Well, that, and the nice benefits of a common market and unlimited travel between EU member states. Imagine you would have to go through customs and passport control every time you cross statelines in the US. I'm glad they got away from that within the EU.
VAT is supposed to be levied every time you "add value" to a product. For example, you buy some supplies--you pay VAT. You turn those supplies into something useful and sell it--the customer pays VAT. So, in essence, VAT is levied at every point in the supply chain.
Now, if you resell something that you have already paid VAT for, the question whether you have to pay VAT again depends on the type of sale. Retailers have to charge VAT if they sell products purchased from wholesalers (the added value being the convenience of being in the close neighborhood and that you don't have to rummage through piles of boxes). Your garage sale is most likely going to be VAT-exempt as you're not adding any value to the goods--you're just selling your junk.
The end effect, in general, is that VAT is usually charged more often than US-style sales tax.
But if the vendor is outside the EU, has no presence in the EU, and has no plans to have a presence in the EU, they can tell HM Customs and Excise to go play with the traffic.
If you are in the US and commite a crime in the EU, you better believe that you will be prosecuted for the crime in the US. And you better believe that the FBI/SS will make sure you get your punishment if convicted. There a lot of agreements in place between the US and EU countries to help each other in criminal prosecutions.
I have no intention to argue this with anybody. I was merely trying to express my view that civil law systems are superior to common law systems because they more duly represent the will of the people and the spirit of representative democracy.
The entire volume of precedents accumulated over the centuries is not law created by the leglisature(s). Those are findings by a jury turned into court judgments. A jury, in its fact finding objective, has the opportunity to ignore or reinterpret certain laws as too harsh or inappropriate with the spirit of Common Law. If juries were indeed only supposed to find the facts and apply them to the laws, there wouldn't be any reason why so many class-action lawsuits against large corporations are trialed in Mississippi state which has one of the poorest (and most likely corporation-unfriendly) populations in the States.
My point was that all law should come from legislatures and court interpretations of such legislation. Right now, we have at least two sources of law in the US: one being the legislatures of the 50 states plus Congress and the other being the state and federal court system. If you look at the legal systems in France or Germany (just to cite an example), you would see that what's legal and what's not is solely defined by legislation passed by the parliament, the constitution and (limited) court interpretations of the laws. It's beyond me how the ruling of a judge can be representative of the will of the people.
It would base its decisions on the consitution, just like it does now. The constituation is the fundamental law of the land and it's the court's job to make sure that no legislative or executive action violates that.
If we'd get rid of common law, we could also reconsider the idea that standing must exist for a court to take action. It's beyond me why somebody has to incur damages because of an unconstitutional law before he or she gets the change to challeng its constitutionality. The Patriot Act may or may not be constitutional. But because the "victims" of the Patriot Act never get a chance to a hearingg at a court, the Act could never get repealed. Clever.
In some places outside of the US, the losing party pays for all costs incurred by both sides during the trial plus the costs of the court. The intention is to prevent frivoulous lawsuits with no merit that only serve to harrass people.
On the other hand, if you have a good case and not much money, you can even take up the "big guys" in court because at the end, they will have to reimbuse you for your costs.
The double jeopardy clause in the constitution affects only criminal cases. However, there's a common law rule that a fact may only be tried once in court. That's why you can't wait for your countersuit until another after the primary case because the court will refuse to hear it.
Now, the difference here, however, is that this case was never tried before a court. Instead, a settlement was negotiated (and I use that term very loosely here) and no verdict was given. The settlement agreement will contain some language then so that this fact situation can't be brought back to court.
Judging from past performance, the RIAA is not really interested in long-term solutions. What matters to them right now are quarter-to-quarter results.
If media sales go down because of the bad publicity, you can bet your behind that Ms Rosen and her entourage will claim that it's due to music "piracy".
If the RIAA was really interested in a solution that would work for the foreseeable future, they would have hired some researchers to come up with a business model that would fit the free nature of the Internet. They could have used Apple's iTunes as an example instead of trying to shut that down as well.
It would be a precedent. But it would be as weak as the case of "some small guy". No court is required to follow precedent and if the appeals court(s) agree with the lower court's decision, it makes no difference whether there was precedent or not.
Naturally, this rarely ever happens because the courts have no interest to make the legal system any more unpredictable than it already is.
