Author Topic: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?  (Read 158056 times)

Offline brujon

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #800 on: April 05, 2017, 06:27:55 PM »
So if I were to ever mail you guys anything the government could sieze it adn demand you pay up first before getting it?

Yup. Because we need, for some reason, to protect our inexistent internal markets  :facepalm

I think it's a relic from the past. The laws are pretty much all ancient, 30+ year old P.O.S that are interwoven by regulations from like, 10 different government bodies. If you'd print all our tax law out on A4 sheets of paper and stack them all on top of eachother, they'd be taller than the Empire State Building, and yes, someone actually did the math on that.

Our tax law is one of the most complicated, convoluted, bureaucratic pieces of utter crap that have ever graced the surface of this planet. It's amazingly complicated, and if someone tells you they understand it all, they're lying. You have lawyers who specialize in one single type of tax, because it's so complicated.

Recently a research has found that it takes something on the order of 2500 man hours to make sure that a medium-sized (1 million Reais or more per year) company stays completely within the bounds of our tax law. That's absolutely insane, and makes our country one of the worst countries in the entirety of the WORLD to start or maintain a business in.

The end result is that something like 9 out of 10 companies closes their door after a year. You take literally MONTHS just to open a business because of all the regulation and bureaucracy.

Yes, it's THAT bad, i'm not exaggerating for comedic effect, this is actually a well-known problem.

Worst part?

There's no incentive to change the system. Corrupt congressmen and public workers absolutely love that the system is so unworkable. Makes it so easy to justify bribes. A little grease in the system, know what i'm saying? You gotta grease the wheels so they keep spinning... You gotta make someone smile so you can smile too. Small bribes, large bribes, enormous bribes... It all just kind of jumbles together. It's present on all levels, throughout the entire system.

Some sociologists who study Brazilian culture go as far as to say the culture of the "jeitinho" and "malandragem" are part of the very essence of the Brazilian ethos. Guys like Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda and Roberto DaMatta.

Which is why most Brazilians with a better knowledge of how stuff works outside of our country are so f-ing jaded. They learn to loathe, even hate the way things work here. They want change, but they know better than to expect that anything will actually change.

This is most common - guess what - on the middle-class and above. Which further widens the social divide between the poor, the middle-class, and the rich fuckers who actually benefit from corruption.

The poor internalize and justify the "jeitinho" and "malandragem" as the only way to survive the system. The middle-class is often honest at first, but then just becomes jaded and tired of getting f-ed in the ass so much, and ends up just not caring, trying to leave the country, or, in some instances, accepting and internalizing corruption as well. The rich just laugh at it all, play the system and end up on top. The poor look up to these, the middle-class just balls up in its corner and quietly cries and applies ointment to its much-fucked ass.

The very, very, very few who actually keep fighting the system often do so for the wrong reasons and end up being played by the political parties. They end up SJW's getting mind-wiped and thinking feelings will save the country and its people, or they end up insufferable fools that are impossible to stand for more than a couple minutes because everything is Marx and Engels and... Argh.  And the ones who ACTUALLY GET IT, and still continue to fight for something that can ACTUALLY improve the counrty, are so few and far in between they just get buried and/or ignored, or, even worse, get discredited when the political parties throw their SJW slave-army at them.

I shouldn't have studied Law, i should've gotten into technology and GTFO of Brazil years ago.
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline Nanshork

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #801 on: April 05, 2017, 06:34:27 PM »
I fucking hate server certificates.  Stupid ex-IT people over complicated stuff.

In other news, I've proven once again to myself that I am damn good at my job!

Offline Nytemare3701

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #802 on: April 05, 2017, 07:26:27 PM »
My home development project (which is becoming rather pressing, since my current abode is...not doing well) has been stalled for a MONTH because nobody with an angle-grinder can get over here for 1 fucking hour to cut some bolts out of the flooring. ONE. FUCKING. MONTH.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #803 on: April 06, 2017, 06:10:00 PM »
OPTION 2: Buy overseas from an online store.
Worse case scenario --> Brazilian IRS gets wind of your shenanigans, holds your product hostage, you now have to pay (Product Value - US$ 100,00)x0,5 as a fine, plus 50% of the product's value as Import Tax. Using US$ 300 as an example, you'll be out 300(Already Paid) + 100 + 150 = US$ 550,00, plus postage.

