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  • EADD Moderators: axe battler | Pissed_and_messed

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Tis pretty lazy of them isn't it, not building these factories and being able to read isometrics and schematics drawings.. plain lazy.

Imagine the sick days, " yeah, sorry cant come in today, got one of those ebola bugs going around, I'll see you Monday though to carry on building the factory" 8(
 
ScotchMist said:
Tis pretty lazy of them isn't it, not building these factories and being able to read isometrics and schematics drawings.. plain lazy.

Imagine the sick days, " yeah, sorry cant come in today, got one of those ebola bugs going around, I'll see you Monday though to carry on building the factory" 8(
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Well as you see we could redistribute wealth but sadly we can't redistribute intelligence, ingenuity, or innovation.

Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he can eat for a lifetime.

Ebola, well that has spread to the EU and America as well. I could see it becoming an epidemic of HIV like proportions if immigration policy is not examined thoroughly.
 
LosBlancos said:
Europeans aren't the only people capable of imperialism. Open a history book and read about the Moors that invaded Spain and portions of modern day Italy. Africans have been just as guilty of imperialism as Europeans and look at these boats full of Africans landing on the shores of Southern Italy even today boats full of all men in their 20s, you would think refugees would include some women and children wouldn't you?

No one is stopping them from using the raw materials to export finished products, all they need is build factories and understand blueprints and engineering. I'm sure they could put together some of the many African Nobel prize winners and they will have a bustling economy across Africa in no time.

I could hardly even stomach reading that Marxist drivel you've written.
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I wasn't saying i was against only our (neo-)imperialism (i'm an equal opportunities anti-imperialist), but that's the one that's current. They could have proabably got a good start building those factories and what not, but for the obvious intervention of the west in their affairs - any whisper of independent democracy or socialism and the coups start (this is worldwide, not just africa - do you really need the list? (or have you got a counterlist)). I'm sure if any other bunch of countries had got round to inventing the cannons first and set up an empire, it would be similarly bad (and they'd also have had their own 'burden' of backward europeans who couldn't pull themselves up by their bootstraps while the imperial boot was stamping on their face).

(i reread my post and i can't see any marxism in it (drivel i'll give you))
 
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Vurtual said:
I wasn't saying i was against only our (neo-)imperialism (i'm an equal opportunities anti-imperialist), but that's the one that's current. They could have proabably got a good start building those factories and what not, but for the obvious intervention of the west in their affairs - any whisper of independent democracy or socialism and the coups start (this is worldwide, not just africa - do you really need the list? (or have you got a counterlist)). I'm sure if any other bunch of countries had got round to inventing the cannons first and set up an empire, it would be similarly bad (and they'd also have had their own 'burden' of backward europeans who couldn't pull themselves up by their bootstraps while the imperial boot was stamping on their face).

(i reread my post and i can't see any marxism in it (drivel i'll give you))
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So you're saying the West needs to stop meddling in the affairs of Africa? But on the other hand, we should take initiatives to build factories there? A bit contradictory I reckon.

I said Marxism because you said "Global-redistribution". Sounds quite Marxist to me. If you want to sell all your possessions and liquidate your banking account and send all the money to Africa be my guest, and that goes for any other far-left Marxist Labour voters that concerned about the situation over there.
 
Well if you call not assassinating leaders who try to introduce democracy (lumumba), or not supporting people who massacre millions of people to keep the coltan flowing (kagame) an initiative, then yes. Just stop stopping them from being independent democracies might work (we haven't tried it yet). And african countries are perfectly capable of making factories (and then having bill clinton bomb them for no terrorist-related reason at all)

My possessions wouldn't make much of a dent in it, being (uk) poor; whereas those billionaires at the top and a good chunk of the millionaires under them plus my chunk would. This isn't marxism, just social democracy (a form of capitalism); you know the one that gave us the longest period of prosperity in history (when the top tax rate was 90%+ and we didn't all turn to slaves in boiler suits).

(and please don't imply i vote neoliberal (you know like ukip))

(btw i can't see where i said we should build factories for them - you might have missed a 'but for')
 
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Social "democracy"? That implies the consent of the populace, voting and all that. I think you'd find yourself losing horribly at the polls if you ran on a platform of taxing the rich at a rate of 90% and sending the money over to Africa.

90% tax rate is a joke, imagine 90% of the time you worked you weren't working for yourself but rather for the State. Watch all the millionaires and billionaires pack up and relocate to Monaco or some other country with favourable taxes as soon as you institute an utter farce such as a 90% rate.
 
LosBlancos said:
Watch all the millionaires and billionaires pack up and relocate to Monaco or some other country with favourable taxes.
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Half of 'em don't even have the decency to actually fuck off anyway. They just stay here paying no taxes instead.
 
