🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@selzero

You cant say you are a member of a group that is defined by its ideology and then say you dont support any ideology.

Thats like me saying "I am a christian but I dont support any particular religion".

Christmas trivia question:

In "A Christmas Carol" how many ghosts visited scrooge on Christmas eve, heralded by Jacob Marley's ghost?

#Christmas #Riddle #Trivia

@tuvok

I specifically covered this twice in my comments. Stuff is and should be taxed based on its luxury. Essentials are therefore tax free and luxury items highly taxed. So no quite the opposite.

@randahl

@randahl

> equality is not about everyone having the same balance on their bank account.

Exactly my point, agreed.

> It is about equal opportunity, and the US is moving away from that.

Also agreed, nor did I say anything to the contrary.

> Example: Literally thousands of people owned businesses which depended on Twitter, but a person of extreme wealth bought it and destroyed it.

Wealth can be destroyed just like it could be created. When he destroyed it he destroyed his own wealth making himself less wealthy, thus the point, wealthy people create wealth which is how they get wealthy (or inherit it in some cases), and likewise they can become poor (or at least poorer) when they make bad decisions and destroy wealth.

> The extreme inequality of the US has created a society which have characteristics of The Dark Ages, where a king could decide to burn down an entire city if he felt like it.

Nah you have it backwards. The lack of a free market (a market that can be gamed and is unfair) is what has sent us to the Dark Ages. Assuming it is due to wealth disparity as the driving cause is unfounded and just repeating the popular narrative rather than representing an understanding of the problem, which is quite nuanced.

@Paulos_the_fog

@fedops

Also assuming you mean the EU, then no you arent taxed "quite a bit more". I have lived in both the EU and the USA at the highest tax bracket, and the tax were about the same. Yes europe is a bit higher, but not by very much.

@randahl

@fedops

tariffs can be used for a lot of things, unfair practices are one, just like taxes they can and should be used proportionally to discourage undesired behavior, such as buying foreign goods over local.

Since tariffs should never be lifted I dont see much relevance in discussing the effects of lifting them.

Like taxes tarrifs can of course be used to target things unfairly. The assumption with any tool is that it in order for it to benefit society it must be used properly, and that means not using it to target the wrong sorts of companies or resources.

@randahl

@toriver

Simply saying a thing doesnt make it true. We have decades of economic theory and models that say otherwise.

@Paulos_the_fog @randahl

@fedops

No more so than everyone looses with taxes in general. I mean sure you hear people make the argument "everybody looses" and taxes are theft all the time. But the reality is, we need taxes to function and tariffs are a better way to get them than income tax.

Oh and by the way 28% of all goods entering the EU are taxed under a tariff... hardly the whole "only one advisory" and "its a trade war"...

@randahl

@Paulos_the_fog

I disagree with your premise that wealth disparity is contrary to the happiness of a society.

Rule number one of economics is that wealth is not a zero sum game. Others having more does not mean you must have less. The existence of ultra rich in no way implies more poor people or that poor people suffer more, in fact quite the opposite, rich people produce the most wealth which, in a healthy economy (read a fair market) it benefits everyone.

@randahl

@randahl

Sure, thats not a bad thing. With income tax I have to pay tax for the money I make, but that money gets re-taxed on the way out too, in other words, all tax tends to work in both directions, its a feature not a flaw. The important part is that we distribute the taxes across behaviors we want to discourage. No one should be discouraged from earning a lot of money (income tax), but generally we want to discourage spending (sales tax and tarrifs), ideally in a way that puts more tax burden on luxury items.

So anything we can do to move taxes from an income tax to a tarrif/import tax/sales tax is a good thing. The fact that it works both ways is normal and expected and shouldnt discourage that.

@randahl You mean a European tariff on USA goods? Yea I expect that to be the case. We tax incoming foreign goods, they tax from us. Import/export tax is pretty common to go both ways. Just another way to collect money and superior to income tax IMO.

@randahl

If we are cutting income tax and offsetting that with tarrifs I am all for it. Taxes need to be levied somewhere and any taxes we can move off income tax and apply more towards taxing expenses the better.

That said I doubt Trump will execute things well, he rarely does.

@knittingknots2

Not all of us agree, dont lump me in with them :)

@mttaggart I want quality content. While often that doesnt come from AI I wouldnt care if it did, in theory.

Thoughts on the new company logo?

#CleverThis #GraphicDesign

@johnabs

These were actually sold for a few hundred around that time. I've seen prices as high as $300 around 1920ish or so for similar models.

So I am guessing that isnt the real value it is sold at. I tried to find info about it but couldnt really find any.

@kopimi

@kopimi Thanks, I will