Interesting Links for 05-02-2018

[andrewducker]

Uma Thurman Almost Died While Filming Kill Bill

(tags: movies QuentinTarantino OhForFucksSake safety )

Wales is leading the way on democratic reform. The Prime Minister should take note

(tags: voting UK Wales England scotland )

Venice without water

(tags: Italy water transport )

Things that were more likely to kill you in 1970s Britain than today

(tags: uk death GoodNews )

When Jacob Rees Mogg says that Brexit will reduce the cost of food, wine and clothes “by 20 per cent”, whose model, and assumptions, is he relying on?

(tags: economics uk europe OhForFucksSake )

A ten-second video which sums up how much of a dick cats are

(tags: cats evil video )

Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

(tags: writing scifi )

How Superman is finally defeated

(tags: comics funny comic superheroes )

The Economists for Brexit predictions are inconsistent with the basic facts of international trade

(tags: economics trade europe uk fraud viaPatrickHadfield )

Ann Widdecombe isn’t a harmless comedy old lady – she’s a homophobe

(tags: abortion lgbt Conservatives )

Some amusing examples of people improvising when they didn't know the language

(tags: language funny )

A brief note on the genitals on transgender people

(tags: transgender genitals lgbt )

In praise of open borders

(tags: immigration usa )

You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time

(tags: quantum time )

People Aren’t Having Babies Because the Rent Is Too Damn High

(tags: money housing children society cities )

Actual Nazi Will Be GOP Nominee In Illinois Congressional Race

(tags: nazis republicans holocaust OhForFucksSake politics usa )

The Icefish Has Clear Blood (because it's so damn cold oxygen dissolves into plasma)

(tags: fish blood oxygen cold )

Solo: A Star Wars Story (first teaser)

(tags: trailer StarWars )

DPD courier who was fined for day off to see doctor dies from diabetes

(tags: business death health OhForFucksSake delivery )

Modern CSS Explained For Dinosaurs

(tags: css )

Baby boomers to get far more welfare support than Generation X and Millennials

(tags: welfare OhForFucksSake uk )

Comments

Almost-Classics: SF Concepts and Settings That Deserve Better Execution

[jack]

Aah! A whole comments section full of "oh, that sounds interesting, maybe I'll... oh right, never mind" :)

It did make me want to reread Kitty and the Midnight Hour. I liked it ok, but if it embraces "urban fantasy but stalking isn't the same as flirting", I might like the later books more than I'd realised.

[jack]

Yes, taxing wealth. Isn't that how taxing works?

[andrewducker]

What wealth taxes do we currently have?

[danieldwilliam]

Council tax is arguably a wealth tax.

Inheritance tax is arguably a wealth tax.

Stamp duty is sort of arguably a wealth tax.

Capital Gains Tax is nearly but I think not really sort of a wealth tax. You could also make a similar arguement for income tax on dividends where the dividends are being paid out of the accululated value of a corporation rather than new profit.

So not many and they don't raise much revenue.

[andrewducker]

Inheritance and Stamp are wealth transfer taxes.

Capital Gains is a profit tax.

Council tax arguably more of an actual wealth tax.

[danieldwilliam]

Is stamp duty a wealth transfer tax? I'm not sure. I think it's more a wealth reconfiguration tax. It's a transaction tax on the transfer of title in valuable assets. So if I am very wealthy and transmute some of my wealth held as shares in to wealth held as housing then I pay two lots of stamp duty. If I just keep my wealth in the same assets then I don't pay stamp duty. That's by the by though.

What sort of arguably makes it a wealth tax is that it is a tax on the transfer of title to assets and you tend to have more assets if you are wealthy and an ongoing requirement to reconfigure how they are held.

I don't think it's a strong argument for considering stamp duty to be a wealth tax. It's more a tax on ducking and diving whilst in possession of a lot of stuff.

Inheritance tax has a stronger claim to be a wealth tax as it's a tax explicitely on assets and everyone dies. However, not everyone pays inheritance tax. If you plan ahead and have good relationships with your family you can avoid quite a lot of inheritance tax.

Again, I'm not suggesting that Capital Gains Tax has a strong claim to being a wealth tax. Similarly to stamp duty it generally applies when wealthy people reconfigure how their wealth is held. Being wealthy (or at least well off) is probably a sine qua non of actually paying CGT. It's a tax wealthy people pay rather than being a tax on wealth.

A problem with Council Tax as a wealth tax is that it is a tax on wealth held in a very narrow way. The classic problem of a little old widow living alone in her five bedroom house and family home.

So I share your sceptisism about wealth taxes in the UK.

