What is a Liberal?
What is a Liberal?
By this I do not mean what is the Liberal Party all about in any country. In the U. S. we do not have a Liberal Party, yet we are always labeling people as "liberal" or "conservative" or "middle-of-the-road." This would be roughly the same of saying "left-of-center", "right-of-center" and "centerists." What I am interested in is what qualities or positions are what one could truly describe as liberal or conservative or whatever. In the U. S. we break it down even further by talking of "social conservatives" or "fiscal liberals" (or vice versa). People who are against abortion, against gay marriage, etc. are considered "social conservatives." The converse defines "social liberals" though I have never heard that term articulated. I am not sure what a centerist position would be on such issues. People who believe that the government needs additional funds in order to expand various programs are "fiscal liberals" while those who wish to limit the money given to government are considered "fiscal conservatives." I personally tend to take a live-and-let-live attitude toward most social issues. If someone feels comfortable having an abortion, that is their business. If two people fall in love and want the sanction of the state to solemnize the union, I don't much care what the sexual composition of those two individuals is. On fiscal matters, I tend to be more conservative. I think that the more money we give to government, the larger and more intrusive government gets, to me a bad thing. If I were to run for political office in the U. S. I would be villified by both sides. Does this mean I am center-of-the road? What do you think are the issues that define whether a person is liberal-conservative? |
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It's true that the US system makes it hard to see. Yet twas your tom jefferson who pointed out that party politics is bad because it is divisive. both democrat and republican core values have elements of liberalism (crudely - the dems are liberal on individual rights, the reps are liberal on control of government interference) What i find more fascinating is why blatently liberal republicans will use the word 'liberal' to insult democratic opponents. With liberalism spread across both parties it seems hidden from view and the word liberal is now a pointless insult or "curse word" in a political system based more on tribalism than ideas |
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Someone who is socially liberal is someone who believes in the preservation of rights and liberties of the individual and believes in restraints on the state in order to prevent it encroaching on the liberties of individuals, surely?
Someone who is economically liberal is basically a filthy capitalist. Also I find it absurd that your politicians use the term "liberal" as an insult, liberalism is, if anything, good. You silly yanks also seem to be missing half of the political spectrum as Socialism is more "left wing" than liberalism, despite the fact that political views should be on a graph with 2 axes as opposed to a line due to differences in economic and social views etc. and so forth. |
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I used to frequent a forum that was made up mostly of Americans. Whenever a slightly political discussion came up the Americans would start calling people liberals as if it was an insult. I always found that a tad odd.
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Well I know you have patriots on one side and communists on the other..
I dont really see where libidals are supposed to fit in that picture.. I'm pretty sure they symphatise with al qaida tho.. both with the anti-American attitude When Bush asked: are you with us or against us? the liberals clearly didnt chose our side How much more obvious can it get? |
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If you take more then just Republicans and Democrats into account then Liberalism wouldn't be 'left' and Conservativism wouldn't be 'right'. The terms economic liberal and economic conservative are only opposites if you oversimplified the political spectrum into one dimension to fit the American model. Political matrices however tend to be two dimensional.
Liberalism strives to as much personal freedom and economical freedom as possible, while recognizing the need of some sort of goverment. Conservativism aims for a more traditional society, so with less social/personal freedoms, but they also hold economical freedom in (the same) high regard. So liberals and convervatives in the traditional sense both tend to perceive levelling incomes and building a huge social state as counterproductive. The textbook answer would be that the difference between liberals and conservatives are purely between social/personal freedoms and actually have nothing to do with economic freedoms. Democrats however, tend lean a bit towards the left on economical issues (towards Progressivism) then Republicans, which moves them a bit away from true Liberalism. I do believe both parties are about equally as far away from true liberalism, as they are both liberal in different aspects. It's easy to argue that they are both quite liberal, as both parties seem pretty close to eachother compared to mainland European political parties. Both Democrats and Republicans are quite far towards the right. Democrats and Republicans are actually both so far to the right that they have no Dutch equilivant. Depending on what you use as a reference they could end up like *this* in a political matrix. I'm not sure if I answered your question with this, as what I said seems a bit basic high school material to me. I almost feel silly for posting it. |
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I will avoid the obvious response of "Don't feel silly for this post, you have so many other posts worthy of that feeling."
