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On February 17 2016 05:48 xM(Z wrote:if i want cheap gas i should be allowed to buy cheap gas even if it's russian. i don't know man, this whole we're in the same boat agenda seems stupidly unfair to me. Germany/France/UK/US/whomever, fucks with the russians and the whole EU has to pay the piper.
Yes but when UK fucks with Russia, they can just buy gas somewhere else. If Russia has a problem with Bulgaria, they can cut off their gas supply completely since they're their only supplier. However if you force other member states to share their gas and forbid them to buy Russian gas for low prices while Russia tries to freeze another member state to death, it will be much harder for Russia to abuse weaker buyers like Bulgaria or Lithuania.
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From what I read Russia does both, on one hand it makes very good gas contracts (like half of world price) for friendly neighbors like Belarus and on the other hand not so good contracts to unfriendly neighbors and sometimes it just turns the pipelines off (most times when the country can not pay them).
Pulling all EU nations together and 'harmonize' these contracts seems to be a good idea form my point of view.
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On February 17 2016 05:48 xM(Z wrote:if i want cheap gas i should be allowed to buy cheap gas even if it's russian. i don't know man, this whole we're in the same boat agenda seems stupidly unfair to me. Germany/France/UK/US/whomever, fucks with the russians and the whole EU has to pay the piper.
Why France ? It's Germany and Poland mainly.
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well, that problem transcends time(it has a history and will have a future) so i included Napoleon there too  .
On February 17 2016 07:46 lord_nibbler wrote:
From what I read Russia does both, on one hand it makes very good gas contracts (like half of world price) for friendly neighbors like Belarus and on the other hand not so good contracts to unfriendly neighbors and sometimes it just turns the pipelines off (most times when the country can not pay them).
Pulling all EU nations together and 'harmonize' these contracts seems to be a good idea form my point of view.
what does that even mean?.
so for now let's disregard the fact that they'll forbid EU members to buy cheap gas from Russia in some distant future; if i get a deal with Russia for gas at $3 per 100cubic meters and you get a deal at $10 per 100 cubic meters, i am suppose to 'harmonize' my contract and pay $10 because you said so?. i don't get it, 'cause i doubt Russia will be ok with me selling my gas to you at the same price, $3, and act as a distributor.
it'll go like this:
hey dude, it's your economy in shambles?; yes, obviously.
hey dude, do you have debts you can barely pay?; yes, obviously.
then by all fucking means buy the more expensive Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from whomever we want because we said so.
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its to strengthen the negotiation position of the eu as a whole and to avoid building up a dependency on non-market prices
for a lot of countries the natural resources market is a monopoly. every monopoly has negative outcomes for the buyers, if thats not the case the seller is retarded beyond imagination. this is the reason why every country has some form of regulations for monopolies. furthermore most countries actively try to avoid the emergence of monopolies / unilateral dependencies. for example in germany it is forbidding to sell a product below production price because large companies can use that strategy to unfairly push out competitors, create a monopoly and then screw everyone over.
thats exactly what russia tries to do by selling their resources at different prices. they sell for below market prices, wait until the economy is depended on those prices or the infrastructure doesnt allow for third party sellers and then they can use that dependency to force their will upon the countries. see ukraine where they did exactly that.
if you want, a similar mechanism is the reason why we dont give free food to third world countries. the free food helps in the short run but kills the market and makes the countries dependent on us. if you want to truly screw a country over and kill it for hundreds of years, just give it free stuff.
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It’s the kind of magic worthy of a graduate of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc conjured up at least 1 billion pounds ($1.45 billion) in tax breaks by investing in controversial financing deals for Harry Potter films and a host of other blockbuster titles that involved no risk to the bank.
The transactions, which RBS has never disclosed, are revealed in hundreds of public filings by at least 25 companies set up by the bank to take part in movie “sale and leaseback” arrangements a decade ago. Those companies are still active and earning income for RBS, though they’ve been shifted to a division that houses unwanted assets for the remaining lifespan of the 15 to 20-year leases.
The filings show that RBS owns rights to the third and fourth Harry Potter films, Troy, Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and at least 20 other movies, though the film titles aren’t always listed in the available paperwork.
