you know your developed when the majority of other countries strive to be like you, thats my expert hillbilly opinion
What is a developed country?
- Thread starter Tonington
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The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.
Quite so. That is why i think it is illegal in many countries, government would frown upon it, since they lose the tax revenue.
As to the example you gave, mowing the lawn for ploughing the driveway, I don't know if that is illegal or not. But it doesn't matter, nobody is going to bother about such minor things.
I've always worked on the premise that a lot of this stuff only becomes illegal if the wrong people find out about it.
It's certainly not illegal in Canada. The issue is that it has to be accounted for, if businesses barter services, money does not have to change hands, but the accounting has to look after the value of the trade, and the taxes have to be paid on the value of the transaction.
Similarly, if your employer, say a brewery, gives the employees product, say beer, in addition to, or instead of salary, that has to be accounted for as a taxable benefit.
It's in no way illegal, but evading the taxes on it certainly is.
Similarly, if your employer, say a brewery, gives the employees product, say beer, in addition to, or instead of salary, that has to be accounted for as a taxable benefit.
It's in no way illegal, but evading the taxes on it certainly is.
I'm going to spoil the fun and post something about the topic:
Developed country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It's all about money, isn't it? Never mind that the people of a nation may not be happy and their needs taken care of, or that the nation does not plan ahead very far, etc.
Developed country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What you are saying makes sense. As long as government gets it cut, it doesn’t care if you pay in dollars, pound, or cows.
However, barter usually means transaction between two parties without involvement of any third party. That is why cash transaction is not considered barter, since it involves government (cash is backed by the government).
So I am not sure if the transaction where tax is paid to the government can really be called barter. It goes against the spirit of barter, if not against the literal meaning of it.
It is perverse because a Chinese worker who is born into the farming class will never be able to make a better wage. The system is set up that way. China is very developed, but highly skewed away from rural workers.
What kind of impact do you think that has? How does this compare to other nations?
In our modern economy, people often make 'donations in kind' to churches and other organizations; contractors will build parking lots, people will mow lawns...it's not done for cash, but they are given tax receipts as if a donation was made to the value of their services.
That's the same concept, cash doesn't change hands, but it's a taxable transaction nonetheless.
That's the same concept, cash doesn't change hands, but it's a taxable transaction nonetheless.
The farmers that we met outside of Nanchang and Hangzhou last summer had houses that were quite the equal of a typical Canadian house.
I'm skeptical that what you saw would be the norm. Maybe I should rephrase...farmers registered in the Hukou system will have a very hard time doing anything but farm. Maybe that's more to the point, my point being that there are very high paying jobs in the cities that they are disqualified from.
China ranks 96 in per capita income. By no stretch of imagination can China be called a developed country. And this has nothing to do with distribution of income (though what you say may be true).
What this means is that China may have a huge middle and upper middle class (say around 200 million, I am only guessing). But it has even bigger, much bigger poor class, say 400 or 500 million people.
You cannot just look at the middle and upper middle class and claim that it is a developed country. Look at the country as a whole and by every indication (and also according to IMF) it is very much a developing country. So is India, which is even poorer than China.
Not sure how this is a philosophical subject, considering it is more economic then philosophical by far. A developed country is one that can mostly stand on its own feet. One that is not dependent on outside money to stay existing, one that has fairly high GDP, HDI, and happiness. One with relatively low crime, especially violent crime, and one that is sustainable with intelligent levels of immigration and government stability.
Canada passes most of these things.
Canada passes most of these things.
SPA's example of the difference betwee the fellow that makes $1000 and the one that makes $100K is extremely poor (pun intended). Suppose the fellow that makes $100K spends that much on food, clothing, shelter, etc. and the fellow that makes $1000 needs to spend only $990 on those things and is happier, who's better off?
Developing, developed, well-off, poor are relative terms, so you are right, this is a philosophical discussion.
Personally, I'd make a distinction between spiritually developed and materially developed. A spiritually developed nation, even if not yet materially developed, if left to itself, will certainly catch up materially. A materially developed nation lacking in spiritual development will inevitably collapse, as had happened to Europe in WWI and WWII.
To me spiritual development includes moral development, knowing right from wrong, respect for the law, etc.
... and that, to SPA's chagrin, is not quantifiable.
(Can't boil it down to numbers easily, if at all).
... and that, to SPA's chagrin, is not quantifiable.
Oh, pity.
So let's consider British India under the Reign of Queen Victoria. At that time, the UK was certainly the wealthiest country in the world on a per capita basis, but this was possible owing to imperialism and thus the theft of material resources from its colonies including India. India at the time was far poorer than the UK, but later came Mahatma Gadhi, who helped to unite all Indians regardless of caste or creed in peaceful protest against the British Raj.
Materially, no doubt the UK was more developed than India, and there is also no doubt that the material investment from that era has brought material dividends to this day that India lost out on owing to its colonial status. So, SJP, which of the two nations would you say was more spiritually developed at that time, and which would say, from a moral and ethical standpoint, is more important between spiritual and material advancement?
I'd say spiritual development must come first, with material development building built on the foundations of the spiritual, without which material development will only lead to more hardship.
We should consider also that in some families, the family may be rich, but without love the children will never thrive and likely never follow in their parents' material footsteps and might even come to resent material wealth as the cause of many conflicts in the family.
A poor child with loving parents is more likely to grow and develop not only materially but spiritualy too and likely be happier overall.
A poor child with loving parents is more likely to grow and develop not only materially but spiritualy too and likely be happier overall.