conservation of Euros

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 13 May 2010 02:34:35 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@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.

And only one language.

No Spanish-speakers? The EC spends a lot of money on translating its
public output into all the official languages of the EC. All the
senior politicians speak English, most of them speak French (which is
a tribute to French linguisitc chauvinism) and German. Language
differences don't present communications problems - though they can be
a source of intra-community conflicts, as in Belgium at the moment.

The economists and the bankers - who are the only people truly
relevant to a discussion of the stability of the euro - all speak
English, because they have to talk to their American equivalents.

The language part is important; with your knowledge of the world, you surely know
why.

Actually, I know that it isn't important - if you have a tertiary
qualification from a European educational institution, you are going
to be fluent in English. What I don't know is why you think otherwise
- I could ask you to explain, but I don't fancy being directed to the
irrational output from some right-wing propaganda mill.

So, you don't know much about the world.

John

 

[Joerg]

Bill Sloman wrote:

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-loan-for-greece/67924.aspx

Quote: "Members of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house, approved a
state-backed guarantee for the loan ..."

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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

 

On May 13, 2:24 am, "enot.nona" <namenot.non...@gmail.com> wrote:

Crimes like rebuilding Germany and Japan after they killed tens of millions?

Rebuilding after destroying those countries for fun? How fucked up is
that?

Um, your posting host is in the Netherlands. Do you remember that
little thing about Germany invading the Netherlands way back when?
You know, May 10, 1940. The 70th anniversary was Monday. Did you
celebrate it?

Some facts for you, sonny :

The US didn't lift a finger to save the 'poor jews'  - as a matter of
fact they explicitly denied asylum to them.

Wiki says over 100,000 Dutch Jews were shipped off to slaughter; only
876 survived.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands#Second_World_War

Is it wrong to bomb a people in the process of doing this?

The US were responsible for the terror bombing of germany, japan and a
couple of places more like, say, vietnam, korea, the balcans, Iraq
(yeah those WMD...)  etc, etc, etc.

That's what war is. You kill the enemy. It's ugly.

Have you considered what the other guys did? Like Japan slaughtering
250,000 Chinese, because a few villagers helped the American pilots of
the Doolittle raid escape?

We bombed them. That's how you stop it.


James Arthur

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 13 May 2010 08:53:35 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

Actually, I know that it isn't important - if you have a tertiary
qualification from a European educational institution, you are going
to be fluent in English. What I don't know is why you think otherwise
- I could ask you to explain, but I don't fancy being directed to the
irrational output from some right-wing propaganda mill.

So, you don't know much about the world.

Or so you'd like to think. You still haven't told me why you think
that language is important in this context, but retreated behind your
earlier - unsupported - claim.

I'd explain, except that you told me just above not to explain.

But since you understand the world so well, it should be obvious.

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 13 May 2010 08:59:10 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote:
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-loan-for-greece/67924.aspx

Quote: "Members of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house, approved a
state-backed guarantee for the loan ..."

[...]

The phrase "under-write Greek borrowing until..." is interesting.

"Until" might include "the Germans elect a right-wing government."

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 13 May 2010 07:32:26 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 13, 4:39 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 13, 1:51 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 12, 5:48 pm, "krw wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 09:34:59 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:


Maybe.  A 10% VAT would raise $1.5T a year, enough to pay for Obama's
permanent spending bender on...whatever it was we got for all that
dough he spent--I can't remember.

*Maybe*.  The deficit for just April was $83B.  Note that April is also the
month when the government intake is *highest*, do to the April 15 tax filing
date.  In 43 of the last 56 years April has been a net surplus month.  

snip

A 10% VAT gives Obama $125B more/month to fritter away on nothing.
(Enough for break-even, not enough to pay off any debt.)

Of course that assumes  people continue to buy stuff at the same rate,
which they won't.  They won't work at the same rate either.  Better
make it 18%, like Europe.  And, naturally, that won't be enough
either.  He'll spend more.

That said, Obama won't push a VAT--it doesn't redistribute wealth.
Deficit spending does.

Actually, VAT does redistribute wealth - away from the poor towards
the rich. The poor spend most of their income on buying stuff, which
attracts VAT.

True.

The rich divert a larger part of their income into investment, which
doesn't attract VAT.