From 1998 until around 2007, RBS took advantage of the tax breaks without paying any production costs, or risking losses if the movies bombed. At least 10 of the transactions have been probed by the U.K. tax collection agency, according to company records. Between 2003 and 2006, RBS avoided or delayed paying about 1 billion pounds in tax using the deals, according to calculations based on public filings and historic tax rates.
Highly Artificial
“These are highly artificial transactions done solely for tax avoidance reasons,” said Jolyon Maugham, a tax lawyer who has represented investors in similar plans. That doesn’t mean they were illegal or even aggressive, said Maugham, who has never worked for RBS.
An RBS spokeswoman said the leases complied with rules in force at the time, and that when the law changed in 2007, the bank exited the business. It worked with authorities to ensure it paid appropriate taxes, she said.
In 1997, the U.K. government introduced generous tax credits for companies involved in the booming film industry. Among the investments that emerged to take advantage of the rules were sale and leaseback deals.
Tightening Rules
Lawmakers later found the deals, while legal, benefited those seeking to avoid taxes more than they helped British filmmakers. The rules were tightened in 2007, and the revenue office began examining old cases and sending out tax bills to thousands of investors, resulting in at least a dozen court cases over arcane points of tax law. In two of the biggest trials, over partnerships called Eclipse and Samarkand owned by hundreds of individuals, judges found they weren’t real movie businesses and investors shouldn’t have gotten favorable tax treatment. Eclipse bought the rights to two Disney movies, Underdog and Enchanted, while Samarkand acquired The Queen, starring Helen Mirren.
In theory, the schemes simply deferred taxes because the later lease payments were taxable, but investors liked them because they allowed them to put their capital to use immediately. And for RBS, they’ve been particularly beneficial: The bank hasn’t paid corporate taxes in recent years because it hasn’t had any profits since 2008 -- when it got a 45 billion-pound government bailout after coming close to collapse.
www.bloomberg.com
Tax avoidence is seriously insane.
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On February 17 2016 16:24 hfglgg wrote:
its to strengthen the negotiation position of the eu as a whole and to avoid building up a dependency on non-market prices
for a lot of countries the natural resources market is a monopoly. every monopoly has negative outcomes for the buyers, if thats not the case the seller is retarded beyond imagination. this is the reason why every country has some form of regulations for monopolies. furthermore most countries actively try to avoid the emergence of monopolies / unilateral dependencies. for example in germany it is forbidding to sell a product below production price because large companies can use that strategy to unfairly push out competitors, create a monopoly and then screw everyone over.
thats exactly what russia tries to do by selling their resources at different prices. they sell for below market prices, wait until the economy is depended on those prices or the infrastructure doesnt allow for third party sellers and then they can use that dependency to force their will upon the countries. see ukraine where they did exactly that.
if you want, a similar mechanism is the reason why we dont give free food to third world countries. the free food helps in the short run but kills the market and makes the countries dependent on us. if you want to truly screw a country over and kill it for hundreds of years, just give it free stuff.
that's as much of an answer as Europe is a country.
what you have there is some kind of fairytale driven idea, rooted in the idealism of technocracy, of what cooperation, fairness, democracy, freedom/etc is supposed to be.(Note: your argument fails under its own weight - on one side you admit having enemies based on <random geopolitical and economical rivalries/interests> and on the other you claim that an ideal form of trust between some(countries?, states?, regions?, type of humans?) is achievable. what criteria do you use here and why do i fit into your friend-zone?; it's 'cause you need me to?).
thing is, i live in the real life where the irrelevant gets used and always fucked in the end; so, take that little speech of yours and apply it to a context in which China forbids Germany to subsidize its iron industry because it will serve some ad-hoc invention of a greater good and see how much you agree with it.
ps: you DO give free food to 3rd world countries; that you don't give enough is another story and has nothing to do with your point.
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thats exactly what russia tries to do by selling their resources at different prices. they sell for below market prices, wait until the economy is depended on those prices or the infrastructure doesnt allow for third party sellers and then they can use that dependency to force their will upon the countries. see ukraine where they did exactly that.
