Swedish Tax Office Targets Webcam Strippers 384
Sweden's tax authorities are cracking down on unreported webcam stripper income. They estimate that hundreds of Swedish women are dodging the law, resulting in a tax loss of about 40m Swedish kronor (£3.3m) annually. The search involves tax officials examining stripper websites, hours upon hours, for completely legitimate purposes. A slightly disheveled project leader said 200 Swedish strippers had been investigated so far, adding the total could be as much as 500. "They are young girls, we can see from the photos. We think that perhaps they are not well informed about the rules," he said.
Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
Who are they, their pimps?
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You also have to be on the 50%+1 side who has been promised by their politician of choice that they can be the pimps, while making the 50%-1 the chattel. Participation, even in a large group, is not enough to accurately qualify that statement. You have to participate and be in the largest group.
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
When you have an income tax, the government is everyone's pimp. The government can extract anything from its taxpayers with little recourse.
When the US started the income tax it was 1% on incomes over $250,000 (adjusted) We now tax everyone 20-30% of anyone making over $600. Furthermore, your "fair share" is determined on how productive in enterprising you are. The more you stimulate the economy, the more you're penalized for it.
I wish people in the US would realize that the more people in government there is, the exponentially more the burden on private enterprise. Assume 1 government worker in a population of 100 can pay 20% of their salary (say $1000) back. The remaining 80% of that salary comes from private enterprise. Now, imagine 99 government workers and one private enterprise person. We then have a $76,200 bill to be paid by one person. Good luck with that.
Today fully one half of Americans receive federal funding in some way. Good luck with that.
We have a federal debt of 12 Trillion dollars and a $1+ trillion deficit this year alone. Our taxes should be 60%. But our unborn have no representation in congress. I love those Obama girls. I can't wait to tap them - for their taxes!
Of course, it is the income tax that allows this. It is so easy to collect as as long as we can keep raising it, we'll keep demanding more and more. Good luck with that.
With a consumption tax this kind of spending would be impossible.
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As I understand it, it was also supposed to be temporary.
What happened to that??
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As I understand it, it was also supposed to be temporary... what happened...
Oh, let's see. On the right, we have a 600 billion dollar a year defense budget, and on the left, we have a welfare state.
We can go back to having no income taxes if we get seriously cut the size of the military, get rid of medicare, all the welfare crap.. and, well, we also have to pay off the national debt.
sounds like a plan to me.
we'd still be stuck with a big payroll tax for social security. really, the only way your state can
Welfare in the hood? (Score:5, Informative)
Given the pitiful percentage we pay for a social safety net in the US compared to most other industrialized democracies, it barely qualifies as a Welfare Hood let alone a Welfare State.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, your "fair share" is determined on how productive in enterprising you are.
It's protection money for your... profit. You can be perfectly productive in a charitable or academic manner and your organisations will not have to worry much about tax. But if you want that money just to fund a larger house or private yacht, you're paying n% protection against the unwashed masses stealing the other (100-n)%. It's only right that the more personal wealth you amass, the more you should have to pay to protect it. If you want, we can move to an anarchy and see how long Gates gets to live safely.
The more you stimulate the economy, the more you're penalized for it.
The "economy" is just a bunch of people trading, not some huge singular blob. Just because x does a lot of trade benefitting set X, it doesn't mean I should care about x's successes unless I'm a member of X. But the government will stop me looting x because x pays the government protection money. Understand?
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
This argument is based on the assumption that those who are payed more in our society are more hard working and productive. As any fool can tell you, in reality the exact opposite of this assumption holds. Typically the more you are paid, the less productive you are.
While there are exceptions, it is safe to say that those on the lower end of the payscale work very hard jobs for very long hours, whereas those in high paid executive positions are on a gravy train, with high salaries, bonuses, short hours, little responsibility and who actually do atrociously little work.
