Author Topic: You gotta be freakin kidding me.... (Read 1126 times)

Nifty · « **Reply #15 on:** March 20, 2002, 01:16:57 PM »

I'll go for a world tax on rich countries as long as foreign aid given out by a country aside from the world tax acts as a deduction from the world tax. In other words, if a country is already given foreign aid, they shouldn't be taxed for more foreign aid. This is much like how Americans can deduct their charity contributions from their income tax.

Either that or we'll stop giving out foreign aid on a country by country basis and the UN can decide appropriate the aid.

That's the main issue though. They want to start taxing before they say how they are going to spend the tax. No chance of the US signing off on that one.

Anybody have links to what the US has given out in foreign aid recently?

Curval · « **Reply #16 on:** March 20, 2002, 01:17:27 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Thrawn

And Britain paid for every bit of materiel it recieved from the US.

Actually "payment" was in the form of granting the US the right to have naval and air bases in a bunch of countries...including Bermuda...not cash. Effectively it was no real "skin off their nose".

And....it COST the US a ton of money to set them up and maintain them. These bases then provided the host countries with millions in cash into their respective economies for many years.

The US just pulled out of Bermuda recently....my only beef is that they left one hell of a mess when they left!

mrfish · « **Reply #17 on:** March 20, 2002, 01:21:59 PM »

i don't see anything wrong with it.

i already step over people lying in pools of vomit with a cup out every day. they get over $600 p/mo in this town plus medical care , food stamps, shelter and clothing not to mention handouts on every block.

i remember as a pizza deliverer in highschool how much our biz increased on the first and 15th - and staring at those $50 nail jobs when they handed me the money......

if i could take the money they get and redistribute it to some starving kid who really would work if they got a chance that'd be great.

besides, i like anything that moves us toward a world government and away from the primitively divided world we live in now.

taxation leads to calls for greater representation, leads to a more formal structure or greater power of the u.n. ........maybe......worth hoping for at least.

as for 'who's the biggest baddest crewcut on the block' i'll leave that to you guys

Fatty · « **Reply #18 on:** March 20, 2002, 01:22:09 PM »

Has anyone that supports this actually looked at the proposed taxes? Talk about regressive, if you proposed something like that domesticly in the US you'd be run out of town as a right wing rape the poor wacko.

Ripsnort · « **Reply #19 on:** March 20, 2002, 01:24:15 PM »

..and to add to Curval and Thrawn, it *was* in our best interest to help Britain out, after all, once the Germans had England, it was only a matter of time to either make peace with Germany, or encounter the Germans moving to Iceland, Canada, and eventually attacking America.

Krusher · « **Reply #20 on:** March 20, 2002, 01:26:34 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Nifty
Anybody have links to what the US has given out in foreign aid recently?

no link, but I read it was in the neighborhood of 2 trillion per year.

mrfish · « **Reply #21 on:** March 20, 2002, 01:29:48 PM »

"tax activities such as airline travel, currency transfers and carbon emissions "

i dont think taxing currency tansfers is going to wreck a budding financial institution or that airlines wil go out of business with a small tax. it can be almost negligible because it is drawn form the world population. imagine a .0001 cent tax from the whole world....thats a lot

carbon emissions is the only thing i see that could penalize a developing industrial base - what else is there?

either way it's more about the idea than the specific details - a world buy in is the first step, making it equitable is the second. the details can be ironed out i think it's the idea that's stopping everyone and bringing out the reactionaries...

28sweep · « **Reply #22 on:** March 20, 2002, 02:01:13 PM »

What are u guy's talking about.....I thought Canada was the 51st State.

Udie · « **Reply #23 on:** March 20, 2002, 02:08:33 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by mrfish
"tax activities such as airline travel, currency transfers and carbon emissions "

i dont think taxing currency tansfers is going to wreck a budding financial institution or that airlines wil go out of business with a small tax. it can be almost negligible because it is drawn form the world population. imagine a .0001 cent tax from the whole world....thats a lot

carbon emissions is the only thing i see that could penalize a developing industrial base - what else is there?

either way it's more about the idea than the specific details - a world buy in is the first step, making it equitable is the second. the details can be ironed out i think it's the idea that's stopping everyone and bringing out the reactionaries...

