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IMHO, the biggest problem with the stock markets is delayed quotes. The big guys have the real time prices, the small guys have a fake price, from 20 minutes ago. This is a big problem with European stock exchanges. How can you have a market if you're lying to people about the current prices?!

Of course you can't trade a profit on delayed prices. But, why do you have to trade on delayed prices as 'the little guy'?

Places like MoneyAM and ADVFN have been providing real-time prices for either free, or £5/month, since 1999 (ADVFN) and 2002 (MoneyAM).

The ol' pump & dump scam: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81812177
This guy should be investigated as well.

Completely false. According to http://www.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&symbol=NASDAQ%3AMSFT

Foreign Sales: $34,877mil
Domestic Sales: $38,846mil

Where do we buy competing products not manufactured with the same or worse working conditions? Also, among the firms producing their stuff in China, Apple is probably paying one of the highest tax rates in the US (definetely higher than Google and MS, 24% says this source), so they don't seem a particularly good target to me. The idea of boycotting Apple alone is so pointless that one has to question the motives of the journalists who are blowing that horn ...

Yes i've taken a look at the international exchange rates and at least among major currencies they do change a bit but not by anything like the ammount bitcoin does. When a currency does change rapidly relative to the other currencies it's usually indicative that the shit has hit the fan in the country that owns that currency.

http://www.advfn.com/p.php?pid=qkchart&symbol=FX%5EUSDEUR

http://www.bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg360ztgMzm1g10zm2g25

Afaict bitcoin's real problem has been that the vast majority of it's users are people looking to make a quick buck through either mining or speculation. Not people who were actually looking to use it as a trading medium and even those using it as a trading medium were only using it for a tiny fraction of their transactions.

Hmmm. I think I've solved the deficit problem! How much in taxes will these record companies owe on their $75 trillion? Even if they just pay 2% (which seems a little high when you compare with the effective tax rates paid by companies like Bank Of America) it would be $1.5 trillion, so it would take care of the budget deficit. It'd even put a hundred billion or so toward the US national debt. Problem solved! Now PAY UP, LIMEWIRE!!!!!

Before you go screaming about oppression, consider the scale of the numbers.

    In 2002, there were about 46,000 licensed internet cafes, and 150,000 unlicensed internet cafes. (Ref: Time Magazine)

    In 2000, there were about 40,000 licensed cafes, growing to 168,000 in 2009.
    (Ref: Investors Hub)

    If you apply the same ratio of licensed vs unlicensed from the Time article (3.2:1), it could be extrapolated that there were also approximately 538,000 unlicensed cafes. So if 130,000 were closed down over a period of 5 years, that would be a whopping 26,000 per year. So roughly 5% of the illegal cafes were shut down. That could easily be attributed to disgruntled customers, ex-employees, failure to pay bribes to local law enforcement, or law enforcement needing to show that they are making an effort against such illegal activity.

    Someone else can work out the trends to show my numbers are a little off, but not terribly far.

    These tiny numbers in relation to the size of the country, population, and number of cafes are insignificant.

    I'd be willing to bet similar trends could be shown in the US relating to liquor license violations, marijuana grow house busts, and other associated nefarious activities. If it weren't China and the Internet, it wouldn't have even been news.

    If you're going worry about such things, worry about those who end up in prison here in the US on petty charges, that range from perfectly legal to gray areas in many other states and countries.

Its not my field but this says Market Capitalisation 115,302.1 million

If the real jobs weren't so godawful boring, I think being a tax lawyer or accountant could be fun. I'm not sure whether the commonly used loopholes are actually legal. For some reason, Exxon, Berkshire Hathway, and a bunch of other big corporations do have stuff in Panama. It's right there in the records. I don't actually know how they are using these trusts and vehicles, but it ain't because Panama has legitimate economic value. It has to be for tax or legal reasons.

Well, Exxon had a 41.8% effective tax liability to the US government in 2007. Considering that the top marginal rate is 35% now. This means that Exxon was at least following the rules and notifying the IRS about their foreign activities as well as paying their tax liability on them. Just because someone has an overseas asses or trust, doesn't mean they are evading their tax liability. The IRS has specific forms and proceedures to deal with that, some of which we already discusses. So don't assume that because a company has a presence somewhere, they are skipping out on their tax obligations somehow.

Something you should consider is that Exxon and Berkshire Hathway are actually multinational corporations. They do business in several different countries and panama could be one of them. They have to report all this outside activity to the IRS and pay taxes on their portions of it. The IRS is entitled to assess a penalty of 5% of all of the companies assets for each time they fail to report and comply with this. If it is a flagrant violation, thye can double or triple that and it is all on top of any taxes they could have avoided without even needing a judge to sign off on it. If the judge gets involved, they can disband the entire company and sell all it's assets as part of the recovery process. This opens the CEO up to prison time plus fines on his personal income and assets. This is all before we get into investor liability and jail time for ethics violations You might find some people attempting to avoid taxes at these places, but I doubt a large company like Exxon or Berkshire Hathway are going to do it. The entire board of directors and financial secretaries (read accountants) can be held personally liable for tax evasion in this way.

Oh, and the privacy laws are such that without a court order, noone can find out anything about these corporations other than the name.

That still doesn't mean someone is evading their taxes. Like I said previously, The IRS requires the owners and benefitors to file. Actually, almost everyone involved with a foreign trust, if they are a US person, has to make sure the proper reporting is done. Read that instruction sheet again. So what if there are secrecy laws, if any of the people who touch the trust or corp or whatever files, then it is enough to throw evidence for evasion.

There's a PBS Frontline on this. A major bank, I think it was BoA, has a whole team of specialists who work on tax schemes for the bank's assets. Supposedly they were saving the bank a billion bucks annually.

Front line dramatizes things. Like I said, the practice is simple illegal. If someone is doing it, they are breaking the law. I'm not sure why that is so hard to understand. It's like if there might be a way for someone to get away with it, they are doing it. Do you break the law and speed every time you can get away with it? How about running red lights or going the wrong way down a one way, there are plenty of times you could get away with it, Chances are, you don't do it though. As for frontline, I watch it quite a bit but have no seen the episode your talking about. I looked for it but can't find it reference on their site, perhaps you can post a link so I can make a more informed comment on it.

I've only done a little reading on tax shelters, but I'm convinced that

In 1965, U.S. corporate taxes amounted to 4% of gross domestic product, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development which includes local, state, and federal income and capital-gains taxes in its calculation. By 2000, that figure had dropped to 2.5%.

House approves $30 billion in corporate tax breaks

Article promoting it on MSN.com without mentioning MSFT :
A corporate tax break that could benefit you

Microsoft Reduces Irish Corporate Tax Liability To Less Than 10%

WTO rules against US corporate tax breaks

The EU was set to implement retaliatory tariffs

Senate Approves Tech Corporate Tax Break

Ms use share options to reduce their tax bill by $5.5 billion

Microsft & Cisco pay $0 Federal Income Tax

Market capitalisation of Sun Microsystems: $22Bn.
Market capitalisation of Apple, Inc: $79Bn.
I think it's more plausible that Apple buys Sun.

Market capitalisation of Sun Microsystems: $22Bn.
Market capitalisation of Apple, Inc: $79Bn.
I think it's more plausible that Apple buys Sun.

..but not a great year for Blockbuster video:

http://www.advfn.com/quote_Blockbuster_NYSE_BBI.ht ml

(from a $10 high in Q1 '05 the stock's now trading under $4)

Does that change the value of human life?

Apparently it does. It's up $1.28 from yesterday :)