Naturally. As a nation, we spend 10% of our time and creative energy
figuring out how to pay our taxes, and 5% (maybe more) planning the
course that minimizes them.

Technically speaking, this makes VAT is a
regressive tax.

In the US we have a proposal called "The Fair Tax," a simple 23%
national sales tax. It would replace all of our federal tax system
(personal and corporate income tax, Medicare, Social Security, etc),
and eliminate all the credits, deductions, receipts, bookkeeping and
time spent dodging & gaming the various income taxes. The latter
costs us hundreds of billions a year, not to mention human energy
wasted unproductively.

A simple "prebate" makes the Fair Tax progressive.

Just exempt basics, like sensible food, reasonable rent, generic
medicines, public transport, education, stuff like that. Use tax
policy to steer behavior.

John

 

On May 13, 4:39 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 13, 1:51 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 12, 5:48 pm, "krw wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 09:34:59 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

Maybe.  A 10% VAT would raise $1.5T a year, enough to pay for Obama's
permanent spending bender on...whatever it was we got for all that
dough he spent--I can't remember.

*Maybe*.  The deficit for just April was $83B.  Note that April is also the
month when the government intake is *highest*, do to the April 15 tax filing
date.  In 43 of the last 56 years April has been a net surplus month.  

snip

A 10% VAT gives Obama $125B more/month to fritter away on nothing.
(Enough for break-even, not enough to pay off any debt.)

Of course that assumes  people continue to buy stuff at the same rate,
which they won't.  They won't work at the same rate either.  Better
make it 18%, like Europe.  And, naturally, that won't be enough
either.  He'll spend more.

That said, Obama won't push a VAT--it doesn't redistribute wealth.
Deficit spending does.

Actually, VAT does redistribute wealth - away from the poor towards
the rich. The poor spend most of their income on buying stuff, which
attracts VAT.

True.

The rich divert a larger part of their income into investment, which
doesn't attract VAT.

Naturally. As a nation, we spend 10% of our time and creative energy
figuring out how to pay our taxes, and 5% (maybe more) planning the
course that minimizes them.

Technically speaking, this makes VAT is a
regressive tax.

In the US we have a proposal called "The Fair Tax," a simple 23%
national sales tax. It would replace all of our federal tax system
(personal and corporate income tax, Medicare, Social Security, etc),
and eliminate all the credits, deductions, receipts, bookkeeping and
time spent dodging & gaming the various income taxes. The latter
costs us hundreds of billions a year, not to mention human energy
wasted unproductively.

A simple "prebate" makes the Fair Tax progressive.

I love the simplicity, I like the "flat" part, I adore the one-point
collection no-records-needed part. I'm not sure about the mechanics
of the prebate--prone to political games, ISTM, but then, what isn't?


James Arthur

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 13, 4:09 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 13, 2:24 am, "enot.nona" <namenot.non...@gmail.com> wrote:

Crimes like rebuilding Germany and Japan after they killed tens of millions?

Rebuilding after destroying those countries for fun? How fucked up is
that?

Um, your posting host is in the Netherlands.  Do you remember that
little thing about Germany invading the Netherlands way back when?
You know, May 10, 1940.  The 70th anniversary was Monday.  Did you
celebrate it?

Some facts for you, sonny :

The US didn't lift a finger to save the 'poor jews'  - as a matter of
fact they explicitly denied asylum to them.

Wiki says over 100,000 Dutch Jews were shipped off to slaughter; only
876 survived.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands#Second_World_War

The Dutch had kept good municipal records for a couple of centuries
before the Geramn invasion, which made it relatively easy for the
Germans to find the Jews and ship them off to Germany. Demark did a
lot better - they woke up to what was going on earlier, and basically
hid most of their Jewish population. Belgium kept lousy municipal
records and roughly half of their Jews survived.

Is it wrong to bomb a people in the process of doing this?

The US bombing concentrated on winning the war - nobody made any
effort to stop the Nazi extermination machine, though - to be fair -
very few on the Allied side could believe that the Germans would
divert resources to exterminating specific ethnic groups while they
were fight a war.

The US were responsible for the terror bombing of germany, japan and a
couple of places more like, say, vietnam, korea, the balcans, Iraq
(yeah those WMD...)  etc, etc, etc.