Maybe it's just time for the US to move to get rid of this common law nonsense and assume legislation as the sole source of law.
As others mentioned, this is only true for criminal cases.
The whole thing gets even worse for the student because of the American system under which each party has to pay for its own representation regardless of the outcome of the suit. At least, in other jurisdictions, the winning party gets reimbursed for its legal fees by the losing party.
"Maybe we ought to consider the possibility that intergalactic spacetravel is not physically possible hence we will never meet "aliens" from other planets?"
Less than one hundred years ago, we didn't think atom bombs were possibly, much less even conceive of them. Less than thirty years ago, there was no idea of what we would be capable in 2003. I wouldn't dismiss the idea of FTL travel just because I can't conceive it yet. Nature seems to always leave some way to do something that we didn't think possible at first. Just wait and be patient (or spend money/effort in research).
Given the capacity of an infinite occurrance of infinite events, some monkeys could very well write Shakespeare. That in the particular case, the monkeys didn't perform up to expectations does not refute the general statement. The problem is just that we don't have an infinite time to wait.
US common law provides for contracts lacking signatures. When you go to Best Buy and buy a CD, you just entered into a sales agreement, whether you signed anything or not. The terms of that agreement govern refunds and exchanges, for example, as well as what other rights and obligations Best Buy or you have.
When you buy that DVD from Best Buy, one could argue that you only have an agreement with Best Buy and not the MPAA. That's something the courts would have to sort out.
Of course under the lead of the US of A, right? Countries already fight wars over one country upstream cutting off the water supply to countries further down. Imagine what kind of quarrels controlling the weather on an international level could cause. Not to mention the fact that you just created a weapon as nuclear ones without the mess of post-war radiation and nuclear winters.
Right. I can already see companies or the government screwing up trying to control the weather with consequences we can barely imagine. We don't know how weather works and we certainly don't know why certain things happen the way they do. Thinking that with this kind of knowledge we could change the weather in a foreseeable manner is presumptuous at best, fatal at worst.
There is no doubt in my mind that we have the technology and energy requires to significantly influence the weather. But there's also no doubt in my mind that we have no clue as to what such intervention would cause. Since experimenting with the weather is kinda tough until we manage to do interplanetary travel cost- and effortlessly and use other--preferrably uninhabited--planets, it might make more sense to invest resources on that than building the 21st century equivalent of the atom bomb.
There's no doubt that the veto powers in the UN security council are undemocratic and unrepresentative. That France (and Russia) used this to its advantage is nothing I or anybody could be proud of. If the US had convinced the security council that a military mission in Iraq was necessary (and the US got very far in doing so), then the UN should have given the mandate. That's something the US was trying to do until it became evident that France and Russia would veto any resolution that resembled military intervention.
But at that point, instead of just ignoring the rules of the UN and international law, the US should have tried to change the structure of how decisions are made. Why it didn't? Because such efforts could backfire at the US when it disagrees with something the UN wants to do. If France and Russia had to give up their veto powers, so would the US. That's not something the current administration was willing to do.
As to the rights of souvereign nation-states, it is obvious that no country is nor should be in a position where it can do whatever it wants with no regard to the rest of the world. The US is as much part of the global network of trade and politics as any other country. To deny that and say that the US has no responsibilities to the rest of the world is denying reality.
If Cuba or Libya are on the Human Rights Commission and the US has a problem with it, then it needs to complaing about it and use the tools it legally has to change that. Leaving just because you don't like it there anymore proves neither strength nor wisdom.
So you are saying that just because the US doesn't believe in the idea of the UN anymore, it doesn't have to abide by its rules any longer? Looks like a great example for many other countries who might now ask themselves "What's the point of following the rules? The most powerful nation doesn't either, so why should I?"
The US became a member of the UN and accepted its rules. What rights does it have to break that contract now and say it doesn't want to be a part of it any longer.
I don't think the US was ever willing to let the UN have control over any of the US' actions. Taking advantage of the UN's current weakness is just a great opportunity to get out of it w/o looking too bad. Or at least, that's what the White House must be thinking.
The dime is way too small. Coins should increase in size as they increase in value.
Why?
So I can find the right coin without necessarily having to look at them. It also makes it easier for people with less than perfect vision to sort them out. And it's logical.
Again, when you see American coins for the first time, you will have no idea what a dime is worth.
