EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 231
| Forum Index > General Forum |
Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. | ||
|
WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
| ||
|
Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On August 03 2015 11:07 Fuchsteufelswild wrote: So, WhiteDog, corumjhaelen, Saumure, Incognoto, Furikawari and other French folk, I wanted to ask for your opinions and analysis. I don't know a lot about the policies that this "Socialist" government has enacted. I thought there was the introduction of a massive 70% income tax for the highest earners, though I don't know if any actual wealth taxes were planned and if so, whether they went through and I know a lot of european countries keep taxes for health and sometimes unemployment completely separated from the normal income tax, so the 70% might not even account for all the taxes they would pay? WhiteDog has touched on the current incarnation of the Socialist party under François Hollande being incompetent and not at all doing what they were elected to do (did they start and then turn 180°?). Manuel Valls was one of other people singled out. What sort of policies were the voters EXPECTING of them, what have they enacted that betrays that voter base and could you give some examples of their incompetence? Also, WhiteDog linked French opinion polls relating to Greece, showing that Left Front leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is seen as most sympathetic to the Greeks. I think the majority of the left voters (who from what I calculated were somewhere in the 42-47% range of the pooling sample, if memory serves correctly). What is it about his platform that deters most "left" french voters? I only know what I've read on wikipedia and The Guardian about him because most articles and videos I find are in French. "Too far" to the left? If so, why are they afraid to vote that way if the Socialist Party are just left populist in speeches and sell-outs in government? (i.e. not actively pursuing the "left" values they preach) I'm interested in your personal views as well as what you believe to be public opinion, by the way. What we really need is the UMP back in town to sort things out. While UMP are hardly better than PS, at very least the cursors they move are better for the poor people who are working and see all their money get taxed. For not much really. They're all clowns as far as I know, what France needs is a fundamental remake of its entire political system, where solidarity is there but isn't used an excuse to raise taxes versus the working class. Be you at the top or the bottom of the working class, if you work in France, you get taxed hard for it. It's incredibly shitty at the moment to be a manual worker. It's expensive to employ someone as well. Our entire political structure is a mess which needs replacing, really. There isn't a political party that is worth anything, at the moment. I say "UMP" but only because they're the lesser evil in my eyes. They're all horrible. The only way to get demand back up and running (i.e. the economy) is to give some money back to the people themselves so that THEY can spend it. The government spends it on dumb shit which is only there to artificially decrease unemployment numbers. In 2014 I saw a train station which was perfectly fine get COMPLETELY rebuilt. For no augmentation in production capacity. It's purely aesthetic. That's a multi-million € project.. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Gare_de_Guingamp.JPG http://www.ville-pabu.fr/ville-pabu/public/actualites/municipalite/maquette_pem.jpg Money needs to be invested into production facilities or something, I don't know. Not granite sculptures. Mis-allocated funds are a huge problem in France. | ||
|
WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On August 03 2015 22:16 Incognoto wrote: What we really need is the UMP back in town to sort things out. While UMP are hardly better than PS, at very least the cursors they move are better for the poor people who are working and see all their money get taxed. For not much really. They're all clowns as far as I know, what France needs is a fundamental remake of its entire political system, where solidarity is there but isn't used an excuse to raise taxes versus the working class. Be you at the top or the bottom of the working class, if you work in France, you get taxed hard for it. It's incredibly shitty at the moment to be a manual worker. It's expensive to employ someone as well. Our entire political structure is a mess which needs replacing, really. There isn't a political party that is worth anything, at the moment. I say "UMP" but only because they're the lesser evil in my eyes. They're all horrible. The only way to get demand back up and running (i.e. the economy) is to give some money back to the people themselves so that THEY can spend it. The government spends it on dumb shit which is only there to artificially decrease unemployment numbers. In 2014 I saw a train station which was perfectly fine get COMPLETELY rebuilt. For no augmentation in production capacity. It's purely aesthetic. That's a multi-million € project.. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Gare_de_Guingamp.JPG http://www.ville-pabu.fr/ville-pabu/public/actualites/municipalite/maquette_pem.jpg Money needs to be invested into production facilities or something, I don't know. Not granite sculptures. Mis-allocated funds are a huge problem in France. Train station getting revamp was one of Sarkozy's moto - he wanted them to become place of living with markets and such (a la england style because it's so neat...). Most likely your station gettig rebuilt is the result of that pre 2012 policy. Also taxation have decreased as % of GDP for the last ten years or more (despite a slight increase in the last few years). Fiscality on working class increased but it was greatly reduced on firm and high revenues - as suggested by the poor state of our income tax. Problem is most of our taxes are not progressive. | ||