That's what war is.  You kill the enemy.  It's ugly.

World War 2 bombing was pretty indiscrimimate. The US air force bombed
the centre of Nijmegen in 1944, killing some 800 men women and
children. They didn't mean to - their navigation was poor and they
thought that they were boming Dusseldorf.

Have you considered what the other guys did?  Like Japan slaughtering
250,000 Chinese, because a few villagers helped the American pilots of
the Doolittle raid escape?

We bombed them.  That's how you stop it.

Strategic bombing was known to be pretty much a waste of time during
WW2. They only persisted with it because they had the bombers and the
trained crew, and figured that it would be too embarassing to admit
they weren't a cost-effective investment. It was a decidedly immoral
choice.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

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.

And only one language.

No Spanish-speakers? The EC spends a lot of money on translating its
public output into all the official languages of the EC. All the
senior politicians speak English, most of them speak French (which is
a tribute to French linguistic chauvinism) and German. Language
differences don't present communications problems - though they can be
a source of intra-community conflicts, as in Belgium at the moment.

The economists and the bankers - who are the only people truly
relevant to a discussion of the stability of the euro - all speak
English, because they have to talk to their American equivalents.

The language part is important; with your knowledge of the world, you surely know
why.

Actually, I know that it isn't important - if you have a tertiary
qualification from a European educational institution, you are going
to be fluent in English. What I don't know is why you think otherwise
- I could ask you to explain, but I don't fancy being directed to the
irrational output from some right-wing propaganda mill.

So, you don't know much about the world.

Or so you'd like to think. You still haven't told me why you think
that language is important in this context, but retreated behind your
earlier - unsupported - claim. Bankers have been managing financial
trasactions across linguistic boundaries for the past few thousand
years. It isn't difficult, and they've had lots of practice.

So you haven't - as usual - adduced any evidence to support your
fatuous claim, which has - as usual - more to do with your over-
optimistic desire to be seen as someone who knows what they are
talking about, rather than any real-world fact.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 13, 4:32 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 13, 4:39 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:



On May 13, 1:51 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 12, 5:48 pm, "krw wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 09:34:59 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
Maybe.  A 10% VAT would raise $1.5T a year, enough to pay for Obama's
permanent spending bender on...whatever it was we got for all that
dough he spent--I can't remember.

*Maybe*.  The deficit for just April was $83B.  Note that April is also the
month when the government intake is *highest*, do to the April 15 tax filing
date.  In 43 of the last 56 years April has been a net surplus month.  

snip

A 10% VAT gives Obama $125B more/month to fritter away on nothing.
(Enough for break-even, not enough to pay off any debt.)

Of course that assumes  people continue to buy stuff at the same rate,
which they won't.  They won't work at the same rate either.  Better
make it 18%, like Europe.  And, naturally, that won't be enough
either.  He'll spend more.

That said, Obama won't push a VAT--it doesn't redistribute wealth.
Deficit spending does.

Actually, VAT does redistribute wealth - away from the poor towards
the rich. The poor spend most of their income on buying stuff, which
attracts VAT.

True.

The rich divert a larger part of their income into investment, which
doesn't attract VAT.

Naturally.  As a nation, we spend 10% of our time and creative energy
figuring out how to pay our taxes, and 5% (maybe more) planning the
course that minimizes them.

Technically speaking, this makes VAT is a
regressive tax.

In the US we have a proposal called "The Fair Tax," a simple 23%
national sales tax.  It would replace all of our federal tax system
(personal and corporate income tax, Medicare, Social Security, etc),
and eliminate all the credits, deductions, receipts, bookkeeping and
time spent dodging & gaming the various income taxes.  The latter
costs us hundreds of billions a year, not to mention human energy
wasted unproductively.

A simple "prebate" makes the Fair Tax progressive.

Dream on. The prebate reduces the load on the lower income groups -
but since they have to jump through bureaucratic hoops to establish
that they qualify for the prebate, it just shifts the book-keeping
load from the rich to the poor - but because it is a tax on
consuption, rather than income, it still collects more from the poor
than the rich, and remains regressive.

Search on "the poverty trap" sometime, where the poor end up facing a
relatively high marginal rate of tax when they cross some threshold
where they no longer qualify as poor.