The truth, and it is something that many simply cannot bear to face, is that the wealth of many individuals has very little to do with their own productivity and labour, and very much to do with the productivity and labour of the many people who work for them. This notion was, and still is, denied by many, particularly whose at the top end of the pay scale, who struggle to find some rationalisation for why they, who spend most of their day idle, spewing out buzzwords, on telephone calls, making powerpoint presentations or surfing for porn [infoworld.com], should receive an order of magnitude or more compensation for their day than the people on the factory floor who visibly sweat in order to make their living. It's a powerful juxtaposition and one which I'm sure people in top paying jobs are subconsciously uncomfortable with. Hence they rationalise. Oh do they rationalise.
Read Galbraith's book, "The Great Crash", where he analyises the 1929 stock market crash. Among other things, he argues that one of the main causes of the crash was the huge wealth disparity between the super rich and everyone else. Basically, there were a small number of people who had sucked up a sizable proportion of the money in the US, and gave nothing in return. When they stopped spending, the whole system froze up. They were essentially black holes which money flowed into, but never out of. Consumption taxes wouldn't have helped. Their money was idle and remained so.
So I don't buy this idea about the "injustice" of taxing higher earners. In my opinion, the true leaches in our society are the people in top positions who sit around doing nothing while creaming off the labour of others. they are the true parasites, and they are ultimately the ones who got us into the current crises we now find ourselves in. I'm not a communist, but I don't buy the idea that people should receive unlimited compensation simply because they had a rich parent, an expensive education and the right contacts. And make no mistake, those are the only qualifications that 90% of business managers have today.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
Those hard-working people you love so much only have jobs because more business-savvy people are constructing environments in which their hard labor can be turned into something of value, and are directing the efforts of their employees toward appropriate goals.
Working hard is a very straight-forward proposition that doesn't require your labor to be *worth* anything. But as a result it doesn't guarantee that you will be creating any value - for yourself or others. You come across as a pure "means of production" communist. If you succeed in running your little experiment you will discover that everyone can be working their asses off and still producing jack-shit, if the people who are good at preventing that scenario are held back and the free market is tied up with taxes, regulations, protectionism and government-granted monopolies.
Your mistake is that you think labor is intrinsically worth something. It's not. Supply in an environment of demand is intrinsically worth something. Pure laborers are just one cog in the production of the supply.
Entrepreneurs set up the equation to actually produce value and - as a result - wages; and they do so at great risk to their own livelihood. Risks pure laborers are disinclined or outright unwilling to take. Middle managers, while easy to pick on, exist primarily because pure laborers are so unlikely to efficiently produce things of value if left unmanaged, so if you hate them so badly you have only your workers to blame. It's true that they aren't setting up the value environment like the true business leaders, but it's not true that they are unnecessary. They may well be overpaid, but it's not *your* money they are being paid with so you don't have any right to deny it to them.
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Informative)
You suffer from the "engineers view", or wage-earner's view as being an engineer I once did.
The fact is there are two ways to earn your money. The first is to go work for someone. You put in 40 hours, and you get a market rate. The work is generally uniform and regular. This is our wage earner. He's paid to assemble widgets.
The other way to be paid is a percentage. The creation of an opportunity or the avoidance of a catastrophic expense is is another way to provide value. But here, they pay is not steady. There may be no opportunities to make or mistakes to save. The other way is to be a material participant in the creation of a wholly new product. (Generally opportunities are about finding customers)
When you create a product as part of a team and not earning wages for it, you put in "sweat equity". When the revenue comes in, the profits are distributed in proportion to the sweat equity. This is where you really make money. A $5 slap shop might make millions, and you get your cut.
I really think engineers (but not so much IT) get the wrong deal. Being that there are so many companies that make or save a substantial amount on software sales, these people should be treated as partners. After all their contributions functions long after they leave. They shouldn't get a wage, just revenues.
The other part you miss is the responsibility aspect. A lowly engineer writes code to the specs, fixes bugs. Generally all the heavy lifting is already done. The people who wrote the specs and all the way up to creating the market opportunity have a responsibility to make sure what you produce will be right for the market. You are concerned with the how (linux, php, .net) they are concerned with the what (a CRM for our clients...) If they are wrong, the company can lose thousands of dollars paying labor or equipment costs for fixes. If Apple puts a bad chip in the iPhone, then whomever signed off on that has responsibility. Signing the paperwork isn't hard. Putting the signature in the right place is. You can't say that only engineers made the iPhone. Clearly it was a company effort. And all those lazy management people nailed it.
