Just a little anecdote about how great things are going in Argentina ... my former company recently closed down all of their software development operations in Argentina. Many of the remaining employees were given the option to transfer to Mexico, where said company is investing a significant amount of money to create a development lab. They are divesting from Argentina due to the high costs, unstable costs, and difficulty in importing required hardware and infrastructure. I've heard other software companies (e.g. IBM and HP) are scaling back operations in Argentina.
Business Insider- Argentina Has The Highest Corporate Taxes
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camberiu
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My employer, a VERY LARGE tech company, will put no development resources in Argentina. At all. We have a business and services office in Buenos Aires, and that is it. We have a big research and development center in Brazil and we are significantly growing our Mexican one. But Argentina? We'll keep an office to mark presence and hold the flag, and nothing more.
Same for my former employer. They left an outpost and a few people to man it.
A few years ago expats on this site defended every move made by the Argentine government -- until it got so oppressive that even they couldn't take it. They packed up, sold their property (if they had any) and left. Most I know went back to that wicked country they had long derided, the USA.
nicoenarg
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Not only are corporate taxes lower in Scandinavian countries, they are also yet to introduce the very successful economic model of "rape the tax payer and reward the thieves and corrupt politicians; when people question why things are so bad, blame the yanquis and the evil corporations" (otherwise known as 'el modelo' by the current president) that Argentina seems to like so much.
Scandinavia is also not known for tax evasion, pfff, crazy people! It is so bad there that when 153 Norwegians came clean about their savings in tax havens and decided to repatriate the money "so they could sleep well at night", it made front page headlines in the country's newspapers. 153. Thats lower than the number of people who regularly call each other boludo! on porteño streets every 5 minutes (source: Matias-style I-believe-it-because-I-say-so).
Just taxing the hell out of people doesn't do anything. I would be more than willing to go to a Scandinavian country and pay all the taxes that I should be paying because I know that most, if not all, will be spent for my benefit (indirectly, but still my benefit). Here though, the question is, why should people pay higher taxes to fill the pockets of politicians? Unless this country fixes its culture of corruption even 5% tax would be way too high.
Scandinavia is also not known for tax evasion, pfff, crazy people! It is so bad there that when 153 Norwegians came clean about their savings in tax havens and decided to repatriate the money "so they could sleep well at night", it made front page headlines in the country's newspapers. 153. Thats lower than the number of people who regularly call each other boludo! on porteño streets every 5 minutes (source: Matias-style I-believe-it-because-I-say-so).
Just taxing the hell out of people doesn't do anything. I would be more than willing to go to a Scandinavian country and pay all the taxes that I should be paying because I know that most, if not all, will be spent for my benefit (indirectly, but still my benefit). Here though, the question is, why should people pay higher taxes to fill the pockets of politicians? Unless this country fixes its culture of corruption even 5% tax would be way too high.
el_expatriado
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My example was for a regular guy running a PYME (small business). And the excel is my creation. My source if myself. I have a business here and in the US, so I know the tax rates in both countries.
So, I can tell you that the crazy tax rates are real.
Funny, today at work we had short debate about that. Short because otherwise smart and economically literate colleagues are so influenced by everyday's speech, that they will blindly defend the model. According to them, Argentina has to stay closed to protect their business. Doesn't matter at what cost, even if it ruins the same business... And people, that are paying more and more to fill the bottomless hole.
camberiu
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"[font=Helvetica Neue']When goods don’t cross borders, armies will"[/font]
[font=Helvetica Neue'] -[/font]Otto T. Mallery
http://youtu.be/f55DSbUGhMU
[font=Helvetica Neue'] -[/font]Otto T. Mallery
http://youtu.be/f55DSbUGhMU
Camberiu, I liked the video. The guy's right to a large extent, in my opinion. And sorry, but this happens to be a big theme for me, personally, as a libertarian and science and science fiction fanatic, so here goes a long diatribe on my part 
But it's going to take more than "new ways of telling the story", I believe, to get the world out of the cul-de-sac it's in.
They call me "Asteroid Boy" in the expat dinners I attend. I think the idea of expanding beyond the Earth is the only thing that will save us from ourselves, sitting in what amounts to a pressure cooker of conflicting ideas. Why "Asteroid Boy"? Because one of the first steps, once we are established in orbit (not with government playthings like we are now, but commercially), we could capture a small near-Earth asteroid and the right one would have more metals for mining than the entire metals mining production of our planet for a year - and there are bigger resources out there. It just gets bigger from there.
