Neeum Zawan wrote:
>     But if I tell you this, and you eat, and then refuse to pay in 
> anything but cash, then I'm duty bound to take the money or let it go?

Yep. If I owe you money, you have to accept cash.

>     Makes some sense - I guess that's why car rental places won't rent 
> unless you provide a card in advance. Probably to avoid that exact 
> scenario.

They are happy to take a large wad of bills as security deposit. Most people 
don't want to give them $1000 cash as a security deposit on the car, tho.

>     Really? What if A has 5% tax and B has 7% tax? I still end up paying 
> 7%? And how much does A get?

Depends on the exact bits, but it's like living in two different states. You 
wind up paying the full tax to both states, but each state says "if you 
already paid taxes for something else, you can deduct those taxes from what 
you owe us."  They certainly don't *have* to, but pretty much everyone does.

What's more common is you work in the city with a city tax, and you live in 
a place without any city tax, so you wind up paying the whole city tax to 
the city.

>     I've never looked into this, as I always lived in the same city 
> where I worked. Even more fun would be when you live in a different 
> state from where you work. 

State taxes are based on where you live, not where you work.

> always assumed you only paid income taxes for the state you live in.

Yep. If you live in two different states, it's different, and if you live in 
a place without taxes and work in a place with taxes, it can be different.

This is why we pay the tax lawyers.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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On 13-10-2009 17:43, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> Finally last week someone, who was trying to negotiate compensation 
>> for the victims in vain, basically asked for a bank run on tv.
> 
> There ya go. Not only can you walk away, if you get enough people doing 
> it, you can eliminate the entire problem bank. :-)
> 
>> I am not sure if it helps their victims and some people find it rather 
>> irresponsible to deliberately collapse a bank. 
> 
> It's really not that unusual. Odd for a *bank*, given that banks print 
> their own money, 

That is national banks, not regular.

> but lots of companies will go belly-up when their 
> customers hear of nastiness perpetrated by the owners. Especially now in 
> the days of internet.

Internet was not involved, apart from making it easy to transfer large 
sums out of the bank rapidly.

I had not heard before of a bank, or other company for that matter, that 
was liquidated by a group of costumers because the CEO/owner had caused 
trouble for customers, was considered to be a hard learner, and could 
not be replaced in any other way.

>> customers can collapse your bank and you are going to be held 
>> responsible.
> 
> Exactly.

There is this small problem of even more people gotten into trouble by 
this bankruptcy than were there in the first place. That includes a 
group of people for whom a solution was in the making. Now they are 
again in a big mess. But you have to subtract all those that won't be in 
trouble because this banker will probably never work again. 
Investigations are starting now, so in a few years time we may have an 
idea of what actually happened.

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On 13-10-2009 6:04, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 10/12/09 17:39, andrel wrote:
>>> What, Iraq wasn't enough? :-) I'm asking would *you* trust *our*
>>> government.
>>
>> I know, and I said: yes. I stick to that even knowing about Iraq. Of
>> course I know that there are many people in your politics that are into
>> it solely for their own purposes. That does not mean that the system is
>> wrong. It means that you have to not vote for those people.
> 
>     OK - Shift the distrust to the people, then.<G>
> 
>     In the end, though, it's a question of rights. The government 
> doesn't have the right (at least here), to know all the details of what 
> type of stuff I'm buying.

Neither does my government, even if a bank knows something about my 
behaviour does not mean that the government does. Or probably more 
precise that *my* government does. When I fly to the states somebody is 
handing over my credit card details to the US government and I think 
there is at least 80% change that the US secret service has access to my 
bank account details anyway.

>     Now of course, that doesn't mean private stores are legally bound to 
> accept cash to preserve those rights. They're private and are free to do 
> what they want (in this regard). However, given the US governments' 
> abuse of powers in relation to these types of things throughout the 20th 
> century (and beyond), a lot of people have good reason not to trust the 
> government. So most businesses accept cash.

It is not about accepting cash. Of course I can pay cash. It is simply 
not convenient.

>     (And BTW, most small businesses here prefer cash - they get charged 
> a fee every time a customer uses a card - so they make more money on 
> cash transactions).

There is a risk associated with cash. I think there is a tendency here 
to pass regulation that minimizes the cost for the shop owner.

