Within 48 hours of taking office, Romania’s new prime minister issued an emergency edict and now companies and private citizens pay a single tax rate of 16 percent. Before, paying a flat tax rate was uncommon. But now, countries like Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia and Serbia are not paying a flat tax rate. Here are some excerpts taking from this article:

Fair question. A flat-tax system is easy to set up and simple to administer—powerful attractions for any country with a weak tradition of tax collection. It also encourages the tax-paying habit. Why risk the penalties of working in the black economy when, as in Russia, the taxman wants just 13 percent of your earnings? “Set the rate low enough and it just isn’t worth going criminal,” says Madsen Pirie, of the Adam Smith Institute in London. The Belgian entrepreneur paying 50 percent on the top slice of his income might be tempted to hide his cash offshore; not so his Slovakian equivalent.

I am pretty sure there are some pros and cons to this flat taxation, which is unknown to me at this time. But evidently, it is working for some countries. If all goes well with paying a flat tax rate, I am pretty sure the U.S. will consider and maybe even implement one day. Like flat taxes, privatizing social security was once a concept that is now being supported by the U.S.

(Link found from the Adam Smith Institue)

Greenspan on Social Security:

Washington, D.C. - In spite of clear evidence that Social Security will begin to run permanent huge deficits in just 13 years, some on Capitol Hill refuse to acknowledge that there is even a crisis. They need to listen to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who testified before the Senate Banking yesterday.

Chairman Greenspan noted that American demographics will change severely as the baby boom generation retires, creating “a very major problem for (the) pay-as-you-go system.” Indeed, these changes will cause benefits to exceed contributions by 2018. And if nothing is done, Americans are sure to face tax hikes and benefit cuts.

There are many people yelling about the high prices of drug cost which leads some Americans to do illegal things like purchase prescription drugs at Canadian prices over the Internet. Being that this transaction is illegal, many Canadian drug manufacturers start restricting supplies to online pharmacies that export drugs to the U.S. These drug manufacturers are threatened by having their license pulled away if they continue to do this. Also, the Canadian drug market is so small that if all Americans go and purchase drugs in Canada, Canadian supply would run out in about a month. That would lead to higher prices close to U.S levels.

There is some data that goes to show that generic drugs or over the counter (OTC) drugs in the U.S. are actually cheaper than Canadian and other countries drugs.

For example, a study by the consulting firm Palmer D’Angelo found that Canadians pay more than twice as much as Americans for Canada’s 27 top-selling generic drugs. This is consistent with research conducted by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For five of seven generic drugs studied, the FDA found that Canadians pay more than Americans do; in some cases two to three times more. [See the figure.] Considering that half of all drugs sold in the United States are generic, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to them in the reimportation debate.

Wharton economists Patricia Danzon and Michael Turukana have found a similar pattern for OTC drug prices overseas. In France and Italy, OTC drugs sell for more than four times the U.S. price. Prices in Japan are three times higher, and in Germany, twice as high.

Here are some reasons why Canadian generic drug prices are so expensive:

Since brand-name drugs are principally produced by foreign manufacturers, the Canadian government willingly imposes strict price controls that benefit Canadian consumers. In the generic market, however, Canadian producers dominate. In fact, two companies (Apotex and Novopharm) account for more than half of the total Canadian generic market.

Through regulation, therefore, the Canadian government protects its generic producers from lower-priced American competitors — at the expense of its own citizens. Where it has no domestic producers (for example, brand-name drugs), it flexes its muscle to push prices down.

This is why it is good to let medicine R&D companies and manufactures to develop new medicines and get their profits before their patent expires. This way, there is an incentive for these companies to produce good medicine and once their patent expires, other companies can make generics of that brand, which will lead to cheaper prices for the public.

“I was reading an op-ed piece by Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post, and he began by quoting Jon Stewart, the comedian, who said, “We did it! We had the election. And now we can say to Iraq, ‘Goodbye!’”

The words “We did it!” brought me up short. I thought, “What do you mean, we?”

It will be just like the Cold War, I think. George W. Bush and his allies will make progress in the Middle East, and then, with selective amnesia, those who fought Bush & Co. tooth and nail will say, “We, we, we.” We liberalized Afghanistan, we liberalized Iraq, blah, blah, blah.

If it had been up to Jon Stewart and his ilk, that election in Iraq would never have taken place.

“We did it!” indeed.” –Jay Nordling

Here is a good link on how gun control was used on blacks after slavery. Here are some excerpts:

After the Civil War, the defeated Southern states aimed to preserve slavery in fact if not in law. The states enacted Black Codes which barred the black freedmen from exercising basic civil rights, including the right to bear arms. Mississippi’s provision was typical: No freedman “shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition.”

If the Southern States used gun control on blacks after the civil war, then what does that say about gun control today?

