Political stability

[RoberetGoldsmith]

Our president is an idiot that is already resigning from his job. Out third vice-president is corrupt, giving information to terrorists. A lot of politicians, including the president of our Congress, have lands all over Spain. Spain is a country ruled by liars, thieves, b**ches, queers (the bad kind of them, not that I have anything against homosexuals) and a lovely bunch of coconuts d***heads and a**holes. All combined with 5 millions of people without job, illegal inmigrants, street crime, mafia and more, and more, and moreā€¦

Yea, Spain is a good place to live

 I hear the weather is nice....

[Catlemur]

Sarcasti laugh.Visit Hellas=Hell.

[Sangwa]

Can't complain about the weather. Ours is a bit similar to Spain's. In fact, I just had a wonderful time at the Adamastor.

[Toltha]

  Please. Please. Please. Do not let me start to talk. I'm from Italy. I think my country is always able to make people from other countries (Spain included) smile (or laugh loudly) a lot.  

[davante]

Our taxes are to be raised in a few years here in the U.S.

Well, that's actually not that bad. It would kind of help the U.S. be more stable in the future.

From what I've heard at least, the taxes are currently kind of low in the U.S. because they have been lowered to stimulate the economy. This is good for a short amount of time because people will have more money to spend and will be motivated to just buy things and not save the little bit they have, helping the economy through a diffecult time. This is also the reason why the U.S. have lowered the Interest on lowns from the central bank a couple of times in the recent past. This should however always be a temporate sollution. Both the taxes and the Interest rate should be raised as soon as reasonably possible. This makes sure that it is possible to lower it again once the country hits economic harder times again. This seems to have been forgotten by U.S. presidents lately. This created a problem you witnessed lately: in times of crisis the government is not able to lower taxes and interest rates much further and will thus not be able to motivate people to buy things.

So... Sucks for a short time, is good for you and your country on the long run

[Sarva]

Not sure I'd agree that tax rates are all that low in the United States. Our corporate tax rates are in the highest in the world, part of the reason so many companies are taking their jobs to other countries with lower  corporate tax rates.

On the individual side sure the Federal rate topes out at 35% but then most states have state income taxes that in some places top out in the 10% range. IN some places you even have city income taxes on top of the state and federal. Now add in your sales taxes ( up to 10% in some parts of my state), property taxes, gas taxes, Social security tax, vehicle taxes. By the time you add up all the different taxes many people are paying well over 50% of what they make to various taxes. In some places with city income taxes this can go to over 60%+ of all income going out in various forms of taxes.

[verden]

The bit about increased taxes being helpful implies that the machinery of government is without corruption and rampant waste. LOL

[davante]

Not sure I'd agree that tax rates are all that low in the United States. Our corporate tax rates are in the highest in the world, part of the reason so many companies are taking their jobs to other countries with lower  corporate tax rates.

On the individual side sure the Federal rate topes out at 35% but then most states have state income taxes that in some places top out in the 10% range. IN some places you even have city income taxes on top of the state and federal. Now add in your sales taxes ( up to 10% in some parts of my state), property taxes, gas taxes, Social security tax, vehicle taxes. By the time you add up all the different taxes many people are paying well over 50% of what they make to various taxes. In some places with city income taxes this can go to over 60%+ of all income going out in various forms of taxes.

Well that could be true I don't live in the U.S. myself. But I think that pretty much goes for every Western country. At the end of the day you just pay a lot of taxes. In the Netherlands we have 19 (going to 20)% taxes on pretty much any product. 33% incometax over the first 18.628 you earn (42% over up till 30,000 you earn above that, and for everything above 55.000 52%). And that's just on products you buy and incometaxes. With us you can also contribute more to your governments. People pretty much have two options when they want to do this: driving or smoking. On both of those we have extra high taxes.

The bit about increased taxes being helpful implies that the machinery of government is without corruption and rampant waste. LOL

Well it's also about economics. And Western countries at the very least have a lot less corruption the for instance some African ones. You don't know what corruption is till you've seen that For everything you need from the government you just pay double so they will not be extremely slow in arranging it. At least in Western countries you pay the extra money to the government, not to some random desk clerk.

[neko kyouran]

this thread is in direct violation of the forum rules.  just wait until a forum moderator signs on.  everyone posting in this thread could get reprimanded!

also:   http://youtu.be/q0i9acHS_zQ




 

[jenideandre]

dear talad I      the southern Europeans...no sugar coating, dark as the day is long, honest as can be...thanks Mishka Toltha Catlemur    It's just as bad here, but this is the land of "Hi!  How are you! Great!  How are you!  Great too?  Great!!!"  even as we all sink together, or 98% of us do...hushing now....

[verden]

No, many countries have more obvious and predictable levels of corruption. In Western countries the corruption is more widespread and institutionalized by people who delude themselves and others as to what actually constitutes corruption. It is a romantic notion that Western governments are somehow less corrupt, but it is simply not true. Corruption is the trump card that plays against Democracy or Communism, it works just as well in either system and renders both ineffectual. Until the actual people who constitute these systems decide to quit trying to get whatever they can out of the systems, it will always be this way. And it is the fault of *all* of the individual people who comprise those systems.

[Vakachehk]

Australia has always been stable in their economy, they never went into a recession, however household budgets were tightened. Julia Gillard is a ginga, comb-over, beak-nose, mono-tone, head shaky, Prime Minister, that is going to get voted out at next election. Money wise Australia is good, however the people are pretty stupid. If you come live here I warn you to be careful at the supermarket, your trolley seriously has a mind of it's own it has steering wheels at the back and front... I mean how stupid can that get?

In New Zealand, things are getting worse money wise, the country is going more into debt, and taxes are increasing = in petrol rises = in everything else rising. However NZ is a beautiful county worth visiting!

[Sangwa]

dear talad I      the southern Europeans...no sugar coating, dark as the day is long, honest as can be...thanks Mishka Toltha Catlemur    It's just as bad here, but this is the land of "Hi!  How are you! Great!  How are you!  Great too?  Great!!!"  even as we all sink together, or 98% of us do...hushing now....

Great, Portugal gets forgotten one more time. These Europeans are always the same thing. Neko, its time to bring this down.

* Sangwa is about to hula dance... But then doesn't. He just looks around suspiciously.

[Tessra]

If Sangwa hula dances one more time, I'm moving to Portugal.   

I live in the southern US, and the biggest issues I've seen in the past few years have been centered around the educational system.  Cuts to funding for higher education are making it really hard for people to get the education they need for careers, but if you get a mid level degree, say a master's, you still can't get a job because you're either over qualified or not qualified enough.  The academic community is outraged, especially at our state governor. 

Oh yeah... and did I mention the Oil Spill and all the ramifications of that mess? The best thing to happen last year was for once, a lack of major hurricanes or tropical storms to mess that up even more.  They shut down the clean-up flights into the gulf so the President could fly in his helicopter over the spill.  Am I the only one who doesn't think a couple hundred extra gallons of oil leaked that day was worth a political fly by?

[bilbous]

Enough with the hula, Everybody Limbo
How Low Can You Go?