Fred Fry International: September 2009

Wednesday, September 30

Finland: 'Living in your own house is income' (And Taxable!)

Liberal Americans like to point to Europe as an example of what a great society we can be if only we become brave enough to enact more socialist programs.

One aspect of these societies is a good deal of redistribution of assets. To accomplish this, these Governments need to secure an ever increasing supply of revenue as more people are cared for by the system.

Finland is one of these countries with a well-developed social welfare system. To fund it, Finland has been one of the most taxed societies around. But once you raise taxes so high, you have to come up with new taxes. And not to disappoint, Finland has laid the groundwork by declaring something given as a natural entitlement and turning it into a taxable event.

The group is not expected to propose that all tax deductions be eliminated. For instance, the biggest tax break, the right to live in a home that a person owns him, or herself, is unlikely to be changed.

“Ordinary people do not understand the idea that living in their own home constitutes income of some kind, or that this income might be taxed”, Hetemäki concedes. - Helsingin Sanomat

See that? The authorities basically declared that living in your own home is not only considered 'income' but that it is also taxable. I also like the way they introduced it, as an existing tax break (The biggest one!). Very slick.

Of course people don't understand that living in their own home is income because it is total B.S. He made one mistake by defining it as an 'idea'. No matter, this is the direction we are headed in.

Link:
Taxation task force wants to cut back on tax deductions - Helsingin Sanomat

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Monday, September 28

Maritime Monday 181 Posted at gCaptain

This week's edition of Maritime Monday has been posted at gCaptain.

Maritime Monday 181

You can find last week’s edition here.

You can find Maritime Monday 131 here. (Published 13 October 2008).

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Wednesday, September 23

Mr. President. If Mandatory Health Insurance is not a Tax...

The President declared on Sunday that requiring all Americans to have health insurance is not a tax.

Obama gave ABC News' George Stephanopoulos a stern talking-to Sunday for suggesting that the mandate to buy health insurance would amount to a tax. He even taunted the host for citing the dictionary definition of "tax" to make his point.

"The fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now," Obama said. - Fox News

The article does point out that failure to have insurance results in a penalty 'Excise Tax'. And even the AP has written that mandatory health care is a tax. In fact, everyone, even the President's backers in the media, are calling B.S. on the President's claim that mandatory coverage is not a tax. It is.

However, the press is missing an important issue in this story in that the President has taken the position that this is not a tax. So let's take President Obama's position for a second and pretend that mandatory Health Care Coverage is not a tax. And let's take the President's own goals of Health Care Insurance Reform:

In an address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama explained how health insurance reform will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance, coverage for those who don’t, and will lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government. - White House

In order to keep costs down, the President needs to balance the increased costs of subsidizing coverage for the poor and sick by forcing more healthy people to contribute to the system by paying for insurance knowing that few of them will need it. In other words he needs the young to buy health care insurance because most all of them will be forced to overpay into the system to subsidize the Medicare of others.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, while the President is claiming that his Health Care Reform will result in cheaper health care for all, in reality it will result in much more expensive health care for the young:

• Young people. If the government mandates that everyone must have health insurance, healthy young people will have to buy policies that don’t reflect the low risk they have of getting sick. The House and Senate bills do let insurers set premiums based on age, but only up to a 2-to-1 ratio, versus a real-world ratio of 5 to 1. This means lower prices for older (and wealthier) folks, but high prices for the young. “They’ll have sticker shock,” says Rep. Paul Ryan, ranking Republican on the Budget Committee. - WSJ (Covered in my post: Obama's Health Care Tax on the Young)

So not only will you no longer have the option of not paying for health care, you will be forced to buy overpriced plans to subsidize the care of others paying less than their 'fair share'. So not only does the proposed health care reform legislation plan to tax people, but it is also a big form of redistribution, given that many who are currently not covered will have much of the cost of covering them shifted to others.

P.S.
Here is a very good point as made on Ace of Spaces:

By the Way: Geoff asks how many people making $200,000 or more per year don't have health insurance already.