The Old World Diaspora to the New World changed our world beyond the imagining of the times. Most of the ideas and ideals that developed in the New World were already in existence in the Old World, there was just so much resistance to change from within that it required barbarians from outside to help spread the changes in many cases. I believe something similar is needed on a world-wide basis, to leave the Earth and begin to populate the Solar system, another Diaspora to harbor and encourage current new ideas that get squashed by the world's "natural" tyranny, that one day can come back and infect the home world with new memes. Hopefully it would reinforce some ideals which seem to be in the process of being lost and never even made it to some places, and other, new ideas that can be beneficial to all of mankind. Besides getting all of our eggs out of the same basket so we don't end up like the dinosaurs.
As much as I hate government interference, I think back to the $800 B + that Obama spent (and of course, that Bush would have spent, or any president which would have followed Bush) on entering office in his first term, which bailed out people/businesses that shouldn't have been bailed out. Imagine if he had started some kind of "Manhattan Project" for reducing the cost to orbit and encouraging growth of orbital production and such (NASA and the X-Prize has gone a long way toward helping that, but the funding isn't very big). Solar power collectors in orbit that can beam down tight-beam energy and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels that create so much pollution, for at least power generation. No more mining of our planet and reduced fabrication/factories polluting things ground-side. A new push on the sciences and engineering, but also something that would have even benefited teachers and clear down to janitors.
New ideas and a place to germinate and grow them.
That's all going to happen eventually, with or without government intervention. I only posit that Obama could have done what amounts to a miracle if he could have won over other politicians with the idea, but I would never expect a government to do that, really. After all, Kennedy's "Space Race" of the 60s left us with no real presence in orbit until well after, and without even the ability to return to the Moon without great effort (governments don't really solve anything, for the most part).
No way in hell are the governments of the world going to suddenly open their borders to free migrations of humans. Not without some kind of external pressure. I only hope that pressure doesn't come from some world-wide disaster, be it economic or "natural".
And things like Argentina closing itself off is so obviously not the answer. Never has been, never will be. More government interference, the more government control, the worse things get, usually.
But it's going to take more than "new ways of telling the story", I believe, to get the world out of the cul-de-sac it's in.
They call me "Asteroid Boy" in the expat dinners I attend. I think the idea of expanding beyond the Earth is the only thing that will save us from ourselves, sitting in what amounts to a pressure cooker of conflicting ideas. Why "Asteroid Boy"? Because one of the first steps, once we are established in orbit (not with government playthings like we are now, but commercially), we could capture a small near-Earth asteroid and the right one would have more metals for mining than the entire metals mining production of our planet for a year - and there are bigger resources out there. It just gets bigger from there.
The Old World Diaspora to the New World changed our world beyond the imagining of the times. Most of the ideas and ideals that developed in the New World were already in existence in the Old World, there was just so much resistance to change from within that it required barbarians from outside to help spread the changes in many cases. I believe something similar is needed on a world-wide basis, to leave the Earth and begin to populate the Solar system, another Diaspora to harbor and encourage current new ideas that get squashed by the world's "natural" tyranny, that one day can come back and infect the home world with new memes. Hopefully it would reinforce some ideals which seem to be in the process of being lost and never even made it to some places, and other, new ideas that can be beneficial to all of mankind. Besides getting all of our eggs out of the same basket so we don't end up like the dinosaurs.
As much as I hate government interference, I think back to the $800 B + that Obama spent (and of course, that Bush would have spent, or any president which would have followed Bush) on entering office in his first term, which bailed out people/businesses that shouldn't have been bailed out. Imagine if he had started some kind of "Manhattan Project" for reducing the cost to orbit and encouraging growth of orbital production and such (NASA and the X-Prize has gone a long way toward helping that, but the funding isn't very big). Solar power collectors in orbit that can beam down tight-beam energy and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels that create so much pollution, for at least power generation. No more mining of our planet and reduced fabrication/factories polluting things ground-side. A new push on the sciences and engineering, but also something that would have even benefited teachers and clear down to janitors.
New ideas and a place to germinate and grow them.
That's all going to happen eventually, with or without government intervention. I only posit that Obama could have done what amounts to a miracle if he could have won over other politicians with the idea, but I would never expect a government to do that, really. After all, Kennedy's "Space Race" of the 60s left us with no real presence in orbit until well after, and without even the ability to return to the Moon without great effort (governments don't really solve anything, for the most part).
No way in hell are the governments of the world going to suddenly open their borders to free migrations of humans. Not without some kind of external pressure. I only hope that pressure doesn't come from some world-wide disaster, be it economic or "natural".
And things like Argentina closing itself off is so obviously not the answer. Never has been, never will be. More government interference, the more government control, the worse things get, usually.
camberiu
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They don't have to. We are a wondering species by nature. To migrate is an evolutionary urge coded on our DNA. Immigration will happen with or without the government's consent. Fighting immigration is like fighting the war on drugs: It is a futile and losing proposition, no matter how much resources you throw at it.
In regards of space exploration, I say this: We are made of star stuff, and to the stars we shall return.
http://youtu.be/m6ugFcwsgpE
