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Structural studies of the global networks exposed in the Panama papers

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Re: Structural studies of the global networks exposed in the Panama papers

#71

Post by fit2rule »

PedroBatista wrote: post #65
fit2rule wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a nutshell: Poor people stay poor because they can't save. That is why income tax is repressive - it guarantees economic stagnation, since nobody wants to work for the man. Spending tax means that, no matter who you are, you will pay your taxes if you want to purchase something, whether its a commodity or product or service. The rich will still be able to be rich - in fact, there will be more rich people - but the…

That’s cute but the economy is based on spending. Governments want people with some money but not enough where they’ll start to think they can stay at home playing the stock market. If the majority did that, society would collapse. Also a version of that already exists in most countries, in Europe you pay around 18-25% of VAT in every purchase you make but income taxes tend to apply only if you make X amount of money…

>Governments want people with some money but not enough where they’ll start to think they can stay at home playing the stock market. If the majority did that, society would collapse.

People still need to eat and live their lives. They'll have more revenue for doing that if they don't automatically have to give half of it to government.

Taxing spending removes a repressive socio-economic influence on people among different classes of economic status.

Poor people stay poor because that way they don't have to give away half their income. This has a much bigger socio-economic impact than most middle-class taxpayers are willing to admit.

Re: Structural studies of the global networks exposed in the Panama papers

#72

Post by tupputuppu »

nobody9999 wrote: post #53
froh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. Mind to elaborate? Eli5?

>I don't understand. Mind to elaborate? Eli5? Not OP, but I assume he/she means something like a consumption tax[0]. However, given that poorer people tend to spend more of their income than wealthier ones, unless such a tax is appropriately calibrated, it can be quite regressive. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumption_tax

A consumption tax can also be made progressive.

Re: Structural studies of the global networks exposed in the Panama papers

#73

Post by neffy »

stevenjohns wrote: post #60
Erwin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That society already exists in e.g. Nordic countries. If we look at Sweden, Finland etc, total tax revenues as percentage of GDP are 48-54%. In USA, they are 24.3%. So here's a smaller community where the majority is fine with high taxation in exchange for freely available health care, higher education etc. Family funds exist here (e.g. Novo Nordisk is 25% owned by a humanitarian fund, Mærsk) but are less important t…

You're missing out on the significant unemployment in countries like Sweden. There is significantly better free healthcare in Australia - which has an average tax rate of 23.6%. The correlation of high taxes = better quality of life doesn't hold much strength when you consider that there are plenty of countries doing well without it, and plenty of countries with high taxes that have a poor quality of life.

There is extremely significant unemployment in the US as well. It's just not counted. The number of people in US prisons alone adds about 2% to the total unemployment rate. And abstracting a little from the endless and pointless arguments about whether work should be funded by taxation or by sales - and the correct answer there is it depends - imprisonment not alone removes productive people from society, but also remove other productive people to guard them. But of course, if you have private prisons, then the objective will always be to increase sales. For the same reason, paying surgeons by the operation is also a terrible idea.

Re: Structural studies of the global networks exposed in the Panama papers

#74

Post by WealthVsSurvive »

plutonorm wrote: post #52
wombatmobile wrote: post #7

> In recent history, the Panama Papers have comprised one of the largest and most influential leaks detailing information on offshore entities, company officers and financial (and legal) intermediaries, and has led to a global exposé of corruption and tax evasion. A systematic analysis of this information can provide valuable insights into the structure and properties of these entities and the relations between them.…

There are no lizard people. No New world order and no Illuminati. Disappointing because that makes it all much harder to solve and makes it that much harder to view humanity in a favourable light.

Humans are easy to view in a favorable light. Humanity, less so. Humans take individual actions that help themselves. Humanity forms networks of perverse incentives that harm others. If we build a network of perverse incentives, and catastrophe befalls us, an interesting thing happens: no one wants to lose in the time of loss. This is when you get revolutions, invasions, fascism threatening where the imaginary border lines are drawn. It's all merely loss aversion. Change is necessitated by material reality, in which the average person, fearing for their loss of wealth or for their loss of potential future life, are driven to extreme or violent actions. There needs to be one world currency, and it needs to be subject to entropy without human intervention (and something similar with material buildup and 'property'); we will kill ourselves otherwise as that which nourished us in the past is today's poison. Nothing is forever, why is wealth? Loss over time due to entropy as law needs to be more accounted for in our world economy as a whole. There is a level of individual wealth and capital advantage one may gain that literally destabilizes international peace (I'm looking at you global oil): why do we allow it? It's like nations have become lame date-show suitors to international oligarchs, offering missiles as flowers, and it's pathetic, and it's weak.

