Given the AC's comments about the true nature of Python multi-threading, are you now one of those who've joined the crushingly disappointed? I've witnessed entire commercial products fail due to this. It's amazing to me that paid professionals could not know this, but it's true.
Well; the remark was about Python. Python's real weakness is that it's unsuitable for real multi-threading. And that's entirely Guido's fault.
Imagine yourself on a modern server with 2x8=16 total cores, and finding out to your crushing disappointment what the phrase "Python is not re-entrant" actually means.
It doesn't actually follow logically that an MMO has to be the way you describe, as they could (theoretically, I am being charitable) use spatial indexing technology to do extremely selectively instancing of the entire world, effectively using one base world as the common basis for thousands of delta worlds with relatively few actual human players. Some games have done this already with dungeon instancing. It wouldn't take much of a step to do it with whole worlds. Yes, this sort of undermines the first "M" in MMO, but there is probably a market for this kind of game, and until they say what they've done, you don't know that they haven't done it.
I think you're forgetting that the proposition system came in to control corruption in our past.
I couldn't forget something I never knew. What I do know is that, presently, the proposition system is a huge source for California fiscal woes, with in excess of 60% of the state budget directed by voters in a fashion that neither the legislature nor the governor can readily overrule. That means that when it comes to crunch time, the other 40% of the budget is what they have to cut, and that includes things like Emergency services and the like. This notion that voters should be able to vote themselves ponies was always a terrible idea; I suppose I would be willing to entertain a limited proposition system, such as one that permitted the voters to continue with initiatives, but greatly limited their ability to obligate funds; but I'd rather scrap the whole thing than quibble about the details.
I don't have any sense that things ought to get worse before they get better. I just think they they will have to. I.e., that's a prediction. We won't jettison the proposition system until there is a full blown Constitutional crisis. That won't happen until the next major fiscal melt down. You know a while back when the IOU system started deteriorating? Keep in mind that the State does not have the legal authority to make workers take IOU's. They can't take them if the IOU's themselves aren't honored downstream. Police, emergency service workers, and doctors need to eat.
I live in California, too. I suspect that the toxic-to-employers issues aren't directly related to California's income tax, and more likely due to the "death by a thousand cuts." I.e., it's an army of the little things.
A good chunk of California's financial problems are from the Proposition system, are you aware? I predict that the next down turn will result in a full-blown Constitutional crisis in California. It's my prayer that we toss out the entire proposition system and all past propositions therewith. If we lose Proposition 13 with it, oh well. Fair trade.
Various kleptocratic policies under consideration currently will only accelerate the situation. It is for the best. Part of the problem in California is that we've left the bandaid on so long that removing it is going to require a traumatic flesh injury.
I was indeed assuming that consumption tax was the only tax. Read about the Fair Tax for one specific proposal (it has its weaknesses, but is the only such proposal with any political legs at all).
While indeed some jurisdictions will enjoy lower labor costs, those jurisdictions also suffer from their own problems, and do have to pay transportation costs to get goods into local jurisdictions. Moving to a consumption tax is therefore something of an equalizer. I never said it was perfect. Nothing is.
One good thing about the consumption tax model that is particularly nice, as it stops the incentive to shift "earnings" to fictitious entities in alternative locales.
Another good thing about this tax model is that it will help address trade balances, as local manufacturers will export out of their own jurisdictions tax free.
A final good thing about this model is that it addresses trad balances again, by shifting the collection point to the good, which means by implication that foreign manufacturers will have to pay taxes in the local jurisdiction (indirectly, so to speak).
Thus your consumption tax will not equalize prices.
This was an improper conclusion. The conclusion would have been proper if you had said "will not completely equalize prices". Which would be true, but would be neither here nor there. Because the consumption tax-only model would partially equalize prices, and that's good enough.
Hmmmmm? I think not. If locally and remotely made products when sold all have a consumption tax applied when sold, then everyone is equal. Jurisdiction shopping was a waste of your time for tax avoidance purposes.
Well, the point being, is that there are unintended consequences. If you remove the tax incentives, you'll have to increase the yields on those bonds, ultimately. That would be equally fair, I suppose, because ultimately we kind of alread "did" increase the yield of the bonds, and just hid that yield in reduced tax intake.