>     Elections don't quite fix that. Just because I elected certain 
> "good" people doesn't mean the system will change for the better. The 
> president can't just change everything if he wants to.
> 
>     I'm guessing that in your country, those kinds of abuses have 
> probably been a lot rarer - hence more trust for the government.

I am still in the dark what kind of abuse you are talking about.

>>> That's what I'm saying, yes. I'm not saying it's inappropriate for you
>>> to trust your government. I'm saying I'm not sure how approppriate it
>>> is for *me* to trust *my* government to that extent.
>>
>> If you don't do it they will never learn to think about the citizens
>> first and themselves next. And campaign and vote for those that you
>> trust. That is more important than if what they promise will cost you
>> .05% less of your income.
> 
>     Voting for people you trust is usually how corrupt politicians get 
> elected 

True, alas.

> (as well as good politicians). Did you think they rigged the 
> elections to get there?

No, what I think is that for at least the level of senator, but probably 
even some levels below that, the big companies decide who you can vote for.

>     We're straying from the original topic, but as lots of people say, 
> the key to a good democracy is an informed population. And most people 
> here are really, really uninformed about most things. Chances are if 
> they read the news moderately, they're even more uninformed.

Why don't you try the BBC model? Oh yes, because someone will pay the 
senators to prevent that.

>     Don't know how this compares to other countries, though.
> 
>> I trust my government more than the banks. Mainly because the banks are
>> after money while the government is trying to prevent people from
>> getting into trouble without them doing something wrong. The reason
>> being that if you let that pass it will often cost the community more
>> than what it costs now. Examples are health care and homelessness.
> 
>     In the US, there's a general belief that if a person wants to screw 
> himself, the government should stay out of it. Of course, they may have 
> stuff like suicide hotlines, etc.

I noticed a tendency to assume that everybody fully controls his or her 
own destiny. Well, that is a complete fiction. You can pretend that is 
so as long as it does not involve you or your loved ones. Of course 
*your* house will not burn down, it has never done so, hence it won't 
happen.

>     The US does have a lot of a certain kind of freedom. It sucks in 
> many other ways, so they cling to that freedom even more when under 
> criticism. Kind of like how C/C++ programmers will respond to most 
> criticisms with "But in your language, how fast can you..."
> 
>     Of course, it's not that black and white in reality, but they try to 
> stick to the principle that you shouldn't put too many barriers against 
> shooting yourself in the foot if you're really bent on it.
> 
>     So you want a huge loan for your house that you can't reasonably pay 
> off? The government won't stop you. 

In the case of the bank here the bank sold products that looked solid, 
had people trained to sell them, avoiding all nasty details and paid the 
people that sold them a more if they sold dodgy mortgages than for solid 
ones. There is no way that any John Doe could figure that out for 
himself. It was probably the same in the US. You can not claim that 
someone who wants to buy something and somebody with great authority 
shows them that they can afford it, is wanting to shoot himself in the 
foot. It may be the ground state for some people in the US to assume so, 
but just wait until misfortune hits them.

> You want to buy unhealthy food items 
> that will kill you earlier? They won't stop you. They may set up an 
> agency to inform the public what the government thinks is healthy or 
> not, but they won't force any food manufacturer to change their 
> ingredients (unless it's so bad that they ban the ingredient 
> altogether). Recently I found out that the FDA cannot take punitive 
> action against stores that continue to sell products that the FDA has a 
> recall for (e.g. salmonella, etc).
> 
>     Of course, if the consequences are really bad (or affect others) 
> (e.g. smoking, unbridled lending, etc) - they then consider changing the 
> rules for the betterment of society.
> 
>     And since we don't have universal health care paid for by taxes, and 
> perhaps many other tax supported benefits that you may have, the cost to 
> the community is not big (financially).

I am convinced our system will cost less on average than yours.

>     And to be honest, over here financial costs are the ones everyone 
> cares about. That does suck, but it's a sad reality. All other kinds of 
> "costs" go into two categories: 1. We'll figure out a solution to take 
> care of those problems without impinging on people's rights. (usually 
> wishful thinking) 2. No one forced the guy to do something stupid, and 
> so it's his fault (perhaps a poor perspective on reality)
> 
>     Finally, you have to realize that the US population is much, much 
> bigger than your country's. So there's a lot of inertia, and it has to 
> get quite bad before things can change. Something small may cost your 
> community pretty quickly and pretty noticeably. Over here it has to be 
> that much bigger before people notice the problems.