Then you go on additional taxing higher earners more. Have you ever considered what could be wrought with that additional money? In a worst-case scenario, it sits in a bank and is lent out again. In the best case it is invested to produce future dividends. But by taking higher earners more you take that away, and given the talents outlined above, you really prevent talent from re-entering the economy, creating more economic growth.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wonder if this is less about value and more about power and influence. More powerful positions with more ability to change the behavior of the company carry more responsibility and potentially bring more value to the company.
That would be the logic from a corporation's standpoint. From a human standpoint, it is absurd to value one's time thousands of times more than another's.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture where early conditioning in greed and separation result in a belief system that puts money and
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's try 'the work they do is vastly more valuable'. God, you're an idiot.
Then the CEO should be fired immediately for not getting his thousands of wage slaves to do more valuable work.
If this 'vastly more valuable work' isn't actually 'harder', then why aren't more people doing it?
I mean, if its not actually intrinsically harder (and it largely isn't), than supply and demand pressures should put massive downward price pressure on 'vastly more valuable work', as everyone would be stopping harder less valuable work to do this easier and 'vastly more valuable work'.
God, you're an idiot.
Look in the mirror.
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You make a nice salary but you're not really in the category people are talking about. The question is whether CEOS that make 100x times your salary are really hard workers.
Corporations (Score:3, Informative)
Remember, the whole point of corporations is to avoid personal responsibility while enhancing the owners wealth.
No the point of corporations is to serve the common or public good. See this [slashdot.org].
Falcon
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
You anti-taxers are amazing. You're all about "hey, this great country, what it really needs is less money, then it would be even greater!"
What's so troubling about paying your fair share? And yes, your fair share goes up as your income goes up, as those with greater incomes are taking greater advantage of the public infrastructure.
Actually, in the US, your fair share doesn't actually track your income. The middle-class carries the greatest tax burden. That's why the economy is so screwed--the middle class has been decimated.
First they destroyed the unions and free college education. Then they raised our taxes. Then they lowered our wages. Then they had us working more hours. Then they shipped our jobs overseas. The final straw was when they had us go into debt so we could maintain our middle class lifestyle for just a little longer so they (the upper class) could take just a little bit more of our money.
Once the credit ran out, this whole house of cards collapsed. Fuck the rich, it's their avarice that brought this whole thing to pass, and it was the Conservative fiscal ideology (primarily Republicans, but far too many Democrats as well) that placed the Dollar over The People.
Taxes are not our problem, except when it comes to the rich, where the tax laws are set up to reward fucking over the economy and decimating the middle class.
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Okay - first of all, either you don't know the definition of the word exponential, or you're deliberately being stupid. Doubling the number up people in government with salary 'x' does *not* raise your investment by a factor of four, but doubles it. It is therefore not exponential, nor geometric, nor even an increasing level of inefficiency as would be implied by a Fibonacci series, but arithmetic.
Second - since the investment is simply arithmetic, the important question is 'what is the return on the Invest
Queue Idiocracy (Score:2)
"You see, a pimp's love is very different from that of a square."
Did anyone else picture the opening military scene when reading this summary?
Re:Queue Idiocracy (Score:5, Funny)
The word you're looking for is "The".
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"We need to investigate this... closely..." (Score:5, Funny)
"I'd like to volunteer for this job myself."
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The search involves tax officials examining stripper websites, hours upon hours, for completely legitimate purposes.
Yes, I do this all the time too. I wonder if I can use this line with my boss?
Hiring? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hiring? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Well, In this case, they're not looking for some kind of morality charged justice to be handed out, they're looking for tax revenue.
But it remains an Interesting point. You're basically asking "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" When those who are tasked to protect the weak exploit the weak, who will protect us from our protectors?
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"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'"
"But if you have nothing to hide", the security officials say, "then you'll let us listen in to your phone calls!"
It makes me sick that Obama changed his policy [slashdot.org] on warrantless wiretapping.