Like... 1%? 1% of super-billionaires who self-insure?

In other words, 99% of those hit by the tax (yes, tax) will be making less than $200,000 per year. [Note: Tax for failing to have health care insurance]

You lie. - Congressional Tax Committee Chief of Staff: Yes, It's a Tax; and Yes, It Will Hit Those Making Under $200,000 Per Year

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Tuesday, September 22

European Union: NO to Tuna Ban

I have been covering the efforts of the European Union to save Bluefin Tuna through declaring it an endangered species in a number of editions of Maritime Monday (gCaptain & ‘Tuna’).

Now comes word that member countries of the EU have scuttled attempt to save the tuna for the future in order to keeps the money flowing today:

The “Club Med” of southern European Union countries came under attack from environmentalists today for defying the campaign to ban trade in bluefin tuna, Japan’s highly prized sushi fish, whose stocks are dwindling dangerously low.

A fortnight ago the European commission agreed, after weeks of argument, to back a proposal from Monaco to ban trade in bluefin tuna. If the EU had voted for the ban at an international forum next March, fishing for bluefin tuna would have been effectively outlawed, at least temporarily.

Despite optimism that the ban, supported by 21 EU governments, would go ahead, the move was blocked at a Brussels meeting late yesterday by Malta, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal. – The Guardian

This is not the first time that the EU has called for a ban on fishing tuna only to see member countries kill off the proposal, effectively pushing bluefin tuna closer to extinction. And it does not help the tuna one bit that most every nation is catching well over their quota of tuna. The Japanese have been doing so for about 20 years:

It was revealed in August that Japanese fishers and their suppliers from other countries plundered world southern bluefin tuna stocks, secretly catching up to three times the annual Japanese quota each year for the past 20 years. – Japan admits exceeding bluefin tuna catch

The Japanese Government did agree to reduce their catch to make up for their past indiscretions. Unfortunately, they did nothing to educe their consumption of tuna, instead importing the difference from the EU nations not fighting a ban.

Convenient, isn’t it.

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Cross-posted at gCaptain
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Russia's New Gulag - Powered by North Koreans

Remember the Soviet Union's infamous prison system, the Gulag. Well, it appears to be making a comeback with the assistance of Communist North Korea.

At home, North Koreans live under total government control and the watchful eye of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il.

But in the Amur region of Russia, almost 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from the border, North Korea has created a home away from home at a series of remote logging camps in which nearly 1,500 workers are employed.

I travelled to one of the camps deep in the forest. A giant monument bearing the words "Our greatest leader Kim Il-sung lives with us forever" stood in the middle. - BBC

As if there are not enough unemployed Russians available to do work, for little money. They need to import North Koreans to work as slave labor.

Although reluctant to speak, one told me that he earned the equivalent of $200 per month. Another said that he earned $1 for each truck he loaded and that he could load up to nine per day, but he had not been paid since May. - BBC

As for vacation, forget it. I bet Stalin gave more his victims more time off that the North Koreans get now.

"The Koreans work year round with two days off per year," he told me. "All the other days are working days no matter what the weather conditions, they always work.

"The Koreans work for the government and their communist party, they've got production targets," he said. "If the quota is filled then everything is ok. If it is not fulfilled, well then they've got their Communist Party of North Korea, and everybody gets punished from the managers down to the worker who didn't fulfil the quota." - BBC

Despite the wonderful treatment, the report notes that thousands have escaped the camps and are living in hiding in Russia.

Go read the whole sad story and watch the video report. This is how Russia treats their friends. It should be a warning to us all.

N Koreans toiling in Russia's timber camps - BBC

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Monday, September 21

Tiny Problamatic Detail in Implementing 'Automatic Exchange of Tax Information'

Automatic Exchange of tax information is an idea pushed by high-tax advocates of keeping tabs on international assets of the world's richest under some ridiculous idea that they are not already paying their fair share of tax. Their answer is to transmit around the world everyone's asset, bank account and earnings data. Of course there is a small problem in doing all off this (excluding the obvious issues of privacy and security of such data) that even the promoters of the system admit:

There are unstable and corrupt governments. So they have to be taken out of the system. But they’re the exception not the norm. - Via Tax Research UK

Now just who gets to declare that a Government is 'unstable' or 'corrupt'? Certainly not the UN. That house is full of unstable and corrupt governments.

