spent acting
in that capacity was devoted to persuading the personnel department
that some foreman or boss had treated a subordinate badly or
irresponsibly. There were two cases that i can recall, spread over a
period of about a year.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 17, 3:40 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Sun, 16 May 2010 17:43:32 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Bill Slomanwrote:

[...]

Huh? If the competent people who worked hard end up as dirt poor as
the idiots who didn't, it wouldn't be fair. I'm not saying that the
productive minority is entitled to hang onto everthing that they
managed to accumulate - there's not a lot of tax to be collected from
idle incompetents, and the administration does have to collect enough
in taxes to keep the machinery of society turning over - but since
society consists of non-identical individuals, there's nothing fair
about reducing the best to the same condition as the worst.

Shazam! I would have never imagined that this sort of statement would
come from you. While we disagree on just about anything else, there you
were right on.

Where have the aliens taken Slowman?

He must have gone to one of the tea parties and woken up

No way. There are elections coming up in the Netherlands, but the
local right-wing nitwit is Geert Wilders whose "party of freedom" is
mainly interested in being nasty to Muslim immigrants and making sure
that more of them don't get into the country. Sort of like Arizona,
but with added extra religous prejudice.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 18 May 2010 01:20:40 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 17, 5:18 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 07:01:48 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:



Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 16, 1:11 am, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 5:59 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 3:46 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 02:34:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 12, 7:57 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 10:13:56 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
I don't harvest; I think.
An unconvincing claim. Your "thinking" reflects your indolent habit of
picking up predigested  nonsense that fits your fat-headed
preconceptions.
I've been calling you a fathead for years. You can't even design
original insults.
In this thread you've claimed that the euro can't be stable currency
because it shared across several countries with different economic
strengths and weaknessess, while failing to note that the US dollar is
shared across the united states of America - running from Alaska to
Wyoming (neither of whose economies look much like California's).
But we only have one government.
Your states don't have legislatures and governors?
They aren't allowed to print money or regulate big financial
institutions. Most must balance their budgets. The trouble that
California is in now will be fixed by California. The trouble that
Greece is in now will be fixed by Germany.
Do pay attention. The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece. The EU - as a whole - will under-write Greek borrowing until
that happens. The Germans have had quite a lot of influence on the
requirements imposed on the Greeks in return for the guarantees, but
the Greeks have to do the work.
Do pay attention:
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2010/05/german-parliament-clears...
Quote: "Members of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house, approved a
state-backed guarantee for the loan ..."
It's you who needs to pay attention. The EU - as a whole - is under-
writing the Greek borrowing. The individual memebers of the EU have to
pass legislation to approve their particular country's part of the
package. The Dutch lower house approved the Dutch component recently.
It's still a collective decision.
So, what exactly does "state-backed" mean in your opinion?

That the individual states guarantee that their particular portion of
the loan will be paid by that particular loan if Greece goes bankrupt?
What else would it mean?

Ah, now you are beginning to get it. You wrote above, quote "The EU - as
a whole - is underwriting the Greek borrowing". Which is wrong. For
example if Greece fails to service the debt it now has in Germany the EU
won't pay the Germans back. Their own taxpayers will. And those are
rather pissed right now and for good reason.

Your notion that "The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece" will IMHO not come to pass.

You are making a prediction, based on the little you know about the
situation, heavily influenced by what you've read in the US mass
media. As opinions go, it doesn't carry a lot of weight.

Check the facts. Greece has no industry to write home about, tourism is
declining because countries like Turkey are cheaper, and they can't
print Euros. Did I forget anything? Guess not.

They are unlikely to be able to fix the
damage that living beyond their means for years has done.

Why? The US - which has been running a hugge balance of payemnts
deficit since Regan was president - would suggest that you might be
right, but the money market hasn't yet got around to labelling US
treasury bonds as risky investments.

We have an industry. Greece doesn't. HUGE difference. Open your PC or
whatever else electronic and see how many components in there are from
Greek companies. Open the hood of your car and do same. In fact, open
just about anything.

The Greek credit rating has now gone through the floor, and they've
got no option but reform.

But torching the bank buildings isn't going to achieve that.