... My recommendation? Do the math, see if it's worth it in this particular case and go for it.

hmmm , ANY product up to $100 is a very giant sized list of stuff. 
Having to ~pay the 50% mark-up isn't a problem (at first) on goods that routinely sell when new/hot at double or triple.
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Offline Amechra

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #804 on: April 06, 2017, 08:30:03 PM »
Does the standard "visit friends overseas, shove your luggage full of stuff that's cheaper" still work?

Because I know that's how we avoided import tax on some stuff when I was a wee tyke.
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Offline brujon

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #805 on: April 06, 2017, 11:50:09 PM »
Bringing stuff with you when you travel is a whole nother bag of cats entirely.

You have a US$ 500,00 limit, per person, to bring absolutely tax-free. Doesn't matter if it's one or multiple items. When you come back, you have to declare your luggage. They may or may not trust you, and if they don't they'll inspect you. Anything you didn't declare may be subject to taxation. Even stuff you brought WITH you overseas, which is why it's important to have the receipts for everything.

Is it bullshit? Yes. But there have been cases of people that bought the new iphone for its absolutely bullshit price here, only to have it taxed again when returning from overseas.

Our government is so nice...

EDIT: Forgot to mention, there are a couple items that you can bring with you that are also tax-free but DO NOT count towards the US$ 500,00. There's a list somewhere, but it includes stuff like clothes, perfumes, cosmetics, some electronics such as cameras are also exempt (1 per person i think), and some other stuff.

Some people do their baby shower in Miami. The difference between prices here and there is so large that it may actually end up paying for the trip and all expenses. And you still end up with a profit.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2017, 11:52:02 PM by brujon »
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline bhu

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #806 on: April 07, 2017, 12:01:28 AM »
So basically you guys are screwed?  I can see why brazilians are disillusioned with their government.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #807 on: April 07, 2017, 10:26:34 AM »
My kitten (the best cat I've ever had) is dying of a rare incurable cat disease.

Offline altpersona

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #808 on: April 07, 2017, 10:29:44 AM »
i know a guy...

flys back n forth to brazil all the time...

not sure the location details... might be viable?
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Offline brujon

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #809 on: April 07, 2017, 10:32:24 AM »
The way taxes are done here are beyond stupid. Seriously, it's Idiocracy level stuff.

There are 19 basic types of taxes. Most of these taxes are collected at the factory, before the product even enters commercialization. Which in reality means all these are transferred to the consumer, which kinda explains why everything is so expensive.

We passed a law requiring taxes to be visible on receipts, in hopes this would help people realize how much they're actually being buttfucked, but it hasn't helped much. People still try to point out stuff like, some products have over 60% taxation. Some, even more, like, 75%+, which basically means that for every thing you're buying, one is for you, three is for the government. Yeah, stupid as fuck.

These are also known as INDIRECT taxes, which are absolutely GREAT for the government, because it means they're VERY hard to evade. You only have to keep an eye on the factory/company level to make sure the amount produced roughly equals the expected amount of taxes you would expect from that level of production.

Taxes on profit, comparatively, make up a smaller percentage of the governments revenue. These are the direct taxes, the ones you have to file and pay and such.

Our government is VERY efficient at collecting taxes because of this taxation scheme.


HOWEVER, this taxation scheme HEAVILY penalizes the poorer half of the population.

Why?

Well... If you're being taxed on stuff like food, medication, clothing, gas, transportation, etc... These are stuff everyone buys.

Poor people don't pay taxes on their paycheck or their profits. But they do on everything else. And this everything else has, roughly, 40% of tax added on top of it.

Assuming you make US$ 300 a month, which is about minimum wage here. And you spend half of it on rent, and half of it making a living. About half of that, will be taxes.

