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Theresa May Reshuffles Cabinet, Warns Amazon and Google of Power Shift (arstechnica.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Ars Technica: British Prime Minister Theresa May has given a stern warning to big business, telling the public to "think not of the powerful, but you." Specifically, she singled out Google and Amazon for dodging taxes and creating a lot of parliamentary scrutiny. Ars Technica reports: "May has been quick to stamp her brand of conservatism on her party by letting go of key members of Cameron's cabinet. She has so far sacked big hitters such as chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne, justice secretary Michael Gove, and culture secretary John Whittingdale. Philip Hammond now has the keys to Number 11, but we're still waiting to hear who will replace Whittingdale, whose remit included the rollout of super fast broadband in the UK. He's also the man behind the White Paper on the future of the BBC, which sought radical changes at the public service broadcaster. So far, 10 cabinet positions have been announced by May. They include Justine Greening as secretary of state for education, and Liz Truss becomes justice secretary, while former London mayor and key Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson -- to the surprise of many -- now heads up the foreign office. May has handed her home secretary job to Amber Rudd -- who will now be responsible for the government's push for greater online surveillance laws. Rudd was previously the minister for energy and climate change." David Davis is now in charge of withdrawing the UK from the European Union. David has for many years "opposed the government's attempts to bring in a so-called Snoopers' Charter." Ars Technica writes, "He's also currently suing the UK government over DRIPA -- legislation that was rushed through by the Tories after the European Court of Justice had ruled that the Data Retention Directive was invalid for failing to have adequate privacy safeguards in place."
Because it is competitive, and Ireland's gamble at lower rates for more volume is failing and simply depriving the public of funding for zero gains. Conservative doesn't mean wacko like in the US, her job isn't to do amateur plastic surgery to kill the state like the US Republican strategy has been.
When people start throwing around terms like "collectivism is dead" and "income tax is immoral", you know you're dealing with an ignorant Libertarian blowhard.
Pay your fucking taxes, asshole, and quit trying to get society to underwrite your greed. That's right, society. We're social animals, not a bunch of solo hunting predators. Unless, of course you're a sociopath, then Libertarianism is very attractive, because fucking morons buy into it, and fucking morons make the best prey.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This idea that taxes, or indeed any law, require every individual's consent is utterly absurd. First of all, it would make government completely unworkable.
But more to the point, what was meant by the Revolutionaries when they said "No taxation without representation", or in the Westminster tradition of "responsible government" wasn't that you didn't have to pay taxes, it was that no tax could be imposed without the consent of the GOVERNED. That doesn't mean that you, I and every other taxpayer get a veto on the taxes we'll pay, it means we elect representatives who will then create the taxes, and if we don't like the taxes being levied, then our right as citizens is to try to get people elected who will more closely align with our views on taxation matters.
Citizenship confers not only rights, but inherently it confers obligations. You have the right to vote for your representatives, but you have the obligation to abide by their lawful and constitutional powers to pass laws, including tax laws. If you feel you have been unjustly treated, you have the right to petition the government or to seek redress through the courts.
So there is no theft. You are taxed by people who a conferred the right to enact and collect taxes by the consent of the governed, which is you and all your fellow citizens collectively.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No, the translation is "Have you actually tried doing anything at all, rather than impotently whining on the Internet about how the Establishment is screwing you over, and concocting conspiracy theories whose only real purpose is to convince yourself that your apathy is a rational choice.
Have you ever written a letter to your elected representative? Have you ever got like-minded citizens in your area together to petition other citizens in the area for letter writing campaigns or petitions, or to seek meetings with elected representatives at whatever level of government you're having issues with?
It's so much easier to go on the Internet, mask your laziness and apathy in the form of grand conspiracies about the Man keeping you down.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The Tax is the amount society pays it's people in Government services and infrastructure.
The less corporations pay in tax deprives the society that supports it.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Yeah, that's my assessment of Boris Johnson's appointment as well. The initial reaction was "WTF!?", which is pretty much the response that dominated the global media coverage of it, especially given that Theresa May's other choices seemed fairly reasonable, but when you think it over the is really just a very well crafted stab in the back for Boris. He claims to be a BrExit supporter (yet didn't actually seem to want to change much, despite his campaigning), so despite any attempts to dodge the bullets by refusing to stand for PM, he's still going to have to either demonstrate some faith in his convictions or take the heat for breaking promises. Then there's the matter of his need to go cap in hand to the various people and cultures he's insulted over the years, and all quite likely under an intense media spotlight.
Frankly, I think this is a brilliant idea by May. She's assigned Boris a position alright, and it's "useful idiot" - someone who is going to be drawing all the media attention, while the real work goes on elsewhere (it's actually Phil Hammond, Liam Fox and David Davis that will be mostly responsible for BrExit). As you note though, despite his reputation as a buffoon, Boris is also generally regarded as someone is also fairly astute, so while this could easily be seen as giving him a rope by which to hang himself, he's also been given an opportunity to actually make it all work. Only time will tell whether this makes or breaks Boris' political career, but I don't think there's much room for middle ground.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The Tax is the amount society pays it's people in Government services and infrastructure.
The less corporations pay in tax deprives the society that supports it.
Sigh.
Corporations. Don't. Pay. Taxes.
Look, this is basic economics. Capital seeks a certain rate of return in given economic conditions and a given economic context. When you raise taxes on corporations, you don't change that sought rate of return, which means that corporate governance adapts to shift the cost of the taxes elsewhere, so they don't come out of profits and returns meet expectations. Corporations that fail to do this lose, and their capital moves to others that do it well.
This means that any taxes you nominally assess to corporations actually land on suppliers, employees or customers. In many cases suppliers and customers are other corporations subject to the same demands of capital, so they just shuffle the costs off further. At the end, it always lands on employees and customers. In the short term profits may take a hit, which drops the cost onto investors, but that's a temporary situation.
The bottom line, then, is that corporate taxes are all ultimately paid by individuals. Actually, this should be utterly obvious even without looking at the detailed mechanisms: corporations aren't real, they're just a mechanism for pooling individual wealth to accomplish larger goals than any individual could... but the products are all ultimately consumed by people, the owners are all ultimately people, and so the taxes all ultimately land on individuals -- voters.
That means that corporate taxation is just a way to impose hidden taxes on voters. Taxes that they pay but don't know they pay, and taxes that are allocated fairly randomly, and likely rather regressively. Corporate taxes are a bad idea and we should abolish them, instead raising capital gains taxes and the top marginal income tax rates.
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