I love the simplicity, I like the "flat" part, I adore the one-point
collection no-records-needed part.  I'm not sure about the mechanics
of the prebate--prone to political games, ISTM, but then, what isn't?

Of course you love it. You are a right-wing nitwit, and enthuse about
every proposition that favours the rich, as "The Fair Tax" most
certainly does.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

On May 13, 11:02 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 13, 4:32 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:



On May 13, 4:39 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 13, 1:51 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 12, 5:48 pm, "krw wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 09:34:59 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
Maybe.  A 10% VAT would raise $1.5T a year, enough to pay for Obama's
permanent spending bender on...whatever it was we got for all that
dough he spent--I can't remember.

*Maybe*.  The deficit for just April was $83B.  Note that April is also the
month when the government intake is *highest*, do to the April 15 tax filing
date.  In 43 of the last 56 years April has been a net surplus month.  

snip

A 10% VAT gives Obama $125B more/month to fritter away on nothing.
(Enough for break-even, not enough to pay off any debt.)

Of course that assumes  people continue to buy stuff at the same rate,
which they won't.  They won't work at the same rate either.  Better
make it 18%, like Europe.  And, naturally, that won't be enough
either.  He'll spend more.

That said, Obama won't push a VAT--it doesn't redistribute wealth.
Deficit spending does.

Actually, VAT does redistribute wealth - away from the poor towards
the rich. The poor spend most of their income on buying stuff, which
attracts VAT.

True.

The rich divert a larger part of their income into investment, which
doesn't attract VAT.

Naturally.  As a nation, we spend 10% of our time and creative energy
figuring out how to pay our taxes, and 5% (maybe more) planning the
course that minimizes them.

Technically speaking, this makes VAT is a
regressive tax.

In the US we have a proposal called "The Fair Tax," a simple 23%
national sales tax.  It would replace all of our federal tax system
(personal and corporate income tax, Medicare, Social Security, etc),
and eliminate all the credits, deductions, receipts, bookkeeping and
time spent dodging & gaming the various income taxes.  The latter
costs us hundreds of billions a year, not to mention human energy
wasted unproductively.

A simple "prebate" makes the Fair Tax progressive.

Dream on. The prebate reduces the load on the lower income groups -
but since they have to jump through bureaucratic hoops to establish
that they qualify for the prebate

Nope.

, it just shifts the book-keeping
load from the rich to the poor

Wrong. No bookkeeping. If you exist, you get a prebate check, same
amount no matter what. Rich man & poor man get the same, though it
means more to the latter, obviously.

- but because it is a tax on
consuption, rather than income, it still collects more from the poor
than the rich, and remains regressive.

Supposedly the design specifically prevents that.

Search on "the poverty trap" sometime, where the poor end up facing a
relatively high marginal rate of tax when they cross some threshold
where they no longer qualify as poor.

The real poverty trap is that the government takes their retirement
savings before they can save it, and now their health care money, and
so forth, such that a family earning 10% above break-even is reduced
to break-even. That means they can't save, can't accumulate capital,
can't get ahead, and have no margin of safety in an emergency.

I love the simplicity, I like the "flat" part, I adore the one-point
collection no-records-needed part.  I'm not sure about the mechanics
of the prebate--prone to political games, ISTM, but then, what isn't?

Of course you love it. You are a right-wing nitwit, and enthuse about
every proposition that favours the rich, as "The Fair Tax" most
certainly does.

Your remarks about the Fair Tax are uninformed.

As to the class envy stuff, naturally you think everyone should make
exactly the same wages and have exactly the same amount of stuff, no
matter how hard they work, no matter what they sacrifice, or for how
long. And if they work harder, any excess they earn should be
confiscated, and divided amongst the voluntarily poor, certainly.

Noted.

This guy makes your case for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0wwK7fggOs&NR=1

James Arthur

 

On May 13, 11:32 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Thu, 13 May 2010 07:32:26 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:



On May 13, 4:39 am, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 13, 1:51 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 12, 5:48 pm, "krw wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 09:34:59 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

Maybe.  A 10% VAT would raise $1.5T a year, enough to pay for Obama's
permanent spending bender on...whatever it was we got for all that
dough he spent--I can't remember.