If you make US$ 3.000,00, which would be around the top half of middle-class, you're going to pay 27,5% of your salary, then you're going to expend around, say, 1.500 making a living and save the rest. 40% goes on top of this 1.500, adding up to US$ 600, and 27,5% goes on the full 3.000, adding up to 825. If you add the two up, this means you've paid, in total, US$ 1425 in taxes. Just under 50% of taxes.

The thing is, this is REALLY CLOSE to the amount of taxes paid by someone that makes minimum wage, isn't it? If poor people are paying 40% taxes, on average, and someone high-middle class is paying around 50%, something is wrong, isn't it?

It gets worse. The more money you make, the lesser the proportion of that income is spent on your livelihood. Which means, less of your income is subject to that 40% indirect taxation average. Which, in reality, means that the more money you make, the closer you get to being taxed only or very close to only that 27,5% which is the top bracket of the income/profit tax.

Indirect taxes are SHIT for the people, and GREAT for the rich. Because the more revenue government makes from indirect taxes, which are harder to evade, the less incentive they'll have to increase income/profit taxes, which hit much harder on the richer part of the population.

The government is also very protective of our "internal market" (which is nonexistant for several goods). Which means the import taxes is stupidly, PROHIBITIVELY high.

Simply put, the government DOES NOT want you buying stuff overseas, they want you to buy stuff HERE, and keep the profit HERE. Doesn't matter if the thing is not really MADE here, they want you to buy it here, so they can slap on every kind of tax ever invented by mankind onto it, plus a hefty profit to the reseller and the importer.

Because of that, our buying power is low. Very low.

You see, the thing with our government is, we are essentially governed by the commies we tried to purge during the Military Dictatorship that lasted from 1964 to 1988. They eventually won because the military weren't actually economic geniuses (surprise), and they plunged the country into a massive inflation (surprise), and the economic miracle they promised wasn't really a miracle but a bunch of loans and someone eventually collects (surprise).

And these commies believe that regulations are the way to go. Heavy, heavy regulations. And everything written down. Our law, is very extensive. Our legal tradition stems from the likes of Portugal, Italy and France, the so-called "civil law" countries. And oh boy, did we ever learn from them. The Napoleonic Code was the main inspiration for our first republican Civil Code, in 1916, which we only really replaced in 2002 for something that's very, very similar, but more in line with our constitution from 1988, which is also one of the largest Constitutions in the world, with over 250 articles and their sub-articles (paragraphs, letters, numbers).

Our labor law is ancient by any recognition. It's a mish-mash of laws from the 1930's to the current day, that don't really talk to eachother. The result of which is that the labor supreme court (and by the way we have specialized supreme courts, and a super-supreme court that deals with the constitution which basically covers everything since the constitution is so verbose), ends up regulating as much, or maybe even more, than the labor law itself. Which is sorely in need of a reform, that can't actually happen because it's political suicide to mess with labor law.

And the commies-in-charge want to stay in power, they want to win elections, they don't actually give a crap about the country and making it grow. So the status-quo just kind of remains.

The legal insecurity is too strong. Because tax law is so complicated and convoluted, and labor law is basically being changed all the time in the courts, companies don't really know what the hell to expect when setting up in Brazil. Really, they don't.

I haven't even TOUCHED on the regulations companies are subjected to.

The only ones relatively safe from the staggering amount of regulations are banks. Because banks are simply too powerful and can demand basically what the hell they want.

We have very little in the manner of laws governing what banks can and cannot do. Most is done by government bodies akin to the FCC and our Federal Bank and it's subdivisions, and these regulations are veryyyy lax. And because they're only regulations and not laws, they can be changed much more easily. And it's only a couple of people really deciding what goes on these regulations so bribes are also easier.

It's more than Game of Thrones level stuff going on here. I'm not even kidding. Hell, i didn't even get started, this is just a warm-up for me. The more i study law, the more i see just how absolutely god-awful EVERYTHING here is.

We don't really have a democracy, it's really, really, just a bunch of very old families, the same ones that held power for the last 100 years or more, just sharing the pizza slices between them. Our supreme court(s) is a joke. It's like a really bad sketch of what a country should be.

