23 Feb 10
This is actually a very good idea, since such a tax punishes frequent changes in one's portfolio, it encourages long-term investments over short-sighted short-term trading and speculation.
This tax should be used for whatever tax dollars are needed for. I don't believe in reserving tax revenues from source X specifically for purpose Y.
23 Feb 10
Originally posted by Bosse de NageThere are at least two areas that I belief are always good ways of 'helping the less fortunate'.
How would such a tax be best put to use?
The first and foremost is education. In Zambia we are still badly in need of more schools and more and better teachers and facilities.
The second is health. Tackle the worlds worst killer diseases, and general health for poor people makes a massive difference in the world. Something as simple as treated mosquito nets has made an enormous difference in many places, but more still needs to be done - a vaccine for malaria would be nice. A vaccine or cure for AIDS would be nicer still.
There are plenty of other worthy causes. Far too much aid goes in the wrong places and is given for the wrong reasons, but a lot of it does do a lot of good.
The one place however that it could probably do the most good, is the one place that Robin Hood isn't going to put it - paying people to pressure governments to change their policies in favor of poor countries.
23 Feb 10
Originally posted by PalynkaOK. In Africa, there are the Millenium Development goals. Other regions would have different goals. Perhaps the first goal would be to allocate funding to different regions?
First we need to agree on the goals, before economics can say something about predicted outcomes of specific policies.
23 Feb 10
Originally posted by KazetNagorraWould you mind saying a bit more about how it would encourage long-term investments?
This is actually a very good idea, since such a tax punishes frequent changes in one's portfolio, it encourages long-term investments over short-sighted short-term trading and speculation.
This tax should be used for whatever tax dollars are needed for. I don't believe in reserving tax revenues from source X specifically for purpose Y.
How would the overall catch be allocated? Tax is raised by individual countries -- this would be a sort of world finance tax.
23 Feb 10
Originally posted by Bosse de NageWell, if every transaction is taxed, it pays to reduce the amount of transactions when investing, i.e. people who have a long-term strategy get relatively more returns than speculators.
Would you mind saying a bit more about how it would encourage long-term investments?
How would the overall catch be allocated? Tax is raised by individual countries -- this would be a sort of world finance tax.
This kind of tax would require some international agreement, otherwise you could evade it easily - so in practise it would be very difficult to implement.
23 Feb 10
Originally posted by PalynkaWell, I think what he is trying to say is that it's a difference in degree. QED does predictions which are accurate up to 10 digits - what kind of prediction in psychology or economics is so accurate?
Not really. He's ignorant about what science is. He's still stuck on the idea of verifiability, when it is falsifiability what science is based on.
24 Feb 10
1 edit
Originally posted by KazetNagorraI'm not disputing that. But was physics not a science before predictions were that accurate? Perhaps not, but simply because of a question of method not inexactness.
Well, I think what he is trying to say is that it's a difference in degree. QED does predictions which are accurate up to 10 digits - what kind of prediction in psychology or economics is so accurate?
It's just not a consistent view. What is science and what is not is defined by the method, not really the exactness of the results. That he claims that social sciences mimic the form but cannot come up with any laws (I'm quoting from memory here) is clear evidence that he doesn't know what he's talking about.