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Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

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Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#451

Post by _Tev »

nickpp wrote: post #411
wfo wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a huge amount of choice in your taxes; you can vote, run for office, and advocate for political positions. You have zero choice in your economic situation (if you are 99% of people) since most financial choices are made for you by large companies that you have zero stake in or control over. Is there a difference between someone pointing a gun at your head and saying 'your money or your life' and a company th…

Have you voted? How much did your vote count? Did you run for office? How much change did you manage to bring? In a company you can also buy shares, vote at board meeting or get a job in and change it from the inside. But that is not the freedom of choice I am talking about. That is a fake choice since it is too difficult, requiring you to change your entire life. What I am talking about is the simple choice of free…

> That is a fake choice since it is too difficult, requiring you to change your entire life.

Yeah, the government and the entire social system can change much more easily!

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#452

Post by _Tev »

nickpp wrote: post #415
isostatic wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move to Antarctica. I doubt anyone will notice. Live on a boat in the ocean. Move to a Caribbean island like Anguilla or Cayman, or the gulf like Kuwait or Dubai or Qatar Hong Kong, Syria, Paraguay have low tax too

All those places have taxes. Low taxes, but they have them. What you don't seem to understand is that I am not arguing against taxes themselves. Or even high taxes. Of course I would pay lots of money to partake in civilized society and its services. What I want is free market competition for how my taxes are spent and those services received. Because with the current monopoly the government has no reason to improve…

So what about those natural monopolies? Or you want competition between sewage providers?

It seems like you are not accepting the simple observation that free market cannot be applied to everything. Nothing is universal magic bullet ...

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#453

Post by [deleted] »

nradov wrote: post #332
erikpukinskis wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the wrong angle. One should not look at corporations as the moral saviours. It's too late. You're arguing a return to the past, "money is just money, corporations are just doing what's in their self interest." That's still the dominant ideology, but it's on the wane. It will be replaced when cash is replaced. Cash will be replaced by bonds. I won't pay McDonalds in cash for a burger, I will pay them in a bond…

McDonald's doesn't want to deal with your nonsense. If you don't have proper fiat currency to give them they'll tell you to go buy your food somewhere else.

[deleted]

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#454

Post by wallace_f »

olivermarks wrote: post #185

At this point in history I'd argue that nation states have never been weaker. The idea that 'Russia' is behind anything is somewhat erroneous: powerful mobsters/oligarchs who have been enriched by looting Russia and other nation states and float their money offshore are 'Russia' in this context. That money is laundered into the western world. The concept of a capitalist 'empire' that knows no nation state is often di…

This is a very important comment. It is the type of idea that today will be criticized as outlandish conspiracy, tomorrow will be questioned, and the next day will be accepted as a 'nothing we can do about it now.'

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#455

Post by wfo »

nickpp wrote: post #411
wfo wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a huge amount of choice in your taxes; you can vote, run for office, and advocate for political positions. You have zero choice in your economic situation (if you are 99% of people) since most financial choices are made for you by large companies that you have zero stake in or control over. Is there a difference between someone pointing a gun at your head and saying 'your money or your life' and a company th…

Have you voted? How much did your vote count? Did you run for office? How much change did you manage to bring? In a company you can also buy shares, vote at board meeting or get a job in and change it from the inside. But that is not the freedom of choice I am talking about. That is a fake choice since it is too difficult, requiring you to change your entire life. What I am talking about is the simple choice of free…

>But that is not the freedom of choice I am talking about. That is a fake choice since it is too difficult, requiring you to change your entire life. What I am talking about is the simple choice of free market: choosing who to give your money and for what services.

Sure -- but at the same time, I bought a product at walmart five years ago, then I decided not to buy there anymore. Why hasn't walmart changed its business practices? I think you're right to say my vote means nearly nothing, but you are missing the point that my purchase means even less. Votes are at least distributed one vote one person; if you accept the financial scheme for decision making you are literally just giving all the power to people who are currently wealthy explicitly.

>What I am talking about is the simple choice of free market: choosing who to give your money and for what services.

This is a meaningless choice that only the wealthy can make in the first place.

>I do not intend to give up the government services, I just want to be able to transparently select the provider and not have to buy them in bulk, bundled together.

I'm not sure what you mean here -- you want government services, but you also want to transparently select the provider. For government services, the government is the provider.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#456

Post by wfo »

icelancer wrote: post #208
wfo wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we decide corporations have no obligation to be moral or decent, they naturally will behave as we expect. If we expect and demand (and punish the absence of) more, we can get more. Corporations are made up of people, and people are fully capable of not committing rampant constant fraud. Spending thousands of dollars to avoid their moral tax obligations instead of paying is in my view fraud and corruption; the fact…

What you are asking for is vigiliantism and extralegal actions against corporate persons and the people that make up these corporations. There's a lot of reasons why those things are considered pretty bad. I also find it interesting that you say: "Corporations are made up of people, and people are fully capable of not committing rampant constant fraud." What are our local, state, and federal governments made up of, t…

>What are our local, state, and federal governments made up of, then - the same organizations that don't close loopholes and set tax code properly to serve the greater interest? Are these organizations not made of people?

Yes, they are. But going out of your way to hire thousands of attorneys to find loopholes is obvious explicit fraud. Writing a tax code and possibly missing something is a natural human error. "Corporate persons" do not exist -- they are a legal fiction invented to shield corporate criminals from liability.

Also, why do you think I have low expectations of my government? I expect them to try their best to prevent fraud just as I expect corporations to do their best to avoid committing it.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#457

Post by bufordsharkley »

b4lancesh33t wrote: post #203
rwnspace wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it's here I should make the customary Georgist call for Land Value Tax.

The opposite, I think. Lvt does not tax the value of improvements. And while lots can be very valuable, they are not very valuable compared to the improvement if the improvement is a skyscraper.

Construct some building in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the Sahara desert or something, and see if it increases or decreases in value.

The structure itself will depreciate somewhat, and that's all.

...It's the location for a structure that is responsible for increases and decreases in real estate.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#458

Post by kelnos »

grondilu wrote: post #258
kelnos wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you possibly believe that a society where a large percent of people are in prison is a healthy society?

If they committed crime, they should be in prison, regardless of how numerous they are.

How is that even remotely the point? If you have a huge prison population, your society is unhealthy. Full stop. Even if those people "deserve" to be in prison. If they do, that's the society's failing in successfully educating and raising people to be productive members of that society. It's rotten to the core.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#459

Post by kelnos »

grondilu wrote: post #214
kelnos wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you're using "right" in a very different way from what we expect around here.

It seems so. Regardless of our opinion about it, it'd be nice if people could agree on using two different terms for both concepts. https://fee.org/articles/rights-versus-entitlements/

Maybe it would be, but it's generally considered folly to ignore community norms. Based on your response, clearly you know what people actually mean here, but it sounds like you're arguing out of some desire for pedantry, which is not something that goes over well here.
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