Governments are living in a fiscal fantasyland
The world over, they are failing to confront the dire state of their finances
Great article that also explains some of the linitations of the Yuan.
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Governments are living in a fiscal fantasy land.
- Thread starter FantomOffshore
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Great article that also explains some of the linitations of the Yuan.
The economist is a mouthpiece for the WEF. It gives some clues as to what they are planning next:
And all those suggested tax rises will mainly hit the middle class which invest their wealth in real estate but not the super-rich or multinationals. Brilliant!
Take from it what you want, I won't comment on the WEF mouthpiece part: A new world order seeks to prioritise security and climate change. This piece directly criticizes the "New World Order".
It's interesting though that you quote an excerpt which feature exactly the kind of taxes that will not just hit the middle-class:
1. VAT is often considered one of the most "fair" taxes as it is a tax on consumption, consuming more means paying more VAT.
2. Carbon tax is also a consumption tax if implemented right.
3.Tax on posh houses will not hit the middle-class.
The reason why it is so hard to tax multinationals and "super-rich" is simply because they are nimble and able to move anywhere they want. A person earning 50K per year is also able to do this, but most people don't as emigrating is costly and can be hard on your kids.
Then you have companies like Shell who would have to cut their fat dividends if taxed "properly" and it would subsequently mean pension coverage rates in The Netherlands would drop a few percentage points. Everywhere in the world are incentives to not cut taxes on multinationals that indirectly also benefit the middle-class.
Having people pay the real price of what they consume is in the end not a crazy WEF evil idea, it is only fair really (yet I will still try to avoid it if possible).
Lastly, you can also take this news as a cue to move to the Carribean or an Asian territorial tax haven, or Panama or Costa Rica etc. I for one might leave the EU over the next 3 years given the poisonous combination of:
1. Increasing taxes.
2. Decreasing benefits.
3. (Very) overpriced housing (in some parts).
4. Woke politics that get on your nerve daily.
5. Corruption and graft to the extent that you won't feel the difference in a country ranked lower on the "index".
6. Capital cities that have been taken over by multinationals, franchises and the same stupid stores, sapping at authenticity and healthy food.
7. Bloodhounds at the tax office.
8. Wokeys that buy second-hand clothing but also all sorts of products that have been crafted over the backs of 2$ per hour workers in Asia telling you what a egoistical ******** you are while laying out their next line of Colombian marching powder.
9. Often needing to have "the right opinion" or accepting the risk of being slandered over your opinion. Your company can die because you made a racist remark at a cocktail party. A banking executive was fired for making a racist joke at a company party when drunk.
10. Surveillance state antics not dissimilar to China only set to increase over the coming years to implement above policies.
1-bed flat in central areas of London is worth £1mil+
5-bedroom house with a private pool somewhere in Devon costs £1mil.
What is posh and what is not? What should be taxed more and what shouldn't?
The reality is that property imposes taxes on itself, I'm talking maintenance costs firstly, but also insurance costs, council taxes, more utility bills, more expenses on furniture etc. All of that generates more hidden taxes (VAT mostly, but also corp taxes, NI, etc).
The only problem is that is way to complicated to explain to an average Joe, they can only buy simple slogans like "tax the rich". It's the same mentality that led UK to commit Brexit and then handle Covid in the most ridiculous way (the initial more or less reasonable steps of gov-t were overthrown by the mob demanding total lockdowns).
The inevitable result will be a total deterioration of capitalism built on merits and entrepreneurship, instead we'll have the terrifying blend of government-melted corporations run by some grey suits that have never started their own business.
5-bedroom house with a private pool somewhere in Devon costs £1mil.
What is posh and what is not? What should be taxed more and what shouldn't?
The reality is that property imposes taxes on itself, I'm talking maintenance costs firstly, but also insurance costs, council taxes, more utility bills, more expenses on furniture etc. All of that generates more hidden taxes (VAT mostly, but also corp taxes, NI, etc).
The only problem is that is way to complicated to explain to an average Joe, they can only buy simple slogans like "tax the rich". It's the same mentality that led UK to commit Brexit and then handle Covid in the most ridiculous way (the initial more or less reasonable steps of gov-t were overthrown by the mob demanding total lockdowns).