I really am interested in what others think about what constitutes a liberal because in my country it seems rather an odd definition. To me the key to Liberalism was the concept of accellerated change socially. Getting rid of slavery was a liberal concept. Getting rid of segregation was a liberal idea. However, somewhere along the line the concept morphed into one of power and economics. Liberal spending and liberal interpretation of the power of government. It is at a point where those who wish to controll the size of government are considered conservative because they resist the growth of government. In the U. S. there seems to be a move toward larger government in order to have government address the percieved injustices in society. However, government creates more injustices than it cures in many respects. American Liberals are usually pushing things like socialized medicine which, in many respects, impinges upon the rights of individuals. I was just wondering if concepts were as muddled in other places. |
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Well, Liberalism isn't really about social change. As the name Liberalism implies (liber means free) it's mainly about freedom, personal and economical. The economic freedom of the Republicans and the personal/social freedom of the Democrats. It tries to create equal chances by making sure everyone carries his own responsibility.
Liberals believe that the goverment, or other people for that matter, shouldn't dictate our lives; everyone knows what best for himself. Free from oppression. This means that everyone should have the liberty to live his life as he wants. Everyone can have abortions, become a Buddist, live like a bum or can try to become the next president if you wish. High taxes and financial redistribution actually limit a persons (economical) freedom, you cannot take a person's property and you can't have a person carry someone elses burden, thus it's against the liberal principles. True Liberals also often claim, as believers in the free market, that when the goverment takes money it proberbly won't be invested to generate more goods or wealth. Everyone with a govermental job or who lives on social welfare actually just consumes and produces nothing. And in other cases the money will atleast be taken out of circulation for some time, in which it won't be spend or invested. This means it actually destroys the wealth growth, eventually resulting in doing more damage to the people you are trying to help then good. I really don't think aiming for a large goverment is a very liberal idea dda. According the Liberal ideologie true equality and freedom can only be achieved by a small goverment. A large goverment puts a heavy burden on people's economic freedom and, as you said, a larger goverment also becomes more intrusive, at the cost of personal freedom. Quote:
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My own personal attitude is that where possible, the market should be left to its own accord to fix problems. But it can't always do that - just look at the failures in healthcare and education. This is based on what I believe to be some absolute human rights that you may not agree are such. Quote:
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'New' Liberalism/Classical Liberalism.
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Centrist views on marriage would probably focus on the legal status that such a union provides to people in today's society, rather than focusing on "morality" with the presumption that marriage exists only to procreate within a stable household with the idea that stability leads to superior results for the child, maximising their success in later life (which it, apparently, does - whether that is due to biological, psychological, social and/or economic issues i dont recall/unsure about). A social conservative would see that children is the ultimate purpose of marriage, and believe that children born of marriage do better, thus see marriage as necessity for having children. A liberal would be more concerned about the state of such a marriage - if it had already "broken down", then its not too hard to imagine that any psychological/social/economic etc benefits that could be expected of marriage may not exist anyway, and indeed provide a negative atmosphere for the child thus being detrimental. A social liberal might see the right of parents to persue what they know best for their children, based on physiological instincts of those children to want the best for their children. As such, parents should have all the power over whom they choose to help raise their child, and see marriage as a pledge of commitment that may not necessarily be beneficial or warranted. A centrist would note that both sides have merit, but irrespective of this, marriage as a legal entity wrt property rights should one or both die, the legal "legitimacy"** of a child is important for the Estate of the parents to go to supporting the child/ren. Further, more mundane things such as access to banking and other financial details, civil documents like birth certificates, drivers licenses, health and other insurance forms/documents, all the way through to registered post - all of these institutions of society and economy are predisposed to assuming either a single adult, or a married couple, with access restricted to those groups. Thus, if you are not married, it is far/more difficult to gain access to "critical" documents that both of you share. Irrespective of whether a couple is gay or straight, that single presumption necessitates that in order to become a legally effective unit within society, marriage should be for all. Besides, why cant two fathers/mothers be any more or less effective, efficient, compassionate or proud of any children that they bring up? There are plenty of failed male/female relationships out there - why not let gays fail too? *depending on scope of centralism, i suppose. **when the hell is a child who is born not legitimate, insofar as they are a living breathing individual with dreams, aspirations and ability? This social construct i rail against, as it seems to serve no beneficial purpose - merely used as a tool to stigmatise the unfortunate (who, after all, had no say in the matter originally). Quote:
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I think i differ to most americans (and europeans) insofar as dont have any problem at all with government compulsion - insofar as i think its fine and a good thing for compulsory voting, compulsory (basic, ie up to Senior school) education, emergency health care, compulsory inoculation of common communicable diseases, and similar things. I dont care whether some government pe0n is searching through my emails, looking at my forum posts and so on - mainly because i know they'd be bored absolutely stiff from the shit that drivels out of my mouth. And on that note, i'll finish. |
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Some liberals are against abortion. Some centrists are completely for or completely against abortion. Some conservatives are in favour of abortion. Also, PARAGRAPHS. Personally I hate seeing more than 200 words in a single block of text :( Quote:
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This is the crux of the American 'liberal' issue. Quote:
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I wouldn't worry about it, personally. You'll never have to vote for one.*
*not quite so extreme right wing doesn't count! |
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Need I remind you that torture is very commonly used nowadays, is generally psychological (waterboarding) rather than physical so you can just do it endlessly and, after all, doesn't work. It's not if you have anything to hide that matters, it's whether the person who's torturing you thinks you have anything to hide. And if you're being tortured, you must do. |
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I think it is grossly unfair, not to mention silly, to presume that dda meant to create such an environment. to put it bluntly, and this applies more to furball than to you, if you want to take part in a pissing contest then go piss Sometimes people like to explore ideas outside of a debate. I took the thread starting post as genuine in its curiosity |
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please gods mark feel some shame |
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This "environment" was originated by dda, i thought, as he raised the issue of liberal, conservative and centrist. I was merely exploring what a centrist may view as their opinion on the issues that dda raised, given that he was unsure about what a centrist position (something that i think i hold) would be in those areas. Quote:
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I can see that the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are rather on end compared to the way some look at them.
In America "liberal" seems to be a liberal use of government power. One of the interesting things is that "liberals" in America tend to espouse freedom of speech as an ideal. However, they then do everything they can to shout down or intimidate any who use that freedom to disagree with them. In America, "Liberal" does not seem to have much to do with liberty. "Libertarian" is a new term. It seems to, in many ways, have supplanted the term "Libertine." |
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The question of which team ends up on which side of the debate is often arbitrary; theres no logical reason why people who (eg) support abortion rights should also support gun control and increased taxes on the wealthy, and the fact that these positions now go together under the banner of 'liberalism'/'progressivism' is a result of historical contingency rather than because theres any unifying principle linking them (gun control is an especially interesting case; during the early 20th century, it was the 'right' who supported gun control in the UK while the 'left' opposed it, since they believed that the government was using gun control to decrease the problems caused by militant trade unionists. Nowadays, this same argument that guns provide a line of defence against oppressive government is used by those on the 'right', and mocked by those on the 'left'). Mainstream political positions are generally an assortment of barely related single-issues, bundled into un-unified wholes and consumed as ready-maked packages. The only place youre likely to find attempts at ideological coherence are on the 'fringes' of politics, where there is less focus on pragmatism since getting elected isnt such a primary concern (normally because it isnt likely to happen). This unrelenting pragmatism is reflected in the electorate, with most people choosing their issue-positions based either on party lines (the Democrats oppose gun control, I am a Democrat, ergo I should oppose gun control), or based on the unprincipled short-term pragmatism which is pretty much the defining aspect of modern middle-class 'liberalism', which centres around the belief that "as long as something doesnt adversely affect me in the short-term, who cares?". The short-sightedness of the middle classes towards anything which doesnt directly impinge on their day-to-day lives, and the associated refusal to think in principles or consider bigger pictures, is imo responsible for a huge amount of shitty political practices over the last 100 years and was nicely summed up by Ultimate Newbie earlier in the thread: Quote:
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I took your post to be critical of what i said earlier. I agreed with much/most of what you said prior though. |
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Thus, essentially what i said was more or less the direct opposite to what nodrog said, and as such it wouldnt actually "fully support" his post at all? Did i misunderestimate something around here?? |
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There was a documentary on the BBC called 'The Tower'. It shows the redevelopment of an area of London, which is poor. A block of council flats were sold off and all the tenants were kicked out. It is being redeveloped into luxury flats for rich people. The development of these flats is not going to help the people because it's done by rich people, for rich people, with the proceeds going to rich people. Eventually the whole area will be redeveloped into a middle class suburbia. The likely result is that all the people who lived there originally shall be relocated into other areas which we shall politely refer to as 'slums'. So the rich get some nice new homes and the poor get moved along from one slum to another. The likely result of this is greater overcrowding of homes with less choice for some of the most needy in society, some who will be forced to take homes that are completely inadaquate for their needs. The documentary caught a discussion between three women whose job it is to sell these flats to the rich yuppies from Canary Wharf. One of the women said something along the following lines. "the local residents will be pleased to see people investing in their community." Never underestimate the ability of people to believe anything that makes them feel better about their actions, no matter how unlikely it is to be true. |