|
Incognoto
France10239 Posts
progressive, that is to say? | ||
|
Fuchsteufelswild
Australia2028 Posts
On August 03 2015 17:50 WhiteDog wrote: 3) the PS is not too far to the left it's the opposite basically. The FN has a saying for that : the UMPS, contraction of the UMP and the PS, that means that they are basically the same. Of course it's not completly true for everything except for their economic policies, which is I believe the core of the problem. I think at core France is not a liberal country. French are not liberal in maojrity - and it is understandable if you look at our economic history, we basically developped under huge state monopoles - but all our elites are, and the PS is no exception. The last paragraphs were asking about Mélenchon & Front de gauche's policies and why people are reluctant to vote that way given that the Socialists DON'T act in accordance with the pre-election promises and speeches (surprise, surprise... -__-) On August 03 2015 11:07 Fuchsteufelswild wrote: ****Also, WhiteDog linked French opinion polls relating to Greece, showing that Left Front leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is seen as most sympathetic to the Greeks. I think the majority of the left voters (who from what I calculated were somewhere in the 42-47% range of the pooling sample, if memory serves correctly). Oh and in countries with two major parties, just about everyone who is also sick of both parties is usually sick of how close they're becoming, at least in the most developed countries, so that's not just FN sentiment. What is it about his [Mélenchon's] platform that deters most "left" french voters? I only know what I've read on wikipedia and The Guardian about him because most articles and videos I find are in French. "Too far" to the left? [Front de gauche] If so, why are they ["left" voters] afraid to vote that way [for Front de gauche] if the Socialist Party are just left populist in speeches and sell-outs [to private interests] in government? (i.e. not actively pursuing the "left" values they preach [& instead breaking election promises])**** ---- (it's now a taxation on firms who pay wages higher than 1 million, which is a really bad thing but whatever) Do you mean taxing the firms that pay more than $1m to any individual, trying to discourage firms from paying such wages to individuals when they could instead pay many skilled workers with it? What's so bad about that? Doesn't that discourage them from overpaying CEOs and other executives?Or do you just mean they have increased/implemented (high?) tax on any company that pays more than $1m in TOTAL wages to all of their staff? (i.e. ends up being big businesses and probably plenty of medium-size businesses?) i.e. Payroll tax? making our social security unsustainable with no or almost no effect on employment (so in effect he massively - we're talking about 35 billions euros just for the responsability pact - redistributed money from the society to private firms). And in every possible law he oftentime added things that were not supposed to be there (the macron law is a joke in itself... what is the coherence between sunday working, bus line, drugstores, the justice and the nuclear ?). I don't quite follow some of this. He made social security unsustainable by methods that were supposedly meant to improve it or help out the unemployed/underemployed/poor but which actually did much the reverse by channelling money from it into the private sector (big firms particularly)? Also, I certainly don't get exactly what it is you're saying they did to bus lines, pharmacies, nuclear energy and the justice system. Liberalising them in some way. It might be a bit tinfoily, but I wouldn't be all that surprised to find out they're really doing it to protect their own wealth. Destroy and rebuild things to provide temporary jobs to supposedly to improve things without actually helping anything (as you say, the train stations may be part of Sarkozy policy), thus wasting taxpayer money and widening the gap, helping companies and individuals with a lot of money stay further ahead...even while claiming the actions are for the sake of the loewr and middle class. On August 03 2015 23:50 Incognoto wrote: The only way to get demand back up and running (i.e. the economy) is to give some money back to the people themselves so that THEY can spend it. The government spends it on dumb shit which is only there to artificially decrease unemployment numbers. So you are someone that would of course be happy with the goverment collecting plenty of taxes to spend sensibly, but of course, like many governments, they're wasteful, incompetent and just downright strange with how they use it, so it's safer with the people just spending some on the economy, even if plenty of people save more than might be ideal? (because you want to keep growth going and