The inevitable result will be a total deterioration of capitalism built on merits and entrepreneurship, instead we'll have the terrifying blend of government-melted corporations run by some grey suits that have never started their own business.
stop posting this ;D the text itself makes me as sick as watching Black mirror... I'm getting old I guess
I am not sure if you can consider someone living in a £1 million apartment middle-class in the UK. But you have a point. Hard for me to comment as I know next to nothing about UK real estate.
However, the property market is also indirectly subsidized. Government funded development increases property prices at no cost to the owner. Further than that I can't really say much as I am a stock investor. I do however find the yield on property overly attractive considering its safety.
Is rental income also excluded from taxes in the UK like in NL?
My point being that the same amount of money will provide you with a very different lifestyle depending on the area and that is something most voters fail to comprehend and politicians fail to explain. There is no "one size fits all" approach.
You used to have an option to extract the mortgage payments from the rental income and pay the tax only on difference, however that was canceled years ago. So now as a landlord you first pay income tax on rent (minus documented maintenance costs) and then pay your mortgage etc. Was a big blow to professional landlords back in days, however helped to cool down the market in some areas.
A friend of mine rents out his house and after maintenance and management costs he barely gets 2.5-2.7% gross. That wouldn't be enough to cover the mortgage even before tax, so I don't know why bother locking money in this market.
I beilieve crazy zero interest rates policies and dirty money from all over the world caused the real estate to skyrocket in London and Canada and other places. Every crooked politician and businessman owns something in London. And rich Chinese love Canada for some reason (I wonder why?).
You might overestimate the influence of foreign money when it comes to average London property price. Of course, there are upper-end properties (10m+) that are almost exclusively sold to either foreigners or expats, however the prices were growing in every relatively nice place in the UK, firstly driven by the locals. UK property market for Brits is like US stock market for Americans - it's the most popular place to park available funds and get some passive income.
I would agree with you, but an astonishing amount of young people value networking and hipster joints so much, they'd gladly pay it. The experience class. I am the same age but rather mingle with older people.
RE seems like a bad investment and your mentioned "beliefs" are harmful to the economy imo. The schisma between young and old will only widen and who knows when the kettle is boiling. It will be interesting to see what will happen when the 30/40s are the largest voting block again.
2.5% gross is quite low for the time you have to put in. The main problem however is that everyone wants to be in the city. Maximum randomnes exposure. Not even a bad idea if you are willing to trade your mental health for it.
The capital to me is the centre of national thought, which in the West is riddled with bs and wedge politics. I wonder how many more "touching" subjects the pros can come up with to take away interest from the real problems.
My main thesis I live by today is that tech advancement is exponential and regulation linear. I can not predict the future but I think we will become more chaotic by the year. The law of large numbers is less relevant which is why I bought Meta last year.
Coming years will be insane that's for sure. Almost makes you want to hide deep in the Kavkaz messing around with Russian guides. At least the cold is real and the air is clean high up. I try to read Die Zauberberg yearly for its frozen time theme, and every year there are multiple events that are awkardly similar to events in the book.
Let's hope Europe and Russia can work together to banish the American shackles. Maybe it takes a war like this to realize this is not fantasyland but a continent build on constant war. Russia would be the perfect counterbalance to the Germans. True old aristocratic Europe. China's plans with Russia should be viewed with extreme caution, look at the pipes they tried to lay in Baikal. It would be a shame to see the noble Russia decay to a Chinese protectorate. It would be an utrer waste.
I admit, I have had a drink or two. Krieg ist krieg und Schnapps ist Schnapps.
Lastly, small edit, global warming is extremely under appreciated, I think the largest returns will come from playing this change right. By 2100 Dubai will have so much carbon dioxide in the air that you will die of asphyxiation. It's why I think Arnhem is a prime city to invest because greed often wins.
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By 2100 Dubai will run mostly on green power. They already have 25% of the power coming from the nuclear power plants they just built and switched on and they have the money and plans to transition the power production to green energy pretty soon (nuclear + solar). Also, they started transforming their taxi and rent-a-car fleets to electric or hybrid. So, overall they will make the changes relatively quickly compared to other countries (due their small size and the fact that they have the money and plans to do it).
Do you refer to Arnhem - a city in the Netherlands?
As someone who lives in UAE but am writing this fron the Netherlands I can say that the air quality in the Netherlands is much better than in UAE but it's due the fact that in here everything is green and it rains often and you can't really compare that to dusty desert.