Re:Hiring? (Score:5, Informative)
It makes me sick that Obama changed his policy [slashdot.org] on warrantless wiretapping.
He didn't change anything, he just stopped lying about it.
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I think most of these sites are self-run. I don't think you need to be hired.
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It's not a job you'd want. After the first 100 or 1000 sites you visit, it becomes just another site rather than a perv's dream.
How on earth... (Score:2, Funny)
Mind you, I'd probably look a little disheveled too if I had to watch porn for a living.
Well... (Score:3, Funny)
"When we investigated the sites manually it worked better," he added.
What he really meant to say was, there was a lot more motivation and job satisfaction when they investigated it manually.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
I suspect that there may have been, shall we say, more than one "manual investigation" going on...
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Overtime!
Serious matter (Score:2)
Do they even know they need to report it?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's bad for an economy when an entrepreneur has to first take into consideration the taxes before engaging in a business enterprise or even consider them. That's just idiotic.
Taxes are a necessity for a society, but when they become a burden and retard entrepreneurial activity, then its tax structure needs to be examined.
Yes, BTW, I think prostitution should be legal.
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Getting a new "tax card" from your local tax office before engaging in any kind of serious employment is how it's done in many parts of the world, from Finland to Japan.
We don't do it like that in the US. The way it works is that it is automatically taken out of your paycheck if you work for a registered corporation.
Or if you are self employed, you are simply expected to report it directly to the Feds using a very complex system of itemization. If not, eventually someone looks at your bank account and audit
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It isn't really that hard.
First thing to do...incorporate yourself. I went the "S" corp route. Out of the companies earnings...I pay myself a 'reasonable' salary. For easy example, let's say I bill out and the company collects $100K annually. Now, I pay myself about $30K salary. I only have to pay employment taxes (SS, medicare, unemployment ins, etc) on that $30K. The rema
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In the US taxes are extraordinarily complicated. In some cases you don't know what you owe until AFTER you've earned the money. It's a tax system that encourages big business, because they're more able to absorb the accounting and legal costs of doing business in America.
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How many of you check your local tax laws before engaging in a money making activity?
In most countries, as well as the United States, if you are engaging in any legal 'money making activity' you have to claim the income on your taxes, for sufficient values of income. (If the activity is illegal, claming it on your taxes is among the least of your problems. :)
Of course, lots and lots of income often goes unreported because people either forget to claim it or deliberately don't claim it. Getting caught entails high penalties in many countries. OTOH, if you get paid in cash and neither party
Re:Do they even know they need to report it?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. It is always A good idea to report all illegal income on the tax form. There is a special spot for it on the US tax forms, although I believe having a non-zero value for that line is is considered sufficient to issue an arrest/search warrant. (More on that later). Therefore The best course is to add it into the general income. I think that might technically be fraud, but the IRS would be very reluctant to prosecute any fraud that results in a greater amount of tax income.
Many organized criminals have been very well known, with the police being pretty darn certain about various crimes that have been committed, but lacking enough evidence to obtain warrants. It is often quite possible that with a search warrant They could find enough evidence, but they lack the evidence to get a search warrant, and are rarely ever confident that they would find enough evidence to convict if a search warrant was executed. The last thing they want to do is upset a organized criminal by executing a search warrant, but end up with insufficient evidence to arrest him/her. Often times by the time they have enough evidence for a particular crime, the statute of limitations has made it impossible to prosecute them for it. But if the crime resulted in unlawful income that was not reported on the tax forms, they can still charge them with tax fraud.
Little of that is probably news to those reading this post. But the important thing to remember is that quite a bit of that also applies to white collar crime. So the best course of action is to report any unlawful income, but not in the designated location, so as to avoid giving the police reason to obtain warrants. Not that I advocate having illegal income, but if you are going to do it, you might as well do it right.
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> (If the activity is illegal, claming it on your taxes is among the least of your problems. :)
Tell that to Al Capone.
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If the activity is illegal, claming it on your taxes is among the least of your problems.
If the activity is illegal, but a lesser crime than tax evasion, then no.
Also, you needn't declare that the income is illegal, just that it exists.
