You can leave facebook, but facebook still collects your data. Heck, they even collect it if you never joined in the first place.
BTW, socialist Europe has a unified law on privacy entering into force in 2018. That law stipulates that the user can ask for the exact data the company is storing, and the company must provide the whole data set free of charge. The law also reinforces that the user can request his data to be deleted, and once again this has to happen in a reasonable time frame and free of charge. It also establishes heavy fines for privacy violations, up to 4% of worldwide group revenue in case of data breach caused by negligence.
At the same time, the current AML legislation/regulation explicitly forbids you from disclosing some user-related information to the user... and to keep all the user data for 5 years after the end of the contractual relationship.
The fun bit is that the vast majority (I would say "all so far" but I don't have the hard data to support that point) of Muslims involved in terror attacks on European soil were European citizens, born in Europe to the people we imported "en masse" when we couldn't get enough cheap hands for coal mining and the steel industry. Stopping the immigration of Muslims 10, 20 or even 30 years ago wouldn't have avoided the issue as that ship had already sailed. In the unofficial hierarchy of humanity, the immigrants of non-European origin were more or less classed as sub-humans. When the local steel industry sort of collapsed in the 1970s, the Muslim immigrants were parked in modern ghettos inside European cities.
Based on first-hand experience in places like Molenbeek (I have lived two streets outside Molenbeek, in Ganshoren), Schaerbeek or Droixhe... the widespread change in behavior started happening in the generation after mine. The kids of immigrants about my age believed in the system and did what they could to climb the social ladder through hard work. They had great grades in school, studied hard, and never got invited to job interviews. There were obviously rotten apples as well, but I didn't encounter many.
Their younger siblings saw the outcome of the hard work, and decided that a life of petty criminality would be better. I guess that the mass media glorification of the thug life didn't exactly help, either. I have seen similar changes in behavior in non-Muslim populations for the exact same reasons. Places with high unemployment are breeding grounds for criminality of all sorts. It's just that for the Muslims parked in the ghettos, there's an added risk of radicalization. In the other population groups, it generally remains in the drug/arms trafficking, money laundering and prostitution.
The flip side is that in places where they do have upwards social mobility, I don't see the amount of petty criminality or radicalization seen in the places where they're parked like cattle. The Muslims I have encountered through work are pretty much only going through the motions of religion because their parents expect them to... they do enjoy booze and other things, but they still do the Ramadan fast "because that's how they grew up". They also marry outside their community, so I expect that their families will be fully integrated in a generation or two.
It's almost as if people who have nothing to lose make rash and irrational choices.
I'm not sure I agree with you on the last bit. If that was the case, why was there so much opposition to the French proposed law on revoking the French nationality of terrorists? That would seem like a good obvious way to keep them out of the territory.
You can remove "non-US" from that sentence... Apple funneled money through its shell corporation in Ireland to avoid paying tax in the US as well, according to the US Senate in 2013.
True story... I was offered a very good permanent position in the UK 18 months ago, basically manager-level salary and sign-in bonus for a senior technical position. Relocating to an English-speaking country would have made life easier for my wife, but it would have meant really long commutes because of real estate prices in that part of the UK... and also because the London area depresses me if I stay there more than a couple of days. I ended up turning down the offer because it was a couple of hundred quids per month too short for the transition period while I sold my house and uprooted my family. I sort of had regrets about it until the Brexit vote, but I am now glad I didn't take the job.
The EU is playing a losing game, in the long term. The open-borders, pro-immigration politicians (like Merkel) refuse to admit that they were wrong. They refuse to acknowledge that national borders have a purpose. That unlimited immigration is the same as cultural suicide.
Do national borders really serve a purpose in Europe nowadays? I can understand EU-bloc level borders on the outside, but inside Europe? I grew up in Belgium, which used to be part of what is now the Netherlands, in the part that actually spoke Middelfrankisch until my parent's generation. Culturally, you're probably almost as Belgian as I am... I just happen to share a language with 40% of Belgians because that's where I went to school, and the transmission of the local language was cut after WW2.
I have worked in Luxembourg most of my career, except for a few contracts in the UK and in Japan. I've lived for about 10 years in Luxembourg, getting along just fine with the locals even tho I only have rudiments of the language (also part of the Middelfrankisch family). I've lived for 10 years in Germany, in a part that used to belong to Luxembourg, then to France, before going back to Germany. I was culturally closer to the Germans of that area than I was to Belgians, even tho I didn't speak German... I'm now living in France, smack on the historical border between France and Burgundy, with the remains of the French wall in my garden. I also happen to culturally fit in that area, most people already consider me local even tho I've only been there for 2 months. I've had a similar experience when I lived for a year in the south of France.
The borders in western Europe have moved so much post 1830 that they are pretty much meaningless at a cultural level. Some of those borders were drawn that way for military or commercial reasons, with no interest whatsoever in culture. Also, except for the German border, those borders were pretty open for my whole life. For me, it's always been normal to cross the border without any special papers for a quick shopping trip or to go to the movies. Pre-EU, it was just more of a pain because of currencies and because I actually had to stop at the border to show my papers to the I also happen to cross two of those meaningless borders on the way to work every morning.