Not for anything, but this is the problem that kills this system simply because it is the unstable and corrupt governments that will demand access to this information.

During the presentation that this comment was made, Venezuela was used as an example in that there is a threat to the wealthy by unscrupulous people in Venezuela necessitating a need for people to conceal their assets. An explanation was made that this is a bogus excuse in that people already know who has the money.

Too bad that in Venezuela it is the Government itself acting as the thug, confiscating personal and corporate assets. Not only that, but the wealthy are fleeing the country out of fear of losing their life savings. Is Venezuela's Government Corrupt or unstable enough to exclude them from Automatic Exchange of Tax Information? I would say yes. My guess is that the supporters of this system would think otherwise. Simply because if Venezuela does not learn about the earning of their citizens abroad, these people might get away with not paying their 'fair share' of taxes, and we can't have that can we.

Along those lines:

Is Russia too corrupt or unstable to permit Automatic Exchange of Tax Information?
Is Zimbabwe too corrupt or unstable to permit Automatic Exchange of Tax Information?
Is Iran too corrupt or unstable to permit Automatic Exchange of Tax Information?
Is China too corrupt or unstable to permit Automatic Exchange of Tax Information?
Is North Korea too corrupt or unstable to permit Automatic Exchange of Tax Information?
Is Myanmar too corrupt or unstable to permit Automatic Exchange of Tax Information?
Is Yeman too corrupt or unstable to permit Automatic Exchange of Tax Information?
Is Nigeria too corrupt or unstable to permit Automatic Exchange of Tax Information?
Is Libya too corrupt or unstable to permit Automatic Exchange of Tax Information?
Is Egypt too corrupt or unstable to permit Automatic Exchange of Tax Information?

Much of this work in fighting tax evasion is under the banner of helping the world's poorest. Well, much of the world's poorest live in these same countries with corrupt and unstable governments. These countries do need to be fixed. However, giving them more money is not the way to do it. In most cases a regime change is required. (Along with a good dose of education for the population, especially the children) The UN should be taking the lead on this. Of course instead it has put itself in bed with those who are the very problem.

Fix the countries and poverty will mostly fix itself. Injecting billion more in aid under the fantasy that it will somehow help the poor just delays any real action to solve the problem. We have decades of inaction to prove this.

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Maritime Monday 180 Posted at gCaptain

This week's edition of Maritime Monday has been posted at gCaptain.

Maritime Monday 180

You can find last week’s edition here.

You can find Maritime Monday 130 here. (Published 6 October 2008).

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Previous Editions:
As linked below or click on the label ‘MaritimeMonday’:

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Friday, September 18

Senator Carl Levin: Congressman Charlie Rangel is a Free Loader

US Senator Carl Levin called Congressman Charlie Rangel a Free Loader for his evasion of taxes. OK, so he did not call him out by name. But it is hard to see how Congressman Rangel wouldn't fit in the group that Senator Levin is talking about:

Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. Those who seek to avoid their tax obligations are not just free loaders, they are weakening that civilization. But if we take the right steps, together across the globe, we can finally end the scourge of offshore tax abuse. - Senator Carl Levin at the Conference on Increasing Transparency in Global Finance - Press Release

Really Senator? How about cleaning out Congress first. Tax abuse is the same no matter the way the do it.

Just as a reminder, here is a summary of what Congressman (tax cheat, free loader and Civilization killer) Charles Rangel has been up to:

Last week, we learned that Rangel filed a grossly misleading financial disclosure report for 2007 -- failing to report at least half a million dollars in assets.

It turns out Rangel had a credit union account worth at least $250,000 and maybe as much as $500,000 -- and didn't report it. He had investment accounts worth about the same, which he also didn't report. Ditto for three pieces of property in New Jersey.