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In most countries, as well as the United States, if you are engaging in any legal 'money making activity' you have to claim the income on your taxes, for sufficient values of income.
Actually, you have to report any income, legal or not. Not doing so can often be worse than getting caught for your illegal activity. Just ask Al Capone.
File your return and declare your illegal income (Score:2)
Take it from someone who has witnessed co-workers receiving suitcases full of cash with "John Doe" tax returns attached: When your illegal activity results in your prosecution and your illegal income is about to be revealed to the whole world, you'll sleep a lot better knowing that the IRS will not be in line to take a chunk out of your hide.
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I don't check my local tax laws, because I know the law is pretty simple in that regard. "If you make money, you must report it" isn't the complex part of the tax code. (If you want to get technical, that may be read as "if you make/lose more than $1" instead of "if you make money"; but that's no practical difference.)
But hey, I'm in the U.S. Maybe there are complex rules for which income you report in Sweden. I doubt it, but maybe.
Re:Do they even know they need to report it?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignorance of the law has never been an excuse for violating it. Besides which, it's not as if 'income tax' is something most people have never heard of. And 'worrying about the consequences later' is hardly a good idea in Sweden, for instance, where you're liable to incur a tax penalty for not registering beforehand.
No, 'idiotic' would be to start a business without taking taxes into consideration, as well as any other expenditures. Also, any other laws and regulations that might apply to the business you're doing.
Either your employer withholds tax and pays it for you, or the responsibility is on your head. (Well actually it's always on your head, ultimately) How is that difficult?
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Ignorance of the law has never been an excuse for violating it.
I always hated this reasoning simply because it is usually said by people who study or write laws for a living.
The crux of the matter is that society often has too many laws that it impossible to know them all without consulting a lawyer who even then has paid legal assistants to look up the issue in question.
I can't find the quote right now, but there was a Roman senator who once said, if they made enough laws, they could simply arrest anyone f
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Oh and two more things...
The US Government don't not have tax permits for private individuals but rather corporations, so many of us are scratching your head about "tax permits" that you have to get first to perform business. Many of the US private citizens do often have income "under the table" and the government turns a blind eye because everyone does it and only goes after people with big bucks.
(Perhaps this is why the US has more economic activity that most nations... Or it might be the black market bec
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It's bad for an economy when an entrepreneur has to first take into consideration the taxes before engaging in a business enterprise or even consider them. That's just idiotic.
No it isn't. Just like it isn't bad to check up on safety regulations before venturing into a business. It's also very inexpensive. I registered a company by paying my cpa $200. I have an LLC. My cpa then told me what I had to do for taxes. It was quite simple. It's also good for the economy.
Yes, BTW, I think prostitution should be legal.
Depending where you live it may be. Depending where you live, even if it isn't, the cops get bribed and turn a blind eye. But this is not prostitution it's video and that is legal in most countries.
Being informed about the rules (Score:5, Insightful)
"They are young girls, we can see from the photos. We think that perhaps they are not well informed about the rules," he said.
People are almost never well informed about the rules. When I left school, I didn't get a book of laws that informed me I'd have to pay tax (and how). The only reason I knew what to do was because I took advice from other self employed family members, so I've paid all my taxes throughout the years, no problems.
But.. a lot of people sell things at casual sales, barter services, and do things online without paying tax. It's wrong, but I have a little sympathy for them, because this stuff just isn't taught in schools and the authorities don't go to any lengths to inform people about taxation issues. I mean, how many regular folks who barter things pay the tax on those transactions? Most people I know wouldn't even realize they have to!
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When I started my business I didn't know the rules either. So I went to some seminars arranged by Skatteverket (the tax department in Sweden) which explained a lot of things about taxes. I also went to their website www.skatteverket.se and phoned their toll-free help line and asked lots of stupid questions which they were more than happy to answer. I'm still making mistakes of course because the tax forms are damn hard to understand.
But the "I'm to stupid to know the rules" defense really doesn't hold, cons
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"But.. a lot of people sell things at casual sales, barter services, and do things online without paying tax. It's wrong..."