It's not just because it's a dusty desert, even if you half their emissions the air is among the dirtiest in the world in the UAE supposedly. I do agree that 2100 is very far away and anything can happen. My reference to Arnhem was because if sea levels rise it will be the city best positioned in The Netherlands to experience an economic boom with many of its waterway widened up and much of the rest of The Netherlands underwater, as well as its proximity to German manufacturing. Of course, this is conjecture based ultra-long term investing but in terms of predicting this far out, rising sea levels seem to be among the more predictable factors as we have data that goes quite far back.
Air pollution is an issue in Dubai. That's a fact.
They are putting some efforts but the question is - is that sufficient.
Also they are a tiny country so the part of the pollution could be from neighboring countries as well.
About the Netherlands:
I really doubt that the Netherlands will be under water.
Don't see how that scenario will be plausible. That they'll just sit and watch everything they build now going under water !?!?
And until that happens (if it ever happens) Rotterdam will be the main economic city and logistic hub in the Netherlands.
They are putting some efforts but the question is - is that sufficient.
Also they are a tiny country so the part of the pollution could be from neighboring countries as well.
About the Netherlands:
I really doubt that the Netherlands will be under water.
Don't see how that scenario will be plausible. That they'll just sit and watch everything they build now going under water !?!?
And until that happens (if it ever happens) Rotterdam will be the main economic city and logistic hub in the Netherlands.
It's hard to say, I think that it's important to keep in mind though especially if you are a little older. Living in the middle of Amsterdam is equivalent to smoking 6 cigarettes per day supposedly, I wonder what living in Dubai would be like. The drier and hotter enviroments get, the more particulate matter like dust gets blown and the more ground-level ozone. This also has implications for the Mediterranean. This is a good summary of the implications of higher temperatures for air quality: Air Pollution: The Heat Factor. It's not just industrial activity, when temperatures go up air quality suffers due to a myriad of factors like high atmoshperic pressure and no wind creating stagnant air pockets with a large build-up of pollutants.
Regarding the Netherlands, it's true that the chance of a flood is slim. However, rising temperatures make the uncommon common and invite the never-seen-before. My comments about the Netherlands where mainly in the scope of RE investing. For me it does not make sense to invest in already richly valued places like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and surrounding communities. There may be no risk of a flood, but there is just a big unknown whether there will or will not be an event that would severely depress the value of your real estate like a storm that would cause minor flooding of the riverbanks.
The truth is there is no way to know while we live in a world where to possibility increases.
I believe the world, is changing to the bad. The poor people will be slaves of the rich one and they won't be able to afford any luxury in this world any longer. What is going on is very wrong, so wrong that I'm happy to be that old that I won't experience the a very bleak future where the dividing line between rich and poor is so great that those who do not belong to the elite are dependent on them 
You are 100% correct on this, but I think the "oppressors" will hoist with their own petard.I believe the world, is changing to the bad. The poor people will be slaves of the rich one and they won't be able to afford any luxury in this world any longer. What is going on is very wrong, so wrong that I'm happy to be that old that I won't experience the a very bleak future where the dividing line between rich and poor is so great that those who do not belong to the elite are dependent on them
They underestimated the ability and power of the meritocrats.
Since the introduction of "compliance officers" circa 2014 for us, we had to find new ways for our business.
On or about February of 2019 some buyers and sellers, in order to speed up transactions, started using cryptocurrencies more than bank transfers.
Today, what took us lots of red tape, predatory fees, and weeks to accomplish is being done in a few minutes.
We literally deliver the products to our buyers' freight forwarders and receive the payment immediately!
I don't think banks expected to be side-swiped like this. Also, banks and regulators no longer have control or knowledge of our transactions. Of course, there is the blockchain, but when we need "cash", we swap any cryptocurrency to XMR and then either offramp (Hawala) or swap back to a coin we can load onto a crypto debit card. This cuts them off and blinds them from deanonymizing the owner of the wallets.
For example:
These are the unintended consequences of their greed, controlling narcissistic personality disorder, and megalomaniacal attitudes.
I'm NOT sure how they will deal with this, but I do know that if this continues they will perish via financial Seppuku
there is no right and wrong, no given order and the world "how it's supposed to be", everything is always changing, coincidence plays significant role and adaptation is what matters, look at how nature works for 4 billion years, no equality anywhere, why are people so obsessed with such a bulls**t
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