That is just untrue : Russia sell below market price for political reasons, and increase price for political reasons. Ukraine just happened to make a move that was not in Russian's interest, that's all. It's like a soccer team that gives shoes for its players. If a player switch team, it's normal that the team takes back the pair of shoes...
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it has to do with structural market failures and nothing else. you just dont see that because you dont want to.
as i have said market regulations are common in all developed economies but you can only regulate a market where you have jurisdiction about it. companies are not necessarily free (!) in setting prices because we acknowledge the fact that companies can abuse their market power for their own benefit. the same reason why you cant buy something for 10€ and sell it for 8€ is the reason why this is a good idea.
if someone wants to sell below market price the idea behind it is that the short term losses can be dealt with. by harmonizing prices within a whole group of buyers (or products or whatever) the seller has to spent a fuck ton more to achieve the same dominant position and hopefully just goes bankrupt while doing so.
the market prevails and everyone is happy. it has nothing to do with politics but with economics and is done every day by every institutional market supervision everywhere in the world and if they dont do that your free market goes to shit quickly.
and no no one is giving free food to 3rd world countries with the exception of solving an immediate crisis, i.e. giving aid after a disastrous harvest. if countries have a structural problem with their food supply you try to solve that structural problem. giving out free food was done in the past and it failed because surprisingly it doesnt work.
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On February 17 2016 18:18 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +thats exactly what russia tries to do by selling their resources at different prices. they sell for below market prices, wait until the economy is depended on those prices or the infrastructure doesnt allow for third party sellers and then they can use that dependency to force their will upon the countries. see ukraine where they did exactly that. That is just untrue : Russia sell below market price for political reasons, and increase price for political reasons. Ukraine just happened to make a move that was not in Russian's interest, that's all. It's like a soccer team that gives shoes for its players. If a player switch team, it's normal that the team takes back the pair of shoes...
same mechanism. you sell for a below market price because you want to get something out of it which benefits you and only you. in a free market you do that because it gives you higher earnings in the long run. on a politics level it can be something different but you sell something at a loss to gain something else in the future. selling at a loss is just something not everyone can do, so it needs to be dealt with.
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meh, free market crap again. it has to do with structural market failures and nothing else. you just dont see that because you dont want to. i see it but i don't want to be in your so called free market because i don't consider it free ... because it's not free.
you just refuse to see its price.
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heavily emphasize the importance of market controls - get a "free market crap" response.
get an education and learn to read, will ya?
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On February 17 2016 18:34 xM(Z wrote:meh, free market crap again. Show nested quote +it has to do with structural market failures and nothing else. you just dont see that because you dont want to. i see it but i don't want to be in your so called free market because i don't consider it free ... because it's not free. you just refuse to see its price.
Did you actually read even half of what he wrote?
Your answer makes absolutely no sense.
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yes i read it but it's pure idealism. there is no universal free market just pockets of small, so called free markets and economic agreements based on specific interests and power balances.
i will not argue from within his bauble(it's why i didn't really made an argument).
free market is not free, period. it's subjectively standardized.
Edit: market controls falls under specific interests category(which i mentioned earlier) and since there is no objective interest here ... what's the point of your argument?.
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hey didnt i just tell you to get some form of education first?
you didnt understand a word i wrote and have no idea what i am talking about but still think you can reply to my posts for some reason.
for example, my whole two posts were about why markets are not free and why the decisions of the market participants need to be restricted/influenced in cases of market failures.
but hey call that idealism because you dont have one single bit of clue what i am talking about.
edit:
Edit: market controls falls under specific interests category(which i mentioned earlier) and since there is no objective interest here ... what's the point of your argument?.
the last time the word specific appeared was 2 weeks ago. nope, you didnt mentioned shit.
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On February 17 2016 18:51 xM(Z wrote:
yes i read it but it's pure idealism. there is no universal free market just pockets of small, so called free markets and economic agreements based on specific interests and power balances.
i will not argue from within his bauble(it's why i didn't really made an argument).
free market is not free, period. it's subjectively standardized.
Edit: market controls falls under specific interests category(which i mentioned earlier) and since there is no objective interest here ... what's the point of your argument?.
Out of interest. What kind of system do you propose to replace markets?