With regard to current tax base, you would have to decrease overall taxes collected as a ratio of GDP to do what you say. Otherwise the tax on the wealthy would be enough to cause capital flight. Recall that in the 1920's, the fedgov was a fraction of the GDP that it is today.
I'm just not sure why we're discussing a split tax. Some kind of consumption tax would naturally apply to everything. I did say "special handling." The difficulty is in compliance.
Since this mostly comes down to the mail order business, I'm not sure how big a deal it is. However, it could get to be a big deal, as the world is an increasingly interconnected place. If we used a sales-like tax exclusively at the federal level, it would approach 30% (e.g. Fair Tax). This would create a huge incentive to cheat.
This is why you need special handling. I don't know what special handling would be, but I suspect it wouldn't be the whole "trust the taxpayer" thing we have right now with the situation on state taxes and mail order.
VAT is not a specific personal plank of mine. I was merely pointing out the VAT-on-import did not (and will not) start a "trade war." That is obviously false. I do, however, think that income taxes incentivize jurisdiction shopping. Consumption based taxes in the jurisdiction of the destination are ultimately fare. A company pays taxes based on where it's good are used.
"Imported goods if they were made in a country with cheaper taxes will probably still be cheaper which will mean manufacturing will have an incentive to not do business in your country."
Did you mean to say that foreign manufacturers would not want to sell their goods to the destination country? I don't think this is true. Foreign manufacturers with cheaper labor, will still have a competitive edge. If the sum of the issues, due to transportation cost and the like, begins favoring a local manufacturer, I'm fine with that. Entirely.
50% of the US population doesn't pay federal income tax at all*. For about 8% of the US population, federal income tax actually flows backwards, from the government and to the citizens.
I tend to agree with you in sentiment about loopholes exploited by various and sundry. In sentiment.
However, suppose I am a bazillionaire, and I get a crazy hair up my arse and invest the sum total of my fortune into tax free bonds. Do you find it to be "fair," if I don't pay taxes on those at all?
I.e., in practice this may be a little harder than it first appears.
C//
* this situation is somewhat due to the economy; if things were better, it would be a mere 40%-ish.
Ultimately, your problem is how to make your domestic goods competitive with imported goods. A VAT doesn't do that. It just increases the cost of everything by a set percentage.
The various other taxes collected throughout our current system do the same thing. It's just that there are so many forms of taxes everywhere, that you take them for granted and consider them baseline.
I didn't even read the whole article, frankly. I was merely pointing out the fact that a great deal of people (50% currently, 40% in normal times) don't pay federal income tax at all. They do have tax burdens, and it can be deceptive in and of itself to point to federal income tax alone (due to the payroll tax situation), but payroll taxes are indeed different, as they fund themselves from the payroll tax revenue directly (at least SSI does; I confess I don't know how Medicare is funded). You will find any number of good treatments on the subject (including a discussion of payroll taxes and the like) on the first few links on google if you search.
WSJ editorials are only evidence of your gullibility.
This sentiment reveals more about you than me, you know. For example, you have now entered into the record a fact: you are quick to insult people. Is this how you want the world to perceive you?
I suppose you're going to say the lower classes cover the tax burden through payroll taxes. Only, those particular payroll taxes only cover the specific services paid. Which leaves off funding significant critical aspects of our government.
As you'll see, they assess the VAT on import. If your prediction is true, the EU's application of the VAT to imports should have already started a "global trade war". Did it, or do you... have less predictive power than you think?
All this jurisdiction dodging can be resolved. Just assess EVERYTHING as a sales tax. Then make anyone who ships to a destination from an origin from within the country pay sales tax at the destination. Out of country imports would need a bit special handling.
This was an engaging and interesting video. And I agree with it. I've been expecting a shift to lighter weight vehicles for 2-3 years now, and personally think the shift is inevitable. I also think that many alternative energies are also inevitable. The alternative energies are dropping in price (e.g., solar) where fossil fuel (and particular oil) are increasing in price. So there is a degree of inevitability there, too. So "green" is inevitable, yes.
However you said "going 'green' is not more expensive, it's actually much cheaper." In response to my request for more information about why you thought that, you gave me a 20 minute video regarding future trends. When you use the word "is" in a sentence this is a statement about the present. In the present, the situation is not so clear.