[aldabra]

Yeah, this council tax as wealth tax thing: I'm paying it on a rented house, which is somebody else's wealth, in a climate where I can't accumulate enough of my own wealth for a house deposit. I can see that it's a tax on being able to afford to live in the house, but in my case that's an income thing not a capital thing. (Although, come to think of it, I'm subsidising it out of the potential house deposit, so, there's that.)

[danieldwilliam]

It's not a great wealth tax.

And it's a sort of wealth tax that is used to pay for local services.

Although I think it's a likely feature of most wealth taxes that they will actually be paid by the people who are using the capital assets that the wealth is held in so long as the holder of the wealth has any negotiating power.

[jack]

Oops, sorry. I skimmed that way too quickly. I meant, in general, taxes on people who tend to be wealthy, thinking mostly of income tax: I hadn't seen the article was specifically targeting taxes on existing wealth. Which I agree is difficult to bring about, but possibly necessary (although the article didn't seem to have a specific plan).

Republicans in Illinois do actually think that Nazis are bad.

[havocthecat]

Because I'm from Illinois, even though I'm not a Republican, I feel the need to defend the Republican party and my state. This is a crackpot who keeps trying to get on the ballot and has, every other time, not actually followed due process.

This time he did and the GOP in the area didn't bother to find anyone else to run because a) they didn't think he'd actually manage to get on the ballot this time too (their mistake and hopefully one they never make again), and b) it's a heavily Democratic area of the state and the Democrats are going to win anyway.

No one endorses this guy, and every Republican should get out and vote against him on sheer principle alone, but no, the Republicans in that particular area and my state generally do not support this guy.

You may read further, should you choose, about the sordid history and background of this Nazi crackpot in one of the large local newspapers, which are a valid and legitimate news source for millions of people in the area:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/holocaust-denier-arthur-jones-republican-3rd-congressional-district-lipinski-newman/

Re: Republicans in Illinois do actually think that Nazis are bad.

[andrewducker]

Thank you, that's some very useful context.

[danieldwilliam]

One of the grimly interesting things about the Weinstein stories is that it has answered several of my "what ever happened to so-and-so" questions.

Ioan Gruffud, for examply, who I thought would go on to do lots of films after he was in Hornblower and then mysteriously didn't apparantly because he and his wife had been black-listed by Weinstein. There were a few others.

The Uma Thurman car crash answers another of those questions - why didn't Uma Thurman make any more films with Tarantino after the Kill Bill films?

Taratino does not come out of the car crash story well.

[alithea]

It certainly answered my 'whatever happened to Mina Sorvino?' question :(

Tarantino really doesn't come out of it well at all.

[danieldwilliam]

Yes, she's one of the people I had been wondering about.

Tarantino is definately on my list of people I used to think it would be interesting to know but now no longer think that.

[dewline]

No, he doesn't. Not sure I want him anywhere near Star Trek at this point.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm not sure I'd want him near any actors whom I didn't actively want maimed.

[kmusser]

To add some context to the Illinois Nazi story (oblig: I hate Illinois Nazis), that's a Chicago district which the Republican's usually do not bother to run anybody because they know they're going to lose. Candidates running unopposed at the state level is very common in districts that are lop-sided in terms of party membership and it's not uncommon for fringe candidates to take advantage of this to get their names on the ballot for a bit of publicity even though they know they can't win and won't get any party support.

[dewline]

That explains the Nazi?

You can probably guess at what I currently worry about as an unlikely event becoming Inevitable...

[kmusser]

It explains how he got onto the ballot, people think that means he has some sort of support, but literally anyone can get on to the ballot in those unopposed races, there is no vetting, there is no needing to go through a political party, all they have to do is pay a filing fee.

[andrewducker]

It does seem incredibly odd that a person can claim to be a representative of a political party against that party's wishes.

[kmusser]

That it is, but it also only works in places where there is no organized party presence to deny that claim.

[andrewducker]

Do the Republican party literally have nobody in Illinois?

Can they not say "Not in our name, you aren't even a member of the party."

[kmusser]

The parties are not national organizations, they are collections of state and local organizations, there is a Republican party of Illinois and they can say that in state-wide races, but in more local elections only members within that district have a say. In this case the state party has said exactly that, but they don't control ballot access. Now that is a large enough district I still would've expected it to have an organization, but maybe not. I went and checked and no Republican ran at all in 2016, but they did run relatively mainstream candidates in 2012 and 2014 and they got about 30% of the vote.

As for Jacob Rees-Mogg?

[dewline]

That guy does not strike me as one who's got his understanding of reality worked out yet.