I have a stack of English coins here, and the order from smallest to largest is 5p, 1p, 1 pound, 10p, 2 pounds. I don't have a 2p coin handy, but I remember that it's pretty big. So it's not just the US.
I know it's not. German money was the same. The 0.50 DM coin was smaller than the 0.10 DM coin. I believe that came from the fact that the amount of metal the coin was made of was worth 0.50 DM at the time the piece was introduced.
The $1 bill is the most commonly used piece of currency.
Which means if it gets replaced, I have to walk around with a bunch of heavy coins. Not only that, but under your scheme, it would have to be the largest coin!:-b
Correct. But then we'd also have $2 coins to make up for it. The reason you have so many $1 bills in your pocket (if you do) is that the $2 bill is close to extinct and definitely not in wide circulation.
If a 20c or 50c coin was available, coin use would be much easier.
Um, you can get 50 cent coins. Tell me you've never seen a Kennedy half-dollar.
I have never seen in person, uh, coin a 50c coin because...
They are big, bulky, and whenever someone gets one in change, they horde it.
World War I started before the UN was created. And nobody ever claimed that it was a legitimate war. Germany and its allies attacked other European countries on the height of an arms race uncomparable to anything before.
If Iraq fires at US airplanes, US airplanes should disable those installments that are firing missiles. Or ask for a UN resolution to get those installments disabled. Or ask the UN to find somebody else to patrol that air space. Nobody forced the US to do that and while the UN members no doubt were very thankful for the US doing that, it doesn't mean that it now has general policing rights in that area.
The concept that someone else has power over what a country can and cannot do seems to be no problem as long as that country is not the US. For an example, look at the suit the US filed today with the WTO claiming that the EU ban on genetically engineered food is an infringement of internaional trade.
However, when it comes to international law limiting the actions of the United States, things look completely different. It is international law that no country can attack another country unless it is attacked first. The US couldn't care less about that when it invaded Iraq. The international court was created to prosecute and punish individuals who commit crimes against humanity. The US was all for it as long as its own citizens could never be on the prosecuted side.
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Well, that, and the nice benefits of a common market and unlimited travel between EU member states. Imagine you would have to go through customs and passport control every time you cross statelines in the US. I'm glad they got away from that within the EU.
VAT is supposed to be levied every time you "add value" to a product. For example, you buy some supplies--you pay VAT. You turn those supplies into something useful and sell it--the customer pays VAT. So, in essence, VAT is levied at every point in the supply chain.
Now, if you resell something that you have already paid VAT for, the question whether you have to pay VAT again depends on the type of sale. Retailers have to charge VAT if they sell products purchased from wholesalers (the added value being the convenience of being in the close neighborhood and that you don't have to rummage through piles of boxes). Your garage sale is most likely going to be VAT-exempt as you're not adding any value to the goods--you're just selling your junk.
The end effect, in general, is that VAT is usually charged more often than US-style sales tax.
But if the vendor is outside the EU, has no presence in the EU, and has no plans to have a presence in the EU, they can tell HM Customs and Excise to go play with the traffic.
If you are in the US and commite a crime in the EU, you better believe that you will be prosecuted for the crime in the US. And you better believe that the FBI/SS will make sure you get your punishment if convicted. There a lot of agreements in place between the US and EU countries to help each other in criminal prosecutions.
I have no intention to argue this with anybody. I was merely trying to express my view that civil law systems are superior to common law systems because they more duly represent the will of the people and the spirit of representative democracy.
The entire volume of precedents accumulated over the centuries is not law created by the leglisature(s). Those are findings by a jury turned into court judgments. A jury, in its fact finding objective, has the opportunity to ignore or reinterpret certain laws as too harsh or inappropriate with the spirit of Common Law. If juries were indeed only supposed to find the facts and apply them to the laws, there wouldn't be any reason why so many class-action lawsuits against large corporations are trialed in Mississippi state which has one of the poorest (and most likely corporation-unfriendly) populations in the States.
My point was that all law should come from legislatures and court interpretations of such legislation. Right now, we have at least two sources of law in the US: one being the legislatures of the 50 states plus Congress and the other being the state and federal court system. If you look at the legal systems in France or Germany (just to cite an example), you would see that what's legal and what's not is solely defined by legislation passed by the parliament, the constitution and (limited) court interpretations of the laws. It's beyond me how the ruling of a judge can be representative of the will of the people.