If 100 million tons of water, previously having spent its life as ice, is now spending some part of the year (in winter) as snow, and we remark about all our unusual snow falls, and how cold it is, the question that nevertheless comes to mind is:
If I were that water, am I on a whole cooler or warmer?
It's something to think about. It does not directly address your comment regarding the Antarctic, of course. But I bet you could think of something.
No, I didn't. In fact, in my very first post to this thread, I explicitly raised the question of how the licence was granted,...
That's funny. I just reviewed the thread. So you did. I do not remember this at all. I must have been really tired. My apologies. I suspect I took one look at the "consideration" verbiage and jumped off the handle due to hearing folks having said that the GPL is invalid for that reason in the past. Here, actually. Once or twice.
Be that as it may:
If you are questioning the lawful conveyance for the license, there is more to worry about than the GPL. There are entire Fortune 500 companies dependent on BSD, conveyed similarly. It's possible that companies like NetApp have gone to the upstream source (was BSD Unix literally Berkley?) and gotten expressly conveyed licenses. But I have my doubts.
Now if you absolutely want to have some entertainment, start lining up the case history on what the courts have considered to be derivative works, and what the open source community would like you to believe. These are not always the same. For example, the assertion that linux kernel modules are derivative of the kernel is one that doesn't smell perfectly right to me.
Of the two of these, I'll vote for their being a case on derivative work status coming out in some less-than-FOSS-friendly fashion before Common Law derivative court accepts the argument of an author who, having written a license.txt file granting the license, successfully argues before the court 'I didn't mean it.' I.e., don't hold your breath on this last. I'm just not seeing it.
Slashdot Mirror
Given the AC's comments about the true nature of Python multi-threading, are you now one of those who've joined the crushingly disappointed? I've witnessed entire commercial products fail due to this. It's amazing to me that paid professionals could not know this, but it's true.
Well; the remark was about Python. Python's real weakness is that it's unsuitable for real multi-threading. And that's entirely Guido's fault.
Imagine yourself on a modern server with 2x8=16 total cores, and finding out to your crushing disappointment what the phrase "Python is not re-entrant" actually means.
C//
It doesn't actually follow logically that an MMO has to be the way you describe, as they could (theoretically, I am being charitable) use spatial indexing technology to do extremely selectively instancing of the entire world, effectively using one base world as the common basis for thousands of delta worlds with relatively few actual human players. Some games have done this already with dungeon instancing. It wouldn't take much of a step to do it with whole worlds. Yes, this sort of undermines the first "M" in MMO, but there is probably a market for this kind of game, and until they say what they've done, you don't know that they haven't done it.
I think you're forgetting that the proposition system came in to control corruption in our past.
I couldn't forget something I never knew. What I do know is that, presently, the proposition system is a huge source for California fiscal woes, with in excess of 60% of the state budget directed by voters in a fashion that neither the legislature nor the governor can readily overrule. That means that when it comes to crunch time, the other 40% of the budget is what they have to cut, and that includes things like Emergency services and the like. This notion that voters should be able to vote themselves ponies was always a terrible idea; I suppose I would be willing to entertain a limited proposition system, such as one that permitted the voters to continue with initiatives, but greatly limited their ability to obligate funds; but I'd rather scrap the whole thing than quibble about the details.
I don't have any sense that things ought to get worse before they get better. I just think they they will have to. I.e., that's a prediction. We won't jettison the proposition system until there is a full blown Constitutional crisis. That won't happen until the next major fiscal melt down. You know a while back when the IOU system started deteriorating? Keep in mind that the State does not have the legal authority to make workers take IOU's. They can't take them if the IOU's themselves aren't honored downstream. Police, emergency service workers, and doctors need to eat.
C//
I live in California, too. I suspect that the toxic-to-employers issues aren't directly related to California's income tax, and more likely due to the "death by a thousand cuts." I.e., it's an army of the little things.
A good chunk of California's financial problems are from the Proposition system, are you aware? I predict that the next down turn will result in a full-blown Constitutional crisis in California. It's my prayer that we toss out the entire proposition system and all past propositions therewith. If we lose Proposition 13 with it, oh well. Fair trade.
Various kleptocratic policies under consideration currently will only accelerate the situation. It is for the best. Part of the problem in California is that we've left the bandaid on so long that removing it is going to require a traumatic flesh injury.
