Re: Nominal Taxation Rates

On 14-Jan-00 at 12:24, Thomas.Barclay (Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca) wrote:
> 
> Laserlight spake thus:
>
> ** But, % GDP is good enough for the purposes we probably care about.
You
> quoted most Western Block countries as around 5%. That was, I assume,
> through the Cold War. However, these same countries (NAC, NSL, FSE)
have
> been involved in several major shooting wars in the last hundred years
or
> so and one recently (by 2180's). I think they might actually be a tad
> higher in their defence budgets (say 6-8%) especially given an unknown
> potential alien threat. 

I wouldn't really expect that.	What I would expect is because they
are worried about shooting wars ships would be more likely to end
up mothballed (and space is wonderful for mothballing a ship) than
scrapped.

> ** Now, the UN is an interesting entity to envision from a funding
> perspective. There are some clear indications in canon that they hold
some
> land and entertain some independence from their conventional funding
(maybe
> owning patents, licensing companies for some exploration ventures,
etc).
> However, do we suspect they get NO money from the governments that
formerly
> composed the UN? Are the UN in effect just the same as all the other
> powers? Or do they receive some percentage of their funding either
> voluntarily or by enforcable tarrif from their member states? And does
this
> come out of the member states military GDP? A UN that gets even 1%
from each
> of its member state-blocks is quite impressive, even without adding in
its
> own independent revenues. A UN that no longer gets any contributions
and
> must rely solely on its own revenues is far less so, and begs the
question
> of what they exist for.

I would assume that if any of the larger powers went head-to-head with
the UN they would roll over the UN rather easily.  The UN gets to play
politics and balance of power.	The UN exists to enforce policies
decided on by the member nations.  They would not normally be tasked
with defending worlds.	If you don't have to worry about defense any
offensive actions can be done with a significant portion of  your 
fleet.	If the action is too big for the UN fleet the member nations
can step in and assist.  Mostly the UN is about politics and embargos
though.

Roger