markvdb

57 ms·

631.
by markvdb 7y ago
Hah! Belgium, world tax champion, can do better than that! You have a salaried job. You set up a side gig after working hours. After business expenses, you pay: * (depending on the province) ~100€/year of flat rate provincial tax, rega
632.
by markvdb 7y ago
Watch "Jour de fête", by Jacques Tati, 1949. There's a stunt film-in-the-film about this kind of super efficient mail delivery methods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jour_de_f%C3%AAte https://
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by markvdb 7y ago
For comparison, that's a bit more than the electric consumption of all fourteen 90 years old houses on our street combined. Would cost roughly 650 USD a month over here. Unless you are running an extremely energy intensive commercial o
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by markvdb 7y ago
Italy is full of CNG vehicles. There's a big push for them in Belgium right now, and I'm probably missing a lot of places...
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by markvdb 7y ago
Geeks were far faster to think of that: https://github.com/maxbbraun/trump2cash
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by markvdb 7y ago
If you find this interesting, definitely read his book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia !
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by markvdb 7y ago
Use a condorcet method [0] to elect a US president that represents common ground. Needs of specific groups of people can be taken into account as transparent supplementary conditions. Sparsely populated areas constitute one potential parame
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by markvdb 7y ago
3% stock market movements set in motion by the US president alone. "Great" insider trading potential. Have someone set up the right derivatives strategy and bam: instant millions. I couldn't convince myself to immediately wri
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by markvdb 7y ago
“an electric makeover—and offer a cut-price way to avoid driving bans across European cities.” Lower middle class and low emission zones. People don't have the budget to upgrade their cars and risk losing car mobility. Ask my hippie un
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by markvdb 7y ago
Just today, a UK farm has had to destroy its entire hemp crop : https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/30/oxfordshire-...
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by markvdb 7y ago
I just highlighted one aspect of the Belgian tax system relevant to the discussion. Observing a tax avoidance loophole does not in any way correlate to bragging about it. Just to make things absolutely clear, I'll even happily make it
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by markvdb 7y ago
"These sanctions are entirely non-violent." Their effect on the rich in these countries mostly is. What about children dying because of a lack of medication? One could avoid a lot of collateral damage by targeting sanctions at spe
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by markvdb 7y ago
s/foreigners/people/ .
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by markvdb 7y ago
Stock buybacks versus capital gains makes all the difference for Belgian residents. No capital gains here. Foreign dividends get taxed at >= 40.5%, local dividends at 30%. Which is why accumulating funds are getting rather popular in Bel
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by markvdb 7y ago
Reminds me of Max-Hervé George and his fund investment contract: http://archive.is/jkb0x
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by markvdb 7y ago
A leader who rejects science should be consistent and not use its fruits either.
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by markvdb 7y ago
Giving to make the world a better place? Read about effective altruism [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism
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by markvdb 7y ago
Persian ice cream tradition since 500 BC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastani_sonnati
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by markvdb 7y ago
[...]in the UK as we have a significantly lower percentage of tree cover compared to Europe,[...] Please use "...compared to _the rest of_ Europe" next time. That stresses the very real commonalities between European countries. Ci
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by markvdb 7y ago
Dead souls, by Nikolai Gogol. Wikipedia article [0] and freely licensed ebook [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Souls [1] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1081
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by markvdb 7y ago
Reminds me of Buffalo buffalo buffalo. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buffalo_buffalo_B...
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by markvdb 7y ago
I agree about the principle you propose. I'm certainly not saying taxing the robots is how it should be, just that it might be easier. Governments might rather tax robots than properly deal with anonymous corporations playing extremely
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by markvdb 7y ago
The US are the anomaly. In most of the developed world, higher education is actually quite affordable. Technical education is also the easiest to get funding for. It turns out financial limitations are the easy factor to solve. Other, non-
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by markvdb 7y ago
It might be easier to tax physical bots though than the capital behind them. Just like with individuals as opposed to anonymous companies. Zero's and ones are easier to push around.
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by markvdb 7y ago
Joey was very active in Debian, but has retired from it in 2015. http://zgrimshell.github.io/posts/interviews-with-floss-deve...
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by markvdb 7y ago
This is about enticing tax evaders to come clean. The 15% rate supposedly includes back taxes on some forms of undeclared income. Knowing the official Italian tax rates, that would make it a very compelling deal. Many tax evaders would basi
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by markvdb 7y ago
Please vet your sources if you want an audience here. Whatever message you wanted to get across drowned because of the Breitbart quote.
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by markvdb 7y ago
Thank you for your comment. Delfi's not too bad indeed, for a web news portal. Probably the best available. I should have clarified that with "decent quality", I meant things like original investigative journalism and a verif
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by markvdb 7y ago
You might want to label your comment "irony" more clearly.
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by markvdb 7y ago
So ironic Meduza is operating from Latvia. Meduza focusing more on Russia proper, I'm not aware of any decent quality local Russian language news media in Latvia. That leaves a large part of the population exposed to "news" w

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