Yeah, it's *illegal* in the strictest sense, but wrong?!? Taxing barter particularly chaps my hide, as actual currency isn't exchanged. It's not like people who don't pay sales/income taxes for sales of this nature aren't contributing to taxes via sales/VAT taxes further down stream. Sure, the feds won't see any of it, except maybe on gas taxes (at least here in the U.S.), but then
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Don't see the big deal?! My god, man! Obviously, two bites at the tax revenue apple is far more tasty than merely one. No one cares that the money will be taxed downstream with a probability nearing 1. We want our revenue now. If you want to understand government, think of it as Veruca Salt. Only.. the bugger just won't jump into the incinerator chute.
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A better comparison would be with people who get paid by a neighbor to watch their kids for the night (or some other odd job) and who then don't declare that income. But the regularity of the work and the level of income that the
You only have to pay tax if you get caught (Score:5, Funny)
Didn't you know? Ask Timothy Geithner he'll tell you.
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In the USA, you only have to pay taxes on barter if you barter what you would otherwise be paid to do. Thus, trading food for computer help given by a carpenter is tax free, as is carpentry by a user consultant.
If you do computer help for a living, price the meal, and declare it on the tax forms.
I am not a tax attorney, of course, but I knew people who had to declare these, a few years ago. Rules may have changed. Your mileage may vary. Past performance is no guarantee of future earnings. Etc.
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Or you could phrase it like most people think about it "you only have to pay taxes on barter if you barter what you would otherwise be paid to do and you think the IRS will be able to find out about it and prove a substantial amount of barter".
Actual, direct quote from TFA (Score:5, Funny)
I'll bet it did.
losses, ha? (Score:3, Insightful)
They estimate that hundreds of Swedish women are dodging the law, resulting in a tax loss of about 40m Swedish kronor (£3.3m) annually.
- same kinds of losses that RIAA and MPAA and some software firms are complaining about when they are talking about potential sales that were lost.
I am always against taxes, these taxes are some of the more ridiculous ones.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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but even then there are things that the government does much better than individuals.
Such as?
Wait a second... (Score:5, Funny)
Two Possibilities (Score:2)
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You must be able to pronounce, flawlessly the following word: "minoritetsladningsbærerdiffusjonskoeffisientmålingsapparatur"
he said manually (Score:2)
Government goons hot on strippers tracks (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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"There you have it folks: your government acting as the racketeer that they are (again?? lol)"
Yeah a racketeer that pays for things like roads, telecommunications and lets not forget government bailouts (Citi, AIG) when the free market fails because of stupid people like yourself who don't have any clue about human nature. The fact that it's NOT about ideology, it's that bad people will always exist to fuck up any system, the free market fuckups that almost trashed the global economy were hardly not ardent
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Well, in the USA how much of the income is left after the average US resident pays for taxes and medical insurance?
It might be lower than 53%, but I think what the US people get for their money is inferior in many ways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
I want a full report! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, right. (Score:5, Funny)
The search involves tax officials examining stripper websites, hours upon hours, for completely legitimate purposes.
We have a slightly different enforcement issue in the Seattle area. Illegal activity in a few strip clubs. The police department spends quite a bit of time and money sending undercover officers to buy lap dances from the women looking for violations. With public funds, of course.
OK guys, what about the activity in the gay clubs? Any volunteers for undercover duty?
[Sound of crickets.]
Started my own site years ago... (Score:3, Funny)
and still haven't had to pay a dime in taxes. I guess when you operate at a loss they nothing to tax.
Why do these young girls make so much money, while I (the hairy assed nerd), make nothing?
The line on this is so thin. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have a relationship with a girl and she takes her clothes off and you give her thousands of dollars a year, it's not taxable.
Even if you were in a multiple spouse household, it would still be true (multiple guys supporting her).
Without the "relationship" (one date? you don't have to be living together in the same house), it's taxable.
Oblig Porky's Line (Score:2)
Is this worth it? (Score:2)
They estimate the lost tax revenue at 3.3 million British pounds, which, according to Google, is 4.82724 million U.S. dollars. Let's round to 5 million USD.
Assuming that 5 police officers are paid the equivalent of 60,000 USD a year to do this, and that the investigation takes a year, this will cost Sweden the equivalent of 300,000 USD.
