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#1

Gaming HQ / Re: The Miscellaneous PC & vid...

Last post by FunkMonk - Today at 07:17:24 PM

 

#2

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 06:15:14 PM

My RRSPs will also be taxed when I retire. So I'm not gonna worry too much about a business owner being taxed on his million dollar business he sells when he retires.

People who earned all their income as employees will likely not be affected.  Those folks probably have all of their retirement savings in RRSPs, which will be converted to RIFFs.  Or, if really lucky had enough savings to also use TSFAs.

But we are talking about small business owners who probably didn't recieve much by way of salaries, and so did not have the same opportunity to amass much in the way of RRSPs, but built up the value of their businesses instead.  And they need not be "million dollar businesses".  The increase tax rate for corporations kicks in at dollar 0.  And if the small business owner had good tax and legal advice at the time, the owner should be owning the shares in their company in a holding company.  Why, because that is the why the government has been encouraging people to do it for the last 25 years or so. 

A lot of small business people are going to be hurt by this because the nest egg they thought they had built up is now worth a lot less to them after tax.

And remember this is not just about shares in a company, there a lot of properties throughout Canada that are about to change hands.  That will all be fully taxed in the hands of the beneficiaries after the 250k amount.  Which all properties in Canada.

One other thought, it doesn't actually take much to own $1 million business. The butcher I have been going to for a number of years sold his business last year. He had a long-term lease in the premises and the value of that long-term lease was likely worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars.  Equipment, including his cold locker, is probably worth another hundred thousand dollars. The good wheel of the business, which is really what the purchaser was buying was also worth at least a few hundred thousand dollars.

He is middle class. 

The guy that bought the butcher shop is in his early 30s. He's got big plans for increasing the value of the business and he's going to pay the full tax, Assuming It is still in place by the time he sells the business.

He will also not be what you would consider wealthy.

[The approach we took to competitiveness in Europe after the sovereign debt crisis seemed to prove his point. We pursued a deliberate strategy of trying to lower wage costs relative to each other – and, combine this with a procyclical fiscal policy, the net effect was only to weaken our own domestic demand and undermine our social model.]

#3

Off the Record / Re: The EU thread

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 06:03:53 PM

Fascinating Draghi speech - and I more or less totally agree, in particular on the absolute catastrophe that was Europe's 2010s:
https://geopolitique.eu/en/2024/04/16/radical-change-is-what-is-needed/

But absolutely damning on the last 15 years of policy making:

For a long time, competitiveness has been a contentious issue for Europe.

In 1994, the nobel-prize-to-be economist Paul Krugman called focusing on competitiveness a "dangerous obsession". His argument was that long-term growth comes from raising productivity, which benefits everyone, rather than through trying to improve your relative position against others and capture their share of growth.

The approach we took to competitiveness in Europe after the sovereign debt crisis seemed to prove his point. We pursued a deliberate strategy of trying to lower wage costs relative to each other – and, combine this with a procyclical fiscal policy, the net effect was only to weaken our own domestic demand and undermine our social model.

But the key issue is not that competitiveness is a flawed concept. It is that Europe has had the wrong focus.

We have turned inwards, seeing our competitors among ourselves, even in sectors like defence and energy where we have profound common interests. At the same time, we have not looked outwards enough: with a positive trade balance, after all, we did not pay enough attention to our external competitiveness as a serious policy question.

In a benign international environment, we trusted the global level playing field and the rules-based international order, expecting that others would do the same. But now the world is changing rapidly and it has caught us by surprise.

On the challenge from US and China's industrial policies:

We are lacking a strategy for how to keep pace in an increasing cutthroat race for leadership in new technologies. Today we invest less in digital and advanced technologies than the US and China, including for defence, and we only have four global European tech players among the top 50 worldwide.

We are lacking a strategy for how to shield our traditional industries from an unlevel global playing field caused by asymmetries in regulations, subsidies and trade policies.

Energy-intensive industries are a case in point.

In other regions, these industries not only face lower energy costs, but they also face a lower regulatory burden and, in some cases, they are receiving massive subsidies which directly threat the ability of European firms to compete.

Without strategically designed and coordinated policy actions, it is logical that some of our industries will shut down capacity or relocate outside the EU.

And we are lacking a strategy to ensure that we have the resources and inputs we need to fulfil our ambitions without increasing our dependencies.

We rightly have an ambitious climate agenda in Europe and hard targets for electric vehicles. But in a world where our rivals control many of the resources we need, such an agenda has to be combined with a plan to secure our supply chain – from critical minerals to batteries to charging infrastructure.

Our response has been constrained because our organisation, decision-making and financing are designed for "the world of yesterday" – pre-Covid, pre-Ukraine, pre-conflagration in the Middle East, pre return of great power rivalry.

And I think there's a lot to his proposals on the areas he's flagged - defence, research and public goods.

Not sure if it'll be acted on - I think there's still quite a lot of sort of "end of history" fundamentalism in the institutions that is struggling to face the world as it is. See the regular attacks on various Biden policies as just protectionism and corporate subsidies rather than that - but also climate policy and also about security of supply chains and economic policy in a geopolitical world. Or the EU's response to Chinese protectionism and industrial policy mainly, so far, being investigations and WTO threats. In both cases I think it's interpreting what China and the US are doing as bad economic policies that are against the rules, when I think for the US and China they're strategic and geopolitical policies.