continue to improve quality of life, but if they just throw money away it just burns taxpayer cash or else increases debt for no real gain) Perhaps the plan is to give more power to the private sector, not for the sinister/greedy/self-interested reasons I normally suspect...but because they simply realise how bad THEY are at spending it, so why not try giving all the taxpayer money to firms and hope THEY invest it in useful things for the people! ... D:< progressive, that is to say? Progressive tax systems tax the rich at higher rates than the poor. A properly functioning one would have very high income tax levels for the very very rich, that is, once they earn over a certain amount. Australia tax Example: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GvfufcW.png) 19¢ in every dollar (up to $3572 once you earn $37000) once you earn over $18200. Before that, you pay no tax, taking little tax from the poorest. After earning $37k/year, income after that point is taxed at 32.5%, until $80k gross income. Then it's 37% until you're earning $180000/yr. Once you earn over $180000/yr, you pay 45¢ in every dollar over $180000. Progressive system (as opposed to a flat rate of say 30% tax on everyone at any income). A less progressive but not "regressive" system would have the same sort of structure but to a much less degree, such as paying tax immediately (no tax-free threshold), at 10% or more, then the rate barely going up and not taxing the richest at any more than say 40%, less in some countries. Really, these systems should have something further like over 50% tax once you earn $300k+/year, maybe over 60% once you earn over $1m/year, or I would say so at least. | ||
|
Acrofales
Spain18219 Posts
On August 04 2015 00:10 Fuchsteufelswild wrote: The last paragraphs were asking about Mélenchon & Front de gauche's policies and why people are reluctant to vote that way given that the Socialists DON'T act in accordance with the pre-election promises and speeches (surprise, surprise... -__-) I don't quite follow some of this. He made social security unsustainable by methods that were supposedly meant to improve it or help out the unemployed/underemployed/poor but which actually did much the reverse by channelling money from it into the private sector (big firms particularly)? Also, I certainly don't get exactly what it is you're saying they did to bus lines, pharmacies, nuclear energy and the justice system. Liberalising them in some way. It might be a bit tinfoily, but I wouldn't be all that surprised to find out they're really doing it to protect their own wealth. Destroy and rebuild things to provide temporary jobs to supposedly to improve things without actually helping anything (as you say, the train stations may be part of Sarkozy policy), thus wasting taxpayer money and widening the gap, helping companies and individuals with a lot of money stay further ahead...even while claiming the actions are for the sake of the loewr and middle class. Progressive tax systems tax the rich at higher rates than the poor. A properly functioning one would have very high income tax levels for the very very rich, that is, once they earn over a certain amount. Australia tax Example: 19¢ in every dollar (up to $3572 once you earn $37000) once you earn over $18200. Before that, you pay no tax, taking little tax from the poorest. After earning $37k/year, income after that point is taxed at 32.5%, until $80k gross income. Then it's 37% until you're earning $180000/yr. Once you earn over $180000/yr, you pay 45¢ in every dollar over $180000. Progressive system (as opposed to a flat rate of say 30% tax on everyone at any income). A less progressive but not "regressive" system would have the same sort of structure but to a much less degree, such as paying tax immediately (no tax-free threshold), at 10% or more, then the rate barely going up and not taxing the richest at any more than say 40%, less in some countries. Really, these systems should have something further like over 50% tax once you earn $300k+/year, maybe over 60% once you earn over $1m/year, or I would say so at least. That never works, because at those levels of income/money, it is cheaper to pay a whole army of accountants and lawyers to declare those earnings spread around in bank accounts and holdings all over the world than pay over 50 or 60% in taxes in *wherever you actually worked*. It's a very populist idea that progressive taxes should really hit the rich hard, but in practice it's a lot of extra laws (and thus money) for virtually no return at all. | ||
|
RvB
Netherlands6265 Posts
In NL for example dividend payments when you have more than 5% of the company gets taxed at a flat rate of 20% while profits already got taxed witb the corporate tax rate of 25%. So effectively the tax is around 40-45%, not sure anymore about the exact numbers. Anyway what I'm trying to say is that high income taxes for the super wealthy is more symbol politics than anything since that's not how their earnings get taxed. | ||
|
WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
| ||
|
cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
| ||
|
Fuchsteufelswild
Australia2028 Posts