Beyond that, we've learned that Rangel has failed to report assets totaling more than $1 million on legally required financial disclosure forms going back to at least 2001.

The news comes on top of revelations last year that Rangel didn't report -- and didn't pay taxes on -- income from a villa in the Caribbean. In that matter, the Internal Revenue Service gave him sweetheart treatment; Rangel paid about $10,000 in back taxes but was not required to pay any penalty or interest. - Washington Examiner

As far as we know, Congressman Rangel has not hidden his assets offshore. He instead hid them in plain sight, where theoretically the Government could have caught his omissions over the year, but opted not to.

Congress is bankrupt on this subject as long as they ignore the massive tax evasion (and corruption) by its own members not to mention by the member of Government that they approve, right up to the Treasury Secretary.

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I Told You So: 'Obama: Legalize illegals to get them health care'

Simply put, this is how Democrats can claim that no illegal aliens are going to receive US Health care, because they plan to legalize all of them:

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.

AND:

"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

Mr. Obama added, "If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all." - Washington Times

See, I told you so:

"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

Mr. Obama added, "If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all." - Fred Fry, 27 June

I told you so.

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Monday, September 14

Maritime Monday 179 Posted at gCaptain

This week's edition of Maritime Monday has been posted at gCaptain.

Maritime Monday 179

You can find last week’s edition here.

You can find Maritime Monday 129 here. (Published 29 September 2008).

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Previous Editions:
As linked below or click on the label ‘MaritimeMonday’:

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Saturday, September 12

Children's Blocks - Drinking Game

So you have a bunch of kids building blocks and don't know what to do with them. How about using them to play a drinking game.

The game is simple.

First person takes five blocks and builds a base. The five blocks must be one connected structure.
Then the group goes around with each person adding one block. None of the other blocks can touch the ground.
The loser is the first person whose block fails to stay on the pile or the person whose block collapses the pile.

This is not a drinking game where the loser drinks but one where everyone is drinking while playing the game. Of course you can add a rule where each loser needs to do a shot or whatever. (Want the women to pay attention to this game, play 'strip' blocks!)

This is also a good game of strategy. Does each player try to build a strong structure or do they try and limit possible future placement. At any rate this can be good fun. It is even fun playing with children with no alcohol...

-- Building to the point of failure --

-- It is helpful to have a good assortment of blocks --

-- My father-in-law setting up an unstable base --
It also helps if you are playing this game in the middle of nowhere...
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Friday, September 11

I still Remember

I took today off to spend with my dad. We went shooting this morning. I did not really think about 9/11 too much today. Then again I did and I do occasionally throughout the year.

One thought that I continue to have is that the US has yet to fully pay back the terrorists for what they have done. I do not think that this current Administration is all that interested in making that sort of waves either. Sure, they remembered 9/11 today at the White House:

But at the same time they came out stating that they are going to meet the demands of the North Koreans for face-to-face meetings. Now if the White House can't take a stand against North Korea, how on earth do they plan to fight al qaeda????

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Returning from sea. March '93, just after the first WTC attack.

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Previous:
We Should Remember More Than Just 9/11 - 2008
Life Goes on for Most of US - 2007
World Trade Center Tribute - 2006
Glenn J. Winuk - One of Many 9/11 Heros - 2005
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Wednesday, September 9

Is Russia Still Holding American Servicemen Captive?

Is Russia Still Holding American Servicemen Captive? This was one question that a joint US-Russia Team was set up to try and answer back in the 90's after the fall of the Soviet Union.

US-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs

In March 1992, the Presidents of the United States and Russian Federation joined together to establish the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs (USRJC). The work of the Commission focuses on three primary objectives:
- To determine if any American POW/MIAs are being held against their will on the territory of the former Soviet Union and, if so, to secure their immediate release and repatriation;
- To determine the fate of unaccounted-for members of the U.S. Armed Forces who were located on the territory of the former Soviet Union or about whom the Russian Government may have information; and
- To clarify facts pertaining to Soviet personnel missing from their their war in Afghanistan, from Cold War-era loss incidents, and from World War II.