90% is the top rate, only applicable after some ludicrous amount that's more than enough for anyone. You don't lose 90% of your whole income. Same way that everyone gets a tax free bit, then anything between that and high rate band (£45,000?) is taxed ~20%, anything above that ~45%, so there's another band (we could say £1,000,000) - only money above that gets the 90%. So now you know how it actually works how do you feel about it? We tried it up until the 80s and got loads of shit done (and didn't even lose many rich bastards)

Lets just try social democracy within britain again first and see how it goes - most people already want it when asked their opinion on actual policies rather than tribal political affiliations (see voteforpolicies.org) - obviously i'm more for actual socialism and local direct democracy, but one step at a time (but maybe sooner than i think if we can get something like Podemos going here).
 
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i neednt feel so sorry for abba that they had to pay 90% tax anymore then, when they were at their commercial zenith.
 
Africans often leave their country make a dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean to earn more money, for better life. If millionaires suddenly got hit with a 90% tax rate on earnings over a certain number, I'm sure many of them would make a similar trip perhaps hoping onto a jet flying to Switzerland or any other country and establishing residency there, for a better life. It's the same concept.
 
LosBlancos said:
Africans often leave their country make a dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean to earn more money, for better life. If millionaires suddenly got hit with a 90% tax rate on earnings over a certain number, I'm sure many of them would make a similar trip perhaps hoping onto a jet flying to Switzerland or any other country and establishing residency there, for a better life. It's the same concept.
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Capital controls exist for a reason. Trust me, if all the rich people in America tried to move to Switzerland, the Swiss would shoot down the planes, after the first hoard descended upon their decent nation and acted like assholes.
 
@L(MS?)B: Whatever - we managed in the boom years well enough - not least because the millionaires know full well what side their bread is buttered - the investment in infrastructure in social democracies benefits them just as much, as does good education, and general well being of the workers from decent wages increasing productivity. (not to mention the money to be made by capitalists from state contracts in capitalist social democracies)

The reason the capitalist elite brought in neoliberalism was because their profit dwindled as the represented workforce kept upward pressure on wages - also because keynes' prediction that by the year 2000 we'd only need to work 2 days a week (or something) to provide all our needs was coming true due to technology and automation, and they saw that rather than paying people the same for less work (though with higher productivity), they could pay people less and have unemployed people to keep pressure downwards on wages. The bullshit they spun to sell this robbery to the masses was that the wealth would trickle down - the insane thing is how many poor people believe this shit.

Check the graph halway down this link to see obvious evidence that the elite fleeced us in the recent crash (and it's a good article too: about how dominic strauss-khan of the imf (the sex scandal one) did a speech basically saying the imf should adopt social democratic policies to fix the crash - a few weeks before his hotel tryst happened...funny that)
 
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You know what also puts pressure on wages, hordes of immigrants from third world countries whether it be Africa, Asian, eastern-Europe it don't matter, that makes wages go lower as well.

As bad as you say lowering wages is, raising taxes is the exact same as lowering wages, if you raise taxes you are esentially lowering my wage!
 
Vurtual said:
Check the graph halway down this link to see obvious evidence that the elite fleeced us in the recent crash (and it's a good article too: about how dominic strauss-khan of the imf (the sex scandal one) did a speech basically saying the imf should adopt social democratic policies to fix the crash - a few weeks before his hotel tryst happened...funny that)
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eliot spitzer suffered a similar scandal as well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scandal
 
I agree about immigration putting downward pressure on wages, and that's it's main neoliberal function. However, i won't disagree with any individual immigrant, who are just human beings like me - i won't blame human beings trying to better themselves from a much worse hand of fate than mine for multinational capitalist policy.

We're so rich in this country that we can't really begrudge anyone coming here while we have a direct hand in why they have to - if you want to complain there's not enough infrastructure, protest to the government to build enough schools/hospitals out of QE money. If you're really bothered about immigration (and not just racist) then campaign to stop the problem at root: like i said, we should make it so they don't have to emigrate in the first place (they'd prefer not to). - do you make as much fuss about corporate bosses who outsource their work? (i know nigel wouldn't)

Taxes should be fair obviously, but lowering wages is a different proposition in the lower end of the income band where you might not even earn enough to pay tax (no food is worse than half as many porsches) - that's part of why we have progressive taxation.

Edit - the point with strauss-khan is that all the elite scumbags get up to shit like that, but it only becomes a scandal when they do a 'wrong' speech that threatens to interupt the heist. (Play the ball...(did you read the link)).

@Harma - yes, as did iraq whistleblower Scott Ritter
 
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ScotchMist said:
From what i can make of it the Uk seems to be structured just right for these companies....
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/tax-city-heist-of-century?CMP=share_btn_fb

In other news..

Should we raise the minimum wage and why?

A plutocrat explains.. (TED talk)

[video]http://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_beware_fellow_plutocrats_the_pitchfor ks_are_coming?language=en[/video]

It's american but the same idea applies.

LosBlancos said:
bad as you say lowering wages is, raising taxes is the exact same as lowering wages, if you raise taxes you are esentially lowering my wage!
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I take it you're a rich bitch.. possible CEO of a massive corporation, then? And no they're completely different, anyway.

More wage? More to tax.
More money to spend? More tax paid. More money spent on the same things people are making. How can you not see this would help the economy?
 
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