Also couldn't help but notice Scholz's visit to China with a big business delegation including Siemens chief who says they're "doubling down" on China. I also think there was possibly the Mercedes head who opposed the EU's investigation into China's subsidies for EVs - which suggests he either doesn't think subsidies are anti-competitive or is worried about Chinese retaliation.

So I really hope Draghi's vision wins out - but I think it'll be a fight and I think there's a real risk Europe repeats the mistakes of the last 15 years. Especially when you add failure to ramp up defence manufacturing for Ukraine. May end up not just dependent on the US for security and China for growth - but with both the US and China not caring about Europe because that's secondary to their own agendas. Which would not be great.

Edit: E.g. I really rate Margethe Vestager but this just feels profoundly inadequate in response to Draghi's speech (and also Enrico Letta's). Doubling down on the 1990s: "Unlike what we may hear, Europe does not need to reinvent itself, it needs to get back to basics: remove barriers, enforce existing rules. ... Rather than betting on taxpayers' money to subsidize our economy...Europe can never outspend the U.S. and China. We're not good at being American. Even worse at being Chinese."

Edit: Also read this piece on China's EV industry: https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/byd/ And again - I just can't be struck by the idea that all the stuff about overproduction may be the intended outcome of policy decisions by China, and possibly right for the objectives of the CCP Maybe not - but I feel like we should at least be open to the possibility... I also think there is an echo of them in the US now - obviously with different politics and tools (China's, obviously, more coercive).

#4

Gaming HQ / Re: The Miscellaneous PC & vid...

Last post by Habbaku - Today at 05:29:04 PM

#5

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Admiral Yi - Today at 05:26:49 PM

I had a similar experience in Amsterdam on the trams.  You buy your ticket at the stop but no one checks it when you board.  So no one buys one.  I was riding it one day and I noticed some dudes in trench coats waiting at the next stop.  Every single person on the tram got up from their seat and exited by the rear door so they could avoid ticket control.

#6

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by DGuller - Today at 05:20:44 PM

The last two days, as I was entering the PATH train station coming home from work, there was a long line of people waiting to refill their cards in the machine.  Yesterday the line was snaking well into the staircase. 

Were some machines down, causing the backup?  No, they were all functioning, or at least functioning as well as they can.  The answer to the mystery was by the turnstiles, where a couple of cops were standing and letting their presence be known.  I guess so many people got used to jumping the turnstiles that they didn't even bother keeping their cards filled.

#7

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Admiral Yi - Today at 05:17:53 PM

As said I do think the difference is between is it the person themselves being a problem or is it people who have decided they're a problem.
You have a worker who has a habit of shouting the n word at people- yeah...better fire him. Thats just good business practice.
You could say its a no brainer and there's no real choice there, but it is still your free will in firing him.

On the other hand you've somebody who seems fine but who a group on the internet have decided they really don't like and claim is an anti-semite with minimal out of context proof...then its their push which is far more behind this than any potential risk of the worker mistreating Jewish customers.
Its still down to you to pull the trigger. But the consequences of not doing so are completely out of your control. You can't just sit down with the worker and get them to apologise and promise not to say any offensive words going forward as you might have had a chance with the first guy. The wheels are in motion with the pressure group.

As you say free will is a continuum and not a black and white thing. But I'd say the more abstracted something gets from the reality on the ground the more free will is removed .

Okey dokey.  So your principle is: if it's a habit, fire him or her.  If it's not a habit, then they seem  fine and one video is minimal out of context proof and they should not be fired.

So for example these guys seem fine and there is minimal out of context proof and they should not be fired.

Correct?

#8

Gaming HQ / Re: The Miscellaneous PC & vid...

Last post by FunkMonk - Today at 05:05:15 PM

Fellow lovers of democracy. We must liquidate 2 billion bugs to ensure the survival of our way of life. Who is with me?

#9

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 04:39:33 PM

I need to read more about that.

they are raising the exemption threshold so that is good.
They are taxing more the sale of rentals and secondary homes, so that is good.

The rest, I'm not sure of what I'm reading.

This reminds me of the discussion in the UK thread.  The government has stated that they wish to create incentives for the creation of rental properties.  They cut the GST and increased amortization rates for those purposes.  Now taxing properties built for rental when sold seems to run contrary to the policy objective of getting people to invest in the creation of more rental properties.  Why would I do that when I am going to be hit with a larger capital gains tax?  And again, realize that this is mainly corporations doing the building and now the inclusion rate just went up for them on the very first dollar of capital gain.

#10

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 04:34:52 PM

In theory your RRSP is taxed at a lower rate when you retire because you're in a lower tax bracket. So you reduce your tax burden when you're working and get lower taxed income when you retire. That doesn't always work out, especially as life gets more expensive and people live longer.

True, but there are mandatory amounts that must be withdrawn from the RRIF.

That brings me to another move the government made regarding their new definition of a bare trust.  My father in law must draw money from his RRIF.  My wife has power of attorney and manages all of his money and does all his banking.  The financial institution set up a joint account for the two of them to facilite her managing his finances, paying his bills etc.

Now guess what, it is now deemed a bare trust, and we get to the pay the taxes on the account at my marginal tax rate!!!!