Best thing would be to just throw EVERYTHING away and start fresh, like, tabula rasa. For real.
"All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of Cervantes writing his Don Quixote in a miserable prison" - Schopenhauer, Aphorisms: The Wisdom of Life

Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #810 on: April 07, 2017, 10:33:11 AM »
My kitten (the best cat I've ever had) is dying of a rare incurable cat disease.

Sorry to hear it, Nans...  :hug
Kami darou ga akuma darou ga, ore no michi ni tateru mono NASHI!!

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Offline Kuroimaken

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #811 on: April 07, 2017, 10:40:17 AM »
i know a guy...

flys back n forth to brazil all the time...

not sure the location details... might be viable?

Could be... could be... Just depends on which part of the country he flies to.

I tried PMing you but your inbox is full  :P
Kami darou ga akuma darou ga, ore no michi ni tateru mono NASHI!!

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Offline bhu

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #812 on: April 07, 2017, 07:05:12 PM »
My kitten (the best cat I've ever had) is dying of a rare incurable cat disease.

 :hug :hug :hug :hug :hug :hug

Offline altpersona

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #813 on: April 07, 2017, 07:06:18 PM »
My kitten (the best cat I've ever had) is dying of a rare incurable cat disease.

fuck
The goal of power is power. - 1984
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Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #814 on: April 08, 2017, 03:23:36 PM »
Hugs to Nanshork.



Bruj / Kuroi -- import business located in Uruguay or Paraguay or Argentina, based on how low the "pass through" charges are, which would differ per country and transport.  Mules are cheap especially if defacto 100% legal, moving legal goods.
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Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #815 on: April 08, 2017, 03:49:38 PM »
Girl in line at a big box.

She's moving around like a Mime, searching for who-knows-what like a Rat Terrier.
4 check out lines notice this cray-cray happening.
Somethin's up.  She now has an audience.

She asks the clerk if they have a bigger can of Butane,
indicating clearly she's never bought any butane before.
She wants a pack of cigarettes.  Clerk asks for I.D.
Too hard?

I move to another line, 3 people get checked out before me.
She's still working at getting any sort of i.d. to work for the cigs.
Her driver's license is expired so she's at least 21 years old.
Still too hard. 
Clerk says:  "Not yer first time at the rodeo, but yer acting like it, eh?"

I'm done and I go out.
She's busy immediately texting some/no/body, parked blatantly
in a Handicapped spot, no plate no sticker no temp tag.

Cops plural (!) pull up before I make it to my car.
Busted on multiple levels, all because she couldn't buy TWO
things without going into Biggest Problem Of The Night mode.

Her phone is key evidence in a big drug bust, the next week.
Oops.
Clerk would normally get a reprimand for mouthing at a (blessed sainted) customer like that.


**


edit --- Looks like alcyius has been nuked.
?
« Last Edit: April 09, 2017, 02:16:42 PM by awaken_D_M_golem »
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Offline linklord231

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #816 on: April 09, 2017, 01:26:54 AM »
So remember that car charger I mentioned, that they sent the wrong one of?  The replacement arrived today.  It's the same one they sent in the first place. 
I'm not arguing, I'm explaining why I'm right.

Offline SolEiji

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #817 on: April 10, 2017, 04:16:20 AM »
I ain't even mad about this, so I may be in the wrong place.  But it is petty and childish gossip, so in here it goes.  It was simply too good not to talk about.

Everyone knows the big infamous RPGs... FATAL... RaHoWa.... HYBRID.  I've always wondered how the hell people discover this stuff.

I have run into something special.  Very very special indeed.  It's kind of amazing on how badly this is designed, mixed with a strange, timecube-esque delusion the writer appears to be under.  I don't even want to get into it all, given said person is actively wandering out wiki right now, but the stuff on the wiki under "D&D 6 Homebrew" is just the tip of the madness iceburg that awaits.
Mudada.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #818 on: April 11, 2017, 04:51:07 PM »
Oh that is bad, clicked around to a particular cedric winter cleaning post.
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Offline SolEiji

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Re: The Small Rants Thread XI :What Do you Want to Bitch About?
« Reply #819 on: April 12, 2017, 03:55:45 PM »
Oh that is bad, clicked around to a particular cedric winter cleaning post.

It goes deeper!
Mudada.