Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
you never played golf with me...no way! Golfers never needed fire-resistant pants.
you never played golf with me...no way! Golfers never needed fire-resistant pants.
“Basically energy co wants me to use over 600 bucks in natural gas to keep me warm in December.”My energy bill just increased almost 300%… that’s like 400usd pm extra. Not that we can’t afford it but fu Putin. Next two months government will give us, and every other household, 200bucks. Haven’t had government hand-out since I was a student but they can’t organize it on a short term, IRS and social services overloaded (too many budget cuts), so it goes straight through energy suppliers, who don’t know income so can't discriminate based on it. Free money for everyone. It’s almost like there’s a race between EU nations lately, handing out money to dampen the economic impact of Putin’s war.
I used relatively little electricity past 12 months, average gas (below average for this older home). Warm water and heating and some cooking on gas too. 350/m for just heating at new rates, average, used almost all in coldest 6 months. Basically energy co wants me to use over 600 bucks in natural gas to keep me warm in December. But then this is days after the government announced a ceiling for the rates on natural gas and electricity, starting Jan 1st, which is not calculated into the rates yet. That'll make it like 150% extra instead of 300%.
Since last winter I already managed to get another 30% reduction, all in all I’d pay 100 bucks a month extra, sacrificing just a little comfort. Compared to just a few years ago the natural gas rates are 20-30x higher (and ours higher than in most places in Europe), so many of the systems in place are not designed, installed, nor configured with efficiency in mind. The upside of that is that it doesn't take a whole lot (of for example electricity) for a more targeted and efficient alternative.
I do regret not pulling the heating from the seats of my previous car... that would go well in my couch and office chair this winter.
The republicans in the states will freak out over this SOCIALISM, it limits the freedom of the ultra-rich, but they won't mention that! No, it will be another cause of freedom from big guberment and regulations, forgien control and they are taking over! Foxnews and Rupert Murdoch hate shit like this, so do the libertarian billionaires and owners of hate radio.UN votes to take the reins on global tax standards
The United Nations General Assembly’s finance committee voted unanimously Wednesday to start discussions on international taxation standards, effectively challenging a similar long-standing initiative led by advanced economies in the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Wednesday’s resolution calls for “developing an international tax cooperation framework or instrument that is developed and agreed upon through a United Nations intergovernmental process.”
Such a framework has been in development at the OECD for nearly a decade, but has yet to be given a final draft.
At stake in the agreement are new rules about whether multinational corporations should be allowed to store their profits in tax havens overseas and in what jurisdictions corporations can be taxed for the use of their products.
The successful U.N. resolution was put forward by the 54-member African Group of nations within the U.N. General Assembly, a bloc with a distinct economic character from the group of developed economies within the OECD and with different ideas on how financial transparency and tax administration should work.
“We note that the OECD has played a role in these areas. It is clear after ten years of attempting to reform international tax rules that there is no substitute for the global, inclusive, transparent forum provided by the United Nations,” the representative of the Nigerian delegation to the U.N. said during Wednesday’s vote.
“The African Group urges countries to remain committed to the development of inclusive tax instruments at the United Nations and encourage the OECD to play a supporting role in this regard,” the Nigerian representative said.
Countries from the OECD cautioned that it would be unproductive for the U.N. to double up on the OECD’s work, but stopped short of voting against the resolution.
“We disagree with the notion implied by this resolution that there is not presently a highly inclusive forum working to strengthen international cooperation on tax,” the U.S. representative told the second committee.
The U.N. resolution “proposes a process that will tear down much of the progress that has been made in international tax cooperation since the 2008-2009 financial crisis and will undermine the inclusive framework at the OECD through which so much progress is being made,” the U.S. delegate added.
Fears that the OECD process had stalled grew over the summer after the nation of Hungary blocked a 15-percent minimum corporate tax from being adopted in the European Union, leading the U.S. to cancel its long-standing bilateral tax treaty with Hungary.
Hungary then sent a delegation to the U.S. to express solidarity with Republicans who also opposed the Biden administration’s efforts toward international corporate tax standards.
“Treasury’s actions suggest an impulsive attempt to pressure a country that has raised legitimate concerns with the agreement to fall in line,” Republican leaders on the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance and Foreign Relations committees wrote in a letter earlier in November.
International tax experts say the timing of Wednesday’s vote has to do with the delay on the OECD provision that stipulates where a corporation can be taxed for the use of its products as well as frustration from lower-income countries about the amount of that tax.
“There’s a document that’s supposed to be coming out in December outlining which unilateral measures will need to be abandoned, including digital services taxes,” Daniel Bunn, president of the Tax Foundation, a Washington think tank, said in an interview. “The goal is to have a multilateral treaty ready for signature middle of next year.”
On the amount that corporations can be taxed – which is known as Pillar Two within the agreement – EU finance ministers are set to meet again in December.
“The language of their announcement is that they’re going to be ‘aiming for agreement’ on Pillar Two, but it’s not clear that that’s certain. Hungary has been holding things up,” Bunn added.