It would base its decisions on the consitution, just like it does now. The constituation is the fundamental law of the land and it's the court's job to make sure that no legislative or executive action violates that.
If we'd get rid of common law, we could also reconsider the idea that standing must exist for a court to take action. It's beyond me why somebody has to incur damages because of an unconstitutional law before he or she gets the change to challeng its constitutionality. The Patriot Act may or may not be constitutional. But because the "victims" of the Patriot Act never get a chance to a hearingg at a court, the Act could never get repealed. Clever.
In some places outside of the US, the losing party pays for all costs incurred by both sides during the trial plus the costs of the court. The intention is to prevent frivoulous lawsuits with no merit that only serve to harrass people.
On the other hand, if you have a good case and not much money, you can even take up the "big guys" in court because at the end, they will have to reimbuse you for your costs.
The Supreme Court has the authority to render all legislation null and void. That wouldn't change if Common Law was eliminated.
The double jeopardy clause in the constitution affects only criminal cases. However, there's a common law rule that a fact may only be tried once in court. That's why you can't wait for your countersuit until another after the primary case because the court will refuse to hear it.
Now, the difference here, however, is that this case was never tried before a court. Instead, a settlement was negotiated (and I use that term very loosely here) and no verdict was given. The settlement agreement will contain some language then so that this fact situation can't be brought back to court.
I don't see how supporting ClearChannel is any better than supporting the RIAA.
Judging from past performance, the RIAA is not really interested in long-term solutions. What matters to them right now are quarter-to-quarter results.
If media sales go down because of the bad publicity, you can bet your behind that Ms Rosen and her entourage will claim that it's due to music "piracy".
If the RIAA was really interested in a solution that would work for the foreseeable future, they would have hired some researchers to come up with a business model that would fit the free nature of the Internet. They could have used Apple's iTunes as an example instead of trying to shut that down as well.
It would be a precedent. But it would be as weak as the case of "some small guy". No court is required to follow precedent and if the appeals court(s) agree with the lower court's decision, it makes no difference whether there was precedent or not.
Naturally, this rarely ever happens because the courts have no interest to make the legal system any more unpredictable than it already is.
Maybe it's just time for the US to move to get rid of this common law nonsense and assume legislation as the sole source of law.
As others mentioned, this is only true for criminal cases.
The whole thing gets even worse for the student because of the American system under which each party has to pay for its own representation regardless of the outcome of the suit. At least, in other jurisdictions, the winning party gets reimbursed for its legal fees by the losing party.
"Maybe we ought to consider the possibility that intergalactic spacetravel is not physically possible hence we will never meet "aliens" from other planets?"
Less than one hundred years ago, we didn't think atom bombs were possibly, much less even conceive of them. Less than thirty years ago, there was no idea of what we would be capable in 2003. I wouldn't dismiss the idea of FTL travel just because I can't conceive it yet. Nature seems to always leave some way to do something that we didn't think possible at first. Just wait and be patient (or spend money/effort in research).
Given the capacity of an infinite occurrance of infinite events, some monkeys could very well write Shakespeare. That in the particular case, the monkeys didn't perform up to expectations does not refute the general statement. The problem is just that we don't have an infinite time to wait.
US common law provides for contracts lacking signatures. When you go to Best Buy and buy a CD, you just entered into a sales agreement, whether you signed anything or not. The terms of that agreement govern refunds and exchanges, for example, as well as what other rights and obligations Best Buy or you have.
When you buy that DVD from Best Buy, one could argue that you only have an agreement with Best Buy and not the MPAA. That's something the courts would have to sort out.
You're supposed to cut out your eyes now and kill your father.
"The Bremen Linux specialis uninvention_ has been granted a temporary injunction against SCO Group Inc. by the Bremen state court."
Of course under the lead of the US of A, right? Countries already fight wars over one country upstream cutting off the water supply to countries further down. Imagine what kind of quarrels controlling the weather on an international level could cause. Not to mention the fact that you just created a weapon as nuclear ones without the mess of post-war radiation and nuclear winters.
Right. I can already see companies or the government screwing up trying to control the weather with consequences we can barely imagine. We don't know how weather works and we certainly don't know why certain things happen the way they do. Thinking that with this kind of knowledge we could change the weather in a foreseeable manner is presumptuous at best, fatal at worst.
