Do the current politicians inform themselves about the issues, or do they mostly just care about what their party is saying vs. what their opposition is saying? How many of them even read the laws they are voting on?
Professional politicians would make sense if they studied the issues. But most of them are too busy playing games with their opponents to do much more then rubber stamp anything their lobbyists put before them.
Yes, no more donations or events FROM CORPORATIONS. If the stock owners want to do good, they can spend their own money after they pay taxes on it.
Company planes are a complete luxury. Again the executives can buy them out of their own money, after they pay tax on it. Also carrying big stock owners on them is again a benefit they can pay for on their own.
The point is to make corporations unable to provide benefits to their owners with money that is not being taxed. And yes, supporting your favorite charity is a benefit to the owner.
As for retirement accounts, the stocks themselves will be worth more since the corporations won't need to pay taxes. Yes, some value will be taxed away on the sale, but the net result will be the same (if you imagine that the corporation actually pays taxes at the moment).
I see no reason to have separate income and capital gains taxes. Just combine the two amounts and pay taxes on that. Sliding scale just like now, so retirees selling a few shares a year will pay 0, while millionaires will actually have to pay more taxes then their employees, should they decide to take the money out of their corporations.
Ok, as long as companies are at the same time prevented from using their funds for anything except their core business. So no more donations to politicians or anyone else, no more company planes or ships, no benefits for stock owners,............ Also raise capital gains taxes to the same level as income taxes. If that is done then I have no problem abolishing corporate taxes.
Which carries the same problems as a profit tax. Just have an offshore company buy raw materials, then sell them to the parent company at vastly inflated prices. One answer might be preventing corporations from owning other companies. That way the owners of the two corporations would usually be different people, so one of the parties would be harmed by this tax dodge.
Yes, cops do protect me from robbers. Not by standing outside my house, but by trying to find them after they commit the crime. And they cost less then having a guard/private investigator. Same with protection from murderers + they keep people from having easy access to weapons. As for avenging people, yes they do - they lock up the people responsible. How would punishment work in a system without police/prisons? Executions and maimings? Or will you have to keep the offender in your cellar for a few years? Prisons run by your local home security company?
As for firefighters, my question was what happens when a fire starts in the world where people just pay for insurance? Is the whole city left to burn down?
So you think everyone should have to hire a private guard if they wanted their home safe from robbers? And of course a body guard to protect them from murderers. Don't forget about private bounty hunters to avenge the murders of your family and catch people who evaded your guards and stole your stuff.
And cities should be left to burn then the inhabitants should collect insurance? After all who cares about keeping people alive. It's just about their future earnings.
So you support a model where people voluntarily support things like the police and firefighters? I'm sure that is going to work out great, right up to the point that some people discover they can get the benefits without paying.
And that's part of the problem. Since they only pay taxes on profits, they can easily set up a subsidiary in country X (Ireland in this case), where the tax rate is close to zero. Then they have the subsidiary bill the parent company a few billion dollars for nonexistent services. And look, the company is suddenly not making any profit.
Blocking porn is just a pretext to implement content blocking. Once the filter is in place it's much easier to add any 'objectionable' site. Just post some porn on it and report it. And once it's on the list it will probably be just about impossible to remove.
The problem is that Blizzard decided to make EVERYTHING accessable to 'casual' players. So a patch comes out, and you get to see the final boss on the same day. There is nothing new to be seen by killing things on higher difficulties. At least in the past they had a hard mode only boss or boss phase. But with the Dragon Soul patch them made sure that the only thing you get from HC difficulty is better gear. Which will be useless when MoP is released.
The problems started if you DID level up. Staying low lvl meant that enemies were weak. Lvling up with the wrong skills meant that you stayed weak, while the enemies got stronger. So rats could one shot you while you couldn't even scratch them.
But the reverse was also true. By picking the skills you DIDN'T plan on using you could keep your lvl low while building up 'secondary' skills, greatly increasing your combat strength.
The hones guy will also soon realize that dishonest people can make sure that anything he earns goes to them. So in the end he'll go bankrupt with an easy conscience.
Those concepts are easy to understand. But they also have exceptions. For example: Is it ok to kill a person that is trying to kill you? Is it ok to imprison a person that broke the law and make him work? Is it ok to hurt someone's feelings? Laws need to be specific enough that they can only be interpreted in a single way, otherwise the juries/judges have way too much power. But specific laws will usually be absolete when society progresses. So you need to make new laws.
It wasn't about free oil for the country. It was about oil drilling for the companies that the president liked. Free oil would have reduced their profits.
That's too hard. It's much easier to just throw another few million at the developers and tell them to make more detailed models. Major publishers are terrified of making games that don't play exactly the same as the last big hit.
Well it's easier to reach your full potential while living under a dictator then it is while dead. And the Afghan schoolgirls were poisoned AFTER being 'liberated'.
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Do the current politicians inform themselves about the issues, or do they mostly just care about what their party is saying vs. what their opposition is saying? How many of them even read the laws they are voting on?
Professional politicians would make sense if they studied the issues. But most of them are too busy playing games with their opponents to do much more then rubber stamp anything their lobbyists put before them.
I think 'ground is hard' is a perfectly good reason.
