Hi. I’m in Geneva on what looks like a poor internet connection. I came here through London and rode the trains between Gatwick and London City airports with huge pleasure. There is something so civilized about trains– about a society that still has a commitment to public transport, in general.
Thank God the July bombers didn’t scare people from using the public transport system in London! The two trains plus one bus I was on all seemed well ridered. (Ok, maybe not a word. But it should be.)
21 thoughts on “In Geneva”
Comments are closed.
Riverbend back on line today with interesting comments on the constitution.
TAX THE RICH
Let’s talk about it.
What is happening in Geneva?
Or are you there for the shopping?
Geneva. That’s where the Iranians wired the money to Argentine’s Carlos Menem for covering up the Iranian role in Argentine’s 9/11. Maybe she is there to report on such secret Iranian accounts, but then again maybe she is not exactly about to report on that. Let’s wait and talk about taxing the rich in the meantime, I am for a higher consumption tax, and the easiest application is by taxing fuel. If fuel consumption were a supply-and-demand regime, then raising taxes would have the same effect as constarining supply, but without passing the windfall profits to the despicable rulers of Saudi and Iranian lands.
David
Foiled again, eh David?
To Refresh the Memory for Some
David, surely you realize that consumption taxes on basic commodities such as food, fuel, clothing are highly regressive, and thus the opposite of taxing the rich.
David,
Taxing fuel to reduce consumption is exactly what the Europeans have been doing since the early 1970s (mostly under socialist governments). It’s interesting that these same governments instituted VAT, which is every bit as regressive a tax as a sales or consumption tax.
I realize that taxing energy can be regressive while affecting economic activity in general John and JES, but I think that in the continuum of tributary policy the Europeans are closer to getting it right. The VAT is indeed a consumption tax and in general the more you have, the more you spend. The only drawback of a high VAT is a strong incentive to evasion through cheating, barter, and the emergence of a parallel economy, in extreme cases like Peru, of significant dimensions.
In the absence of Robin Hood, I would pick the energy tax poison, due to the simplicity of collection, low evasion, encouragement of alternate energy development, and yes Dominic redirecting the tax we are paying to Princes and Mullas to my own poor. At the moment the Saudi tax is funding the three M’s of Saudi charity: Madrassas, Mosques, Murder. Madrassas in Asia, Mosques in Africa, and Murder everywhere else there is a western heathen. Maybe if we were to name the next hurricane with an M we would get some serious Saudi donations. Maybe hurricane Muhammad…
David
He said the United States depends on Japan, China, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Korea “to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina.”
”We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else.”
Clinton: Bush should raise taxes to pay for recovery
You think I’m a redistributionist, do you , David? Wrong. I agree with Rosa Luxemburg. The following is from her “Reform or Revolution” (a polemic against Eduard Bernstein). Note that in those days (1900) Social Democracy meant Communism.
“The theory that consists in basing socialism on the moral notion of justice, on a struggle against the mode of distribution, instead of basing it on a struggle against the mode of production, the conception of class antagonism as an antagonism between the poor and the rich, the effort to graft the “co-operative principle” on capitalist economy
At the moment the Saudi tax is funding the three M’s of Saudi
Yah, we got expert in 3M = 3 hatred L,,,,,,
Dominic, that sounds wonderfully sophisticated, but I have no idea what it means.
David, aren’t you interested in anything besides bashing muslims?
Here are 11 (count ’em – ELEVEN) political reasons to increase taxes on the rich:
1. We need money, and they have more than they can use.
2. No one deserves to be rich, just as no one deserves to be poor.
3. The cost to society of supporting rich people in the style to which they have become accustomed is much greater than the burden of alleviating poverty.
4. Poverty creates more misery than wealth creates happiness.
5. Human beings need air, water, food, clothing, shelter, medical treatment and companionship. After that, it’s all in your mind.
6. Rich people start wars – poor people fight and die in them.
7. There is no reason for anyone to be rich, if no one is poor.
8. There is a limit to poverty – there is no limit to wealth.
9. Decreased consumption leads to increased sustainability.
10. The rich are the primary beneficiaries of government, and should be its primary supporters.
11. Making rich people richer does not create jobs. Opportunity creates jobs. The concentration of ownership and wealth stifles opportunity.
What do you think?
Rosa is very clear. It’s only that your way of thinking is preventing you from understanding her. Your way is to produce a laundry list, with no particular end to it. Hers is to find the general shape of the matter. In Hegelian/Marxian terminolgy she can ascend from the abstract to the concrete, while you can’t. In everyday terms that means that she can see the forest, while you are still lost in the trees.
In this particular passage Rosa is saying inter alia that we seek to sieze the production, not ask for redistribution (thereby becoming masters not supplicants) amd we do not discriminate on the supposedly moral basis of poverty and riches, but on the basis of class (labour and capital).
OK, Dominic. You go ahead and sieze the means of production. Be sure to let us know when you’ve got it. In the meantime, I’d like to know what the heck is wrong with taxing rich people. I don’t believe you’ve addressed that issue – at least not in a way that a tree person like me can understand.
Of course you must tax the rich, silly. Just don’t go thinking that it’s going to solve all your problems, that’s all.
For example, If we tax the rich a bit mor in South Africa we might be able to give a bit more in grants to the poor, so that in their unemployment they might be a bit less unhappy. Something like 40% of South Africans are unemployed.
This is not a substitute for putting people to work. Do you agree? In other words we want people to be producers.
John, I am with you, and if I had to state the most selfish reason for a more progressive tax approach it is that the quality of life is better in a place without extreme income inequalities. As for the emphasis of my commentary vis a vis the radical islam maladie, it is a matter of urgency. Half of Islam supports Bin Laden and would like to see my country dead. Other themes are of interest, but we can afford to miss a beat and still do just fine.
Dominic, you have very clear ideas about how to go square one and build a better mousetrap. My mind is simpler and limited to incrementally fixing what I see. I can point in the direction I want things to change and pursue local optima. Can’t grasp global optimum.
Salah, I don’t know many Iraqis. The two I got to know on this board made me lost my appettite to know others.
David
David, your mind is not simpler than mine, nor is it more complex, it is just disorganised. You have no words for what I am saying. You can only translate it as “optimum”, which is itself a relative term. You have no positive direction, only an attempt at escape. This pervades your whole life. It is what produced your cruel, gratuitous, ugly remark to Salah. It’s not true that you can fix what you see, because in your case all you can see is prejudice. You are blinded by hatred.
Sorry, mate. You don’t even get as far as the empirical, let alone the analytical. As usual, it is emotion which removes the capacity for reason, and the lack of reason which leaves you in the sway of bestial feelings.
Salah, I don’t know many Iraqis. The two I got to know on this board made me lost my appettite to know others.
I wish I can help, this misfortune David, but I think you need to change the way you thicken and through out all what’s you collected about Islam and Arabs, and let
Thanks Dominic for the diagnosis, although I am not sure about the hatred part. Maybe it is just plain old fear? As for Salah, I may be erring by extrapolating from the individual to the collective, but I don’t think I am erring in judging the individual. I’ve heard and read enough, and it ain’t pretty.
David
Sorry being out of the subject, this for David and others accuses the Muslims for their donations; still their hatred speaks about the Arabs
“Food — mostly MREs — from Britain, Italy, Spain and Israel donated to American hurricane victims is going to be destroyed because it’s “unfit for human consumption?” It’s okay for British soldiers, but not hungry Americans?”