As a percentage of income, how much money should the government be able to take from you in taxes?

I can't think of any economic-relate topic now so today I searched on Google for some economic journal topics. There is one interesting topic: as a percentage of income, how much money should the government be able to take from you in taxes? (from: http://712educators.about.com/od/Journal-Writing/a/Economics-Journal-Topics.htm)

Taxes are one of the government revenue sources. As a taxpayer, I really want to answer this question be the answer "0%". But, realistically, if we don't pay taxes then the country can't function. So, the alternative answer would be: "5%". Some people might argue that this is not enough, the portion is too little, or the government still can't function.Yet, the government can invest the money and make it into a larger amount (yayyyy!......though I am not sure if the government can do that).

Saving Money

Recently I want to save money.

I save money not for buying anything but only for the sake of saving money itself. I am targeting at least 5,000 N.T by the beginning of next year. My plan is simple: increase the income and decrease the expense. Yet as it sounded simple, I found it hard to bring it to practice. First, my income only directly come from the monthly allowance, which equals to a three digits number that is smaller than 500. Second, subtracting the number that I have to spend every month (on meals and transporting fees), the monthly allowance will decrease to a three digits number that is no more than 300. So if I want to reach at least half of my goal, I should eat as much as I can when I am not paying for the mean and walk to school if my dad is not driving me. This could work. I know some parents will reward their children if the kids do chores or get a high grade in school. But it’s not my case. I think doing chores and maintain good grades are responsibilities rather than jobs that are rewarded. So no, I won’t ask my dad to pay me just because I mop the floor or get an A. To reach my goal, I should probably save the money to bank or post office or someplace like that. I can earn some money based on the interest from my deposit funds.

Best Jobs

Recently I saw this rank online: The 100 Best Jobs (http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-best-jobs?int=7acb53). It's ranked by a combination of salary, employment opportunity, work-life balance, and job security (The top jobs are mostly medical-related job. Even with economic downfall, it is hard to affect the medical sector because there are always demands for it). This relates to economy in terms of choices. People maximize the profit by making choices. The costs include not only the direct cost such as prices but also the opportunity costs. In this case, if one choose to spend more time on working, one's opportunity cost might be the time to relax and have fun. Another research shows that the best paid jobs are doctors and surgeons. However, I saw an interview with doctors talking about their personal life. One said he barely sleeps. Another said he spends most of the time in the hospital than in home. There is even one said he hasn't watched movies in theater for over 10 years. Anyway, personally, I'd prefer to work to earn a lot even if I have to give up the entertainment time. Maximizing my profit is rather maximizing my literal economic profit.

Market Competition

Recently my mom has an excessive fascination to this word: competitive. "Because the international market is more and more COMPETITIVE, the preparation for entering the market will also be more and more COMPETITIVE. Colleges and universities are now harder to get in if you are not COMPETITIVE enough. As a result you should......" Market competition indeed is a trend due to the rise of China. When China liberated its economy, large numbers of cheap working forces attracted companies to set their factories in China.It made the working opportunities sharply decrease. Moreover, when a Chinese student went to a school, he/she had to compete with the other 200 million students while a Taiwanese student competed with the other 200 thousand students. Although the stressful competition almost strained me out, it brought me an advantage --speaking Chinese. In the market, with increasing trading relationships with China, speaking Chinese gradually became important. As Mr. Jones said in his AP Psych class, go to a baby sitting job and tell the parent, "I will speak Chinese to your children all day", than money is in the pocket, thanks to this market competition.

Dutch Economy

Yes, again, since my mom is leaving for Netherlands so I did a little research on the Netherlands economy.
And, yes, again, according to Wikipedia (I really use Wikipedia a lot), Netherlands is the 17th largest economy of the world. Between 1996 and 2000, its annual economic GDP growth was steady and well above the other European countries. But during 2001 and 2005, the economy slowed down, recovered a bit in 1006 and 1007. Then it was hit hard by the global financial crisis. Currently, Netherlands is in recession again. One thing that is good to know is that the Dutch labor regulations is strict. It has certain rules on firing employees (for some reason, the rules only focus on "firing workers"). However, as the Dutch government stresses the importance of economic interest, Netherlands social spending also requires more attention.

Part Time Job

When the summer vacation begins, more and more of my friends start to work in their spare time. Some of them wish to gain more experiences while working in different places. The other just want to get more money. The phenomenon  makes me do some research on the part time job situation in Taiwan. I found out that there is one part-time-job worker for every ten office workers. There are about seventy six thousand part time job workers in Taiwan and the number is steadily increasing. Most of the workers work in restaurant or in retail service. The main cause for this is because the wages in their original full time job are not enough. Even in the previous post I said that Taiwan is one of the highest GDP and PPP country in the world, the government still needs to work harder to alleviate this situation.