C//
I was indeed assuming that consumption tax was the only tax. Read about the Fair Tax for one specific proposal (it has its weaknesses, but is the only such proposal with any political legs at all).
While indeed some jurisdictions will enjoy lower labor costs, those jurisdictions also suffer from their own problems, and do have to pay transportation costs to get goods into local jurisdictions. Moving to a consumption tax is therefore something of an equalizer. I never said it was perfect. Nothing is.
One good thing about the consumption tax model that is particularly nice, as it stops the incentive to shift "earnings" to fictitious entities in alternative locales.
Another good thing about this tax model is that it will help address trade balances, as local manufacturers will export out of their own jurisdictions tax free.
A final good thing about this model is that it addresses trad balances again, by shifting the collection point to the good, which means by implication that foreign manufacturers will have to pay taxes in the local jurisdiction (indirectly, so to speak).
Thus your consumption tax will not equalize prices.
This was an improper conclusion. The conclusion would have been proper if you had said "will not completely equalize prices". Which would be true, but would be neither here nor there. Because the consumption tax-only model would partially equalize prices, and that's good enough.
C//
Hmmmmm? I think not. If locally and remotely made products when sold all have a consumption tax applied when sold, then everyone is equal. Jurisdiction shopping was a waste of your time for tax avoidance purposes.
C//
Well, the point being, is that there are unintended consequences. If you remove the tax incentives, you'll have to increase the yields on those bonds, ultimately. That would be equally fair, I suppose, because ultimately we kind of alread "did" increase the yield of the bonds, and just hid that yield in reduced tax intake.
With regard to current tax base, you would have to decrease overall taxes collected as a ratio of GDP to do what you say. Otherwise the tax on the wealthy would be enough to cause capital flight. Recall that in the 1920's, the fedgov was a fraction of the GDP that it is today.
C//
I'm just not sure why we're discussing a split tax. Some kind of consumption tax would naturally apply to everything. I did say "special handling." The difficulty is in compliance.
Since this mostly comes down to the mail order business, I'm not sure how big a deal it is. However, it could get to be a big deal, as the world is an increasingly interconnected place. If we used a sales-like tax exclusively at the federal level, it would approach 30% (e.g. Fair Tax). This would create a huge incentive to cheat.
This is why you need special handling. I don't know what special handling would be, but I suspect it wouldn't be the whole "trust the taxpayer" thing we have right now with the situation on state taxes and mail order.
C//
VAT is not a specific personal plank of mine. I was merely pointing out the VAT-on-import did not (and will not) start a "trade war." That is obviously false.
I do, however, think that income taxes incentivize jurisdiction shopping. Consumption based taxes in the jurisdiction of the destination are ultimately fare. A company pays taxes based on where it's good are used.
"Imported goods if they were made in a country with cheaper taxes will probably still be cheaper which will mean manufacturing will have an incentive to not do business in your country."
Did you mean to say that foreign manufacturers would not want to sell their goods to the destination country? I don't think this is true. Foreign manufacturers with cheaper labor, will still have a competitive edge. If the sum of the issues, due to transportation cost and the like, begins favoring a local manufacturer, I'm fine with that. Entirely.
C//
50% of the US population doesn't pay federal income tax at all*. For about 8% of the US population, federal income tax actually flows backwards, from the government and to the citizens.
I tend to agree with you in sentiment about loopholes exploited by various and sundry. In sentiment.
However, suppose I am a bazillionaire, and I get a crazy hair up my arse and invest the sum total of my fortune into tax free bonds. Do you find it to be "fair," if I don't pay taxes on those at all?
I.e., in practice this may be a little harder than it first appears.
C//
* this situation is somewhat due to the economy; if things were better, it would be a mere 40%-ish.
Ultimately, your problem is how to make your domestic goods competitive with imported goods. A VAT doesn't do that. It just increases the cost of everything by a set percentage.
The various other taxes collected throughout our current system do the same thing. It's just that there are so many forms of taxes everywhere, that you take them for granted and consider them baseline.
C//
I didn't even read the whole article, frankly. I was merely pointing out the fact that a great deal of people (50% currently, 40% in normal times) don't pay federal income tax at all. They do have tax burdens, and it can be deceptive in and of itself to point to federal income tax alone (due to the payroll tax situation), but payroll taxes are indeed different, as they fund themselves from the payroll tax revenue directly (at least SSI does; I confess I don't know how Medicare is funded). You will find any number of good treatments on the subject (including a discussion of payroll taxes and the like) on the first few links on google if you search.