*Maybe*.  The deficit for just April was $83B.  Note that April is also the
month when the government intake is *highest*, do to the April 15 tax filing
date.  In 43 of the last 56 years April has been a net surplus month.  

snip

A 10% VAT gives Obama $125B more/month to fritter away on nothing.
(Enough for break-even, not enough to pay off any debt.)

Of course that assumes  people continue to buy stuff at the same rate,
which they won't.  They won't work at the same rate either.  Better
make it 18%, like Europe.  And, naturally, that won't be enough
either.  He'll spend more.

That said, Obama won't push a VAT--it doesn't redistribute wealth.
Deficit spending does.

Actually, VAT does redistribute wealth - away from the poor towards
the rich. The poor spend most of their income on buying stuff, which
attracts VAT.

True.

The rich divert a larger part of their income into investment, which
doesn't attract VAT.

Naturally.  As a nation, we spend 10% of our time and creative energy
figuring out how to pay our taxes, and 5% (maybe more) planning the
course that minimizes them.

Technically speaking, this makes VAT is a
regressive tax.

In the US we have a proposal called "The Fair Tax," a simple 23%
national sales tax.  It would replace all of our federal tax system
(personal and corporate income tax, Medicare, Social Security, etc),
and eliminate all the credits, deductions, receipts, bookkeeping and
time spent dodging & gaming the various income taxes.  The latter
costs us hundreds of billions a year, not to mention human energy
wasted unproductively.

A simple "prebate" makes the Fair Tax progressive.

Just exempt basics, like sensible food, reasonable rent, generic
medicines, public transport, education, stuff like that. Use tax
policy to steer behavior.

John

Yep. That's better, though it means the rate would have to be
higher. The problem with the prebate check is...everyone getting a
check.

James

 

[Greegor]

BS > Do pay attention. The trouble that Greece is
BS > now in will be fixed by Greece. The EU - as
BS > a whole - will under-write Greek borrowing
BS > until that happens.

Oh GOODY! More DEBT! THAT'LL fix em! LOL!

 

[Greegor]

BS > Of course you love it. You are a right-wing
BS > nitwit, and enthuse about every proposition
BS > that favours the rich, as "The Fair Tax" most
BS > certainly does. Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

For an Aussie who lives near Amsterdam you
sure are emotional about taxation in the USA!

You are cartoon like in your liberal extremism.

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Thu, 13 May 2010 13:13:00 -0700 (PDT), Greegor
<greegor47@gmail.com> wrote:

BS > Of course you love it. You are a right-wing
BS > nitwit, and enthuse about every proposition
BS > that favours the rich, as "The Fair Tax" most
BS > certainly does. Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

For an Aussie who lives near Amsterdam you
sure are emotional about taxation in the USA!

You are cartoon like in your liberal extremism.

Isn't a VAT very much like the "Fair Tax", a flat rate for all?

...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

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Greegor wrote:

BS > Of course you love it. You are a right-wing
BS > nitwit, and enthuse about every proposition
BS > that favours the rich, as "The Fair Tax" most
BS > certainly does. Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

For an Aussie who lives near Amsterdam you
sure are emotional about taxation in the USA!

You are cartoon like in your liberal extremism.

At least his initials fit his views.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 13 May 2010 15:12:11 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 13, 6:32 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Thu, 13 May 2010 07:32:26 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:



On May 13, 4:39 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 13, 1:51 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 12, 5:48 pm, "krw wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 09:34:59 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

Maybe.  A 10% VAT would raise $1.5T a year, enough to pay for Obama's
permanent spending bender on...whatever it was we got for all that
dough he spent--I can't remember.

*Maybe*.  The deficit for just April was $83B.  Note that April is also the
month when the government intake is *highest*, do to the April 15 tax filing
date.  In 43 of the last 56 years April has been a net surplus month.  

snip

A 10% VAT gives Obama $125B more/month to fritter away on nothing.
(Enough for break-even, not enough to pay off any debt.)

Of course that assumes  people continue to buy stuff at the same rate,
which they won't.  They won't work at the same rate either.  Better
make it 18%, like Europe.  And, naturally, that won't be enough
either.  He'll spend more.

That said, Obama won't push a VAT--it doesn't redistribute wealth.
Deficit spending does.

