Category Archives: International

International, Opinion

France learns hard leason: Tax breaks for the Rich do not work

One of the things pushed through by President Sarkozy, at the beginning of his term, was tax breaks for the French Elites.  Four years later those breaks have proven to be an economic failure.  Now Sarkozy’s own UMP political party wants to stop it: “This government has a tax policy which benefits only a minority, and tries to tax the larger sections of the society. I am against such taxes.”- Herve Mariton, UMP Ruling Party

The French elites got huge tax breaks and exemptions, while the average taxpayer saw their taxes increased.  The French pay more taxes than taxpayers in Korea, or the United States, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

One of the breaks for the rich is a cap on the percentage of tax they pay, no more than 50%.  The average French taxpayer pays more than that.  On top of that, the French elites were actually paid by the government, a kind of Earned Income Credit for the rich: “While 8 million French live on less than 10,000 Euros per year, the Law was helping the rich. Not only their taxes were reduced, but each of them, all 1,700 of them in total, each one was given 30,000 Euros as tax compensation.”-Roland Muzeau, Communist Opposition Party.

President Sarkozy sold his tax plan to the French people, as a way of energizing the French economy.  It didn’t happen.  Pro-elitists, and pro-corporationists here in the United States don’t think Sarkozy did enough.  They actually accuse him of being too socialist!

French officials say they will reform the tax laws by the end of this year, but critics point out that the rich will still end up paying less than the average worker.  Is it time for another “French Revolution”?

International, Opinion, U.S.

China & U.S. sign something saying they’ll get along

The agreement has a lot of strong sounding words and phrases, like “comprehensive” and “concrete plans”.

Here’s what the Obama administration said;  China and the U.S. need “a cooperative partnership that is comprehensive in scope, cooperative in nature, and yields positive achievements that benefit our people.”

Basically China, and the U.S., spent a lot of taxpayer money to sit around and tell each other their woes, and why don’t we just get a long.  Then they signed a long winded agreement that basically says ‘we promise’.

What has been going on is being called “cooperation talks”.  Basically the U.S. is  in big debt, China holds most of that debt, China wants a piece of the U.S. action, the U.S. doesn’t want them to have any, but the U.S. owes China trillions so they try to make happy happy joy joy talk so we don’t go to war, or, so that China doesn’t dump all their trillions of U.S. bonds all at once.

Business/Economics, International, Opinion

Not only are the rich getting richer in the U.S., but in the U.K.

A study published by The Sunday Times shows that while the average Brit is struggling with a bad economy and government cut backs, the rich in the United Kingdom just get richer.

The Sunday Times “Rich List” says 1,000 of the richest Brits, not only kept their wealth, but actually increased it.  In fact, the number of British billionaires has increased to 73, up from 53 the previous year.

40 of the top billionaires were born in the U.K., but many British billionaires are from other countries.  Lakshi Mittal retains the number one spot, he’s Indian born and got rich in the steel industry.  Russian born Alisher Usmanov is now in the number two spot.  Chinese born Xiuli Hawken is the newest female billionaire, she got rich turning underground bunkers into shopping malls.

Keep in mind that money does not grow on trees, meaning there is not enough to go around for everyone, otherwise it would be valueless.  Knowing that, it should be obvious to people where the money is going.  The rich can only get richer because they are taking as much of the limited money/wealth supply as they can.  There is less for everyone else.

 

International

British bobbies (police) could have the power to charge, just skip arrest go directly to jail

In a move to save government money, some British officials want to put the power of the courts in the hands of the police.

British Home Secretary Theresa May,  says the plan could save the U.K. 2.5 million hours of bobby time, equating to huge savings of money for the government.  The way she wants to do that is to allow bobbies to skip the patrolling, detaining and arresting phase of police work, and allow the cops to simply charge the suspects, like a hybrid police/prosecutor.

It would apply to minor offenses, but the radical changes go beyond allowing police to act as street prosecutor.  Anybody wanting to file a complaint about the legal system would have to deal directly with a bobby.  The intent of forcing people to deal directly with police, with legal issues, is to reduce court costs for the government. May admits this would put a lot more power with the police, and is a definite move towards a police state: “We will take a different approach, we will trust the police.”

Officials with the British Shadow government  (yes, such a thing, aka Shadow Cabinet or Shadow Front Bench) say this will not only put a lot more power in police hands, but with a lot less police officers.  Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (May’s counterpart) says that May plans to fire thousands of bobbies under the police/prosecutor plan.  The result of giving police the power to act as prosecutor, and then cutting police staff, will greatly increase the work load of the bobby.  Cooper says this will act as a double whamming for security; people will feel even more threatened by the power of police, and and the cops will be stretched thin.

International, U.S.

S & P’s reacts to Greece needing mo money, get ready for the stock markets to react

Standard & Poor’s cut Greece’s credit rating, downward 2 points, after Greek officials announced they needed more bailout money.

The S & P’s rating now puts Greece below investment grade.  S & P’s also says that Greece will need a waiver on repaying most of its current loans (that means they don’t think Greece can pay).