C//
WSJ editorials are only evidence of your gullibility.
This sentiment reveals more about you than me, you know. For example, you have now entered into the record a fact: you are quick to insult people. Is this how you want the world to perceive you?
I suppose you're going to say the lower classes cover the tax burden through payroll taxes. Only, those particular payroll taxes only cover the specific services paid. Which leaves off funding significant critical aspects of our government.
C//
You don't know if I'm talking about that at all, because I didn't say what the special handling would be for out of country imports.
Regardless, linked below is the EU page on the VAT:
http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/index_en.htm
As you'll see, they assess the VAT on import. If your prediction is true, the EU's application of the VAT to imports should have already started a "global trade war". Did it, or do you... have less predictive power than you think?
C//
All this jurisdiction dodging can be resolved. Just assess EVERYTHING as a sales tax. Then make anyone who ships to a destination from an origin from within the country pay sales tax at the destination. Out of country imports would need a bit special handling.
That was an intriguingly large amount of cock socking you were talking about there.
*I tink ve shult shpeak about your relashunship vit your fathehr.*
LOL
Flat tax won't help if Nevada has a flat tax of zero, and California XXX. The issue in the OP is shell companies in foreign jurisdictions.
In reality, the lower classes cover the tax burden, while the large corporations enjoy benefits.
That's an interesting angle on things:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703703304576299560728821804.html
C//
This was an engaging and interesting video. And I agree with it. I've been expecting a shift to lighter weight vehicles for 2-3 years now, and personally think the shift is inevitable. I also think that many alternative energies are also inevitable. The alternative energies are dropping in price (e.g., solar) where fossil fuel (and particular oil) are increasing in price. So there is a degree of inevitability there, too. So "green" is inevitable, yes.
However you said "going 'green' is not more expensive, it's actually much cheaper." In response to my request for more information about why you thought that, you gave me a 20 minute video regarding future trends. When you use the word "is" in a sentence this is a statement about the present. In the present, the situation is not so clear.
Isn't tide actually harvesting the practically limitless gravitational energy from the moon's orbit, and not in fact delayed solar?
(I think so).
4. Solar. Makes sense as a source of off-grid energy but will never compete on a cost basis.
"Never" was an interesting word to use there.
Fossil fuels will in the not too distant future be quite expensive.
I'll take a wild guess that you'd say that we should wait until then, and I wouldn't argue.
But still.
Well; I'm not a big fan of AGW or anything. But.
If 100 million tons of water, previously having spent its life as ice, is now spending some part of the year (in winter) as snow, and we remark about all our unusual snow falls, and how cold it is, the question that nevertheless comes to mind is:
If I were that water, am I on a whole cooler or warmer?
It's something to think about. It does not directly address your comment regarding the Antarctic, of course. But I bet you could think of something.
It's time to put this myth to bed, once and for all. Going "green" is NOT more expensive, it's actually much cheaper.
Show me some vaguely credible math.
No, I didn't. In fact, in my very first post to this thread, I explicitly raised the question of how the licence was granted,...
That's funny. I just reviewed the thread. So you did. I do not remember this at all. I must have been really tired. My apologies. I suspect I took one look at the "consideration" verbiage and jumped off the handle due to hearing folks having said that the GPL is invalid for that reason in the past. Here, actually. Once or twice.
Be that as it may:
If you are questioning the lawful conveyance for the license, there is more to worry about than the GPL. There are entire Fortune 500 companies dependent on BSD, conveyed similarly. It's possible that companies like NetApp have gone to the upstream source (was BSD Unix literally Berkley?) and gotten expressly conveyed licenses. But I have my doubts.
Now if you absolutely want to have some entertainment, start lining up the case history on what the courts have considered to be derivative works, and what the open source community would like you to believe. These are not always the same. For example, the assertion that linux kernel modules are derivative of the kernel is one that doesn't smell perfectly right to me.
Of the two of these, I'll vote for their being a case on derivative work status coming out in some less-than-FOSS-friendly fashion before Common Law derivative court accepts the argument of an author who, having written a license.txt file granting the license, successfully argues before the court 'I didn't mean it.' I.e., don't hold your breath on this last. I'm just not seeing it.
C//