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Mass relocation of peasants to make way for luxury apartments makes a good story and invokes all the right responses. However, from what i understand london council estates to be, i was under the impression that they were slums already. |
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*everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds The idea of trickle down economics is plain wrong. Unsurprisingly, it is being advocated by those who benefit the most. The intellectual justification that the increased prosperity of the rich will eventually 'trickle down' to the poorer people has been shown to be a load of nonsense. Yet it is still advocated by those who can afford to remove themselves from society which continues to decay (at a fster rate) as a direct result of their dogmatic self-justification for self-enriching policies. Quote:
The education system does not work for the benefit of the poor. Any benefits to them are purely coincidental. Quote:
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I should have said 'ghettos'. |
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I`ve rather enjoyed reading this thread :-)
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All that aside, the argument that reduced spending on social welfare immediately and only benefits the rich through a tax cut clearly doesnt follow. If anything, in Australia, social welfare is still too high, with "middle class welfare" being the means for considerable electoral success for the previous commonwealth government - "sorting out" that kind of crap needs to be done, imo, as its a waste of money. Welfare should go to those who need it, not to those whose votes need buying. *unlike britain, middle australia is a huge proportion of the population due to being more or less un-stratified (at worst, there are three rough classes based on wealth, not birth). Quote:
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My point is, its not the same in every country. Generally its shit in britain, but then that's the point of having the UK in all measurements. Quote:
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Imo, you need to stop reading Orwell and et al, and get out and smell the roses. Apparently there are quite a few in Britain. Dont be so bloody dour and generally shit. Well, i do suppose it could be the weather. Quote:
What really enforces the class system is not attending school, not being motivated whilst there, and doing **** all work. If you then blame the state or the rich or others for your squandered opportunity and personal failure, then all you do is make yourself more miserable. Quote:
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Low levels of expectation, much of which is genuine, can create what J. K. Galbraith calls the accommodation of poverty. In some situations it actually makes more sense to accept the poverty rather than wasting time and effort in actions that will probably fail. Why enhance your skills when you live an economic blackspot where there are no jobs anyway? Quote:
Apart from the social and moral aspects of raising living standards generally, there are many arguments that are more convincing than 'the rich need tax cuts as incentives whilst the poor need the grinding burden of poverty', which is basically what you are arguing. Quote:
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Your definition of those who 'need' welfare seems to be rather narrow, and it has been argued that the best way to provide for the poorest is to provide universal coverage, to ensure the compliance of the middle classes. At the end of the day, even if the working class did start voting in huge numbers their interests would still be in conflict with the capitalist system as a whole. When it comes to the crunch, it is the interests of the poor which will bew neglected. As a case in point, the emphasis on curbing inflation rather than unemployment. There are good reasons to believe that reducing unemployment through tax rises in a recession is better than curbing inflation through raising interest rates, but these are politically unsound methods so what is believed is what is conveniant to believe, even though it doesn't work. Quote:
Inherited wealth and fortunes of birth tend to go hand in hand. Quote:
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Going to university can improve your career chances but some univiersites are 'better' than others and getting into them is not easy for the poor. This imbalance reinforces the class structure. Quote:
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***** you KaneD Quote:
What is your problem with the arts? Quote:
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People are always talking about tax cuts for the rich. However, in the United States, during the Bush administration and under the "tax breaks for the rich" the percentage of the overall taxes being paid by the wealthiest has risen, not dropped.
In tax year 2001, the top 1% of American tax payers paid 33.89% of all taxes while the poorest 50% of tax payers paid 3.97% of the taxes. In tax year 2005. tje top 1% of taxpayers paid 39.38% of all taxes and the poorest paid 3.07% of tj\he taxes. |
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You realise that statistics can be used to prove anything, right?
I'd far rather see you produce the relevant statistic for tax as a proportion of income - and we'll see how that bears up. |
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The point is that if reducing taxes for a particular group results in that group actually paying more taxes, then what's the bitch?
