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From: Bill Sloman on 16 May 2010 19:02 On May 16, 11:12 pm, "JosephKK"<quiettechb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:41:52 -0700, John Larkin > > <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > >On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:56:31 -0700, Joerg <inva...(a)invalid.invalid> > >wrote: > > >>Bill Slomanwrote: > >>> On May 14, 12:39 am, John Larkin > >>> <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > > >>[...] > > >>>> That's the way sales tax works in California. If I buy uncooked > >>>> chicken at Safeway, there's no sales tax. If I buy cooked, hot, > >>>> ready-to-eat chicken, it's taxed. It's simple, because it's a visible, > >>>> automated-cash-register, point-of-sale tax. Restaurant food is taxed > >>>> whether you eat it there or not. I can't imagine how you could work a > >>>> thing like this all the way back up the VAT chain. > > >>>> It would be easy to structure a national sales tax to exempt the > >>>> things poorer people actually need. There would be some cheating > >>>> around the edges, but there always will be some cheating. But things > >>>> like VAT carousel fraud couldn't happen. > > >>>> (One shop near here sells " *WARM* " corned-beef sandwiches because > >>>> hot ones have a higher tax rate.) > > >>>> I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts > >>>> business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because > >>>> it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No > >>>> accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no > >>>> quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost. > > >>> Dream on. Why do you think that VAT was invented? > > >>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_added_tax > > >>The usual. To squeeze ever more taxes out of people. Whether you call > >>them VAT, fees, surcharges, carbon credits or whatever, a tax is a tax > >>is a tax. > > >But some taxes require you to hire an army of bookkeepers and CPAs and > >attorneys just to figure out how much taxes you should pay. Luckily, > >all their fees are tax-deductable. This year, we will spend more on > >the droids than we will pay in taxes. > > The truest indication that the "system" has gone malignant (malevolent). Actually, it could indicate two other conditions, both rather more likely. John could simply be being ripped off by his book-keepers, CPAs and attorney's, or the tax system in California could be so riddled with exemptions and get-outs that his army of droids could be avoiding pretty much all the taxation that he ought to be paying to keep his society running. Granting the enthusiasm with which American legislators squeeze tax exemptions into irrelevant legislation, the second option sounds plausible. Our Dutch CPA always prided himself in finding enough deductions to more than cover his fee. Our Australian equivalent was more expensive, but he was recommended to us by my younger brother, who has a substantially higher income and probably lumbered us with more expensive expertise than we needed. JosephKK doesn't seem to be up to doing joined-up logic. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: JosephKK on 16 May 2010 19:10 On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:06:18 -0700, John Larkin <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: >On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:31:49 +0100, Martin Brown ><|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote: > >>On 14/05/2010 06:16, dagmargoodboat(a)yahoo.com wrote: >>> On May 13, 5:02 pm, Bill Sloman<bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: >>>> On May 13, 8:20 pm, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: >>> >>>> The argument for progressive taxation is usually put in terms of those >>>> with the broadest shoulders carrying more of the load. >>> >>> Right. That's how the Little Red Hen got a hold of all the other >>> animals' bread, greedy thing that she was. She had broad shoulders. >>> >>>> This falls a >>>> long way short of Marx - >>> >>> Marx was kind of an idiot. >>> >>> "The average price of wage labor is the minimum wage, i.e., >>> that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely >>> requisite to keep the laborer in bare existence as a laborer." >>> --The Communist Manifesto >>> >>> See what I mean? >>> >>> Of course Marx himself was a n'er-do-well who never earned his keep, >>> a pseudo-academic parasite sponging off patron Engels. Engels in turn >>> coasted off the family business. Marx made his living guilt-tripping >>> Engels with econobabble, a fine tradition carried on by Marxists >>> today. >> >>Engels saw first hand what greedy industrialists were doing to their >>workers in the Lancashire cotton industry. Boiler explosions were >>commonplace up until the Vulcan insurers made a stand and insisted on >>proper boiler safety inspections. And in cases