To this day the Russians have failed to respond to requests for clear information on American POWs taken by or transfer to the Soviet Union.

The work of the U.S. Side of the Commission to resolve the transfer issue continues. Hopefully, at some point, circumstances will change to allow for a thorough, bilateral inquiry into this elusive question. In the meanwhile, we proceed with our efforts to examine the data we have, pursue new leads, and make our findings known through reports such as this. In a sense, we are not unlike the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Russian citizens who have embarked on a similar quest to learn the facts about their own relatives who disappeared in the gulag. Ultimately, for them as for us, it is persistence which will shape the outcome of this often frustrating, occasionally promising, and always daunting enterprise.

President Obama was recently in Russia praising the Soviet Union. Perhaps his time might have been better spent bringing up unresolved issues such as this one. After all, in order to press the 'reset button' we either need to resolve issues like this one or just forget about them. Unfortunately, the President seems more eager to take the latter route, which will do nothing in terms of bringing out a better Russia as we move forward towards a modern peaceful future together.

I personally do not think that there are any living American POWs in the former Soviet Union, however Russia needs to come clean on the past and provide whatever information it has on Americans that were kidnapped (for lack of a better word) and whose lives ended in the Gulag. Russia is the sole holder of this information. If there was nothing to hide then why haven't they said so?

And just to keep in mind the potential size of the problem, take these two comments:

WWII:

Stalin learned what was happening and retaliated. He permanently "retained" the American and British soldiers whom he still held as bargaining chips. What did he do with them? He carted them to the Soviet Union where they lived the rest of their lives in the Russian gulags. How many American and British soldiers? Over 20,000 Americans and over 30,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers! In fact, as the authors of Soldiers of Misfortune point out: "Starting in 1945, the Soviet Union became the second-largest employer of American servicemen in the world." - fff.Org

Korea:

More than 8,100 American servicemen were never accounted for. Many of them presumably died in battle and their bodies were never recovered. For others, especially P.O.W.s that never came home, there has been speculation, based on documents later found in the Kremlin archives, that hundreds of U.S. servicemen were secretly held against their will. They were to be used as political pawns by the Chinese or Soviets or to be used for medical experiments, according to a report in Newsweek magazine. - SPTimes

As Americans we should demand and answer to this question.

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Monday, September 7

Labor Union Demands No New Technology!

So, how bad can unions be for America? Very bad. Take this demand from the International Longshoremen's Association:

Technology proved the key obstacle to efforts by the ILA and USMX to negotiate a two-year extension to the current six-year contract, which expires Sept. 30, 2010. The ILA’s 200-member wage scale committee rejected a management offer Wednesday in a vote described as unanimous. No new talks have been scheduled.

James Capo, chairman and CEO of United States Maritime Alliance, said he was disappointed by rejection of what management considered a “fair and very generous offer.” But he said employers won’t yield to ILA demands to halt the introduction of labor-saving technology at ports.

“Our members are adamant that they are not going to allow the ILA to basically veto technology. If that happens, we’re all dead,” Capo said. “We cannot and will not agree to that position, ever.”

The ILA demanded a freeze on introduction of new technology during the contract extension. The ILA’s executive vice president, Harold Daggett, who plans to seek the union presidency in 2011, was especially vocal on the issue, saying he wanted to prevent the spread of automated terminals like the one APM Terminals opened two years ago in Hampton Roads. - Journal of Commerce

Is it any wonder why labor unions are so unpopular:

Gruesome new poll numbers on public support for unions--the percent who say they "mostly hurt"the U.S. economy jumps from 39% in 2006 to 51% last month, for example. .... Tom Edsall calls them "horror show numbers" and wants an explanation! Hmmm. I wish I could say "card check"--the labor plan to avoid secret ballots when organizing--but that isn't the most visible of the roles unions have played recently. - Kausfiles

Here is a look at the type of work these unions are protecting by denying the introduction of new technology:

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(Direct Link: Longshoreman I.L.A. Local 1349 Part 2)

This is straight out of the third-world.
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