Their option is to carry on as before, and let the Germans pay for
this round. Reform after this shot of money runs out, and party for a
few more years.

That's not an option. The EU support ws condtional on painful and
immediate reform, and if the Greek goverment doesn't deliver on that,
the support goes away.

It's other European countries who will fix it, also countries
overseas such as the US (via IMF).

The IMF has a one-size-fits all solution for every country that gets
into serious debt. It does seem to be based on the prescriptions of a
group of particularly unrealistic US economic theorists, and tends to
do serious damage to the real economy in the process of restoring the
credit rating, but international credit rating never did have much to
do with reality, as we got to see when the sub-prime mortgage crisi
hit the fan.

And your alternative would be?

Be that as it may, the Greeks have run out of options, and they will
do what every other government has done when they fall into the hands
of the IMF, which is to follow the - stupid - prescriptions.

Obviously that will be much better than what they did so far, and what
got them into this mess in the first place.

Sloman doesn't approve of stupid prescriptions, like producing as much
as you consume.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100517/D9FOHKGO0.html

Although the article doesn't make this explicit, its all about the
economics of "pump-priming" stimulation of the economy, to compensate
for the damage done by the collapse of teh US housing price bubble,
which had conjured up an immense amount of credit out of thin air.

National governments have had to conjure up comparable amounts of
credit by deficit financing to keep the economy running at a
respectable fraction of its potential productivity.

The Greeks didn't lack credit. They lacked productivity. Credit just
let them party hearty and run up debt, with the French and the Germans
picking up the tab. Thay won't be able to repay the assistance unless
they get to work.

(Hint hint)

The alternative do-nothing approach, as practiced by Hoover in 1929,
leads to vast tracts of industry standing idle with 25% unemployment,
dramatically reducing production and consumption.

The argument isn't about "producing as much as you consume" - it's
about maintaining consumption and production under circumstances where
both would otherwise collapse.

Managing the transition back to balanced budgets without crimping the
level of economic activity too much isn't a trivial job, and the banks
don't help by bleating about financial responsiblity as if their US
colleagues hadn't created the problem in the first place by being
totally irresponsible.

With your understanding of dynamics, it's a good thing you don't
design electronics.

John

 

[Joerg]

Bill Sloman wrote:

On May 17, 4:01 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 16, 1:11 am, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 5:59 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 13, 3:46 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 02:34:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 12, 7:57 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 10:13:56 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
I don't harvest; I think.
An unconvincing claim. Your "thinking" reflects your indolent habit of
picking up predigested nonsense that fits your fat-headed
preconceptions.
I've been calling you a fathead for years. You can't even design
original insults.
In this thread you've claimed that the euro can't be stable currency
because it shared across several countries with different economic
strengths and weaknessess, while failing to note that the US dollar is
shared across the united states of America - running from Alaska to
Wyoming (neither of whose economies look much like California's).
But we only have one government.
Your states don't have legislatures and governors?
They aren't allowed to print money or regulate big financial
institutions. Most must balance their budgets. The trouble that
California is in now will be fixed by California. The trouble that
Greece is in now will be fixed by Germany.
Do pay attention. The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece. The EU - as a whole - will under-write Greek borrowing until
that happens. The Germans have had quite a lot of influence on the
requirements imposed on the Greeks in return for the guarantees, but
the Greeks have to do the work.
Do pay attention:
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2010/05/german-parliament-clears...
Quote: "Members of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house, approved a
state-backed guarantee for the loan ..."
It's you who needs to pay attention. The EU - as a whole - is under-
writing the Greek borrowing. The individual memebers of the EU have to
pass legislation to approve their particular country's part of the
package. The Dutch lower house approved the Dutch component recently.
It's still a collective decision.
So, what exactly does "state-backed" mean in your opinion?
That the individual states guarantee that their particular portion of
the loan will be paid by that particular loan if Greece goes bankrupt?
What else would it mean?
Ah, now you are beginning to get it. You wrote above, quote "The EU - as
a whole - is underwriting the Greek borrowing". Which is wrong. For
example if Greece fails to service the debt it now has in Germany the EU
won't pay the Germans back. Their own taxpayers will. And those are
rather pissed right now and for good reason.