Their stubbornness means that the rebound will put extremist parties from the other side of the spectrum in control. In five years, we won't have just border controls (those are inevitable, at this point). By the time the reigns of power can be ripped from Progressive hands, the resentment and fear will have grown to such proportions that even peaceful, integrated immigrants will face persecution. Good intentions are, as usual, paving the road to Hell.
I sort of agree with your idea about the border controls and worse... but we disagree on what will trigger it. The extreme right has been rising pretty much since the oil and steel crisis in the 70s. Every time either the economy or the lower classes take a hit, they gain votes by promising the return of full employment for the nationals.
They obviously don't even shy back from breaking long and well established legal ground rules such as that law can not be applied retroperspectively. Not a friendly business environment.
State subsidies have been illegal in the common market since the Treaty of Rome in 1958, when Steve Jobs was 3... so we can safely say the law in question predates the birth of Apple. Ireland joined the EEC before Apple incorporated, so we can safely say that Ireland already had to obey those laws before Apple incorporated. Apple started operating in Ireland 7 or 8 years after Ireland joined the EEC, so the sweet deal Apple negotiated in Ireland has always been illegal. So illegal, in fact, that Ireland itself was phasing that sort of deal with a deadline of 2020. The US also has a legitimate interest in the Irish tax games as the US Senate seems to think that Apple Inc used it to dodge $11bn a year in US taxes between 2009 and 2013 (the year the senate report came out).
The US government may possibly looking for the $44bn of US tax money that Apple funneled through Apple Operations International (Incorporated in Ireland, operated from the US, paying tax nowhere), according to a US senate inquiry in 2013.
Ireland attracts companies because of their favorable tax rates. That was not a secret and did not violate any EU laws.
Ireland's corporate tax rate is 12.5%, the second lowest in the world. The EU doesn't have any issue with that rate. What Apple negotiated was an effective 0.005% tax rate instead of the 12.5% rate. Notice that the number is different. What the EU is asking is that Apple pays the 12.5% tax rate as the 0.005% tax rate has been ruled a state subsidy. State subsidies were made illegal inside the EEC (now EU) by the treaty of Rome in 1958. So yes, it does violate a EU law... one of the founding laws of the EU common market.
It will be cheaper to pay US taxes than worry about the EU\EC passing retroactive tax laws and other fines or penalties.
Because it is well known that paying 35% is cheaper than paying 12.5%, which is the tax rate Apple is being asked to pay. Ireland is bound by the treaty of Rome since they joined the EEC in 1973. Apple opened its Irish operations in Ireland after Ireland became a member of the EEC. This has nothing to do with retroactive tax laws, the deal Apple received from the Irish tax authority was illegal from day 1.
The EU is also only asking for the last 10 years of due taxes, instead of all taxes due since the beginning of Apple operations in Ireland.
If Apple doesn't want to pay its taxes in the EU, it is more than welcome to take its ball and GTFO. If Ireland doesn't want to play along with the rules of the EU market, they can also pay back the money they still owe the EU early and GTFO. They have effectively sold the rest of the EU market down the river. I'm sure international companies will still flock to their shores once Ireland is no longer a member of the EU market and the companies can no longer passport activities/taxes from there.
By the way, it is cute that you believe Apple will pay more taxes in the US. According to a senate inquiry in 2013, Apple is using a subsidiary that effectively pays no tax whatsoever in any jurisdiction to shelter a good quarter of its assets. According to the same senate inquiry in 2013, Apple has been funneling money to the Irish operations in order to avoid paying $11bn in taxes a year between 2009 and 2013. Apple is also apparently misreporting to its shareholder the amount of taxes it pays in the US... what they tell their investors is twice the amount that the IRS can account for.
It's amazing the morons in EU\EC think they can harass US companies and not evoke a response from the US.
It's amazing that the morons in global companies think that they are not bound to the laws of the places where they operate. It's equally funny that you still consider Apple an US company when it's currently not producing in the US, has more than twice the assets outside the US than it has in it and its best innovations lately are in the field of tax avoidance. Also, out of curiosity, can you name the last two companies with record fines from the EU for the same type of deal?
I stopped cold turkey, 10 years ago. I went from 2+ packs a day to 0 overnight. I had been smoking for 20+ years when I finally stopped. Best thing I ever did
As demonstrated by Swift a few years ago, the US don't need the UK for that... they can just twist the arm of any company having operations in the US directly.
The dependency tree for full passporting is simple: being a member of the EU. This was known before the vote, in fact several banks had to deposit in front of a parliamentary commission on the possible effects of Brexit. It was dismissed by the Brexit camp as being part of "project fear".
Switzerland, for example, doesn't have the ability to fully passport its financial services to the EU, it has 120-something bilateral agreements for some services. Those agreements have to be renegotiated every time there is a change happening in the market. So in practice, Swiss banks passport their services through their operations in London, which is no longer going to be an option once the UK leaves.
The absolute best case for the UK, will mean that they have to apply all EU regulations without having a say in their writing, any veto right, any negotiation right, while having to pay the full fees without any discount. One of the regulations that the UK isn't currently applying, through it's special snowflake status, is the limit on the bonus of financial services employees.
