PREGUNTAVER

Bjorn Tarras - Walhberg , Secretary General of the World Taxpayers Associations, spend most of his time traveling around the world and preaching the doctrine of "Flat Taxes". He meets with Finance Ministers, Presidents and Prime Ministers and tries to convince them to lower their income taxes and replace it with a flat rate. According to Walhberg, a flat system is: Simple - Easy to understand. Everybody can easily find out exactly how much they need to pay. At the moment, most people do not really know how much their obligations are due the complicated system in place in most countries. Ethical - Does not discriminate. Both the progressive and regressive systems are open to ethical debates. A lot of people argue that one or both systems favor or discriminate the rich or poor and vice versa . Fair - Everybody pays the same rate. There is no disincentive to produce/work less. Promotes competition and economic growth - A reduction in taxes through the imposition of a flat ...

APPLY NOW Trade representatives from the US, Brazil, India and Europe will meet to hammer an agreement that will resolve the 2005 deadlock in the DOHA round. In the negotiations, US and EU will be pushing India and Brazil, acknowledged leaders of the world's developing countries, to open their economies. To quote an online editor at the http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/news_home.asp?NTID=67 ; "Developing nations are being pressed to open their markets wider to industrial goods and services and the United States is seeking fewer farm products on their "protected" list. But India and other developing nations says they needs their farm tariffs to protect the livelihoods of their huge farming populations. Up to 80 percent of the workforces in developing nations depend on agriculture." I believe that the editor failed to point out that the US heavily subsidises a lot of industries, therefore creating “False competitiveness” for their local industries. I am not t...

APPLY NOW -In a Reuters article, the following figures came out in reference to the Philippine Educational system. Please click this page for the complete article . -In a survey, the country rated 126 out of 163 in a 2006 global survey on corruption, behind Libya and Uganda. -The average annual teachers' salary averages 1,700 UK pounds. -The United Nations reports that approximately 46 percent of the population live on less than $2 a day, and 28 percent of children under the age of five are underweight. -A class size of 65 students is a frequent occurrence . -World Bank show education spending by the Philippines was equal to 3.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2004, far higher than Indonesia's 0.9 percent but well below Malaysia's 8 percent and Thailand's 4.2 percent. -Just one in five 12-year- olds scored the mastery level of 75 percent in maths, science, social studies and languages in the 2004/05 school year. -There are plans to increase its education budget ...

The previous post spoke well of the government for its intervention in a market failure scenario. In the situation mentioned, 70 million (mostly poor) Filipinos were being deprived of proper health care by being forced to buy expensive medicines, in a cartel like (oligopoly) situation. A follow up to that story, however, will show that the government action to correct market failure is fast threatening to become a classic example of "Government failure". The Philippine Government created the "Botika ng Bayan " (People's Drugstore) in order to make affordable medicines accessible, especially to the poor. In order to show the strengths of the program, the cheap product prices , printed in colored canvass, stands outside the branches. At present, it has 5,800 branches and by 2007, the goal is to expand to 7,800 local offices. What fuels skepticism over the project are experiences that include: Two visits to a branch showed that the outlet was already closed by 7P...