So how do you clamp down on that then? Obviously the tax system is MEANT to work so that people pay the appropriate amount of tax, do you just lie down and die? Surely there's something that can be done. Implement wealth taxes and capital controls of some sort? Taxes on large transactions? What information do governments need to track it all in reality then? Full lists of everyone's accounts? Make it that any accounts not able to be proven to be owned by the names the accounts are under, get profits taxed at 60+% a year and the balance taxed at 15% per year? If people were really tested for proof of ownership for every account in order to keep what is in it (maybe this would be easier without private banks ^_^"), how easy would it be to fake all the necessary details? Potentially, in this hypothetical fantasy scenario, if the government has the right to know all bank account balanced and void any amount of the balance (or at least freeze suspect accounts) maybe something could be done? Make people chase the government to show the evidence, to be able to get to their money? But I'm not sure why you can't just get that with a wealth tax? If wealth taxes and corporate taxes were all higher than income taxes, any idea how hat works out? I was under the impression this just isn't done (so if it is, where, and if not, hypothetical what should happen? How would they then dodge paying appropriate taxes?). I know some of this might sound..wacky. =Þ Ability to flat-out void money would be the opposite of printing money..sounds highly abusable by the government (just render individual political opponent's money void...) but on the other hand, printing money allows a government to potentially completely devalue everyone's money anyway. They can force (never would in this day an age, just saying) somewhat of a national reset by printing a lot of money and then handing out even shares of it, greatly devaluing what is already there...but the entire economy too, so suddenly their currency is worth almost nothing to other currencies if they do that. | ||
|
cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
| ||
|
Makro
France16890 Posts
On August 03 2015 11:07 Fuchsteufelswild wrote: So, WhiteDog, corumjhaelen, Saumure, Incognoto, Furikawari and other French folk, I wanted to ask for your opinions and analysis. I don't know a lot about the policies that this "Socialist" government has enacted. I thought there was the introduction of a massive 70% income tax for the highest earners, though I don't know if any actual wealth taxes were planned and if so, whether they went through and I know a lot of european countries keep taxes for health and sometimes unemployment completely separated from the normal income tax, so the 70% might not even account for all the taxes they would pay? WhiteDog has touched on the current incarnation of the Socialist party under François Hollande being incompetent and not at all doing what they were elected to do (did they start and then turn 180°?). Manuel Valls was one of other people singled out. What sort of policies were the voters EXPECTING of them, what have they enacted that betrays that voter base and could you give some examples of their incompetence? Also, WhiteDog linked French opinion polls relating to Greece, showing that Left Front leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon is seen as most sympathetic to the Greeks. I think the majority of the left voters (who from what I calculated were somewhere in the 42-47% range of the pooling sample, if memory serves correctly). What is it about his platform that deters most "left" french voters? I only know what I've read on wikipedia and The Guardian about him because most articles and videos I find are in French. "Too far" to the left? If so, why are they afraid to vote that way if the Socialist Party are just left populist in speeches and sell-outs in government? (i.e. not actively pursuing the "left" values they preach) I'm interested in your personal views as well as what you believe to be public opinion, by the way. The only big success of Hollande was to sell Rafale, which is, i have to say, a big feat. | ||
|
WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On August 04 2015 01:12 cLutZ wrote: Seems like those taxes were highly effective at imposing dead weight loss on the economy. Yes because they weight too heavily on the poorest, who happens to spend their entire income. Taxing the rich is beneficial at many level : you tax people who save more - no negative effect on agregate demand - and you reduce inequalities (which have plenty of bad effect on the economy). On August 04 2015 01:49 cLutZ wrote: Or...tax at reasonable rates so that the costs of noncompliance are equal to or lower than compliance. If your implementing all the things you are talking about you aren't getting much, if any, of the benefits of capitalism anyways. Or punish more heavily non compliance and fight against fiscal heaven, like Luxemburg, Switzerland, etc. I don't quite follow some of this. He made social security unsustainable by methods that were supposedly meant to improve it or help out the unemployed/underemployed/poor but which actually did much the reverse by channelling money from it into the private sector (big firms particularly)? Also, I certainly don't get exactly what it is you're saying they did to bus lines, pharmacies, nuclear energy and the justice system. Liberalising them in some way. Cotisation are a kind of taxation on income that finance social security. Since he cut cotisations for the lowest wages, it created a decrease in income for the social security. The goal was to increase employment (because cutting cotisations is like decreasing labor cost for the firm) but it