Random News Stories

[Pies4shaw]

Why David?What’s the attraction for you?And wouldn’t you be worried about any lingering radiation in the area?

I love abandoned buildings and towns in general, and always have. There’s something beautiful about seeing an urban landscape in the midst of being returned to nature. With regard to Pripyat, there is some lingering radiation in areas, but as long as you stay away from dangerous spots and keep track of your geiger meter, it’s fine.

Thanks for the explanation,David.You’re obviously a lot more adventurous than I am.That’s something I would never want to do myself,but I can see how it would appeal to other people.Just make sure it is absolutely safe before you do go over there though.You can never be too safe with things like this.

There was a sort of "travel" documentary thing on Channel 7 last night that I watched, largely because of David's comments in this thread. Some English chap went and lived in the exclusion zone for a week and went to various places. So, eg, he went and stood in the control room of reactor 4 (the one that blew) and then went and stood on the fuel rods in reactor 3. I got a little bored at the end but I think he went down somewhere else that he thought was spectacular (maybe under or near reactor 4?). Anyway, if you can get hold if it, you can basically see lots of possibly interesting stuff inside the exclusion zone and not die from radiation poisoning or radiation-induced cancer. On the other hand, you might be lucky if you do go - the narrator spoke to a policeman who had been near the reactor when it blew and stayed to supervise the clean up - he was told, then, that he wouldn't survive 5 years (so he's 30 years past his use-by date, as I type).

The bit that captured my attention was the tiny bit at the end - the creation of the exclusion zone has apparently enabled wildlife to return - wolves, lynxes, bears and various other things they showed/mentioned. Not a single 27-eyed flying walrus with radiation breath to be seen, either.

I imagine this can be seen on some streaming service if anyone is interested (the doco I mean - I am confident you won't get live footage of any such walrus).

[stui magpie]

^

I saw the program but didn't watch it. I dare say you can get it on iView or some such similar if anyone's interested.

But yes, given smaller mammals cycle through generations much faster than humans, the fact that they've made a come back in the area with no apparent ill effects is a positive sign.

[David]

Sounds interesting, P4S! Might have a hunt for it.

[stui magpie]

No need to hunt.

https://7plus.com.au/inside-chernobyl

[think positive]

oh wow, thats cool im watching it too!!

[pietillidie]

Good interview with Bernie Sanders:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/23/opin ... nders.html

[pietillidie]

I don't know that I agree with you - I believe that you are having the wool pulled over your eyes. That story appears to me to be a plant to draw the attention away from the real culprits - the large corporates and new IT billionaires that are in bed with the Democrats, who have been in bed with the NY Times since the early 1960's. It is Facebook, Twitter and many multi nationals etc who are doing everything they can to not pay their way in tax terms. They helped the Democrats and they didn't do it for nothing. That's where the large tax avoidance is.
As we have moved away from a cash society to a card/EFT payment society the simple old school small business failing to disclose income has become less prevalent. That's one of the reasons that small retail has declined in Australia, as if tax has to be paid on all income then the margin isn't there to keep the doors open. It's much easier now for the ATO to uncover undisclosed income when an audit takes place. The IRS is even more aggressive than our ATO.

Did you even read it? How on earth is being able to better detect 1.4T in uncollected taxes somehow a plot to help some global cabal, subject to the very same measures, avoid taxes?

Congressional Republicans, unable to muster public support for reductions in federal spending, have pursued that goal indirectly by constraining federal revenue, in part by hacking away at the I.R.S.’s budget. The share of all tax returns subject to an audit declined by 46 percent from 2010 to 2018, according to the Congressional Budget Office. For millionaires, the decline in the audit rate was 61 percent. Today, the government employs fewer people to track down deadbeats than at any time since the 1950s.

[pietillidie]

This was an interesting exchange on the tax topic: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/545 ... on-twitter.

Flabbergasting arrogance from Amazon. A company that hated ought to be more circumspect, surely.

[David]

I saw that. Talk about getting high on one’s own supply!

[pietillidie]

^A follow-up piece from Kara Swisher. I don't mind her schtick sometimes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/opin ... tions.html

[5 from the wing on debut]

I don't know that I agree with you - I believe that you are having the wool pulled over your eyes. That story appears to me to be a plant to draw the attention away from the real culprits - the large corporates and new IT billionaires that are in bed with the Democrats, who have been in bed with the NY Times since the early 1960's. It is Facebook, Twitter and many multi nationals etc who are doing everything they can to not pay their way in tax terms. They helped the Democrats and they didn't do it for nothing. That's where the large tax avoidance is.
As we have moved away from a cash society to a card/EFT payment society the simple old school small business failing to disclose income has become less prevalent. That's one of the reasons that small retail has declined in Australia, as if tax has to be paid on all income then the margin isn't there to keep the doors open. It's much easier now for the ATO to uncover undisclosed income when an audit takes place. The IRS is even more aggressive than our ATO.

