6 ms·

Bcs Estonia is a small democratic state and UAE is a disgusting dictatorship?

by tokai 4y ago

rocket_surgeron 4y ago
Disgusting dictatorship? You are too polite.
bitL 4y ago
AFAIK all Baltic states have a minority with limited rights, so they are far from true democracy. It's irrelevant what they think of that minority/what is their history with that minority, they simply can't claim to be fully democratic.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  I dont hail from Estonia, but if you disqualify it as a democracy... pretty much all other european nations and the USA will have to be disqualified too and for the same reasons. Its quality of life index is way higher then the USA as well, though that doesn't really say anything about its democracy. https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- krn 4y ago
  > AFAIK all Baltic states have a minority with limited rights, so they are far from true democracy. It would be interesting to see any reputable sources claiming that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are "far from true democracies".
  - bitL 4y ago
    A quick question - how can a person born in a Baltic state and living there their whole life end up without citizenship? How is that democratic? Don't you see any problem there? That doesn't happen even between Romanians and Hungarians that are often at each other's throat for similar historical reasons.
    - krn 4y ago
      > A quick question - how can a person born in a Baltic state and living there their whole life end up without citizenship? It should only be possible, if that person was born in Soviet Union (that is, before 1990), and doesn't speak the official language of the country he / she is living in.
      - bitL 4y ago
        I understand you are used to it, but it's really bad optics from the outside. How can there be people in their 30s without a citizenship? Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language which means it's extremely difficult to learn due to a completely alien structure of the language (compared to almost all European languages). Even Finland allows both Finnish and Swedish as official languages and doesn't discriminate Finnish Swedes that they don't speak Finnish. So you have some sort of "Eastern-European" flavor of democracy that allows a portion of population be marginalized based on their language.
        elxx 4y ago
        > How can there be people in their 30s without a citizenship? Because they've chosen not to pursue citizenship. There's a simplified path that anyone in this situation can utilize. I don't see how giving them the choice and allowing them to live and work in the country indefinitely even if they choose no is in any way "un-democratic". And if you're suggesting that 30 years is not enough time to learn the absolute basics of a language, that is just utterly ridiculous. Not nearly as ridiculous as comparing this to the slave labor that built Dubai though.
        bitL 4y ago
        Look, Baltic states have my sympathy for what you managed to achieve in 30 years. I understand you needed a few years to establish yourselves as independent nations, assert/reclaim your national character and show it to your big bad neighbor. However, 10-15 years would be sufficient for that. Having that same problem for 30 years is just bad and you can try to explain it away as much as you want.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  Who decides what's a true democracy? Athens didn't have universal suffrage, and they invented democracy (and were in many ways far more democratic than anything we have today). They had some pretty radical measures for mixing up who actually got to hold office, such as sortition, and misbehaving officials risked ostracicsm by public vote. I think this is something that is severely overlooked in contemporary democracy. It's a very small clique indeed that stands any realistic chance of holding office in most western democracies. Ultimately doesn't really matter who gets to vote if the candidates are all the same.
- Strom 4y ago
  > AFAIK all Baltic states have a minority with limited rights, so they are far from true democracy. Limited rights in the sense of not being able to vote for the parliament, sure. However that isn't unusual at all. In fact, I don't know of any counter example. Do you have an example of a country where non-citizens can vote for the highest form of government? As for local elections, in Estonia both Russian citizens and ethnic Russians without any citizenship are allowed to vote. That is extremely democractic.
pipodeclown 4y ago
So not paying taxes like everybody else which pay for public services you use is morally defensible as long as you don't pay those taxes to a democratic nation as opposed to a dictatorship?
- HowardStark 4y ago
  This, I have to imagine, would come down to soft power. To my knowledge, it’s /very/ rarely free to move wealth across borders. So if a country were to strongly incentivize investment a certain way all of a sudden, it would be ideal if the political leanings were aligned with yours. Perhaps that might mean investing/holding your wealth in a country where there are likely to be further breaks for renewables. Who knows. This isn’t a super thought-through response. Would be curious to see if people have ideas to add.
  - ozim 4y ago
    I think pipodeclown is more onto: Instead of avoiding taxes and coming up with silly hacks - one should pay his fair share in his own country and try to build community and wealth around himself and his close ones. Energy/wealth spent to avoid taxes in way where you move from country to country or do some weird stuff could be spent probably on building a small business or two. I agree there are bad places to live and people have to run away from these or move because they don't earn enough in their place so they move out for more opportunity, but if it goes down to "I just want to keep more money for myself" is just not right and not moral at all.
    - bitL 4y ago
      Imagine being a 20-year old in Germany and Netherlands and finding the cheapest house you can own goes for 500k. Your salary peaks at 80k after 10 years of work, half of it goes to taxes and 1/3 of that is lost on rent you are forced to pay. Your only option is a 30+ year mortgage that will send you to a rat race with no options to leave, especially when you get married. Or you spend 5 years in Dubai, working remotely for 100k+, return back home and buy a property. Then you work only as much as you need. What would be your choice?
psyfi 4y ago
What does this have to do with tax management?