No. 16 million has the same sort of inertia as 300 million.
> 
>> In this crowded country there is logic to it. Take a large city like
>> Amsterdam. People want to work there because that is where the jobs are.
>> Now within an hour driving distance are a couple of smaller towns with
>> more green, bigger houses for the same money, and better environment for
>> the kids to grow up. So everybody wants to live in those smaller towns.
>> Ok now from the perspective of the smaller town: people come live there
>> but don't work, don't take part in the local society and don't use the
>> local shops. So nearly no income from these people, but they still have
>> to do the streets, the lighting and the other infrastructure for them.
>> Seen from this perspective anyone wanting to live in their town that is
>> working in the big city costs the local community money. Besides they
>> will make every town expand to the same density as the big city,
>> effectively destroying the whole idea of a smaller town. So they pass a
>> law that you have to have a strong relation with the town to live there.
>> Very democratic.
> 
>     Well, either way is democratic, if the people supported it. Not sure 
> what your point is.

It was an answer to Darren. Why I can not live everywhere that I want to 
and why I think that is OK.

>     My first thought is that they seem kind of spoiled to expect all the 
> comforts in a town if they're not willing to pay for it. But perhaps I 
> misunderstood the situation.

yes you did.

>     Over here, though, the concept won't work. A law like that would be 
> very unpopular. People like the freedom to live wherever they want. They 
> value it more than a lot of what we consider "luxuries", but you may 
> consider "necessities". It's as democratic as what you have, because 
> that's how the people want it.
> 
>     Also, there's history behind this. Such laws over here would be 
> viewed as intending to keep "people we don't like" out (race, religion, 
> etc). Although perhaps they find legal ways to do that already.

What makes you think we don't have such a history?

>     And BTW, over here if you live in city A and work in city B, your 
> city taxes go to A, and not B. So that may somewhat take care of the 
> problem.

Same here as long as we are talking property taxes. The point is that 
these taxes do not cover all expenses of a city council. Raising them is 
also not a real option.

> 
>> I don't like it that I can not live everywhere that I want, but I
>> understand the logic and accept it. The concept is that it may harm me
>> now, but will benefit society (and therefore me and my grandchildren) as
>> a whole in the long run. A concept that seems to be alien to many
>> Americans.
> 
>     Well, yes and no. It depends on, more or less, your beliefs. Many 
> Americans believe that the very freedom that you restricted in your 
> country may actually result in a better society if you don't restrict 
> it. And if problems like yours arose, they try to find solutions that 
> don't restrict those freedoms.
> 
>     Ultimately, you feel differently because of what you're used to, and 
> you suspect the opposite would really suck. And Americans feel their way 
> for the same reasons - except on the opposite side.

I feel different because I understand what the alternative would cause 
*here*. Meaning that I though about it and decided that my long term 
interest do not coincide with instant gratification.

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On 13-10-2009 18:06, Darren New wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>>     Elections don't quite fix that. Just because I elected certain 
>> "good" people doesn't mean the system will change for the better. The 
>> president can't just change everything if he wants to.
> 
> Plus, the USA's legal system isn't like europe. We don't have a 
> parliment where it makes sense to run a few people on one specific 
> platform like the Pirate Party. You have to pick someone who has a whole 
> mix of views (about which they are likely lying), and hope they agree 
> with you more than they disagree, even if they get elected. 

I'd rather vote for someone who has though about issues and is willing 
to try to solve them than for someone who agrees with me.

> That's why 
> the hot issues like abortion are *such* hot issues. They're very 
> polarizing if someone whips up a big crowd of people to have an opinion 
> stronger on that than anything else.

I think I was aware of that. I seem to remember that some time long ago 
the Cheney gang was voted into office based on how they were expect to 
vote on some ethical issues. As an outsider I have my doubts about how 
ethically they actually were, but that may be just me.

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On 13-10-2009 6:05, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 10/12/09 17:01, andrel wrote:
>> Sure, but for us the whole concept of a bank was handling money
>> including changing into a different currency.
> 
>     Yes, but you may have been the first person in a year or longer 
> asking for that currency in that particular branch/bank. 
Probably, she wanted US dollars. ;)

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On 13-10-2009 0:55, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> andrel wrote:
>>> Children do have bank accounts.
>> Huh, OK.
> 
> I'm 18 and I don't have one. I only own cash.

where do you live?