Did you even read it? How on earth is being able to better detect 1.4T in uncollected taxes somehow a plot to help some global cabal, subject to the very same measures, avoid taxes?

Congressional Republicans, unable to muster public support for reductions in federal spending, have pursued that goal indirectly by constraining federal revenue, in part by hacking away at the I.R.S.’s budget. The share of all tax returns subject to an audit declined by 46 percent from 2010 to 2018, according to the Congressional Budget Office. For millionaires, the decline in the audit rate was 61 percent. Today, the government employs fewer people to track down deadbeats than at any time since the 1950s.

I am not going to spend the time explaining it to you.
Read the article, your comments, and mine, again, then see if you can work it out for yourself.

You shouldn’t quote that 1.4trillion as a fact, either. It is a made up number that relates to the next decade.

Unless you are living in the USA I don’t see how this effects the tax you are paying either, unless you are considering the lack of tax paid here and elsewhere by the multi nationals, which you somehow don’t think is relevant.

[Pies4shaw]

I's just as well we don't live in a global world and that the US is not a significant economic player - it'd be terrible if any of the stuff that happened there affected Australians, in any way, at all.

[5 from the wing on debut]

Not sure what point you are attempting to make.
His initial post to which I responded seemed to be along the lines of he had to pay more tax because domestic businesses in the USA weren’t paying their share there and yet he wasn’t interested in the multi nationals.

[pietillidie]

I don't know that I agree with you - I believe that you are having the wool pulled over your eyes. That story appears to me to be a plant to draw the attention away from the real culprits - the large corporates and new IT billionaires that are in bed with the Democrats, who have been in bed with the NY Times since the early 1960's. It is Facebook, Twitter and many multi nationals etc who are doing everything they can to not pay their way in tax terms. They helped the Democrats and they didn't do it for nothing. That's where the large tax avoidance is.
As we have moved away from a cash society to a card/EFT payment society the simple old school small business failing to disclose income has become less prevalent. That's one of the reasons that small retail has declined in Australia, as if tax has to be paid on all income then the margin isn't there to keep the doors open. It's much easier now for the ATO to uncover undisclosed income when an audit takes place. The IRS is even more aggressive than our ATO.

Did you even read it? How on earth is being able to better detect 1.4T in uncollected taxes somehow a plot to help some global cabal, subject to the very same measures, avoid taxes?

Congressional Republicans, unable to muster public support for reductions in federal spending, have pursued that goal indirectly by constraining federal revenue, in part by hacking away at the I.R.S.’s budget. The share of all tax returns subject to an audit declined by 46 percent from 2010 to 2018, according to the Congressional Budget Office. For millionaires, the decline in the audit rate was 61 percent. Today, the government employs fewer people to track down deadbeats than at any time since the 1950s.

I am not going to spend the time explaining it to you.
Read the article, your comments, and mine, again, then see if you can work it out for yourself.

You shouldn’t quote that 1.4trillion as a fact, either. It is a made up number that relates to the next decade.

Unless you are living in the USA I don’t see how this effects the tax you are paying either, unless you are considering the lack of tax paid here and elsewhere by the multi nationals, which you somehow don’t think is relevant.

Of course you're not going to spend time explaining it. You're going to spend time generating further incomprehensible nonsense.

What has led you to the conclusion that (a) the original comment is only valid insofar as it relates to my own personal taxes; (b) that declining government revenues in a global financial and economic system are a single state problem, and indeed one without useful or even interesting parallel or analogue across borders; and (c) that your awareness of the composition of the 1.4T dollars is singular, and by extension its mere utterance by others is erroneous?

You pulled the same time wasting stunt with Tannin.

[pietillidie]

Not sure what point you are attempting to make.
His initial post to which I responded seemed to be along the lines of he had to pay more tax because domestic businesses in the USA weren’t paying their share there and yet he wasn’t interested in the multi nationals.

Which part of the original post bears any connection to this whatsoever? Where did I mention any concern with paying more tax myself and declare a lack of interest in the taxation of multinational companies?

It's as if you're responding to something imaginary