Taxes

Tax, according to Wikipedia, "is a financial charge or other levy imposed upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a state or the functional equivalent of  a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law.  It "is not a voluntary payment or donation, but an enforced contribution, exacted pursuant to legislative authority." Common taxes bases include individual income tax, which based on personal earnings; corporate income tax, which based on corporation's profit; sales tax, which based on the value of selling products; and property tax, which based on assets. I came up with this topic because of my mom's new job in Netherlands. In Netherlands, despite those taxes I just talked about, there is also an "annual dog tax". Other animals, such as cats, are not taxed but only dogs. It costs about an average of 100 Euro of dog tax per year. By the way, the government also requires you to walk your dog at least 3 times a day. Indeed, taxes are citizens' contribution to maintain the quality of where people live. Most importantly, in a developed country, animal rights are also ensured. 

Is It?

After watching a video clip on pearson.com, I started to wander if the so-called “foreign aid” is really doing what it supposed to do. The clip is called The Trade Trap, which addresses the trading market between Ghana and other foreign countries. Being one of the poorest countries, Ghana keeps receiving foreign aids. Yet, those “aids” didn't help any of the local industries at all. Local products are not able to compete with foreign imports. Even if there are international trading opportunities for made-in-Ghana products, there are other trading barriers. For example, the high tariff would make the Ghana exports unable to survive from the local low price. Another trading barrier is import restriction. Sometimes foreign countries would lay some limits for import. For instance, if Ghana wants to export bananas to Europe, Europe might set certain restriction on the weight, the color, the length…etc. of the bananas. Even if the bananas have a great quality but only ugly outside, they cannot be imported.

People said free trade is good, but, really, is it?

Taiwan's economy

I did a bit research on Taiwan’s economy. According to Wikipedia, Taiwan was ranked 19^th in the world by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and 18^th by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is pretty surprising. Well, at least it’s surprising to me. I used to think that Taiwan would rank no more than 25^th. Another point that draws my attention is the first step of Taiwan’s economic foundation. Wikipedia said, “The first step towards industrialization was land reforms, a crucial step in modernizing the economy, as it created a class of landowners with capital they can invest in future economic endeavors.” At the beginning when KKK came to Taiwan, it’s a mass. Corruptions were everywhere. Farmers couldn't feed themselves because the landowners took all the lands. Then the government decided to start the land reforms. Lands were distributed to the farmers so they could grow enough plants for themselves and exporting. It paved the way for further economic development. Now the Taiwanese economy is solid and growing steadily. Hope this can continue.

supply and demand

I used to think that economics is merely about supply and demand. After taking the economics course in the Junior years, I found that indeed it is. However,one difference is that economics is not only "merely" about supply and demand, but it's based on supply and demand. They are the essential elements of economics and are everywhere. This afternoon I just read a news about the rabies problem in Taiwan. With the widespread of rabies, many people took their pets and themselves to inject vaccine. Then here comes the problem --soon there is a shortage in vaccine. What's even worse is that there are only 3 bottles of human rabies immunoglobulin (HRIG, the treatment for rabies) left in Taiwan. The soonest time to import more bottles HRIG will be on 7/29. With the increasing demand, the supply rises sharply. This is only one tiny example of supply and demand in our life. I wish taking the AP Economics course can help me to develop more economic topic and knowledge. 

"Poverty's new address"

Poverty's new address in America: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly718xGmeBk
When I was searching The Economist to find something to write about, this news instantly raised my interest. It talks about there are more and more poor people moving to suburbs.  Suburbs suppose to be the place which rich people live, those who can afford bigger house, longer traveling distance to city, and higher quality living environment. In the middle of the clip, it said the main reason causing this problem is that as city grows, the cost for living becomes more and more expensive. Many who can't afford the living price can only flee to the suburbs for survival. It ironically illustrates inequality. While someone can drive a car traveling to city everyday, his neighbor are having problems on living. This problem of income distribution  is not only an economic-social problem in America but all over the world. With the more and more competitive society, the distance between the wealthy and the poor will just be larger. A post on our AP Economic blogger also tries to address the similar issue. People tend to believe as long as they work hard, they will break the income barrier. But the problem is as long as the resources are all taken by those who can afford it, those who can't afford it will be hard to jump to the top.