Bcs Estonia is a small democratic state and UAE is a disgusting dictatorship?

by tokai 4y ago

Bcs Estonia is a small democratic state and UAE is a disgusting dictatorship?

rocket_surgeron 4y ago

Disgusting dictatorship? You are too polite.

bitL 4y ago

AFAIK all Baltic states have a minority with limited rights, so they are far from true democracy. It's irrelevant what they think of that minority/what is their history with that minority, they simply can't claim to be fully democratic.

411111111111111 4y ago
I dont hail from Estonia, but if you disqualify it as a democracy... pretty much all other european nations and the USA will have to be disqualified too and for the same reasons. Its quality of life index is way higher then the USA as well, though that doesn't really say anything about its democracy. https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
krn 4y ago
> AFAIK all Baltic states have a minority with limited rights, so they are far from true democracy. It would be interesting to see any reputable sources claiming that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are "far from true democracies".
- bitL 4y ago
  A quick question - how can a person born in a Baltic state and living there their whole life end up without citizenship? How is that democratic? Don't you see any problem there? That doesn't happen even between Romanians and Hungarians that are often at each other's throat for similar historical reasons.
  - krn 4y ago
    > A quick question - how can a person born in a Baltic state and living there their whole life end up without citizenship? It should only be possible, if that person was born in Soviet Union (that is, before 1990), and doesn't speak the official language of the country he / she is living in.
    - bitL 4y ago
      I understand you are used to it, but it's really bad optics from the outside. How can there be people in their 30s without a citizenship? Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language which means it's extremely difficult to learn due to a completely alien structure of the language (compared to almost all European languages). Even Finland allows both Finnish and Swedish as official languages and doesn't discriminate Finnish Swedes that they don't speak Finnish. So you have some sort of "Eastern-European" flavor of democracy that allows a portion of population be marginalized based on their language.
      - elxx 4y ago
        > How can there be people in their 30s without a citizenship? Because they've chosen not to pursue citizenship. There's a simplified path that anyone in this situation can utilize. I don't see how giving them the choice and allowing them to live and work in the country indefinitely even if they choose no is in any way "un-democratic". And if you're suggesting that 30 years is not enough time to learn the absolute basics of a language, that is just utterly ridiculous. Not nearly as ridiculous as comparing this to the slave labor that built Dubai though.
        bitL 4y ago
        Look, Baltic states have my sympathy for what you managed to achieve in 30 years. I understand you needed a few years to establish yourselves as independent nations, assert/reclaim your national character and show it to your big bad neighbor. However, 10-15 years would be sufficient for that. Having that same problem for 30 years is just bad and you can try to explain it away as much as you want.
marginalia_nu 4y ago
Who decides what's a true democracy? Athens didn't have universal suffrage, and they invented democracy (and were in many ways far more democratic than anything we have today). They had some pretty radical measures for mixing up who actually got to hold office, such as sortition, and misbehaving officials risked ostracicsm by public vote. I think this is something that is severely overlooked in contemporary democracy. It's a very small clique indeed that stands any realistic chance of holding office in most western democracies. Ultimately doesn't really matter who gets to vote if the candidates are all the same.
Strom 4y ago
> AFAIK all Baltic states have a minority with limited rights, so they are far from true democracy. Limited rights in the sense of not being able to vote for the parliament, sure. However that isn't unusual at all. In fact, I don't know of any counter example. Do you have an example of a country where non-citizens can vote for the highest form of government? As for local elections, in Estonia both Russian citizens and ethnic Russians without any citizenship are allowed to vote. That is extremely democractic.

pipodeclown 4y ago

So not paying taxes like everybody else which pay for public services you use is morally defensible as long as you don't pay those taxes to a democratic nation as opposed to a dictatorship?

HowardStark 4y ago
This, I have to imagine, would come down to soft power. To my knowledge, it’s /very/ rarely free to move wealth across borders. So if a country were to strongly incentivize investment a certain way all of a sudden, it would be ideal if the political leanings were aligned with yours. Perhaps that might mean investing/holding your wealth in a country where there are likely to be further breaks for renewables. Who knows. This isn’t a super thought-through response. Would be curious to see if people have ideas to add.
- ozim 4y ago
  I think pipodeclown is more onto: Instead of avoiding taxes and coming up with silly hacks - one should pay his fair share in his own country and try to build community and wealth around himself and his close ones. Energy/wealth spent to avoid taxes in way where you move from country to country or do some weird stuff could be spent probably on building a small business or two. I agree there are bad places to live and people have to run away from these or move because they don't earn enough in their place so they move out for more opportunity, but if it goes down to "I just want to keep more money for myself" is just not right and not moral at all.
  - bitL 4y ago
    Imagine being a 20-year old in Germany and Netherlands and finding the cheapest house you can own goes for 500k. Your salary peaks at 80k after 10 years of work, half of it goes to taxes and 1/3 of that is lost on rent you are forced to pay. Your only option is a 30+ year mortgage that will send you to a rat race with no options to leave, especially when you get married. Or you spend 5 years in Dubai, working remotely for 100k+, return back home and buy a property. Then you work only as much as you need. What would be your choice?

psyfi 4y ago

What does this have to do with tax management?