And that still won't allow full passporting, as the individual financial regulators in the EU will need to sanction the service passporting under the "equivalent regulation" provision. Full passporting means you just need to tell your own financial regulator that you are going to passport your services across the entire EU. I can totally see that set of concessions as satisfying both the Brexit voters and the financial services industry in the UK.
The banks won't fully leave, however they are going to either relocate a massive part of their UK operations to the continent or fire a massive part of their UK workforce. The UK population is roughly 65 million people, the EU population without the UK is roughly 440 million people. You don't need as many people in the "UK outside EU" operations to manage less than 13% of the "UK inside EU" potential clientele.
With the UK as a EU member, banks could "passport" their UK banking license to the rest of Europe. Once the UK is out, the "passport" option is no longer on the table so they will legally have to either apply for a banking license inside the EU, which means setting up full operations on mainland Europe (data centers, accounting, fund management, funds,... the whole lot basically), or pull out of the EU financial markets altogether. Getting a banking license isn't something achieved in a couple of weeks and it tends to cost a lot of money, so the banks probably waited until the vote results came in and are now scrambling to get their license between the invocation of Article 50 and the 2 years deadline. It seems that some of the international banks did their homework, had a DRP for Brexit and already started executing that plan on June 24th.
Bzzzt, wrong on both counts. Let me address them separately
EU committee members are appointed by the EU parliament.
The government of each member country proposes one member for the European Commission (usually someone who can no longer be elected in his own country either due to term limits or scandals). The European Council, which is made of the head of states for all EU member states, proposes one of the 28 to act as the president of the European Commission then the European Parliament gets to vote on his nomination. Once he is elected, the other 27 are appointed as commissioners and the European Parliament gets to vote once more to accept or reject the entire European Commission.
The European Commission sort of wields the ultimate power in the EU... the European Parliament can vote against its proposals, but the European Commission can either just send it back to vote until the European Parliament caves in or make it ride an unrelated package in a sub-committee to make it pass unnoticed.
The EU parliament is not elected, directly or indirectly, by the people of the UK.
Hmm, pop quiz time... what did Britons vote for in 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014? How did UKIP get seats in the European Parliament?
The parent company (Mindgeek) headquarters are located in the middle of Europe, in Luxembourg, just around the corner from my office:) A former colleague actually works there.
You mean "just like nuclear energy was in Germany, with costs of at least 20 billion Euros still coming just for shutting down the plants, and unknown costs for long term storage of the waste.
No, I meant exactly what I wrote... how is an added 22.2% "Renewable energy surcharge" on all electricity used by residential consumers, used to ensure a minimal price for the renewable energy producers, not a subsidy? The total of the eco-related surcharges and taxes is roughly one third of the final price.
The consumer price of electricity in Germany is split as follows:
Cost of power (supply and profit margin): 21.3%
Grid charges: 24.6%
Renewable energy surcharge: 22.2%
VAT: 16%
Ecological tax: 7.2%
Concession levy: 5.8%
Surcharge for combined heat and power plants: 1.5%
The consumer pays through higher taxation. Nuclear is heavily subsidised in France isn't it. In fact the sector is almost wholly owned by the government.
Nuclear is indeed subsidized in France, just like renewable energy is in Germany through artificially high costs for residential consumers (added tax). The German city where I lived for 10 years until last month has 99.99% of its energy supply (and the supply of its county) coming from dams that have been operating for decades and had been paid through a mix of city taxes and citizen investments. Yet, we were also paying the extra tax to encourage the switch to renewable energy, which was then used to put solar panels and windmills that didn't even register as a blip in the energy mix of the city. Probably because the now privatized operator wasn't using those to supply the city, but selling the energy somewhere else. In France, I'm getting my electricity through a local supplier using biomass... I'm paying less than half of German prices at peak time, but slightly more than half of German prices off peak time.
For taxation, it depends in which tax bracket you are... for a single person:
German tax rates:
0% up to 7 664
15% 7 665- 52 153
42% 52 154 - 250 000
45% 250 001 and over
French tax rates:
0% up to 9 701
14% Between 9 701 - 26 791
30% Between 26 792 - 71 826
41% Between 71 827 - 152 108
45% Above 151 108
Germany taxes are lower if you earn between 26 791 and 52 153 a year, it is unfortunate for most of my ex neighborhood that they were mostly in the bracket where Germany is more expensive, below 26791 a year. Most of my new neighborhood is in the same bracket and pay less taxes. In my tax bracket, there is a less than 1% difference in the effective tax rate (in favor of Germany) but that is still below what I save through utilities, services, price of real estate and interest rates on the house credit. It's also a theoretical saving as I am paying my income tax in Luxembourg where my effective tax rate is a whole 11% lower than what it would theoretically be in Germany (theoretically, because my gross salary would also be lower in Germany).
Another big difference in taxation between the two country is property taxes, I'm paying roughly the same amount of property taxes in France as I was paying in Germany. My property in France is way bigger than the one I had in Germany. In France, the property tax includes things like garbage disposal, water treatment and TV tax. Garbage disposal and water treatment have been privatized in Germany, so you have to pay extra money on top of the property tax. As I lived in the suburbs of the city in Germany, I wasn't actually getting any of the services I was supposed to receive through my property taxes (library, maintained roads,...).