had no effect on unemployment. So in fact the only result of his policy is an increase in the deficit of social security. Bus lines, pharmacies, etc. are all part of a big law supposed to fix the "three diseases" of France : Defiance, complexity and corporatism. In fact it's a big law, with heavy mediatisation, that will have no effect whatsoever on our growth but that will lead us more into liberalism (for the interests of the richest it's true). Do you mean taxing the firms that pay more than $1m to any individual, trying to discourage firms from paying such wages to individuals when they could instead pay many skilled workers with it? What's so bad about that? Doesn't that discourage them from overpaying CEOs and other executives? Or do you just mean they have increased/implemented (high?) tax on any company that pays more than $1m in TOTAL wages to all of their staff? (i.e. ends up being big businesses and probably plenty of medium-size businesses?) i.e. Payroll tax? It's pretty obvious : the firm is paying the fine and not the individual. The problem is that at the moment no owners are willing to refuse increasing the wage of their beloved CEO (for reasons that have a lot to do with the relationship CEOs and shareholders have) so they prefer paying the fee, which just increase the fiscal burder on firms for no reasons. The idea to tax people (and reduce inequalities) and not firm is to - of course - prevent the effect of taxation on employment. The last paragraphs were asking about Mélenchon & Front de gauche's policies and why people are reluctant to vote that way given that the Socialists DON'T act in accordance with the pre-election promises and speeches (surprise, surprise... -__-) Mélanchon is an odd beast. I voted for him but I consider him impossible to elect. He behave like a child from time to time and have really bizarre stance at moment (like defending China neck and neck, or that fucktard Kerviel). The Front de Gauche also have a problem with their stance in regard to Europe - their entire program is impossible to do without a complete overhaul of Europe and yet their refuse the idea of leaving the euro or criticising Schenghen for philosophical reasons. At core people don't believe them to be able to govern (well at least that's how I view their situation today). | ||
|
LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
| ||
|
WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On August 04 2015 04:55 LegalLord wrote: Tax businesses too hard and they're just going to set up shop in another country (or not at all). I agree with Clutz on this one. Business =/= people. A lot of things are possible really, it's just that all the solutions contredict liberalism - like say retrieving the nationality for people that don't pay their taxes in France ? Putting high taxes on capital to monetary flux going in and out of fiscal heaven ? | ||
|
cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
| ||
|
Evil_Sheep
Canada902 Posts
| ||
|
Incognoto
France10239 Posts
I asked what the term was for to be sure but it confirms that it's not a good idea. Why would you tax people who save more? It's their money, they do whatever the hell they want with it.. I'd see some sense in a slightly progressive tax but if you start taxing too much people will just leave. competent intelligent people can just work in the united states or elsewhere and get rich there. makes no sense. and businesses ARE people. businesses are nothing more than people working together towards a common goal which is to sell whatever their product or service is. it's not that you need to tax france's poor population more, it's that the money which is taxed needs to be used much more intelligently. evil_sheep hit the nail on its head | ||
|
WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On August 04 2015 05:57 Incognoto wrote: I agree with Clutz I asked what the term was for to be sure but it confirms that it's not a good idea. Why would you tax people who save more? It's their money, they do whatever the hell they want with it.. I'd see some sense in a slightly progressive tax but if you start taxing too much people will just leave. competent intelligent people can just work in the united states or elsewhere and get rich there. makes no sense. and businesses ARE people. businesses are nothing more than people working together towards a common goal which is to sell whatever their product or service is. it's not that you need to tax france's poor population more, it's that the money which is taxed needs to be used much more intelligently. evil_sheep hit the nail on its head This logic is just flawed. The US income tax is not that high and people already leave there. There is no level of income tax that would prevent people from fleeing because fuck it they can and in our word they will always be able to find a better place to put their money. The best way to prevent people from fleeing a country is not to set the taxation at an inferior level, it is to prevent them by law, social sanctions (like discredit / outcast) and by economic sanctions toward fiscal heavens. Business are people ... really ? Business is a collective. | ||
|
Incognoto
France10239 Posts
people are free to do what they want.. it's called "liberté". if they want to leave, what's wrong with that? if you don't want people to leave then make the place nice for them. it's the people who are important, not the government who taxes them.. | ||
| ||