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I'm generally a big fan of public investment in infrastructure, ie governments becoming facilitators of the general economy, rather than managers, drivers or major sources of growth/activity. Issues such as Australia's telecommunications network, for example, which was bundled up with the state-run Telstra and privatised - now the infrastructure needs upgrading, and the (more or less) private business Telstra doesnt want to have to foot the bill to upgrade tens of billions of dollars worth of national broadband and other infrastructure only for the Commonwealth to regulate that the Telstra's competition must be free to use that network at the same competitive wholesale price. If the government still owned the infrastructure and rented it out to all of the telecommunications providers without fear or favour, then Australia would actually have a decent telecom system. Alas, it doesnt, even in major cities like Sydney and Melbourne (some ~4000km away from me, heh). Thus, it would have been common sense for the government to retain ownership of the infrastructure, upgrade it as demand dictated, and charge for the privilege. But it could also draw upon consolidated revenue to pay for the upgrade (which is costly) and still have the power to regulate the market to ensure decent competition. This kind of activity in the economy seems to make sense - there is no inefficient state monopoly, but its not fully free market (and thus no services to very low population density bush residents who still need these services). This is the kind of thing i was advocating - not trying to root the poor. However, my original point was that such an undertaking would have indirect benefits to all members of society; poorer people will have greater access to good telecommunications than they otherwise would or presently do. Thus, an (indirect) benefit. Does that make sense now? Quote:
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But no-where did i say that all unemployed people were dole bludgers - my point was that those who were/are need to pull their socks up and get a bloody job, because right now is the best time in australian history since the Army was recruiting in WW2. Quote:
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What you seem to be alluding to are the IMF's policys around the time of the 1997 Asian Crash. Clearly, as i try and promote common sense, you definitely will not find me a friend of the IMF. If you're interested, have a read of Stiglitz's A new paradigm in financial economics (iirc) when he blasted the IMF to hell and gone. The IMF did it again in Argentina, but they are reforming (marginally) since. Essentially, do what Dr Mahatir did in Malaysia at the time (listen to what the IMF says, do the opposite, win), and you'll be fine :(. Quote:
Australia is essentially classless with high social mobility. If you do belong to a "class", its pretty broad and generally defined as what occupation you presently hold - eg, Doctors being higher than Carpenters, being higher than menial labour being higher than unemployed. Quote:
Its a bit confusing, but the Australian experience is that the distinction is between going to university and not, rather than going to Cambridge and goinf to university and not. All universities have extensive scholarship programmes, though they are based on marks and not socio-economic background. Quote:
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I did acknowledge that the Weather in Britain might have something to do with your dour attitude. Quote:
But just taking the piss out of a group of people because they happen to now have wealth, whilst you may not, isnt a useful occupation of your time. What might be better is if you removed you finger from up your bum and bloody well did something about it for yourself. |
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ie, Quote:
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tl;dr (though I got about halfway)
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I dont understand ... is my post broken? |
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The real question, for me, is are the bottom 50% better or worse off than they were before. On the whole, since there were more jobs and their portion of the overall tax burden was smaller, they benefited from the tax cuts. The problem can be that when you raise the portion of taxes paid by the wealthiest, you become ever more dependent upon their income to support all of the sevices which society deems important. When an economic downturn occurs the rich have less income which results in a very large short fall in revenues. This causes a lot of problems and guess who usually gets screwed first when services are cut? You guessed it! The people utilizing the services. So, the bottom half, using most of the social service budget come out on the short end of the stick. |
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Also, there's a lot of people contained in that 50% and what is good for one is not necessarily good for the other. So to reduce the rick of poor people suffering from welfare cuts we should not give them a better system at all? Genius! If I recall correctly, the USA doesn't have too much taxation, relative to other countries. |
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(the rest of what you wrote was so poor I felt embarrased on your behalf, old man) |
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"super rich in tax avoidance shocker!"
http://money.uk.msn.com/guides/salar...mentid=4750384 Quote:
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One of Norways richest persons, Stein Erik Hagen: http://skatt.api.no/www.ba.no/person.html?id=781512
His real fortune isnt 1307 million NOK as stated. This is mainly due to the valuation of shares and so on. His real fortune is much higher, estimated at 13000 million NOK (slightly more than 1 billion pound sterling). However, his tax at 7mill NOK is less than what should have been the ordinary fortune tax on his "official" 1307mill NOK fortune.... Another example, Jens Ulltveit Moe: http://skatt.api.no/www.ba.no/person.html?id=1077288 His real fortune is estimated to be around 8000 NOK, so he pays 0,15% in tax.. (http://e24.no/naeringsliv/article2226364.ece) Im going to get taxed 14% for the 75.000 NOK (that's about 7000 quid) Im going to earn this year. |
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Can somebody translate yahwe's "english" for me?
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He's calling you a tramp. Are you going to let him do this!
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I shall send him flowers at once! At least the poor bugger have complained about having to pay fortune tax (the only tax he probably pays, since he does tax planning) in the norwegian media. Good bless him. |
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