I was paying a pet tax in Germany, which doesn't exist in France, and gets very expensive if you have more than 1 dog. I'm getting far better network connectivity options in France even tho I moved to the middle of the sticks and I lived in the suburbs of a decent sized city in Germany. Road tax in Germany is to be paid every year, it is a once-off in France when you register the vehicle. As a trade-off, in France, I would have to pay to use toll roads (highways I use maybe once or twice a year). The car road-worthiness check in France is half the price of the same check in Germany.
Price fixing. When a law says "shall not charge more than xx/unit", the suppliers turn to the customers and say "we'd love to charge you less, but the law states we have got to charge you xx/unit".
Switching from the historical local supplier (actually RWE using the name of the old city-run supplier) to a 100% renewable start-up saved me a bit of money in the first year as there was a special offer to switch. Then it was just 10% cheaper than the old supplier. I have now just moved to France, using locally generated renewable, and my monthly electricity bill has already been halved.
On the other hand, Germany handled the solar panel (both PV and hot water) subsidies better than France... France gives you a tax credit if, and only if, the panels are installed by certified suppliers. Said suppliers then bumped their prices up by the amount of the tax credit.
Then why did I lose muscle mass while exercising more than usual and still having ample fat reserves? It is commonly happening during the cut phase of the bulk/cut cycle. You will lose muscle mass at a calorie deficit even if you keep lifting 5 days a week, you will predominantly lose fat but also lose muscle mass. You will also be see your lifts go down during the cut phase (either the top weight or the amount of set/reps, sometimes both). The sad reality of the cut phase is that you can only minimize the amount of muscle mass you will lose, by watching your macros (protein heavy!) and lifting heavy. The only time when you won't lose muscle mass on a cut is during maybe the first months of serious lifting, because you have so little muscle mass to start with at that point.
That does not make any sense. Muscles need energy, not steroids, that are just hormones that stimulate muscle growths.
Why are AAS so overused in the body-building scene? They allow you to increase the amount of muscle mass above what your body would normally carry/sustain at a given exercise level. It basically lets you go above what is commonly called "your genetic maximum" which is really the maximum muscle mass your body will sustain by itself at a certain muscle use level. When you plateau in all your lifts, usually after a couple of years of "serious" lifting, you are faced with a choice. Switch to maintenance at that muscle mass or turn to steroids to keep increasing your muscle mass because your body won't carry more left to its own devices.
You basically need to starve 2 weeks or more without any body fat left until the body does that.
Two weeks without body fat left means you're dead or on life support. Anything below 2% to 5% is going to seriously mess up your body.
The body is not attacking its muscles as long as it has fat to burn. However with lack of protein intake the muscle cells that die and "get eaten" are not replaced (simplified speaking), due to lack of proteins.
However people doing a diet often are tired and "exercise" less, so the body is scaling down the muscles, too. With scaled down amount of muscles the base energy consumption of the body goes down, countering the diet effect.
Actually it does once you get above a certain level of deficit... and "surviving" on 600 calories a day is way above that level of deficit. The body will even get rid of muscle without a deficit, if you simply don't use them enough. Muscle is expensive to gain and maintain, which is why people tend to go through bulk/cut phases with progressive muscle overload to maximize gains. The cut phase requires special care in the diet to minimize muscle loss and will reduce your PR in pretty much all the lifts. If you start using your muscle less, you will lose muscle mass.
Put another way, as I said in a previous thread last month... my BMI is borderline obese, with only 20% fat (checked through measurements and fat calipers). I lift 3 times a week, I run 3 times a week, I try to eat a balanced diet. Even at 0% fat with my current lean body mass, I'd be in the overweight BMI range. However that amount of lean body isn't something I'd be able to maintain for long without the extra amount fat I carry and the extra calories intake, except if I took steroids or similar. I'd need to properly check the proportions after my accidental weight loss, but a quick check with impedence (wildly inaccurate, I know, but my calipers are in a box I didn't open yet) tells me I gained a few % lean body mass and lost quite a few percent fat. In practice, if my back of the napkin calculations are correct: I lost around 1kg of lean body mass for every 2kg of fat I lost, rounded up with water loss. That was while being physically active up to 16 hours a day shifting boxes and furniture, and eating around 1000 calories (protein heavy, with carbs top-ups when feeling low on energy).
When somebody eats 300-600 calories per day and still gains weight, there is something else going on.
...
My fucking body burns somewhere around 1500 calories at fucking rest last time I checked!
Do you know what happens when you eat 300 to 600 calories per day? Hint, you don't gain weight. Show me a person who consistently gains weight at that level of calorie intake, under controlled conditions. The study of that one guy could possibly revolutionize physics and biology. At that calorie intake level, the body will start reclaiming unused material (muscle and fat) for energy. Heck, one reasonable sandwich (ham, an egg, salad, tomato, pickles, no cheese or sauce) is already >80% of that daily calorie target.
I accidentally dropped 14 lbs in the last 10 days as I was too busy relocating to eat correctly... I actually ate junk food during those 10 days, but probably just around 1000 calories per day in one setting.
Slashdot Mirror
It may be related to a 2011 study.