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andrel wrote:
> On 13-10-2009 0:55, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>> andrel wrote:
>>>> Children do have bank accounts.
>>> Huh, OK.
>> 
>> I'm 18 and I don't have one. I only own cash.
> 
> where do you live?

Argentina.

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On 13-10-2009 5:26, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 10/12/09 14:07, andrel wrote:
>>> Well, yes. We still have a mite bit more freedom than that in this
>>> country. :-) People are still allowed to deal purely in cash if they
>>> want.
>>
>> Is there a reason why you would want that freedom?
> 
>     When the Bush administration was caught monitoring phone 
> conversations en masse (and likely illegally), their defense was along 
> the lines of "If you're not calling terrorists, why are you worried 
> about it?"

Yes, a common reply.

Just for argument sake let me try to rephrase this: why would you want 
de deny a company of being able to handle all salary payments uniformly 
and electronically? Why would you want to force them to have an armoured 
truck delivering huge stacks of cash on pay day?

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On 10/13/09 17:34, andrel wrote:
>> In the end, though, it's a question of rights. The government doesn't
>> have the right (at least here), to know all the details of what type
>> of stuff I'm buying.
>
> Neither does my government, even if a bank knows something about my
> behaviour does not mean that the government does. Or probably more

	Yeah, but the government can get access to those records easily over 
here. A bit *too* easily in recent times.

	Also, I don't know what the rules are regulating how those private 
companies use the data. In some cases, I believe they're allowed to sell 
some information about you to others (which you formally agree to in the 
terms of service).

> It is not about accepting cash. Of course I can pay cash. It is simply
> not convenient.

	Oh, you'll find it similar here. Lots of people (at least those that 
have good jobs) rarely carry cash or pay in it. Most of my friends are 
that way. Lots of others do pay cash, though. Don't know which is in the 
majority.

>> Elections don't quite fix that. Just because I elected certain "good"
>> people doesn't mean the system will change for the better. The
>> president can't just change everything if he wants to.
>>
>> I'm guessing that in your country, those kinds of abuses have probably
>> been a lot rarer - hence more trust for the government.
>
> I am still in the dark what kind of abuse you are talking about.

	I've kind of forgotten the whole context of this discussion:

1. Government getting access to your phone records without warrants.

2. Government getting access to your financial records (with or without 
warrants, but perhaps for dubious reasons).

3. Government seeing that you buy lots of stuff from Middle Eastern food 
stores and putting you on the no fly list. OK - that may be a bit of a 
stretch, but in California some years ago, it was revealed that law 
enforcement agencies were planning to monitor those kinds of stores for 
very similar reasons - someone quashed it before it got put into 
practice. And people have been put on no-fly lists for pretty weak 
reasons (anti-war activist, name sounds too Middle Eastern, etc).

4. Government knowing what kinds of books you read (library, etc).

5. If you want historical reason, they've done all kinds of fun stuff to 
various minorities. Look up the Tuskegee experiments.


>> (as well as good politicians). Did you think they rigged the elections
>> to get there?
>
> No, what I think is that for at least the level of senator, but probably
> even some levels below that, the big companies decide who you can vote for.

	I think it's in the opposite direction. The *higher* the office, the 
more the influence of big companies. Perhaps that's what you meant?

>> We're straying from the original topic, but as lots of people say, the
>> key to a good democracy is an informed population. And most people
>> here are really, really uninformed about most things. Chances are if
>> they read the news moderately, they're even more uninformed.
>
> Why don't you try the BBC model? Oh yes, because someone will pay the
> senators to prevent that.

	Well, we do have NPR & PBS. And they're fairly good in their limited 
scope. I haven't investigated what's preventing them from going full out 
the way BBC does. Probably because the people don't want to spend a lot 
of money and they would get a lot of flak from the private news agencies 
stating that it's unfair competition (which it kind of is...).

	If you've been following the BBC lately, you'll know that little 
Murdoch just leveled that exact same accusation against the BBC. in the 
past few weeks. The BBC will probably survive those kinds of attacks 
because it has been big historically. Over here there's no historic 
precedent, so it's hard for government run news agencies to justify 
themselves growing large.