Other analysts in Washington say that the interests of developing countries are not given proper consideration in the OECD’s framework, an oversight that could further delay a final deal.
“Although the OECD’s global minimum tax framework got broad international support last year, there have been advocates concerned that any final product would not address the needs of developing countries,” John Buhl, an analyst with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said in a statement to The Hill.
“In the near term, it could also embolden skeptics in Congress and holdouts in the EU who already have concerns about the plan and whether it will ever reach critical mass with enough countries to make adoption worthwhile,” he added.
Tax fairness advocates welcomed Wednesday’s U.N. resolution, arguing that the OECD had its chance to deliver on a global tax treaty and that the U.N. is now the better organization to handle the issue.
“The OECD has been unprecedentedly aggressive in its lobbying, but could hardly have failed more completely as the resolution passed by unanimous consensus,” Alex Cobham, head of the European Tax Justice Network, said in a statement. “Some OECD countries spoke in favor of the organization’s role after the resolution’s adoption, but … the OECD’s two-pillar tax proposal is on life support.”
The OECD’s work “has left countries losing $483 billion in tax to tax havens a year; and work which has been widely identified as exclusionary by countries outside the core membership of rich countries. Ultimately, this only confirms the importance of moving tax rulemaking to a globally inclusive and transparent forum at the United Nations,” Cobham added.
The Tax Foundation’s Bunn said that whether negotiations take place at the OECD or the U.N., the same sets of issues are bound to arise in the practice of hashing out an agreement.
“What has happened at the OECD, with countries struggling to reach agreement on big picture tax issues – the struggle is going to continue regardless of what the forum is,” he added.
UN votes to take the reins on global tax standards
The United Nations General Assembly’s finance committee voted unanimously Wednesday to start discussions on international taxation standards, effectively challenging a similar long-standing initiat…thehill.com
while €10/g is a bit excessive, 420 tons is a nice round number.High Society: High Hurdles Face Germany's Cannabis Legalization Plans
The German government is moving towards legalizing marijuana, creating an entirely new industry in the country. But the effort faces significant challenges, including European law.www.spiegel.de
The actual article is longer but an interesting part:
"The legal cannabis market in Germany could become the largest in the whole world," says Heitepriem. Up to 420 tons of cannabis could be consumed in this country each year, an economist forecasts in a study commissioned by the German Cannabis Association. At a price of 10 euros per gram, that would correspond to annual sales of 4.2 billion euros. Many want to be a part of this party.”
However, there are doubts in Brussels as to whether the German plans are consistent with EU regulations. In the opinion of Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek of the CSU [christian socialists], cannabis legalization "violates European law." Last Wednesday, he traveled to Brussels to meet with Monique Pariat, the director general at the European Commission responsible for the issue, to press for a "no." EU law only permits trade in narcotic substances such as cannabis for medical and scientific purposes, Holetschek says, not for private consumption.
However, Lauterbach’s people were faster than Holetschek. On November 14, Thomas Steffen, a state secretary at the Health Ministry, called Pariat to promote the German plans. It’s unknown whether his words swayed the French European Commission official or not. Two days after the meeting, a spokesperson for the Brussels-based authority said Berlin had not yet submitted a formal request for consultation. As such, the authority said it would not comment on the matter at this time.
The spokesperson only wanted to emphasize one thing: Current EU law requires member states to criminalize all activities relating to the trafficking of marijuana – from production to preparation and distribution to sale.
At the same time, the Commission has also hinted at a loophole: EU law does not lay down any requirements for the personal use of cannabis; that is a matter for the member states. Whether that is broad enough to get the green light from Brussels for the entire legalization plan is questionable. At the technical level, there are "significant concerns," according to a senior EU diplomat. What Lauterbach is planning, the diplomat says, "goes far beyond anything that has been done before."
If the Commission says "no," that will likely be the end of the debate. Lauterbach has made it clear publicly that he will scrap the cannabis plan if that happens.
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It’s been pretty much basic rate for a small zip in NL for decades, even when we had guilders still. Most is 11-13 per gram nowadays, but many still prepack it in 10 euro zips, so you get a little less than a gram. Some shops weigh the exact amount (in money) you ask for. So if that 10euro in Germany is for good stuff I won’t be just buying wine and licor in Germany, which is a ridiculous thought, they are still very much amateurs with very little variety. As in Germany, when growing and supplying is finally fully legal in NL, the rates will be kept as high, if not increase.while €10/g is a bit excessive, 420 tons is a nice round number.
It’s inevitable, might as well beat China to it.i'm not sure what to think about this.
https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/22/23473483/white-house-joe-biden-moon-artemis-permanent-outpost-spacex
Held in trust for man’si'm not sure what to think about this.
https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/22/23473483/white-house-joe-biden-moon-artemis-permanent-outpost-spacex
We should prob just leave the moon as it is. It should be treated like what it is.. a gravitational object that keeps our tides in order. I don't really care to look up at it and see it inhabited with Dollar Stores everywhere.Held in trust for man’s
Bright destiny, moonwalkers’
hundred bags of poop.