On February 1, Laurie Kellman reported Medicare’s decision to cover “sexual performance drugs such as Viagra” in their new prescription drug program. Therefore, one can use taxpayers’ hard earned money just to enhance their sex life. Is this fair for taxpayers? I think not. There is no reason why Medicare should fund sexual performance drugs at taxpayers’ expense. If they fund sex performance drugs, then why not finance cosmetic surgery or any other non-health related treatment or drug? Where would it stop? Next, they will be funding penis enhancers! I am pretty sure there are many other more important health programs or even non-health programs that needs funding. Funding sex performance drugs is more of a luxury and not a necessity. And when it comes to taxpayers’ dollars, funding should only be for necessities.

Really busy with school and work so I have been posting SS comics.

If you need to:

• Raise taxes
• Cut promised benefits
• Raise the retirement age
• Lower COLAs (Cost of Living Adjustments)
• Raise the annual wage cap
• Tax social security benefits

just to keep social security in tact, then there is a problem. Social security should be self-sustained. Meaning, we should not have to do all this just to keep it alive. By privatizing social security, for the long term, it will be self-sustained. Yes I agree, there will be a penalty for privatizing social security (at least how I see it today), but it is worth it. And if congress had invested the trust funds instead of spending it, there would not be a problem. They could have liquidated the trust funds and payout the money to the beneficiaries instead of raising taxes, cutting benefits, ect…. This makes a very good point on why privatizing social security is so good. Now, congress can stay out of our pockets and not spend our retirement money.

GW Bush, sign me up!!!

Whelp, it looks like another war is about to happen. Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has said Tehran will never give up nuclear technology although international pressure continues. He also warned of massive consequences if Iran was treated unfairly and claims the nuclear program is for peaceful and needed nuclear energy. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the other hand is being very aggressive with the Iranian President, stating that they must live up to its international obligations to halt its nuclear program or “the next steps are in the offing.” “And I think everybody understands what the ‘next steps’ mean”, Rice told reporters. Ok, this is getting ugly here. And note that President Bush said that Iran was part of the “axis of evil.”

Ex-President Carter noted that the U.S. military was “bogged down in Iraq and overextended” and he thinks diplomacy is a proper approach which he believe exactly what President Bush is doing, as announced by Condoleezza Rice.

Four employees of a health care company got fired because the refused to take a test that would determine if they smoked or not. Weyco Inc. has a policy that if employees smoke cigarettes, even outside of work hours (like at home), they will be fired. This company claims that they do not want to pay high health care cost from the results of smoking. Although this policy sounds kind of harsh, I sort of agree with it to an extent. The part I don’t agree with is firing someone that they already hired with the condition they can smoke. I don’t think it is right to change that type of policy in the middle of someone’s employment. But at the same time, you cannot hire new employees under this policy while old employees is still able to smoke. I do agree with not wanting to pay the high health care cost of smoking. Health care cost for smokers are as much as 40 percent higher than non-smokers.

Also, I associate this policy as being in the same category as the policies many sport players agree to when they sign their contract or agreement. Many sport players cannot participate in dangerous activities such as riding motorcycles, ect…

I would like to forward you guys a post by El-Oso about “Understanding Minority Conservatives.” I am under the assumption that El-Oso is currently a liberal that is now seeing things differently and is almost converting to become a conservative with the help of HispanicPundit (correct me if I’m wrong). Here is an excerpt on how El-Oso is now seeing his political stance:

I’ll tell you something that I rarely tell anyone: I secretly want to be a conservative.

I don’t want to have to tell anyone what they should do with their money. I don’t want to be the one going up to some rich guy and saying, “look man, don’t you think you should be spending some more of your money on schools and less on all those cars?” Or telling my employer that he should really be offering me health care. Or telling some hardworking businesswoman who has spent the last two years looking for the perfect place to put her business, “sorry, but I think it might affect this rare species of birds that calls this place home. Or even demanding that a company not selectively hire employees based on age, sex, or ethnicity. All this regulation that we as liberals, demand of our government. I wish I didn’t have to be a part of it.

Hey El-Oso, I believe most conservative, including minorities see things this way.

President Bush proposed a $2.57 trillion budget over the next five years which will try to reduce the deficit. Some of these cuts include cutting non-security domestic spending (excluding automatically paid benefits like Medicare) by nearly 1 percent, forty-eight education programs, oil and gas research, and grants to communities hiring police officers.

Bush would slow the growth of benefit programs by $137 billion over the next decade, nearly quadruple the savings he proposed a year ago with little success. Chief among the targets would be Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled, but farmers’ payments, student loans and veterans medical services were also on the chopping block.

“It’s a budget that focuses on results,” Bush told reporters after meeting with his Cabinet. “The taxpayers of America don’t want us spending our money into something that’s not achieving results.”

Well, if the programs that are being cut because they are not producing results, then it need to be done.

Dr Eamonn Butler has a good post on why bush is right to privatize social security and how British pension privatization was not a failure.

All I gotta say is, what a good game it was… Good try Philly!!!