Re: Structural studies of the global networks exposed in the Panama papers

#76

Post by smolder »

vmception wrote: post #59
csb6 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, non-wealthy people own stocks. But right now, the richest 10% of American households own 84% of the value of all stocks owned by Americans [1]. It is clear that the wealthy benefit massively from these structures and have much more use and access to them than the "everyman", who in the U.S. probably lives paycheck-to-paycheck. The fantasy that the "everyman" is this cowboy investor and broker is ridiculous and…

But they absolutely will drive to the next county to get cheaper gas or lower property taxes and it is the same concept. Eventually you get to level up to the place of tax deferral that is infinite. You can do it onshore you can do if offshore. It is only hubris for some people to think some governments of their own choosing should have a piece of that. We are talking about the distinctly non corrupt activities.

I think the actual best course of action in general is to deport the rich that cheat on taxes and let them go enjoy being rich in some other country, or in international waters. The idea that we should tolerate big parasites because they'd take their money elsewhere both undervalues everything else about a region and it's people that might keep them there and overestimates the value of being home to greedy wealth.

It's stupid to play in the race to the bottom of governing power versus concentrated wealth. It's something captured/self-interested regulators do, not honest ones.

Re: Structural studies of the global networks exposed in the Panama papers

#77

Post by newen »

nobody9999 wrote: post #38
xavriley wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In network science, it’s fairly common to take a graph of something and be able to apply techniques like neighbourhood analysis or clustering which then reveal something about the data. This comes up in all kinds of real world examples from social networks to music preferences etc. What the authors are saying (I think) is that they tried the same tricks on the Panama data and got nothing useful out of it. The standar…

>What the authors are saying (I think) is that they tried the same tricks on the Panama data and got nothing useful out of it. The standard graph techniques don’t explain anything useful about what’s going on. The impression I got was not that they found nothing useful, but that they didn't find broadly interconnected networks within the data. If that's the case, it's likely that the transactions in the data aren't t…

It just means that they didn’t find useful network structures with the specific network analysis methods they used and the specific networks that they constructed using the data.

It leaves room for tons of other network analysis and data analysis.

Re: Structural studies of the global networks exposed in the Panama papers

#78

Post by frabbit »

milchek wrote: post #34
idclip wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means corruption is a basic human behavior. Its a self generating phenomena, and is „natural“. So there is no „illuminati“ to go after to solve this. Studies try and see how problems can be solved - if there was a single organizing entity like a mafia boss, it would be simpler to tackle the issue but there isn't, so its Marder than first expected. As to tax evasion, id posit the question „so why are these people e…

> Can they be otherwise somehow incentivized to invest in their Communities rather than evade? And how big is the contribution here? Is it worth pursuing I like this question. It makes me wonder what society would look like if we had micro community councils that operated this way, where residents “donated” parts of their wealth and those donations gave them some sort of stake, naming right, or voting power in commun…

those donations gave them some sort of stake, naming right, or voting power in community projects.

You cannot forsee the possibility that the ability to purchase voting rights might result in another "natural" problem?

Re: Structural studies of the global networks exposed in the Panama papers

#79

Post by frabbit »

idclip wrote: post #21
wombatmobile wrote: post #7

> In recent history, the Panama Papers have comprised one of the largest and most influential leaks detailing information on offshore entities, company officers and financial (and legal) intermediaries, and has led to a global exposé of corruption and tax evasion. A systematic analysis of this information can provide valuable insights into the structure and properties of these entities and the relations between them.…

It means corruption is a basic human behavior. Its a self generating phenomena, and is „natural“. So there is no „illuminati“ to go after to solve this. Studies try and see how problems can be solved - if there was a single organizing entity like a mafia boss, it would be simpler to tackle the issue but there isn't, so its Marder than first expected. As to tax evasion, id posit the question „so why are these people e…

More like "illuminati" emerge "naturally" from the "Free Market".

Re: Structural studies of the global networks exposed in the Panama papers

#80

Post by nickpp »

K0balt wrote: post #54

It should be mentioned that there are lots of non tax avoidance reasons to go offshore. The biggest ones are asset protection and incontestable estate succession. IMHO, if your net worth is over about 250k (or lower if you have a high risk profile) your assets should probably be held in an offshore LLC, trust, or foundation. This makes them effectively untouchable by lawsuit, divorce proceedings, seizure, etc. If you…

This. Most people pissed off about various (legal) offshore structures do not even understand their utility. A little financial education goes a long way.
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