>> In the US, there's a general belief that if a person wants to screw
>> himself, the government should stay out of it. Of course, they may
>> have stuff like suicide hotlines, etc.
>
> I noticed a tendency to assume that everybody fully controls his or her
> own destiny. Well, that is a complete fiction. You can pretend that is
> so as long as it does not involve you or your loved ones. Of course
> *your* house will not burn down, it has never done so, hence it won't
> happen.

	And if it does, it's your fault for not having insurance.

	Yes, it's a silly notion. But deep rooted here. In the end, it's like 
the C/C++ analogy I gave. For *some* categories of successes, I think 
the US _does_ allow you to be mostly in control. For many others, the 
"freedom" likely works against it. Few want to realize that, and many 
others are happy with the tradeoff.

>> So you want a huge loan for your house that you can't reasonably pay
>> off? The government won't stop you.
>
> In the case of the bank here the bank sold products that looked solid,
> had people trained to sell them, avoiding all nasty details and paid the
> people that sold them a more if they sold dodgy mortgages than for solid
> ones. There is no way that any John Doe could figure that out for
> himself. It was probably the same in the US. You can not claim that
> someone who wants to buy something and somebody with great authority
> shows them that they can afford it, is wanting to shoot himself in the
> foot. It may be the ground state for some people in the US to assume so,
> but just wait until misfortune hits them.

	Similar story here.

	I haven't been following it, so I don't know if they plan on or already 
have passed legislation to address this issue. A lot of people want some 
regulation on it, and perhaps are justified in asking for it because the 
government had to bail them out. If they had let them collapse, then 
perhaps there wouldn't be legislation.

>> And since we don't have universal health care paid for by taxes, and
>> perhaps many other tax supported benefits that you may have, the cost
>> to the community is not big (financially).
>
> I am convinced our system will cost less on average than yours.

	Health care? I bet it already is costing less per capita than what we 
currently have. I think the US has the highest per capita health costs.

>> Finally, you have to realize that the US population is much, much
>> bigger than your country's. So there's a lot of inertia, and it has to
>> get quite bad before things can change. Something small may cost your
>> community pretty quickly and pretty noticeably. Over here it has to be
>> that much bigger before people notice the problems.
>
> No. 16 million has the same sort of inertia as 300 million.

	I'd really dispute that. If your country had the obesity levels that we 
do, people would worry. Over here, it's still not a big concern. Also, I 
suspect your country is more densely populated. Bad stuff results in bad 
news that travels fast and is in your neighborhood. Over here, people 
could get laid off in large numbers in nearby cities and most people in 
this city wouldn't know about it unless they read that part of the news.

>> Well, either way is democratic, if the people supported it. Not sure
>> what your point is.
>
> It was an answer to Darren. Why I can not live everywhere that I want to
> and why I think that is OK.

	Fair enough.

>> Also, there's history behind this. Such laws over here would be viewed
>> as intending to keep "people we don't like" out (race, religion, etc).
>> Although perhaps they find legal ways to do that already.
>
> What makes you think we don't have such a history?

	I don't know.<G> Maybe we're a lot more sensitive about our history 
than people over there are with yours. Or perhaps when such legislation 
was passed on your side, plenty of provisions were provided to ensure it 
wouldn't be used to exclude certain groups.

	

-- 
Ground yourself, THEN hug your motherboard!

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andrel wrote:
> That is national banks, not regular.

All our banks create money out of nothingness. None of them actually run 
printing presses per se.

>> but lots of companies will go belly-up when their customers hear of 
>> nastiness perpetrated by the owners. Especially now in the days of 
>> internet.
> 
> Internet was not involved, apart from making it easy to transfer large 
> sums out of the bank rapidly.

Internet as a means of distributing information between people who may be 
friends of those who (say) run television stations.

> I had not heard before of a bank, or other company for that matter, that 
> was liquidated by a group of costumers because the CEO/owner had caused 
> trouble for customers, was considered to be a hard learner, and could 
> not be replaced in any other way.

No, that is rather extreme. But there are plenty of small companies that get 
in trouble by ticking off customers.

Stuff like this happens too.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/2009/10/09/2009-10-09_black_nfl_players_crush_prospect_of_playing_for_a_rush_limbaughowned_st_louis_ra.html

> There is this small problem of even more people gotten into trouble by 
> this bankruptcy than were there in the first place.

Well, in the USA, most people have their money insured by the federal 
government. Ever since 1929 or so, the government has made sure a run on 
your bank won't leave you broke. There are limits, of course, but they're 
pretty high for most people.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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