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but you don't see that you influence them based on your OWN needs and not mine(i do not believe in the current "common good concept).
fuck it man, basically this is where it will all end up - you make the decisions and i don't like them because i don't trust you and i want to make my own decisions.
thing is, your whole argument was at best a tangent; was not wrong but useless so i just glossed over it while cherry-picking at the non tangent parts.
i want my god damn market. i'm an entitled mother fucker who wants to control his gas market so you either give me an assessment of your losses from that market control you'll impose to see if it squares off with mine, or just let me be.
Edit: to your edit - i used specific there to emphasize interests and nothing more.
i didn't think i had to: interests = the particular social outcomes held to benefit a particular individual or group, since it's already in its definition.
@RvB - that's a whole can of worms and it's even more idealistic and unachievable at the moment than hfglgg's current market ideas.
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it's not clear at all because as it stands, i can go suck Putin's dick and he'll give me gas for free(well not really, but way cheaper; Ex:Belarus), but if i were the sign the agreement the EU wants and then accept its market control, that will be off the table and the best gas price i'll be able to get is what EU, as a block, can negotiate with the russians.
anyway, i just don't have the patience to actually argue things. when you give me speeches, i give a 1 way ticket to Mars and have you talk to the rocks; when you tell me how X is better for the greater good, i'll put you in prison then 1 month later i'll ask you about that greater good:
"what-s the greater good?"
and your answer will be:
"a can of beans sir; it's a can of beans".
http://www.politico.eu/article/eu-eyes-isil-sleepers-for-next-major-attack-terrorism-isis-paris-bataclan-counter-terrorism-islamic-state-european-strategic-intelligence-and-security-center-syria-iraq-war/ PARIS — By sending warplanes to bomb Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, Western powers wanted to punish the terrorist group on its turf — and avoid a blowback on the home front.
That logic looks increasingly shaky.
In the wake of last November’s attacks in Paris, U.S. and EU intelligence officials are reassessing their view of the self-described Islamic State’s strategic objectives to take into account its battlefield setbacks and need for propaganda victories.
They now believe the group, also known as either ISIS or ISIL, is determined to prove its continued strength by staging further attacks in the European Union. Their working scenario resembles the Paris tragedy, but on a vaster scale — with commando teams attacking soft targets in several countries at once, according to terrorism experts in France, Britain and the United States who were briefed on non-public discussions.
“The next attack is likely to be bigger,” said former French intelligence official Claude Moniquet, who heads the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. “The type of attack that intelligence and security agencies are preparing for now is a coordinated attack in multiple sites, in several major [EU] cities — two to four.”
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On February 17 2016 19:11 xM(Z wrote:
but you don't see that you influence them based on your OWN needs and not mine(i do not believe in the current "common good concept).
fuck it man, basically this is where it will all end up - you make the decisions and i don't like them because i don't trust you and i want to make my own decisions.
thing is, your whole argument was at best a tangent; was not wrong but useless so i just glossed over it while cherry-picking at the non tangent parts.
nope, you dont get it.
market participants have different amounts of power over the market. this unbalance leads to unfavourable market outcomes for the parties with less power. this wouldnt be so bad if it did not also lead to a less aggregated output of the market. which means that an unsupervised market with power differentials across the participants is less effective (!) than a market with controls.
well the problem is you dont have external control over the global market so you need to do the next best thing, which is evening the odds. this leads to an aggregated market output that is higher than before.
if you dont want to do it in this case, then get the fuck out of the eu because you are about to shoot yourself in the foot. we dont like guys who shoot themselves in the foot.
edit: oh yeah and before you rant further about "greater good" or "idealism" or something. what i described is mathematically proven and empirically observed countless of times and all modern economies are based on that very foundation.
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On February 17 2016 18:51 xM(Z wrote:
yes i read it but it's pure idealism. there is no universal free market just pockets of small, so called free markets and economic agreements based on specific interests and power balances.
i will not argue from within his bauble(it's why i didn't really made an argument).
free market is not free, period. it's subjectively standardized.
Edit: market controls falls under specific interests category(which i mentioned earlier) and since there is no objective interest here ... what's the point of your argument?.
Just stop this nonesense, You aren't even trying to respond to his points.
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EPT