YES!!!!!! You are correct!

It's the idea that makes me want to throw up. I don't care what they want to tax, as far as I'm conserned they can go stick their heads in a small dark stinky hole. I don't care if it's only .0000001% of all the money I will ever make. It's mine and you can't have it

Curval · « **Reply #24 on:** March 20, 2002, 02:10:20 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by mrfish
"tax activities such as airline travel, currency transfers and carbon emissions "

i dont think taxing currency tansfers is going to wreck a budding financial institution or that airlines wil go out of business with a small tax. it can be almost negligible because it is drawn form the world population. imagine a .0001 cent tax from the whole world....thats a lot

carbon emissions is the only thing i see that could penalize a developing industrial base - what else is there?

either way it's more about the idea than the specific details - a world buy in is the first step, making it equitable is the second. the details can be ironed out i think it's the idea that's stopping everyone and bringing out the reactionaries...

Okay, but who will administer this tax?

The administration of such a system would be an absolute nightmare...prone to all kinds of abuse.
It would also COST a fortune.

Think about this...when Canada introduced their GST tax (Goods and Service Tax...much like UK VAT) it was discovered a couple of years later that the administration costs were almost as much as what was being taken in! Basically it kept a bunch of civil servants employed.

Fatty · « **Reply #25 on:** March 20, 2002, 02:14:07 PM »

No fish, it's not going to wreck any financial institutions. The successfull ones (1st world) are going to remain in first world funds. It's the 3rd world that needs and would continue to exchange to 1st world currency.

3rd world looking to hold stable currency will either be taxed further, or reduced in accumulation of stable, 1st world currency (or both). 1st world speculative investment in 3rd world would also lose attractiveness with increased cost. Why bother, keep it domestic.

Udie you needn't worry unless you're converting your funds to the Uganda Shilling.

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #26 on:** March 20, 2002, 02:16:49 PM »

Wasn't this tax originally called the "You have it and we want it" tax?

AKDejaVu

mrfish · « **Reply #27 on:** March 20, 2002, 02:41:57 PM »

i think it would cause us to rethink our foreign aid dispersals as well. if we are already being taxed to help impoverished countries then maybe the apathetic public would sit up and pay attention to where their money goes.

the average american and even the richest american wouldn't even feel this tax but the idea of a tax is so fundamentally outraging to americans that it would draw attention anyway and that's a good thing. we can kill a few foreign aid bills that are loaded with special favors and political buyoffs.

as it stands we tend to only support countries for political reasons - if the decisions were made on a world level it could be more justly distributed. the u.n. could handle it.

as it is i have zero say where our foreign aid budget (or any of our tax dollars for that matter) goes....write my senator? yeah right, i laughed the first time i heard that joke, now it's just irritating...

dear mizzz feinstein,

shalom!

i think we should consider holding up on foreign aid to israel and instead consider redirecting the money to famine wracked so that warlords don't come to power and kill another million people.....

i trust the entire world more than any senator in washington with my dollars. my agenda is a world government and this seems to fit that agenda. i agree that some of the details are prohibitve at present but that doesn't mean it can't work in some form.

Dowding · « **Reply #28 on:** March 20, 2002, 04:20:11 PM »

Ripsnort, Curval -

Neither of you are right.

In 1939 the Neutrality act allowed American aid to be sold to Britain providing it was paid for, in full, up front and in cash.

By 1941 Britain had been fighting Germany for 2 years, alone and unaided; virtually bankrupt, there was no money left to buy arms or supplies (even ownership of American based companies had been sold off) and the Lend-Lease Act was passed. This allowed credit to be given for arms - which was totalled £27,000,000,000 by 1945.

The transfer of ownership of military bases was part of this second agreement.

Lend-Lease wasn't a freebie. It was the exchange, sell, lending of material. I also believe the UK is still making interest payments on the debt, although I can't seem to find information regarding the extent of debt remaining.

mietla · « **Reply #29 on:** March 20, 2002, 05:10:36 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Dowding
By 1941 Britain had been fighting Germany for 2 years, alone ...

Would not be alone if you hadn't sold out Czechs and Poles.