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Google Is Spending Half a Billion Dollars To Curry Europe's Favor (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google has ratchet up its investment in European goodwill, aiming to spend about $450 million from 2015 to 2017 as EU regulators narrow their gaze on the search giant, according to a report by the New York Times. The company is pouring money into wide-ranging sponsorships, like an exhibition at a Belgian museum incorporating virtual reality, a fund to help European news publishers amp up their web savvy, a digital training course for Irish teachers, and YouTube-backed concerts, according to the report.
They spend 500 million bribing people to like them?
One assumes they must be worried about be hit much harder, were they to be made to pay taxes in proportion to their earnings.
Of course Google should never give their own money to filthy liberal Europeans; those savages probably aren't even circumcised!
Saints Reagan and Rand are rolling in their blessed graves.
MONEY IS ONLY FOR HURTING PEOPLE! SAVE THE MONIES!
President Trump will fix all this, you betcha.
EU economy is bigger than the US. It has a population over 40% larger than the US. The US can't break the back of Germany's industrial base especially when it comes to cars because throughout the EU American cars are basically thought of as a bit shit.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
I'm an unfortunate fan of dodgy vindaloo, so let me offer a bit of advice to Googles half-billion dollar order of curry.
1. If it comes with naan, eat it. that will usually buy you 5-10 minutes on the train ride home...
2. Ignore your doubts, if the kitchen sounds like world war 3, and the chef looks like a war refugee, that currys going to be epic.
3. pay attention to your doubts. if the bollywood music playing in the shop sounds clear, and theres less than an inch of dust on the sexually suggestive ethnic portraits, that curry is going to need a diaper with it.
4. pick routes with lots of pubs. sure, that curry shop might only be 3 blocks from your house, but stumbling dazed from toilet to toilet on the way home is common. The barman always knows dehli belly when he sees it.
5. If you've eaten kebab for lunch, and follow it up with curry for dinner, make sure your 4:00 tea includes a last will and testament.
Good people go to bed earlier.
European roads have bends in them.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Full disclosure: I am a pro-American American.
Good points on EU economy/population volume.
On the industrial size of Germany's output you have wandered quite a bit there. Up until recently GM was the largest car manufacturer in the world (since WW II). This changed because line workers in Detroit were making a lot more than software engineers. They couldn't sustain that for long just because we won WW II.
But US based manufacturing wasn't surpased by Germany. It was Japan.
I'm not sure which country makes the worse cars, but I do know Volkswagen and Chrysler have historically been very unreliable, poorly made cars. I think they've both improved somewhat in the last 10 years.
Germany's challenge is they're not really competing with the world market.
European roads have bends in them.
It's spelled 'Benz'.
Have gnu, will travel.
Seriously, the west, if not the world, needs to get its act together and figure out taxes amongst the nations. It is silly that nations like Ireland are playing games with taxes so as to bring corporate HQs there, and ignore what is really going on.
At the same time, the west need to start taxing goods that go across borders. It is amazing to me that our GOP fight this, even though it would level the playing field.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
OK, the OP is wrong, American cars are not a bit shit... they're completely shit. The US is a place who thinks getting 270KW out of a 6.2L V8 is good. Europe (and Japan) can get that out of a 2L turbo these days.
We can also leave a car meet without ploughing into the crowd.
Also as a JDM fanboy, I have to say that Japan no longer makes the worlds best cars, hasn't done since the early 00's. Long gone are the days of budget super and sports cars rivalling their European counterparts for half the price. The Asian Fianancial Crisis and emissions regulations killed that and made all Japanese car companies ultra-conservative. The MKIV Supra by Toyota was compared with the Ferrari's of it's day, gone now. Same with the Honda NSX. The Honda S2000 is still considered the best in class roadster despite being killed off in 2009.
Same story with the Integras, Skylines, Sivlias, even the Z cars are watered down now.
If you want performance these days, Europe is killing everyone else at the moment. Japan doesn't seem to mind as they're making good money on whitegoods.
Also remember that European cars are very popular in the US. How often do you see a BMW X5, Audi Q7 or the latest Rangie?
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.