Shucks. So this would be worth it; they'd get a 16x to 17x return on investment... I guess investigating webcam strippers actually does make financial sense for Sweden.
(Thi
File this under.. (Score:2)
Hate Strippers (Score:2)
What's the pay? (Score:3, Funny)
What's the rate for the job of 'scanning the internet for Swedish strippers'? $8.00 an hour? Heck, if that's all I have to pay ...
Re:I Volunteer... (Score:5, Funny)
Vulcan blood is green, you insensitive clod! And close the basement door on the way up!
Re:I Volunteer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as working phone support means dealing with the self-selected population of users-who-can't-figure-it-out-for-themselves, being in the sex industry would mean dealing with the self-selected population of men who can't, or don't want to bother, inducing people to see sex with them as something one doesn't need to be compensated for.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably for roughly the same reasons that phone support techs think that users are "idiots" and "losers"...
Because phone support techs are the absolute smartest people in the world? What's that got to do with strippers? (I'm not a phone support tech, so I can't see the connection that may be obvious.)
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he actually explains his point quite well in the second sentence of his post (:
I'm not a phone tech support staffer so I can't read that far you insensitive clod!
Actually I did notice that, but there was a joke which wouldn't have worked if I didn't ignore the second part. It was clear I was joking, right?
Re:I Volunteer... (Score:4, Insightful)
Strippers or any other woman in the sex industry basically thinks men are "suckers" and "losers". All women in the sex industry are head cases. Stay away from them.
i have a very good friend who is a stripper. She is not a head case and does not think negatively about men in general. Though she does think poorly of some men, it is for reasons specific to the individuals.
Through her, i have met a few other strippers who were also charming and friendly people (my interactions with them were not in strip clubs, so there was no potential monetary incentive for their behaviour).
Some strippers are head cases. Some are junkies. For some, it's a service industry job that pays well and allows them to have a very flexible schedule.
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I believe they also had a problem with a large Federal Government, which is the reason that there wasn't any provision for it to tax the citizens directly.
-dZ.
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Because as we all know, every single one of the founding fathers made decisions in unison with an absolute agreement amongst themselves in a sealed off bubble from which they were only exposed to the true will of the people...
The founding fathers were some amazing thinkers, and we should continue to review their work to learn more about our experiment called Democracy. But they were far from infallible and rarely of one mind.
Lumping them all together in a homogenized "they" really whittles away a lot of the
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, I really do not know what your comment adds to our discussion. Should I have broken down my comment into a list of those who approved of a large and powerful Federal Government and those who didn't, with names and weighed ratings either way?
Sure, lumping them all into a single "they" oversimplifies their position, but there is ample documented evidence that at least the majority was opposed to a centralized, all-powerful Federal Government, who thought that the power should be instead mostly concentra
Re:Cue the Slashdot libertards (Score:4, Informative)
At the foundation of the United States, taxation == property taxes. Income taxes were never envisioned, and when they were passed after the Civil War to pay for reconstruction of the South, many commentators thought they were unconstitutional. Many people still think they are unconstitutional.
Re:Cue the Slashdot libertards (Score:4, Informative)
Except you know, they amended [wikipedia.org] the Constitution to make them not unconstitutional. That's why the whole "amendment" procedure was included in the first place. How precisely can something be unconstitutional when a legally passed Amendment to the Constitution explicitly allows it?
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You had a three sentence post. One of those sentences said "Many people still think they [income taxes] are unconstitutional." I responded to that sentence. How can a three sentence post have a "minor point"? There were only three points:
1) The founding fathers did not envision taxes.
2) They were probably unconstitutional when first implemented.
3) Many people still think they are.
They all received pretty close to the same amount of time. Your first two points are completely valid and largely unarguable.
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Of course, it's not clear if the founders preferred property taxes out of any sort of principle, or because in their day, income taxes were not remotely enforceable.
"when they were passed after the Civil War to pay for reconstruction of the South, many commentators thought they were unconstitutional."
They thought income taxes were a "direct" tax, and would need to be apportioned between the states accord