Rich / Reich

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Did you know that Luxembourg (25% corporate tax rate) has the HIGHEST GDP IN THE WORLD?

  • not buying the answer “because it is small“
  • not buying the answer “because we sell so much alcohol tobacco and oil”
    • Luxembourg is maybe a marketplace for oil, but has no oil-fields or tobacco fields
    • Luxembourg is rich for the same reason why some people in Switzerland are very rich
      • not because they export SO MUCH GOOD CHEESE (the cheese is good but makes up a very very little portion of income for Switzerland) but thanks to clever advisors and tax avoidance schemes supported by the state
    • “In April 2009, concern about Luxembourg‘s banking secrecy laws, as well as its reputation as a tax haven, led to its being added to a “gray list” of nations with questionable banking arrangements by the G20.” (Wiki)
  • the #3 in GDP Macau (CHINA!) “is an offshore financial centre, a tax haven, and a free port with no foreign exchange control regimes.[41] [42][43] ” (source: Wiki)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-04-05/yellen-calls-for-global-minimum-corporate-tax-rate-video

Financial Service Industry aka Banking aka moving around money that avoids taxes

“It is impossible to estimate how much private banking wealth has evaded taxation, but the chart above points to a correlation between states with some form of banking secrecy

  • Switzerland
  • Singapore
  • Channel Islands
  • Caribbean
  • Luxembourg

…and a high global market share in offshore private banking.

The Swiss Bankers Association estimates that 54,000 people were employed in the wealth management business in Switzerland in 2012 (1% of total jobs in Switzerland).

The productivity of the sector is also unsurprisingly high, private banking alone accounts for 2.8% of the annual Swiss GDP (CHF16 billion of value added to the economy).”

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/by-the-numbers_is-switzerland-really-the-country-of-bankers-/40473658

So yes financial crime pays too well (still in 2021), Yellen do something! (so this blog can stop Yelling)

GDP by Country

snapshot at 2021-04-05 from source worldometers.info

Latest official GDP figures published by the World Bank. Population figures based on United Nations data.
World’s GDP is $80,934,771,028,340 (nominal, 2017).

See also: GDP per Capita

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always start with something positive, a positive vision utopia

  • a (almost) perfect mankind
    • everyone would cultivate a humble and kind lifestyle, eager to learn and develop (oneself, help others, settle on other planets, ensure the survival of conscious life in the universe) and dedicate a significant amount of time to family and friends
  • a (almost) perfect society
    • would be 100% crime free
    • would survive in perfect self sustaining balance with it’s habitat (0% no waste, 100% recycling, except the dead really should not be recycled out of respect and ethical reasons)
  • a (almost) perfect system
    • everything would survive within a perfect waste-free-recycling-circle of resources (even CO2)
    • what is known as “work” would be obsolete in the sense, that everyone is self-sufficient and self-employed (enough access to enough land that organically with  houses, machines and robots, tools can easily repaired with 3D printed parts)
      • of course there would and should still be “work”, like gardening by hand, because it is simply healthy for the body and mind
      • of course robots and machines will never exist without maintenance (and probably there will be also other chores)
      • but the amount of chores would be 1% of the human lifetime, while 99% go into what was stated above
      • not because anyone is forcing anyone, but because of the realization, that that is important
    • 100% of all energy would be renewables with the possibility of long-term storage and transport in chemical form

money can not work, only people can utilize money to work for good or evil

(and thus destroy value and society or add-create value to society)

the majority of the “new world order” is actually not so hidden (okay there are very secretive elitist groups like skull and bones that like to conspire among each other in order to gain power, money and influence yes… this is just as the mafia does it and it is an old game called “corruption”, those should NEVER get a job in government)

but the 90% of “the new wealth order” majority is actually not-so-hidden…

from 1200 BC

the last few hundred years…

as can be seen above… not much has changed over the centuries… it is very simple…

  1. those that own land and houses that others want to rent to create-add real value to society (e.g. a company with real jobs in the real economy adding real value to society (like healthcare or healthy products))
  2. those that own the company
    • they “have” (hopefully) smart and hard working employees that create satisfied customers that bring more customers so the company can live on and not go bankrupt
    • the self-employed owners of the company have a little tax advantage over their employees (might get a share of the net gains of the company, or a company-sponsored car)
      • but they also have the disadvantage of “owning” all the responsibility/risk/debt/paperwork that comes with a company
    • the CEO can deduct some “accepted” spendings from tax (all that is required for the company to work, from toilet paper, to energy to computers)
    • if it is not a investor owned corrupt CEO run company, but a company that actually cares about people, their product and the planet, than this is (imho) what is called “the middle-class” everyone is talking about (those with ideas for products and then actually realize them by the power of creativity and dilligence)
      • those are the ones that constantly try to make “their company” better, more efficient, saver, smarter and also (hopefully) feel the responsibility to “safe the company” and the jobs and families attached
      • the troubles: either the management is incompetent or the communication and the family-run company is bad and this leads to bad results and in worst case tensions and bankruptcy of the company
      • (this is how a lot of family run companies end)
  3. those that have a job in a company that adds-create real value to society (such as health or healthy products)
    • they have advantages over unemployed:
      • their value as hard workers is accepted by  society (even if it is in a job as tax consultant, that create-adds zero value to society) because they get up at 7 and work from 8 AM to 5 PM ( or longer), 5 days a week (tendency: increasing)
      • they can complain with all other workers how unfair it is that others drive Porsche (that they will never be able to afford)
      • they can complain how bad their boss is/or how lazy the unemployed neighbor is
  4. the unemployed
    • they are the bottom feeders and some feel very worthless (which is psychologically devastating, it is a pity, because everybody can do something / add-create value to society, but society often fails to organize those possibilities, but some also never felt the need to work to survive… there is a easy solution for that: give em a free parachute flight above panama with an GPS tracker… and pick em up 3 weeks later)
    • can not even afford organic products and always need to buy cheapest (with most chemicals)
    • those that have 24-7 jobs hate them, because they get a little money (and possibly their ever increasing rent for the tier #1 humans paid by “the state”, and “the state” is whoever works and pays taxes)
    • but: they have a pretty functionality:
      • what others throw away, they use (if they are smart they even try to repair it)
        • so this is kind of a resource efficiency function (smart) unemployed people have (avoiding waste)