There is no doubt in my mind that we have the technology and energy requires to significantly influence the weather. But there's also no doubt in my mind that we have no clue as to what such intervention would cause. Since experimenting with the weather is kinda tough until we manage to do interplanetary travel cost- and effortlessly and use other--preferrably uninhabited--planets, it might make more sense to invest resources on that than building the 21st century equivalent of the atom bomb.
There's no doubt that the veto powers in the UN security council are undemocratic and unrepresentative. That France (and Russia) used this to its advantage is nothing I or anybody could be proud of. If the US had convinced the security council that a military mission in Iraq was necessary (and the US got very far in doing so), then the UN should have given the mandate. That's something the US was trying to do until it became evident that France and Russia would veto any resolution that resembled military intervention.
But at that point, instead of just ignoring the rules of the UN and international law, the US should have tried to change the structure of how decisions are made. Why it didn't? Because such efforts could backfire at the US when it disagrees with something the UN wants to do. If France and Russia had to give up their veto powers, so would the US. That's not something the current administration was willing to do.
As to the rights of souvereign nation-states, it is obvious that no country is nor should be in a position where it can do whatever it wants with no regard to the rest of the world. The US is as much part of the global network of trade and politics as any other country. To deny that and say that the US has no responsibilities to the rest of the world is denying reality.
If Cuba or Libya are on the Human Rights Commission and the US has a problem with it, then it needs to complaing about it and use the tools it legally has to change that. Leaving just because you don't like it there anymore proves neither strength nor wisdom.
So you are saying that just because the US doesn't believe in the idea of the UN anymore, it doesn't have to abide by its rules any longer? Looks like a great example for many other countries who might now ask themselves "What's the point of following the rules? The most powerful nation doesn't either, so why should I?"
The US became a member of the UN and accepted its rules. What rights does it have to break that contract now and say it doesn't want to be a part of it any longer.
I don't think the US was ever willing to let the UN have control over any of the US' actions. Taking advantage of the UN's current weakness is just a great opportunity to get out of it w/o looking too bad. Or at least, that's what the White House must be thinking.
The dime is way too small. Coins should increase in size as they increase in value.
Why?
So I can find the right coin without necessarily having to look at them. It also makes it easier for people with less than perfect vision to sort them out. And it's logical.
Again, when you see American coins for the first time, you will have no idea what a dime is worth.
I have a stack of English coins here, and the order from smallest to largest is 5p, 1p, 1 pound, 10p, 2 pounds. I don't have a 2p coin handy, but I remember that it's pretty big. So it's not just the US.
I know it's not. German money was the same. The 0.50 DM coin was smaller than the 0.10 DM coin. I believe that came from the fact that the amount of metal the coin was made of was worth 0.50 DM at the time the piece was introduced.
The $1 bill is the most commonly used piece of currency.
Which means if it gets replaced, I have to walk around with a bunch of heavy coins. Not only that, but under your scheme, it would have to be the largest coin! :-b
Correct. But then we'd also have $2 coins to make up for it. The reason you have so many $1 bills in your pocket (if you do) is that the $2 bill is close to extinct and definitely not in wide circulation.
If a 20c or 50c coin was available, coin use would be much easier.
Um, you can get 50 cent coins. Tell me you've never seen a Kennedy half-dollar.
I have never seen in person, uh, coin a 50c coin because...
They are big, bulky, and whenever someone gets one in change, they horde it.
World War I started before the UN was created. And nobody ever claimed that it was a legitimate war. Germany and its allies attacked other European countries on the height of an arms race uncomparable to anything before.
If Iraq fires at US airplanes, US airplanes should disable those installments that are firing missiles. Or ask for a UN resolution to get those installments disabled. Or ask the UN to find somebody else to patrol that air space. Nobody forced the US to do that and while the UN members no doubt were very thankful for the US doing that, it doesn't mean that it now has general policing rights in that area.
The concept that someone else has power over what a country can and cannot do seems to be no problem as long as that country is not the US. For an example, look at the suit the US filed today with the WTO claiming that the EU ban on genetically engineered food is an infringement of internaional trade.
However, when it comes to international law limiting the actions of the United States, things look completely different. It is international law that no country can attack another country unless it is attacked first. The US couldn't care less about that when it invaded Iraq. The international court was created to prosecute and punish individuals who commit crimes against humanity. The US was all for it as long as its own citizens could never be on the prosecuted side.