You can leave facebook, but facebook still collects your data. Heck, they even collect it if you never joined in the first place.
BTW, socialist Europe has a unified law on privacy entering into force in 2018. That law stipulates that the user can ask for the exact data the company is storing, and the company must provide the whole data set free of charge. The law also reinforces that the user can request his data to be deleted, and once again this has to happen in a reasonable time frame and free of charge. It also establishes heavy fines for privacy violations, up to 4% of worldwide group revenue in case of data breach caused by negligence.
At the same time, the current AML legislation/regulation explicitly forbids you from disclosing some user-related information to the user... and to keep all the user data for 5 years after the end of the contractual relationship.
It would be interesting to see the same study from a well-known bastion of left-wing thinking performed in Europe.
The fun bit is that the vast majority (I would say "all so far" but I don't have the hard data to support that point) of Muslims involved in terror attacks on European soil were European citizens, born in Europe to the people we imported "en masse" when we couldn't get enough cheap hands for coal mining and the steel industry. Stopping the immigration of Muslims 10, 20 or even 30 years ago wouldn't have avoided the issue as that ship had already sailed. In the unofficial hierarchy of humanity, the immigrants of non-European origin were more or less classed as sub-humans. When the local steel industry sort of collapsed in the 1970s, the Muslim immigrants were parked in modern ghettos inside European cities.
Based on first-hand experience in places like Molenbeek (I have lived two streets outside Molenbeek, in Ganshoren), Schaerbeek or Droixhe... the widespread change in behavior started happening in the generation after mine. The kids of immigrants about my age believed in the system and did what they could to climb the social ladder through hard work. They had great grades in school, studied hard, and never got invited to job interviews. There were obviously rotten apples as well, but I didn't encounter many.
Their younger siblings saw the outcome of the hard work, and decided that a life of petty criminality would be better. I guess that the mass media glorification of the thug life didn't exactly help, either. I have seen similar changes in behavior in non-Muslim populations for the exact same reasons. Places with high unemployment are breeding grounds for criminality of all sorts. It's just that for the Muslims parked in the ghettos, there's an added risk of radicalization. In the other population groups, it generally remains in the drug/arms trafficking, money laundering and prostitution.
The flip side is that in places where they do have upwards social mobility, I don't see the amount of petty criminality or radicalization seen in the places where they're parked like cattle. The Muslims I have encountered through work are pretty much only going through the motions of religion because their parents expect them to... they do enjoy booze and other things, but they still do the Ramadan fast "because that's how they grew up". They also marry outside their community, so I expect that their families will be fully integrated in a generation or two.
It's almost as if people who have nothing to lose make rash and irrational choices.
I'm not sure I agree with you on the last bit. If that was the case, why was there so much opposition to the French proposed law on revoking the French nationality of terrorists? That would seem like a good obvious way to keep them out of the territory.
You can remove "non-US" from that sentence... Apple funneled money through its shell corporation in Ireland to avoid paying tax in the US as well, according to the US Senate in 2013.
True story... I was offered a very good permanent position in the UK 18 months ago, basically manager-level salary and sign-in bonus for a senior technical position. Relocating to an English-speaking country would have made life easier for my wife, but it would have meant really long commutes because of real estate prices in that part of the UK... and also because the London area depresses me if I stay there more than a couple of days. I ended up turning down the offer because it was a couple of hundred quids per month too short for the transition period while I sold my house and uprooted my family. I sort of had regrets about it until the Brexit vote, but I am now glad I didn't take the job.
The EU is playing a losing game, in the long term. The open-borders, pro-immigration politicians (like Merkel) refuse to admit that they were wrong. They refuse to acknowledge that national borders have a purpose. That unlimited immigration is the same as cultural suicide.
Do national borders really serve a purpose in Europe nowadays? I can understand EU-bloc level borders on the outside, but inside Europe? I grew up in Belgium, which used to be part of what is now the Netherlands, in the part that actually spoke Middelfrankisch until my parent's generation. Culturally, you're probably almost as Belgian as I am... I just happen to share a language with 40% of Belgians because that's where I went to school, and the transmission of the local language was cut after WW2.
I have worked in Luxembourg most of my career, except for a few contracts in the UK and in Japan. I've lived for about 10 years in Luxembourg, getting along just fine with the locals even tho I only have rudiments of the language (also part of the Middelfrankisch family). I've lived for 10 years in Germany, in a part that used to belong to Luxembourg, then to France, before going back to Germany. I was culturally closer to the Germans of that area than I was to Belgians, even tho I didn't speak German... I'm now living in France, smack on the historical border between France and Burgundy, with the remains of the French wall in my garden. I also happen to culturally fit in that area, most people already consider me local even tho I've only been there for 2 months. I've had a similar experience when I lived for a year in the south of France.
The borders in western Europe have moved so much post 1830 that they are pretty much meaningless at a cultural level. Some of those borders were drawn that way for military or commercial reasons, with no interest whatsoever in culture. Also, except for the German border, those borders were pretty open for my whole life. For me, it's always been normal to cross the border without any special papers for a quick shopping trip or to go to the movies. Pre-EU, it was just more of a pain because of currencies and because I actually had to stop at the border to show my papers to the I also happen to cross two of those meaningless borders on the way to work every morning.