Yes, no more donations or events FROM CORPORATIONS. If the stock owners want to do good, they can spend their own money after they pay taxes on it.
Company planes are a complete luxury. Again the executives can buy them out of their own money, after they pay tax on it. Also carrying big stock owners on them is again a benefit they can pay for on their own.
The point is to make corporations unable to provide benefits to their owners with money that is not being taxed. And yes, supporting your favorite charity is a benefit to the owner.
As for retirement accounts, the stocks themselves will be worth more since the corporations won't need to pay taxes. Yes, some value will be taxed away on the sale, but the net result will be the same (if you imagine that the corporation actually pays taxes at the moment).
I see no reason to have separate income and capital gains taxes. Just combine the two amounts and pay taxes on that. Sliding scale just like now, so retirees selling a few shares a year will pay 0, while millionaires will actually have to pay more taxes then their employees, should they decide to take the money out of their corporations.
Ok, as long as companies are at the same time prevented from using their funds for anything except their core business. So no more donations to politicians or anyone else, no more company planes or ships, no benefits for stock owners,............ Also raise capital gains taxes to the same level as income taxes.
If that is done then I have no problem abolishing corporate taxes.
Which carries the same problems as a profit tax. Just have an offshore company buy raw materials, then sell them to the parent company at vastly inflated prices.
One answer might be preventing corporations from owning other companies. That way the owners of the two corporations would usually be different people, so one of the parties would be harmed by this tax dodge.
But it should be.
Yes, cops do protect me from robbers. Not by standing outside my house, but by trying to find them after they commit the crime. And they cost less then having a guard/private investigator. Same with protection from murderers + they keep people from having easy access to weapons. As for avenging people, yes they do - they lock up the people responsible. How would punishment work in a system without police/prisons? Executions and maimings? Or will you have to keep the offender in your cellar for a few years? Prisons run by your local home security company?
As for firefighters, my question was what happens when a fire starts in the world where people just pay for insurance? Is the whole city left to burn down?
So you think everyone should have to hire a private guard if they wanted their home safe from robbers? And of course a body guard to protect them from murderers. Don't forget about private bounty hunters to avenge the murders of your family and catch people who evaded your guards and stole your stuff.
And cities should be left to burn then the inhabitants should collect insurance? After all who cares about keeping people alive. It's just about their future earnings.
Does that include drugs needed to combat chronic illnesses? Long term post-operative care? Lack of those things kills people too.
So you support a model where people voluntarily support things like the police and firefighters? I'm sure that is going to work out great, right up to the point that some people discover they can get the benefits without paying.
And that's part of the problem. Since they only pay taxes on profits, they can easily set up a subsidiary in country X (Ireland in this case), where the tax rate is close to zero. Then they have the subsidiary bill the parent company a few billion dollars for nonexistent services. And look, the company is suddenly not making any profit.
Blocking porn is just a pretext to implement content blocking. Once the filter is in place it's much easier to add any 'objectionable' site. Just post some porn on it and report it. And once it's on the list it will probably be just about impossible to remove.
How do you feel about an attack against Iran?
Is there a religion that is NOT associated with terrorism?
The problem is that Blizzard decided to make EVERYTHING accessable to 'casual' players. So a patch comes out, and you get to see the final boss on the same day. There is nothing new to be seen by killing things on higher difficulties.
At least in the past they had a hard mode only boss or boss phase. But with the Dragon Soul patch them made sure that the only thing you get from HC difficulty is better gear. Which will be useless when MoP is released.
It isn't even completely linear. It changes depending on the status of the civil war. Which is a completely different quest chain.
The problems started if you DID level up. Staying low lvl meant that enemies were weak. Lvling up with the wrong skills meant that you stayed weak, while the enemies got stronger. So rats could one shot you while you couldn't even scratch them.
But the reverse was also true. By picking the skills you DIDN'T plan on using you could keep your lvl low while building up 'secondary' skills, greatly increasing your combat strength.
The hones guy will also soon realize that dishonest people can make sure that anything he earns goes to them. So in the end he'll go bankrupt with an easy conscience.
And empathy continued to work AFTER the crash. The politicians couldn't bring themselves to let all those poor bankers go bust, so they saved them.
Those concepts are easy to understand. But they also have exceptions. For example: Is it ok to kill a person that is trying to kill you? Is it ok to imprison a person that broke the law and make him work? Is it ok to hurt someone's feelings?
Laws need to be specific enough that they can only be interpreted in a single way, otherwise the juries/judges have way too much power. But specific laws will usually be absolete when society progresses. So you need to make new laws.
It wasn't about free oil for the country. It was about oil drilling for the companies that the president liked. Free oil would have reduced their profits.
That's too hard. It's much easier to just throw another few million at the developers and tell them to make more detailed models. Major publishers are terrified of making games that don't play exactly the same as the last big hit.
Well it's easier to reach your full potential while living under a dictator then it is while dead. And the Afghan schoolgirls were poisoned AFTER being 'liberated'.
I thought it was by testing and observing. No amount of discussion will give us an answer about life on other planets. Going there will.
Isn't hacking the law what lawyers do all the time? They study the law, find holes in it and exploit them.