of tampering with safety >>relief valves they would not pay out. >> >>It was common practice to overstoke the fire before the first shift and >>add weight to the pressure relief valve - this resulted in several large >>scale boiler explosions destroying big mills in the early morning and >>killing many workers in the Lancashire cotton industry. >> >>http://www.camdenmin.co.uk/technical-steam/historic-steam-boiler-explosions-p-2658.html >> >>Articles on the history of boiler insurance show that the US had a worse >>record despite having the advantage of seeing the innovations in UK >>boilers. Some element of NIH played a part but mostly it was that >>industrialists greed was paramount and the workers powerless. eg. >> >>http://www.casact.org/pubs/proceed/proceed15/15407.pdf >>first page and page 7 under Normal Loss Hazard >>> >>> "To each according to need" really means "From you to me." "Dear >>> Fred, I need that grocery money, and I deserve it, luv Karl, xoxoxoxo >>> P.S. Stop exploiting me! KM" >> >>It makes reasonable sense to pay your workers a living wage for the work >>that they do rather than pay them less than they can sensibly live on. >>Ford was about the first in the USA to actually do this. > >It only makes sense if the money comes from somewhere. If all the >employers arbitrarily doubled wages, inflation would take it all away >within weeks, maybe days. In late 1930s Germany it was hours to minutes. Israel had a similar problem twice since. (well over 1000% per year inflation). >If a single employer did it, he's go out of >business. Shuffling paper money around is meaningless; productivity is >real. Ford increased wages because he had a revolutionary >super-efficient way of making cheap cars, and most workers found the >pace and discipline tiring and tended to quit after a few months. He >needed the best workers to stick around, so he golden-handcuffed them; >this was *before* they were unionized. The "invisible hand" was at >work. Productivity was the key. > >This is good: > >http://www.amazon.com/Ford-Men-Machine-Robert-Lacey/dp/0517635046/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273849223&sr=1-1 > While i will not argue that the assembly line was(or not) an important innovation, it did tend to make humans into robots, and people are notoriously mediocre robot machines. Way too much people as robot/machine(/assembly line) thinking still permeates management thinking today. > >> >>In the UK there were some decent industrialists mostly of quaker >>families who did treat their workforce fairly - examples include some >>household names like Pilkingtons, Cadbury, Bournville, Marks&Spencer. > >A decent industrialist realizes that a partnership with workers is >mutually beneficial, but must still compete with company owners who >don't agree with this philosophy. A company can't arbitrarily give >away high wages without achieving corresponding competitive benefits. > >John >
From: Bill Sloman on 16 May 2010 19:11 On May 16, 11:49 pm, John Larkin <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > On Sun, 16 May 2010 14:04:22 -0700, Joerg <inva...(a)invalid.invalid> > wrote: > > > > >JosephKK wrote: > >> On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <inva...(a)invalid.invalid> > >> wrote: > > >>> John Larkin wrote: > >>>> On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <inva...(a)invalid.invalid> > >>>> wrote: > > >>>>> John Larkin wrote: > >>> [...] > > >>>>>> I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts > >>>>>> business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because > >>>>>> it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No > >>>>>> accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no > >>>>>> quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost. > > >>>>>> Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a > >>>>>> person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be > >>>>>> jealous of his wealth. > > >>>>> A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved > >>>>> for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The > >>>>> money they saved _has_ already been taxed. > >>>> Simple fix: don't tax income. > > >>> Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but > >>> not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat > >>> VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair > >>> at all. > > >> Gosh, are your savings all that significant? Don't you pay (an ever > >> increasing in CA) sales tax already? Please to explain the difference. > > >The difference is this: Yes, I do save for retirement. And yes, one has > >to make sacrifices to do that. Such as not buying a new car every five > >years. As said several times this money _has_ already been taxed. So if > >the income of the paycheck-to-paycheck guy gets taxed only at > >consumption he has only paid tax once. I have then paid twice. That is > >simply unfair. > > Sometimes "fair" is the enemy of "works." If everyone were equally > dirt-poor, it would be fair. Huh? If the competent people who worked hard end up as dirt poor as the idiots who didn't, it wouldn't be fair. I'm not saying that the productive minority is entitled to hang onto everthing that they managed to accumulate - there's not a lot of tax to be collected from idle incompetents, and the administration does have to collect enough in taxes to keep the machinery of society turning over - but since society consists of non-identical individuals, there's nothing fair about reducing the best to the same condition as the worst. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: JosephKK on 16 May 2010 19:33 On Fri, 14 May 2010 17:53:22 +0100, Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote: >On 14/05/2010 16:06, John Larkin wrote: >> On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:31:49 +0100, Martin Brown >> <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote: >> >>> Engels saw first hand what greedy industrialists were doing to their >>> workers in the Lancashire cotton industry. Boiler explosions were >>> commonplace up until the Vulcan insurers made a stand and insisted on >>> proper boiler safety inspections. And in cases of tampering with safety >>> relief valves they would not pay out. >>> >[snip] >>> >>> It makes reasonable sense to pay your workers a living wage for the work >>> that they do rather than pay them less than they can sensibly live on. >>> Ford was about the first in the USA to actually do this. >> >> It only makes sense if the money comes from somewhere. If all the >> employers arbitrarily doubled wages, inflation would take it all away > >We are talking here of industrialised manufacture that was possibly two >or more orders of magnitude more productive. All the profits went to the >mill owners and their workers were left to starve on a subsistance level >of pay because it was marginally better than being out of work. > >The mill owners lived like Gods as did the iron masters. One of our >local iron masters who was pretty benevolent for the time was an >inflation adjusted multibillionaire in the early 1900's. He and his mate >Andrew Carnegie paid to endow Middlesbrough public library. > >Not all of them were miserly penny pinching scrouge type characters, but >enough of them were to influence Engels and later Marx. > >> within weeks, maybe days. If a single employer did it, he's go out of >> business. Shuffling paper money around is meaningless; productivity is >> real. Ford increased wages because he had a revolutionary >> super-efficient way of making cheap cars, and most workers found the >> pace and discipline tiring and tended to quit after a few months. He >> needed the best workers to stick around, so he golden-handcuffed them; >> this was *before* they were unionized. The "invisible hand" was at >> work. Productivity was the key. >> >> This is good: >> >> http://www.amazon.com/Ford-Men-Machine-Robert-Lacey/dp/0517635046/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273849223&sr=1-1 > >The same was true of industrialised machine based cotton mills powered >by steam engine. The difference was they could prey on large numbers of >starving unemployed penniless former handloom weavers. The profits were >entirely for the mill owners and were immense whilst life expectancy for >the workers housed in slums was poor at about 40. > >It was even worse in the iron & steel industry just with a few notable >exceptions they were quite happy to evaporate a few more employees if it >made them extra profit. Fettlers were relatively well paid but died even >younger than the already low average. > >>> In the UK there were some decent industrialists mostly of quaker >>> families who did treat their workforce fairly - examples include some >>> household names like Pilkingtons, Cadbury, Bournville, Marks&Spencer. >> >> A decent industrialist realizes that a partnership with workers is >> mutually beneficial, but must still compete with company owners who >> don't agree with this philosophy. A company can't arbitrarily give >> away high wages without achieving corresponding competitive benefits. > >This wasn't about competition though it was about screwing the poor sods >at the bottom of the pile into the ground knowing full well that they >were individually powerless and a consumable item. > >Regards, >Martin Brown You are rather completely bought in to the liberal version of history based on the content of your post. Look again through the records, your previous instructors have both understated the worst excesses of the "owners" and underreported the decency of the average to best cases.
From: JosephKK on 16 May 2010 20:01
On Sat, 15 May 2010 02:05:24 -0700 (PDT), Greegor <greegor47(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >Your first language IS English isn't it?? No, it is baffle-gab. An Academic language completely disconnected from reality. |