Their stubbornness means that the rebound will put extremist parties from the other side of the spectrum in control. In five years, we won't have just border controls (those are inevitable, at this point). By the time the reigns of power can be ripped from Progressive hands, the resentment and fear will have grown to such proportions that even peaceful, integrated immigrants will face persecution. Good intentions are, as usual, paving the road to Hell.
I sort of agree with your idea about the border controls and worse... but we disagree on what will trigger it. The extreme right has been rising pretty much since the oil and steel crisis in the 70s. Every time either the economy or the lower classes take a hit, they gain votes by promising the return of full employment for the nationals.
They obviously don't even shy back from breaking long and well established legal ground rules such as that law can not be applied retroperspectively. Not a friendly business environment.
State subsidies have been illegal in the common market since the Treaty of Rome in 1958, when Steve Jobs was 3... so we can safely say the law in question predates the birth of Apple. Ireland joined the EEC before Apple incorporated, so we can safely say that Ireland already had to obey those laws before Apple incorporated. Apple started operating in Ireland 7 or 8 years after Ireland joined the EEC, so the sweet deal Apple negotiated in Ireland has always been illegal. So illegal, in fact, that Ireland itself was phasing that sort of deal with a deadline of 2020. The US also has a legitimate interest in the Irish tax games as the US Senate seems to think that Apple Inc used it to dodge $11bn a year in US taxes between 2009 and 2013 (the year the senate report came out).
The US government may possibly looking for the $44bn of US tax money that Apple funneled through Apple Operations International (Incorporated in Ireland, operated from the US, paying tax nowhere), according to a US senate inquiry in 2013.
Ireland attracts companies because of their favorable tax rates. That was not a secret and did not violate any EU laws.
Ireland's corporate tax rate is 12.5%, the second lowest in the world. The EU doesn't have any issue with that rate. What Apple negotiated was an effective 0.005% tax rate instead of the 12.5% rate. Notice that the number is different. What the EU is asking is that Apple pays the 12.5% tax rate as the 0.005% tax rate has been ruled a state subsidy. State subsidies were made illegal inside the EEC (now EU) by the treaty of Rome in 1958. So yes, it does violate a EU law... one of the founding laws of the EU common market.
It will be cheaper to pay US taxes than worry about the EU\EC passing retroactive tax laws and other fines or penalties.
Because it is well known that paying 35% is cheaper than paying 12.5%, which is the tax rate Apple is being asked to pay. Ireland is bound by the treaty of Rome since they joined the EEC in 1973. Apple opened its Irish operations in Ireland after Ireland became a member of the EEC. This has nothing to do with retroactive tax laws, the deal Apple received from the Irish tax authority was illegal from day 1.
The EU is also only asking for the last 10 years of due taxes, instead of all taxes due since the beginning of Apple operations in Ireland.
If Apple doesn't want to pay its taxes in the EU, it is more than welcome to take its ball and GTFO. If Ireland doesn't want to play along with the rules of the EU market, they can also pay back the money they still owe the EU early and GTFO. They have effectively sold the rest of the EU market down the river. I'm sure international companies will still flock to their shores once Ireland is no longer a member of the EU market and the companies can no longer passport activities/taxes from there.
By the way, it is cute that you believe Apple will pay more taxes in the US. According to a senate inquiry in 2013, Apple is using a subsidiary that effectively pays no tax whatsoever in any jurisdiction to shelter a good quarter of its assets. According to the same senate inquiry in 2013, Apple has been funneling money to the Irish operations in order to avoid paying $11bn in taxes a year between 2009 and 2013. Apple is also apparently misreporting to its shareholder the amount of taxes it pays in the US... what they tell their investors is twice the amount that the IRS can account for.
It's amazing the morons in EU\EC think they can harass US companies and not evoke a response from the US.
It's amazing that the morons in global companies think that they are not bound to the laws of the places where they operate. It's equally funny that you still consider Apple an US company when it's currently not producing in the US, has more than twice the assets outside the US than it has in it and its best innovations lately are in the field of tax avoidance. Also, out of curiosity, can you name the last two companies with record fines from the EU for the same type of deal?
Circa 2000, the SGI workstations were indeed Wintel boxes with NVidia cards... at an SGI price.
I stopped cold turkey, 10 years ago. I went from 2+ packs a day to 0 overnight. I had been smoking for 20+ years when I finally stopped. Best thing I ever did
As demonstrated by Swift a few years ago, the US don't need the UK for that... they can just twist the arm of any company having operations in the US directly.
The dependency tree for full passporting is simple: being a member of the EU. This was known before the vote, in fact several banks had to deposit in front of a parliamentary commission on the possible effects of Brexit. It was dismissed by the Brexit camp as being part of "project fear".
Switzerland, for example, doesn't have the ability to fully passport its financial services to the EU, it has 120-something bilateral agreements for some services. Those agreements have to be renegotiated every time there is a change happening in the market. So in practice, Swiss banks passport their services through their operations in London, which is no longer going to be an option once the UK leaves.
The absolute best case for the UK, will mean that they have to apply all EU regulations without having a say in their writing, any veto right, any negotiation right, while having to pay the full fees without any discount. One of the regulations that the UK isn't currently applying, through it's special snowflake status, is the limit on the bonus of financial services employees.
And that still won't allow full passporting, as the individual financial regulators in the EU will need to sanction the service passporting under the "equivalent regulation" provision. Full passporting means you just need to tell your own financial regulator that you are going to passport your services across the entire EU. I can totally see that set of concessions as satisfying both the Brexit voters and the financial services industry in the UK.
The banks won't fully leave, however they are going to either relocate a massive part of their UK operations to the continent or fire a massive part of their UK workforce. The UK population is roughly 65 million people, the EU population without the UK is roughly 440 million people. You don't need as many people in the "UK outside EU" operations to manage less than 13% of the "UK inside EU" potential clientele.
With the UK as a EU member, banks could "passport" their UK banking license to the rest of Europe. Once the UK is out, the "passport" option is no longer on the table so they will legally have to either apply for a banking license inside the EU, which means setting up full operations on mainland Europe (data centers, accounting, fund management, funds, ... the whole lot basically), or pull out of the EU financial markets altogether. Getting a banking license isn't something achieved in a couple of weeks and it tends to cost a lot of money, so the banks probably waited until the vote results came in and are now scrambling to get their license between the invocation of Article 50 and the 2 years deadline. It seems that some of the international banks did their homework, had a DRP for Brexit and already started executing that plan on June 24th.
Bzzzt, wrong on both counts. Let me address them separately
EU committee members are appointed by the EU parliament.
The government of each member country proposes one member for the European Commission (usually someone who can no longer be elected in his own country either due to term limits or scandals). The European Council, which is made of the head of states for all EU member states, proposes one of the 28 to act as the president of the European Commission then the European Parliament gets to vote on his nomination. Once he is elected, the other 27 are appointed as commissioners and the European Parliament gets to vote once more to accept or reject the entire European Commission.
The European Commission sort of wields the ultimate power in the EU... the European Parliament can vote against its proposals, but the European Commission can either just send it back to vote until the European Parliament caves in or make it ride an unrelated package in a sub-committee to make it pass unnoticed.
The EU parliament is not elected, directly or indirectly, by the people of the UK.
Hmm, pop quiz time... what did Britons vote for in 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014? How did UKIP get seats in the European Parliament?
How the European Parliament election is organised in the UK The last European Parliament election in the UK
And they started backtracking on that promise 10 minutes after the results were in :)
The parent company (Mindgeek) headquarters are located in the middle of Europe, in Luxembourg, just around the corner from my office :) A former colleague actually works there.
You mean "just like nuclear energy was in Germany, with costs of at least 20 billion Euros still coming just for shutting down the plants, and unknown costs for long term storage of the waste.
No, I meant exactly what I wrote... how is an added 22.2% "Renewable energy surcharge" on all electricity used by residential consumers, used to ensure a minimal price for the renewable energy producers, not a subsidy? The total of the eco-related surcharges and taxes is roughly one third of the final price.
The consumer price of electricity in Germany is split as follows:
The consumer pays through higher taxation. Nuclear is heavily subsidised in France isn't it. In fact the sector is almost wholly owned by the government.
Nuclear is indeed subsidized in France, just like renewable energy is in Germany through artificially high costs for residential consumers (added tax). The German city where I lived for 10 years until last month has 99.99% of its energy supply (and the supply of its county) coming from dams that have been operating for decades and had been paid through a mix of city taxes and citizen investments. Yet, we were also paying the extra tax to encourage the switch to renewable energy, which was then used to put solar panels and windmills that didn't even register as a blip in the energy mix of the city. Probably because the now privatized operator wasn't using those to supply the city, but selling the energy somewhere else. In France, I'm getting my electricity through a local supplier using biomass... I'm paying less than half of German prices at peak time, but slightly more than half of German prices off peak time.
For taxation, it depends in which tax bracket you are... for a single person:
German tax rates:
French tax rates:
Germany taxes are lower if you earn between 26 791 and 52 153 a year, it is unfortunate for most of my ex neighborhood that they were mostly in the bracket where Germany is more expensive, below 26791 a year. Most of my new neighborhood is in the same bracket and pay less taxes. In my tax bracket, there is a less than 1% difference in the effective tax rate (in favor of Germany) but that is still below what I save through utilities, services, price of real estate and interest rates on the house credit. It's also a theoretical saving as I am paying my income tax in Luxembourg where my effective tax rate is a whole 11% lower than what it would theoretically be in Germany (theoretically, because my gross salary would also be lower in Germany).
Another big difference in taxation between the two country is property taxes, I'm paying roughly the same amount of property taxes in France as I was paying in Germany. My property in France is way bigger than the one I had in Germany. In France, the property tax includes things like garbage disposal, water treatment and TV tax. Garbage disposal and water treatment have been privatized in Germany, so you have to pay extra money on top of the property tax. As I lived in the suburbs of the city in Germany, I wasn't actually getting any of the services I was supposed to receive through my property taxes (library, maintained roads, ...).
I was paying a pet tax in Germany, which doesn't exist in France, and gets very expensive if you have more than 1 dog. I'm getting far better network connectivity options in France even tho I moved to the middle of the sticks and I lived in the suburbs of a decent sized city in Germany. Road tax in Germany is to be paid every year, it is a once-off in France when you register the vehicle. As a trade-off, in France, I would have to pay to use toll roads (highways I use maybe once or twice a year). The car road-worthiness check in France is half the price of the same check in Germany.
All in all, France is a cheaper option for me.
Price fixing. When a law says "shall not charge more than xx/unit", the suppliers turn to the customers and say "we'd love to charge you less, but the law states we have got to charge you xx/unit".
Switching from the historical local supplier (actually RWE using the name of the old city-run supplier) to a 100% renewable start-up saved me a bit of money in the first year as there was a special offer to switch. Then it was just 10% cheaper than the old supplier. I have now just moved to France, using locally generated renewable, and my monthly electricity bill has already been halved.
On the other hand, Germany handled the solar panel (both PV and hot water) subsidies better than France... France gives you a tax credit if, and only if, the panels are installed by certified suppliers. Said suppliers then bumped their prices up by the amount of the tax credit.
At half the consumer cost of Germany, too... even if you pick a supplier that's using 100% renewable. I just relocated from Germany to France.
As long as you have fat, no!
Then why did I lose muscle mass while exercising more than usual and still having ample fat reserves? It is commonly happening during the cut phase of the bulk/cut cycle. You will lose muscle mass at a calorie deficit even if you keep lifting 5 days a week, you will predominantly lose fat but also lose muscle mass. You will also be see your lifts go down during the cut phase (either the top weight or the amount of set/reps, sometimes both). The sad reality of the cut phase is that you can only minimize the amount of muscle mass you will lose, by watching your macros (protein heavy!) and lifting heavy. The only time when you won't lose muscle mass on a cut is during maybe the first months of serious lifting, because you have so little muscle mass to start with at that point.
That does not make any sense. Muscles need energy, not steroids, that are just hormones that stimulate muscle growths.
Intake of anabolic steroids and strength-training induce an increase in muscle size by both hypertrophy and the formation of new muscle fibers.
Why are AAS so overused in the body-building scene? They allow you to increase the amount of muscle mass above what your body would normally carry/sustain at a given exercise level. It basically lets you go above what is commonly called "your genetic maximum" which is really the maximum muscle mass your body will sustain by itself at a certain muscle use level. When you plateau in all your lifts, usually after a couple of years of "serious" lifting, you are faced with a choice. Switch to maintenance at that muscle mass or turn to steroids to keep increasing your muscle mass because your body won't carry more left to its own devices.
You basically need to starve 2 weeks or more without any body fat left until the body does that.
Two weeks without body fat left means you're dead or on life support. Anything below 2% to 5% is going to seriously mess up your body.
The body is not attacking its muscles as long as it has fat to burn. However with lack of protein intake the muscle cells that die and "get eaten" are not replaced (simplified speaking), due to lack of proteins.
However people doing a diet often are tired and "exercise" less, so the body is scaling down the muscles, too. With scaled down amount of muscles the base energy consumption of the body goes down, countering the diet effect.
Actually it does once you get above a certain level of deficit... and "surviving" on 600 calories a day is way above that level of deficit. The body will even get rid of muscle without a deficit, if you simply don't use them enough. Muscle is expensive to gain and maintain, which is why people tend to go through bulk/cut phases with progressive muscle overload to maximize gains. The cut phase requires special care in the diet to minimize muscle loss and will reduce your PR in pretty much all the lifts. If you start using your muscle less, you will lose muscle mass.
Put another way, as I said in a previous thread last month... my BMI is borderline obese, with only 20% fat (checked through measurements and fat calipers). I lift 3 times a week, I run 3 times a week, I try to eat a balanced diet. Even at 0% fat with my current lean body mass, I'd be in the overweight BMI range. However that amount of lean body isn't something I'd be able to maintain for long without the extra amount fat I carry and the extra calories intake, except if I took steroids or similar. I'd need to properly check the proportions after my accidental weight loss, but a quick check with impedence (wildly inaccurate, I know, but my calipers are in a box I didn't open yet) tells me I gained a few % lean body mass and lost quite a few percent fat. In practice, if my back of the napkin calculations are correct: I lost around 1kg of lean body mass for every 2kg of fat I lost, rounded up with water loss. That was while being physically active up to 16 hours a day shifting boxes and furniture, and eating around 1000 calories (protein heavy, with carbs top-ups when feeling low on energy).
When somebody eats 300-600 calories per day and still gains weight, there is something else going on.
...
My fucking body burns somewhere around 1500 calories at fucking rest last time I checked!
Do you know what happens when you eat 300 to 600 calories per day? Hint, you don't gain weight. Show me a person who consistently gains weight at that level of calorie intake, under controlled conditions. The study of that one guy could possibly revolutionize physics and biology. At that calorie intake level, the body will start reclaiming unused material (muscle and fat) for energy. Heck, one reasonable sandwich (ham, an egg, salad, tomato, pickles, no cheese or sauce) is already >80% of that daily calorie target.
I accidentally dropped 14 lbs in the last 10 days as I was too busy relocating to eat correctly... I actually ate junk food during those 10 days, but probably just around 1000 calories per day in one setting.