Actually, VAT does redistribute wealth - away from the poor towards
the rich. The poor spend most of their income on buying stuff, which
attracts VAT.

True.

The rich divert a larger part of their income into investment, which
doesn't attract VAT.

Naturally.  As a nation, we spend 10% of our time and creative energy
figuring out how to pay our taxes, and 5% (maybe more) planning the
course that minimizes them.

Technically speaking, this makes VAT is a
regressive tax.

In the US we have a proposal called "The Fair Tax," a simple 23%
national sales tax.  It would replace all of our federal tax system
(personal and corporate income tax, Medicare, Social Security, etc),
and eliminate all the credits, deductions, receipts, bookkeeping and
time spent dodging & gaming the various income taxes.  The latter
costs us hundreds of billions a year, not to mention human energy
wasted unproductively.

A simple "prebate" makes the Fair Tax progressive.

Just exempt basics, like sensible food, reasonable rent, generic
medicines, public transport, education, stuff like that. Use tax
policy to steer behavior.

They tried that in the UK. It rapidly got silly. Food was VAT-exempt,
but eating in a restaurant was not a necessity, so you had to pay VAT
on the bill - unless you bought a take-away meal.

That's the way sales tax works in California. If I buy uncooked
chicken at Safeway, there's no sales tax. If I buy cooked, hot,
ready-to-eat chicken, it's taxed. It's simple, because it's a visible,
automated-cash-register, point-of-sale tax. Restaurant food is taxed
whether you eat it there or not. I can't imagine how you could work a
thing like this all the way back up the VAT chain.

It would be easy to structure a national sales tax to exempt the
things poorer people actually need. There would be some cheating
around the edges, but there always will be some cheating. But things
like VAT carousel fraud couldn't happen.

(One shop near here sells " *WARM* " corned-beef sandwiches because
hot ones have a higher tax rate.)

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.

John

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Thu, 13 May 2010 08:36:44 +0100, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On 13/05/2010 04:49, JosephKK wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 14:36:14 -0700 (PDT), x x<noname.namenot@gmail.com
wrote:

Larkin, why don't you mind your own fucking business?

No big deal. We'll never pay it back.

The doomsday repayment scenario is a major earthquake in Tokyo resulting
in the Japanese calling in their huge loans to the US quickly to do a
rebuild. I think you will find it hard to resist paying up.

There is no "calling" Treasury bonds. They could sell them to the Chinese,
perhaps. Of course, this could make Obama's plan to float another 1.5T to the
Chinese, over the next year, a bit problematic.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Thu, 13 May 2010 15:17:02 -0700, Jim Thompson
<To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@On-My-Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Thu, 13 May 2010 13:13:00 -0700 (PDT), Greegor
greegor47@gmail.com> wrote:

BS > Of course you love it. You are a right-wing
BS > nitwit, and enthuse about every proposition
BS > that favours the rich, as "The Fair Tax" most
BS > certainly does. Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

For an Aussie who lives near Amsterdam you
sure are emotional about taxation in the USA!

You are cartoon like in your liberal extremism.

Isn't a VAT very much like the "Fair Tax", a flat rate for all?

The difference is that a VAT is collected every time a widget changes hands
(when "value (is) added") and is a tax on the seller. A the buyer pays sales
tax and it isn't levied on items to be resold. The effect is similar, but a
VAT has to be tracked through every step of the food chain. A sales tax only
has to be reported by the eventual seller. Bye, bye, IRS (not going to
happen).

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 13, 8:20 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 13, 11:02 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:



On May 13, 4:32 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 13, 4:39 am,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 13, 1:51 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 12, 5:48 pm, "krw wrote:
On Wed, 12 May 2010 09:34:59 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
Maybe.  A 10% VAT would raise $1.5T a year, enough to pay for Obama's
permanent spending bender on...whatever it was we got for all that
dough he spent--I can't remember.

*Maybe*.  The deficit for just April was $83B.  Note that April is also the
month when the government intake is *highest*, do to the April 15 tax filing
date.  In 43 of the last 56 years April has been a net surplus month.  

snip

A 10% VAT gives Obama $125B more/month to fritter away on nothing..
(Enough for break-even, not enough to pay off any debt.)