  1. everyone has the right to survive happily (ever after) and the (imho) obligation to actively cultivate happiness (it will NEVER be realized by eternal factors alone)
  2. the unemployed feel betrayed by the system (that led them down)
  3. the employed feel exploited by the boss / company
  4. those that run the company feel exploited by the tax-office and those that avoid taxes via panama
  5. the top 1-10% are the only winners of this system and only envy those that own more private yachts or jets than they do
  6. what is indisputable is that inequality will create social tensions and maybe even violence and revolution (where it is not even important how much someone actually owns or earns but the perception of it (the fancy car))
  7. what (unfortunately) is also true, is that there is not really fluidity between those layers
    • 90% of the people i know, are employed and will always stay employed and NEVER create a company (in some countries it really sucks to create a company… will get you in massive amounts bureaucrazy, costs and fear of the tax bureau (which is called “internal revenue service” in the USA)
    • only the very eager have a day-time job and at night work for their own company (if it works, nice, might also be able to afford the Porsche, if not… massively in debt that needs to be paid somehow (plus rent and other expenses) via the day-time-job).
  8. it would be healthy for everyone to walk in the shoes of the other to get an understanding and clear picture, what the status of mankind is.

every level has it’s challenges… some super-rich feel super-worthless because they (just as the unemployed) sometimes just do not know what to do with their time (except taking drugs and party).

in the end this is a too massive waste of human time and potential

this needs to change / be organized different, in an alternative (but not 1984) kind of way, and it can!

everybody can do something / create-add value to society (if everyone did… just a little… the world would be completely different)

  • democracy only works with jobs, if there are no jobs, there will be unsatisfied people that cry for “the strong man” to fix their problems (which then massively blows up in EVERYONE’s face, “because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton 1887)
  • fairly and truthfully show and educate people about their possibilities (not all but quiet a lot have the ambition to “make it”)
  • when the market fails (ever increasing prices for assets that are vital for mankind to survive (water, food, “roof over the head and not freezing to death” housing + heating, healthcare, energy, transport (to hospital), access to financial services, communications) to provide humans what they need to survive, the gov-state has to step in and either buffer the markets effects (by gov-state itself become real-estate-owner and rent it out cheap to those in need, have sufficient water, food, energy supplies in stock in the case of market price shocks, or go even further and fix prices where this is possible)
  • ideas need funding, there need to be easy online platforms for people with ideas to get the funding needed to create the next innovative product and jobs
    • here gov and banks and startups (people-with-ideas) need to communicate frequently and work closely together to find solutions that work for all
  • those that do not see the need to work at all… may get a free parachute flight over panama
  • also: happiness (which to buddhist monks is actually nothing more than deep inner sustainable satisfaction) can be learned/cultivated by everyone – no matter what layer

links:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Pyramid-of-capitalist-system_fig2_337993433

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develop a positive vision of the future!

after the “great Trump induced divide” the USA need to reform it’s system, but does it need a revolution?

the problem with revolutions often is:

  1. what is for sure: people are angry for a reason (vote does not feel counted, reps in Washington “too far away” = lost connection to the problems of Jill & Joe, many small business had to close down & loads of lives and jobs lost)
    1. the anger at the current system is for real and it “the negative” to stay
  2. what about the positive? what shall be after the revolution? (the far harder question)
    1. define what shall be, before removal of status quo, the “anything is better than that” approach is Hitler-kind-of-dangerous (power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely) there is good reason to divide sate powers into:
      1. legislative (laws) (the gov)
      2. judiciary (judges)
      3. executive (police & military, no, not the president and “executive orders” (this is somewhat defined different in the US and EU))

this gov-by-finance system is broken & unsustainable, anyone agrees on that, how to fix it?

some suggestions: (imho small but very important changes that can have great effect)

  • how to fight corruption: with great power comes great responsibility
    • thus: MAXIMUM transparency for the powerful
      • people have to know what politicians are doing
      • every single dollar they or their family earns need to be transparent to the public
    • privacy for the weak:
      • let’s say that 99% of the population are neither criminals nor terrorists
  • how to fight Corona-crisis induced unemployment:
    • state paid jobs!
    • it was done in the US before and it ain’t socialism! it just tries to fix a broken (private ownership zero responsibility) system and help people step back from violence and revolution. all central bankers should agree on that.
    • after the great depression of 1929 massive amounts of people become unemployed (it was not their fault, rather the system’s fault)
      • the state paid group A to dig holes in the morning
      • the state paid group B to fill the holes again in the evening
      • just this time: maybe the US gov can think of more useful jobs
      • “Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) to make emergency loans to businesses in danger of default. At first the RFC lent money only to banks, railroads, and certain agricultural organizations, but the scope of its operations was later expanded, and it proved to be an effective tool for stabilizing business and industry” (source January 22, 1932) (unfortunately the RFC was canceled in 1957, because it was deemed not needed anymore, well guess what, would have been better to keep it in place, more crisis were to come, state-owned European banks for reconstruction created after WW2  LUCKILY STILL EXISTS and they are needed very much to counter all the instabilities of private & reckless banking system, a new RFC would also be essential for financing a desperately needed US “Green New Deal”)