Germany is part of the EU. If the Greeks fail to service the debt it
has in Germany, it won't be servicing the debt held in France, the UK
or the Netherlands either, and their taxpayers will be equally pissed.
What is pising off the German taxpayers is that the rescue package is
seen as a source of inflation, and the Germans have been terrified of
inflation since 1923.

And rightfully so. Because there are numerous other countries that have
overspent and are now teetering. We have only seen the tip of the
iceberg so far. Mark my words.

Your notion that "The trouble that Greece is now in will be fixed by
Greece" will IMHO not come to pass.
You are making a prediction, based on the little you know about the
situation, heavily influenced by what you've read in the US mass
media. As opinions go, it doesn't carry a lot of weight.
Check the facts. Greece has no industry to write home about, tourism is
declining because countries like Turkey are cheaper, and they can't
print Euros. Did I forget anything? Guess not.

Greece has the world's largest shipping fleet. This may not be an
industry, but it is certaly a source of revenue. Try not to guess this
sort of information - Wikipedia may not be perfect, but it's more
reliable than your imagination.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece

GDP is around $30k per capita. And that's the problem, that doesn't
support the lavish perks like early retirement, too many gvt workers,
and so on. Other Western countries with lesser perks are around 1/3rd
higher.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita

Combine that with rampant tax evasion in Greece and a tax authority that
was asleep at the wheel and you'll know what I meant.

They are unlikely to be able to fix the
damage that living beyond their means for years has done.
Why? The US - which has been running a hugge balance of payemnts
deficit since Regan was president - would suggest that you might be
right, but the money market hasn't yet got around to labelling US
treasury bonds as risky investments.
We have an industry. Greece doesn't. HUGE difference.

You've exported a lot of your industry to China. Greece is a small
country - about 11 million people - and it's industry, such as it is,
isn't widely publicised. It is a developed country, and the GPD per
head is about the same as that of France, Italy and Germany.

It is not, the GDP is lower.

Open your PC or
whatever else electronic and see how many components in there are from
Greek companies. Open the hood of your car and do same. In fact, open
just about anything.

So what? There's nothing there from Australia either, or Switzerland.

Australia largely lives off of its minerals and other goodies, as long
as they have some. Switzerland, well, we all know what they do besides
making watch movements and precision machinery

[...]

Be that as it may, the Greeks have run out of options, and they will
do what every other government has done when they fall into the hands
of the IMF, which is to follow the - stupid - prescriptions.
Obviously that will be much better than what they did so far, and what
got them into this mess in the first place.

Obviously. But it's applying bang-bang control where proportional,
integral and derivative control would let the economy transiton to the
desired state rather faster. Because the IMF is run by American
educated monetarist economists, whose "economic science" has very
limited predictive power, they haven't a hope of implementing any kind
of feed-forward control strategy.

There comes a time when bang is needed, not bang-bang. Meaning someone
has to hit the emergency stop button because the system that was
entrusted with running the place has gone out of control. Just like you
don't keep pulling the yoke on an aircraft to maintain altitude when the
stall horn is blaring because that would end in a fiery crash. You have
to prepare everyone for an "off field landing" and then land as soon as
possible.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 18 May 2010 01:47:19 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 17, 7:10 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 03:40:11 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 17, 4:22 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 14, 5:07 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 14, 10:42 pm, John Larkin
Productivity is the ultimate benevolence. Technology pushes
productivity.

Perfectly true. But it doesn't do a thing to ensure that the benefits
of increased productivity are equally shared between capital and
labour.

Obviously it's extremely critical how and when those benefits are
shared.  Labor does not deserve all the proceeds of my innovation,
risk, and investment simply because I hire them, guarantee them a
regular check when I get none, and insulate them from the predations
and petty ministration of their rulers.  Showing up for a paycheck at
a factory does not entitle you to the factory.

Freedom means you can start something yourself, if you want those
rewards and are prepared to take those risks; government means you
can't, to a larger and larger extent.

Society as whole provides the environment where you can hire
technically educated employees, communicate with them, and have them
travel around and get looked after when they get sick.

Your taxes support that society. Try setting up an innovative business
in a third world country where the tax rates are lower (or easily
evaded by bribing the right people).

Showing up for a paycheck at a factory doesn't entitle you to the
whole factory, but the last hundred years has demonstrated that the
optimum split for rewarding capital versus labour comes out at around
fifty-fifty.

My business spends a tad over 50% of revenues on salaries, retirement
funds, benefits, and insurance/other worker-related fees. 22 to 24% is
parts. Most of the rest is rent, professional services, utilities,
subcontracting, things like that. Then there's the heap of fees and
taxes. We're small enough that we can expense capital equipment
purchases, so we do.

In a good year, that leaves a few per cent for profit, the return on
capital.

Where's my 50:50 split?

You are plowing it back into the business -"expense capital equipment"
- which you presumably own.

And which we use, and which wears out, and which will have an ebay
value close to zero when it's worn out... if we're lucky. More likely
we'll have to pay to have it hauled away. There's no pot of gold
there.

Damn, you are clueless about how a business actually works.


You don't seem to be exracting a

commercial rate of return on the equity that you have built up in the
business, but if the business is becoming more valuable, year by year,
and you own it, the increase in value could be seen as your return on
capital.

I will never, under any reasonable scenario, cash out for anything
approaching the sum of salaries and benefits I have disbursed to
employees over the years. IBM and Exxon and Boeing manage small
profits in good years, losses in bad years, but every month they
generate a mountain of payroll checks. The numbers of my business
aren't much different from Boeing's, or that of any modestly
successful restaurant: a few percent "profit" (which isn't cash in the
bank) on sales and a few percent return on equity (or loss, depending)
and about 50% of gross revenue going directly to employees. ANd lots
of taxes paid.

When I die, the government will make an absurd valuation of the heap,
including "goodwill", and levy enough death taxes to wipe it out,
roughly 6 times over. I suppose if they want to wipe out the
businesses that create jobs and pay taxes, it's their choice.

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 18 May 2010 01:54:56 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 17, 10:48 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 17, 3:09 pm, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 12:57:38 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 17, 12:29 am, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Sun, 16 May 2010 21:09:07 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 15, 9:27 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 14, 10:52 pm, John Larkin

jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 11:29:35 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 14, 5:18 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 14, 9:51 am, John Larkin

jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 22:16:49 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 13, 5:02 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 13, 8:20 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

The argument for progressive taxation is usually put in terms of those
with the broadest shoulders carrying more of the load.

Right.  That's how the Little Red Hen got a hold of all the other
animals' bread, greedy thing that she was.  She had broad shoulders.

This falls a
long way short of Marx -

Marx was kind of an idiot.

"The average price of wage labor is the minimum wage, i.e.,
that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely
requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer."
  --The Communist Manifesto

 See what I mean?

Yeah, he wouldn't understand a female plumber making $150K.

What created our modern wealth was engineers applying science.

Yep.  They made machines to relieve human toil, to improve the human
condition.

Evil capitalists.  Marx the Moocher should've stopped 'em.

Some of the capitalists were quite evil, as Martin Brown has pointed
out elsewhere in this thread. Trade unions were one of the mechanisms
that reigned in the greedy, evil, short-sighted minority.

No. Competition did.

Comptetion was one of the other mechanisms, once anti-trust
legislation had forced the greedy, evil and shorted sighted
capitalists to compete rather than conspire.

Conspiring is harmful.  Why, though, is it bad for capitalists, yet
infinitely good for labor?

Conspiracies among competing capitalists are inherently unstable. Like
OPEC, the players have competing interests; squabble, the alliances
fall apart, and they resume competing for advantage.  It's a beautiful
thing.

James Arthur

So we don't so much need anti-trust laws, as long as murder is
illegal?

To the contrary--anti-trust should apply to labor, too.  E.g.
government unions.

Agreed; all unions.

Sure.  A union is nothing more than an attempt to monopolize labor.

True. But non-unionised labour is almost always in a hopelessly weak
negotiating position vis-a-vis employers.

I have never felt that. I have feet and can leave one job for a better
one, if I can find it. Anybody can do that. Unions freeze people in
jobs even as technology changes, sort of a ststic friction, so stops
the best-fit mechanism that moving around provides.

By definition, employers

have capital, and are better placed to survive a strike or lock-out
than the workers and their families. Futhermore, the employer is often
a single organisation, which can practice divide-and-conquer on non-
unionised workers in a way that the workers can only dream about.

Boeing has numerous unions, any one of which can shut down all
airplane production, and make outrageous demands for themselves, which
they do fairly often. In the auto industry, it's done across multiple
companies as "pattern bargaining", which is one reason I've never
bought a crappy American car.

The successful businesses in the USA are mostly non-union.

John

 

[Joerg]

JosephKK wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 21:11:54 -0700, "JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com
wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 14:13:24 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Sat, 15 May 2010 00:18:43 -0500, "krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 21:26:28 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 22:55:23 -0500, "krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 10:08:36 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.
Simple fix: don't tax income.

Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.
As I suggested, exempt basics, like food, reasonable rent, generic
medicines. If people can afford a yacht, they can afford to pay sales
tax on it.
The point is that that money has already been taxed. It shouldn't matter if
it is used to buy a yacht. Taxing it again is wrong (one reason I don't trust
Roth IRAs).
As I suggested, eliminate income taxes and go to sales tax. Then
things are only taxed once.
You're missing the point. Those millions of people who have saved all their
lives will be taxed a second time. They've *already* been taxed on that
money.
Not to bust your bubble, but i am already paying both taxes.

When income tax gets turned into a point-of-sale tax you'll have paid
even more (if you have saved after-tax money).
I only have a little of such, most is in other (post income tax) forms.
erp. ^^^^/pre

Don't know how old you are but if there ain't a big stash in those IRAs
and you don't have some plum pension coming your way I'd start saving
now

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[Joerg]

JosephKK wrote:

On Mon, 17 May 2010 06:49:06 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Sun, 16 May 2010 14:04:22 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.
Simple fix: don't tax income.

Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.
Gosh, are your savings all that significant? Don't you pay (an ever
increasing in CA) sales tax already? Please to explain the difference.
The difference is this: Yes, I do save for retirement. And yes, one has
to make sacrifices to do that.
So do I.

That's good, not many people do that.


Such as not buying a new car every five
years.
Let's see, my car is model year 1994, bought used. ...

Ok, model year 1995 for the Toyota, the Mits is two years younger. You
win that one


... Do you want to continue?

Yeah. How many miles on it? The Toyota is somewhere around 45k, the Mits
is 67k or so.

Somewhere past 120,000.

That's also ok, over that long time frame. However, by now I have
whittled mine down to around 2000 miles/year and my wife's is at around
1000 miles/year. Hiking shoes, different thing, we wear down 2-3 pairs
each year.

Or to say it arrogantly, there's some high-level people in the AGW
propaganda machine that only talk about the environment, and then
there's people who actually do something about it

As said several times this money _has_ already been taxed. So if
the income of the paycheck-to-paycheck guy gets taxed only at
consumption he has only paid tax once.
Same for me. You have not made a case for yourself yet.
This hypothetical person does not exist yet.

You mean the hand-to-mouth guy? I could show you dozens. In fact, that
seems to be the MO for most people.

Most of what i am seeing is debt to mouth instead.

Yes, and that's got to stop. In that respect we have some encouraging
trends in America, recently. Still, there will be lots of people who'll
be dirt poor once they retire. They just don't know it yet.

[...]

You would see jobs
over here shrivel up at a pace never heard before.

Maybe, i've been working for quite a few years now. Saw the piece of the
company where i worked go through some 15 consecutive RIFs during about
10 years before i got hit in 1992. Lots of unemployed engineers at the
time.

Engineers have to do what industry does, broaden their scope beyond our
borders. I have always done that but am constantly surprised by how many
engineers don't. Ok, it does require working at odd hours sometimes and
it does require honing some foreign language skills.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[Joerg]

dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 17, 8:43 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 17, 3:31 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
[...]



That is, if your laborer has to pay income tax, you have to pay him
more to compensate, and you have to raise your sales prices to recover
that loss from your customers.
c) So, when you buy an item, you *are* paying all the taxes of all the
people and entities that made the item.
Make sense so far?
d) Under the Fair Tax, with all those embedded taxes eliminated, the
manufacturer would now be able to make the same profit selling his $1
item for $0.77, which would be the new price.
e) At checkout, your (formerly) $1 item would now appear on the sales
ticket as
1) price = $0.77, plus
2) $0.23 in Fair Tax, collected at point-of-sale to pay all the
taxes of all the people who made the thing.
Total = $1.00, just like before. No difference.
There, I think that's basically their pitch. I'm not a Fair Tax
expert, so I could've biffed something.
Ahm, major bug in the calcs:
The price of a piece of merchandise does _not_ consist of lots of labor.
If MLO (materials+labor+overhead) is anywhere north of 30% on a mass
product then it is already doomed.
That's an average. The Fair Tax economists worked from gross averages
applied across all of society; services are nearly 100% labor, mass-
produced Joerg-designed items not so much.
I'd have to see their math. Most of what we buy is not services but
cars, TV set, washing machines, lumber, groceries, beer and so on. Labor
is a small fraction of the cost in these products. Say it was 10%, then
this whole "fair tax" of 23% would turn into a de facto 20% ripoff for
all those folks in or close to retirement who have diligently saved.
Because those savings are from income that has already been taxed.
Nothing fair about that at all.

Even in high-tech medical devices labor wasn't a whole lot, and there I
speak from experience because I ran a division including production.
Health care costs would instantly shoot up if they did that extra sales
tax. On top of the tax increases we just got in that domain. We have to
think about those consequences.

I can't speak to their methods or calculations, but I'd sure love it
if you'd read their material and report back on it! ...
This one?

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer

This document gives figures, but not methods:
http://www.fairtax.org/site/DocServer/What_the_federal_tax_system_is_costing_you-Tax_complianc.pdf?docID=7581

This is the main info page:
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_main

I had looked at both. No meat in there other than assumptions.

There's too much, really, and kind of scattered across white
papers, .PDFs, and FAQs.

About the FairTax-->Basics has some numbers:
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_basics_main

Major mistake, and that's a big one, quote: "Consumption increases by
2.4 percent more in the first year, ..."

What were they smoking?

Just a small hint: Joe Q.Public does not pay 23% income tax on _100%_ of
his salary, in fact many people pay hardly anything. Those folks'
consumption will drop 23%, plain and simple. Then, there will be massive
layoffs.

I can only see lots of text, no hard math.

I haven't read thru all their papers--there are so many. I remember
hitting a couple that looked well-considered, but I was really just
skimming.

I don't find it well-considered at all.

Some of the more serious bugs in here, for example ...

http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/MacroeconomicAnalysisofFairTax.pdf

include quote "The specific taxes repealed include ... Social Security
and Medicare taxes". Now I am certainly against the extremely plum
public employee pensions that are wrecking California. But on the same
token it isn't fair that a teacher who used to not pay SS taxes but also
doesn't get SS pays intop the system for me. Because that's what he'd do
if he buys a beer.

The paper also lacks a crucial consideration, the one I mentioned: It
socks it to retirees who have diligently saved every penny they could.
Now that already taxed money would get taxed again the millisecond they
buy something. This is not fair and I sure hope some organizations like
AARP will see that unfair punishment and hold the line, and not let that
happen.

The calculator produced a
safety warning and the site notoriously wants to set cookies (disallowed
here). I think they need a new web designer.

Yes. I set FireFox to accept cookies, but automatically delete them
when the session closes.

I can't do that, for safety concerns. IMHO one should assume that
reputable web sites don't use tricks such as cookies unless they are
necessary for registration purposes and such.

... (I'm still busy
marking up the mandatory health insurance purchase and regulation
bill, re-reading Marx, and other nonsense. Oh, plus designing a CNC
turret tool-changer.)
snip
I don't have an IRA because I don't have confidence in the premise
that tax rates will be lower in the future. Without that the numbers
don't make sense. Bob Pease actually had a pretty good column on this
a decade or so ago; he concluded the same.
Besides, I don't like having my money at the whim of Congress. They
burned me ex post facto with my 401k, charging me a penalty for doing
something that was allowed when I did it, then changing the law
retroactively months later.
You couldn't sue?
Nope. You can't sue Congress. Sovereign immunity. (Impunity,
really.)
If a law is deemed unfair it can be challenged in court. Not Congress,
but the law. Slamming people retroactively sure sounds unfair to me (and
probably to a judge or jury).

It *is* unfair--even unconstitutional[*]--but there's Supreme Court
precedent for it.

[*] "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed" --US
Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 9.

I've cribbed this from an earlier post, Nov. 22, 2009:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.electronics.design/browse_frm/thread/b3f726c5d69b722b/e075062237db96b7?


In United States v. Darusmont, 449 U.S. 292 (1981)
http://supreme.justia.com/us/449/292/case.html
a couple sold their house (a triplex)--to relocate for a new job--
after carefully consulting with their tax guys to sell in a way
minimizing their tax. Congress changed the law later that year, and
then IRS came after the couple for more tax.

The homeowners argued that tax change was a violation of their due
process rights under the 5th Amendment; the justices said no, because
the issue had been under discussion in Congress for a year prior, so
the
homeowners *should've* known. Further, the Court said changing the
tax rate of an existing law was not the same as enacting a new /ex
post facto/ law.

If done retroactively it is ex post facto. The constituioon does not say
new. Otherwise it would also be ok to set the income tax to 110%
retroactively, wouldn't it?

This started under Franklin Delano Obama. He's back, so beware.

Everything's fair once you stop following the Constitution.

"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is
in session."
--Judge Gideon J. Tucker (1826-1899)

Lots of people are hoping that the worst will be stopped after the
November elections. In fact, I have met people who said they'd make some
major business decisions based on the outcome.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[Joerg]

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:

On Mon, 17 May 2010 14:31:43 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 17, 4:05 pm, "keith...@gmail.com" <keith...@gmail.com> wrote:
On May 17, 3:53 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:



On May 17, 3:41 pm, "keith...@gmail.com" <keith...@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

Again, you're missing the point. With after-tax savings you're
*already* paying that tax. If the "Fair Tax" is implemented you get
to pay the "consumption tax" on the *AFTER-TAX* money.
I'm not missing the point, I just think you're mathematically wrong.
If the thing costs $1 today, or $0.77 plus $0.23 Fair Tax tomorrow,
what have you lost? Where have I gone wrong?
Because it cost me $1.40 yesterday (when I earned it) to have the
$1.00 today,
If you paid taxes already under the old system then you were screwed
*yesterday*. That can't be fixed-it's gone. Sorry. Me too.

No, I was playing the game by the rules yesterday. Today the government
change the rules after the game was in play. The winner is the one who spent
every dime he ever made, not the one who took care of his life.

Many of the ones who took care of their life will then move, to some
places outside the US, and escape such confiscatory "fair tax" should it
ever happen. Who knows, Baja, NZ, some island ... because then the
problem simply goes away. The consequences? Even more layoffs here.

and tomorrow (after I retire, take it out of the bank,
and spend it) it only buys $.77 worth of stuff.
$1 only buys $0.77 worth of _stuff_ today, say the Fair Tax people
(AIUI). The rest goes to taxes hidden in the item's price.

Fine, if it really works, but that was not my point.

It doesn't work.

If I tax-deferred the
$1.40, I could buy $1.00 worth of stuff. Any after-tax savings (that
is socked away before the change) gets hammered *twice*.
If you had tax-deferred the $1.40, you'd escape the indignities of the
old system. That's a windfall (assuming Congress allows it).

If they don't, I'll yank it all out and spend it. I may do that anyway.
Property looks like the only thing worth having.

Sure does. I am thinking about the same. But how do you avoid the
hassles of being a landlord yet not pay humongous amounts to some
property management place?

Going forward though, with income-taxed money, the $1 we have left
still buys the same with or without the Fair Tax. $1 with embedded
tax burden hidden inside it, or ($0.77 actual price + $0.23 Fair Tax)
both cost you $1 at the register. No loss of purchasing power.
That's the contention, AIUI.

Ok, but that doesn't help the people who have saved all their lives, which was
the point of this threadlet.

Exactly.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[Charlie E.]

On Sun, 16 May 2010 12:54:50 -0700,
"JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:10:21 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:



Well, if that happens and they also hit consultants and contractors with
it I may finally have to move to the island to drop my cost to clients
back to where it was. Luckily in my line of work it doesn't matter where
I reside. Selling a home in CA, that's a whole 'nother matter right now :-(

Unless you bought, refinanced (to grab the cash), or otherwise bought
into the bubble pricing; it should not be a problem. Prices are largely
about what they were pre-bubble (ca 2002). My boss is buying CA
properties to rent for the cost of the loan payment.

Well, I purchased in 2007, and basically paid cash! I can, at best,
recoup about 2/3 of my costs if I had to sell, assuming I could find a
buyer. The house next door has been on the market for at least a
year...

Charlie

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Tue, 18 May 2010 12:00:36 -0700, Charlie E. <edmondson@ieee.org>
wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 12:54:50 -0700,
"JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:10:21 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:



Well, if that happens and they also hit consultants and contractors with
it I may finally have to move to the island to drop my cost to clients
back to where it was. Luckily in my line of work it doesn't matter where
I reside. Selling a home in CA, that's a whole 'nother matter right now :-(

Unless you bought, refinanced (to grab the cash), or otherwise bought
into the bubble pricing; it should not be a problem. Prices are largely
about what they were pre-bubble (ca 2002). My boss is buying CA
properties to rent for the cost of the loan payment.

Well, I purchased in 2007, and basically paid cash! I can, at best,
recoup about 2/3 of my costs if I had to sell, assuming I could find a
buyer. The house next door has been on the market for at least a
year...

Charlie

Charlie, Where is it you live?

My daughter-in-law (Duane's widow) needs to move to somewhere around
Palm Desert to run her father's car parts business (he is in failing
health).

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

The only thing bipartisan in this country is hypocrisy

 

[Charlie E.]

On Sun, 16 May 2010 21:20:36 -0700,
"JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 16:00:15 -0500, "krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 13:54:00 -0700, "JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.

Simple fix: don't tax income.


Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.

Gosh, are your savings all that significant?

Many do have significant savings over their lifetimes. Having enough to live
on the rest of their lives, isn't uncommon.

Actually it is quite uncommon according to BLS data.

Don't you pay (an ever
increasing in CA) sales tax already? Please to explain the difference.

Compound interest tends to cancel inflation.

Not all that well. It really fell behind during Carter era.
Interestingly, credit card rates never came back down.

Yes, it is an issue that my wife and I deal with all the time. We do
have some significant savings, but they are in CDs, which she
considers 'safe.' Our big problem is that savings interest rates keep
going down and down, but inflation hasn't stopped, and the rates on
borrowed money keep going up! We are presently looking around for a
new bank to move what little money we have to. A bank seems to offer
decent rates for about a year, and then back off. Just to get 1% on a
12 month CD is almost impossible to find. We are presently looking at
AMEX...

Charlie

 

[Charlie E.]

On Mon, 17 May 2010 14:31:43 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com
wrote:
<major snippage and attributions...>

$1 only buys $0.77 worth of _stuff_ today, say the Fair Tax people
(AIUI). The rest goes to taxes hidden in the item's price.

 If I tax-deferred the
$1.40, I could buy $1.00 worth of stuff.  Any after-tax savings (that
is socked away before the change) gets hammered *twice*.

If you had tax-deferred the $1.40, you'd escape the indignities of the
old system. That's a windfall (assuming Congress allows it).

Going forward though, with income-taxed money, the $1 we have left
still buys the same with or without the Fair Tax. $1 with embedded
tax burden hidden inside it, or ($0.77 actual price + $0.23 Fair Tax)
both cost you $1 at the register. No loss of purchasing power.
That's the contention, AIUI.

The other false assumption is that the price would drop
instantaneously to $.77 as soon as the tax was passed. In reality,
the price stays at $1.00, and the retailer uses this 'profit' to pay
off his loans. Now, as time goes by, prices 'might' drop, but I
wouldn't bet on it. I actually expect prices to rise. If the
government stops taking out SS and IRS taxes from my paycheck, I have
more to spend. I can then afford these now 'higher' prices of that
$1, plus $.23 fair tax, plus the sales tax of $.09, so it is now
$1.33.

As for savings, I don't sweat it as much. Yes, it makes my post-taxes
savings less valuable, but it also removes a lot of taxes on my
earnings and interest!

Charlie