Of course that assumes  people continue to buy stuff at the same rate,
which they won't.  They won't work at the same rate either.  Better
make it 18%, like Europe.  And, naturally, that won't be enough
either.  He'll spend more.

That said, Obama won't push a VAT--it doesn't redistribute wealth..
Deficit spending does.

Actually, VAT does redistribute wealth - away from the poor towards
the rich. The poor spend most of their income on buying stuff, which
attracts VAT.

True.

The rich divert a larger part of their income into investment, which
doesn't attract VAT.

Naturally.  As a nation, we spend 10% of our time and creative energy
figuring out how to pay our taxes, and 5% (maybe more) planning the
course that minimizes them.

Technically speaking, this makes VAT is a
regressive tax.

In the US we have a proposal called "The Fair Tax," a simple 23%
national sales tax.  It would replace all of our federal tax system
(personal and corporate income tax, Medicare, Social Security, etc),
and eliminate all the credits, deductions, receipts, bookkeeping and
time spent dodging & gaming the various income taxes.  The latter
costs us hundreds of billions a year, not to mention human energy
wasted unproductively.

A simple "prebate" makes the Fair Tax progressive.

Dream on. The prebate reduces the load on the lower income groups -
but since they have to jump through bureaucratic hoops to establish
that they qualify for the prebate

Nope.

, it just shifts the book-keeping
load from the rich to the poor

Wrong.  No bookkeeping.  If you exist, you get a prebate check, same
amount no matter what.  Rich man & poor man get the same, though it
means more to the latter, obviously.

- but because it is a tax on
consuption, rather than income, it still collects more from the poor
than the rich, and remains regressive.

Supposedly the design specifically prevents that.

By changing the offset of the straight-line relationship you can
reduce the total amount collected from the poor, but "progressive" and
"regressive" refer to the incremental effects - as rich people get
richer they spend less of their income on consumption, which makes a
tax on consumption regressive.

Search on "the poverty trap" sometime, where the poor end up facing a
relatively high marginal rate of tax when they cross some threshold
where they no longer qualify as poor.

The real poverty trap is that the government takes their retirement
savings before they can save it, and now their health care money, and
so forth, such that a family earning 10% above break-even is reduced
to break-even.  That means they can't save, can't accumulate capital,
can't get ahead, and have no margin of safety in an emergency.

Anybody can invent anedotal evidence. Only a right-wing nitwit would
waste bandwidth by posting the product of his fevered imagination.

I love the simplicity, I like the "flat" part, I adore the one-point
collection no-records-needed part.  I'm not sure about the mechanics
of the prebate--prone to political games, ISTM, but then, what isn't?

Of course you love it. You are a right-wing nitwit, and enthuse about
every proposition that favours the rich, as "The Fair Tax" most
certainly does.

Your remarks about the Fair Tax are uninformed.

They don't need to be be well-informed. It's an old idea, whose main
charm is that it is simple enough for the dumbest right-wing nit-wit
to understand. Unfortunately, like all old, simple ideas, it isn't
practicable, which is why our ancestors evolved the slightly more
complicated taxation system we have today.

As to the class envy stuff, naturally you think everyone should make
exactly the same wages and have exactly the same amount of stuff, no
matter how hard they work, no matter what they sacrifice, or for how
long.  And if they work harder, any excess they earn should be
confiscated, and divided amongst the voluntarily poor, certainly.

Noted.

This is a standard right-wing straw man. In reality modern socialists
- as seen in Britain, Scandinavia and Germany - are perfectly happy to
let the market place determine salary levels, and collect
progressively more income tax from those who earn more. There was a
time when socialist governments imposed conficatory incremental rates
on very high incomes - up to 95% of the top slice of a high income -
but this has long been recognised to be a waste of time, and maximum
incremental rates now don't go much above 60%.

The argument for progressive taxation is usually put in terms of those
with the broadest shoulders carrying more of the load. This falls a
long way short of Marx - from each according to the abilities, to each
according to their needs - and is compatible with a society where some
people can afford fancier cars, bigger houses and finer wines than
their neighbours, though the rich no longer have access to the
services of a truly deprived under-class who will do almost anything
to save their kids from starvation.

This guy makes your case for you:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0wwK7fggOs&NR=1

The link doesn't work for me, and if it had worked I imagine that its
content would be just as half-baked as your argument.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen