I live in California... I think we have a state law now that all online sales get charged state sales tax.
The whole thing about not having to pay sales tax when buying from out-of-state is older than computerized shopping. It was considered too much of a burden on catalog companies to keep track of the jurisdictional issues with charging the correct sales tax for the buyer's location, and too big a loophole to just have them charge the sales tax for their own location (then all the catalog companies would just base themselves in states with little or no sales tax).
But now, when it's trivial to code the shopping cart to calculate the correct tax for your zip code, they really should update the laws.
Of course there are actual people doing the work, and "the work" may be very difficult or dangerous. But my business relationship is with the company, and it's up to that company to hire sufficient people to do that work. If something goes down, then that implies that they did NOT hire enough or the right people... or that $#!% happens, and things went down anyway despite their efforts. If it happens rarely and I get apologies, I assume the latter. If it happens frequently and I get blown off, I assume the former.
I count on the company to hire skilled, dedicated individuals and to maintain their morale regardless of the working conditions. I *can't* count on the individuals, because I don't have any means of contacting or contracting them.
That said, I'm glad they do their job, and on the rare occasions I *do* come in contact with them, I'm inclined to say thanks. (I stopped and said "Thank you for the job you're doing" to two people picking up litter at the Zoo the other day... It is the kind of thing I'd do.)
He's not going to instruct his bean counters to let on with the truth, which is that I really prefer tactile books, with pages that you turn and bookmark with real bookmarks.
There, fixed that for you. Some of us like not having bookmarks fall out of our books, or being able to carry several books with us in less space than one physical book.
This is the last Xmas I use Amazon. They botched every order, and when subcontractors ran out of stock on toys, they all waited until Xmas Eve to let me know they wouldn't be filling my order. One went ahead and charged my credit card anyhow.
Everything we ordered from Amazon, even stuff from "subcontractors" (which aren't, they're third-party sites that basically pay a fee to have their stuff listed on Amazon), came promptly when expected. Sucks to be you. Please provide feedback about the retailers who screwed you over, so that those millions of us who will continue to shop on Amazon will avoid them.
Except that the top albums now sell a fraction of the number that the top albums used to. Ditto for books.
Did you RTFA? Because the first example they gave is about a book that has broken records in units sold... records that were set just in the last few years by previous releases in the same series.
While music isn't selling as well (on physical media), other sectors are seeing record-breaking units and revenue.
They don't operate that way YET. But remember we are in the 'early days' of the web.
The long tail makes a huge amount of sense, the book is just predicting what will be happening over time, not a phenomena that has totally taken over from the old system already. give it time.
My thoughts exactly. The fact is, even among people who do use the internet routinely, they don't shop any differently just because the internet is there. My mother *lives* by her email, and does all her holiday shopping online.
But the other day, she asked me if I had a thought on where she should go to look for an obscure component for some home device (maybe it was a special light bulb? I forget). I said, "Well, I'd start with Google" and she looked like she'd been hit by lightning. She said it never even *occurred* to her to look online.
My ILs are even worse. Yes, they use email all the time, and they frequently buy things online too... but when it comes to finding something random or obscure, they're just not in the mode of thinking "The Internet sells EVERYTHING."
OTOH, I'm a member of some online attachment parenting communities. There are a lot of products... baby slings, cloth diaper covers, chem-free detergents... that are very commonly used in those communities, and everyone knows where to buy them (online). They're not at Babies R Us, though, and probably never will be. This is the Long Tail: the Babyhawk XT may be a "blockbuster" mei tai wrap among babywearers, but "babywearers" are a small niche market altogether. Without the internet, though, they wouldn't get to be much of a market at all, because their buying power is too dilute in the physical marketplace.
I agree with you that some churches are better than others, and that the good ones will gladly open their books for you. I don't know that most secular non-profits are more thrifty than most churches however.
It's hard to be sure, since there aren't form 990s to look at from the church side, but surveys have generally found this to be the case. I'm afraid I can't dig up the cite at the moment, though:-/. I read about it several years back.
As far as tax-exempt status goes, you do know that churches pay property tax, right?
I live in California. Property tax is a joke. We make it up with sales tax revenue.
They don't pay income tax, so the federal level services *are* free - but now we're talking military protection from invading armies, the EPA, Ag Department, National Parks, banking regulations, and bond debt service, et. cetera.
And I don't have a problem with that per se; after all, I work for an organization that also gets that all for free. My problem is only that we have to follow rules that the churches don't, just because they're a church. Our organization was founded by a bunch of doctors; we have to file a form 990. The guys across the street were founded by a charismatic preacher, they don't. Why is that reasonable or fair?
Lastly, there's the difference between non-profits that get to bill the government for services provided, and churches, which don't.
1) Non-profits only get to bill the government for services if they apply for funding and qualify. Many of those funding apps are highly competitive.
2) Many FBOs bill the government for services too. Google "Charitable Choice." Heck, even before it was passed, 50% of Catholic Charities budget came from Federal funding.
think that a church that hosts an AA meeting is a far more benevolent organization than, say, The American Red Cross, who takes donated blankets and sells them to disaster victims. The charity provided by a church is 100% charity. Not so with most secular non-profits.
See, I see this in the opposite light: most services provided by churches have strings attached. You want dinner from the Sally Army? You're going to hear a sermon. Want more help? You need to get more involved in the god-stuff. An AA meeting hosted in a church isn't a truly publicly-accessible resource; you need to believe in a god to use AA, and the church generally doesn't strip iconography for the purposes of such meetings, meaning you're subject to their message the entire time you're there. It's not much different than a company donating school supplies emblazoned with their logo, to legitimize targeting their advertising at children.
And heck, the ARC (not a stellar example of non-profit management these days) does have to make public where their revenue comes from, including selling blankets. You have the RIGHT to know they're doing that, and then can direct your money elsewhere. Your church has no obligation or responsibility at all to report how it handles the money you donate to it, though. It's a black box.
I'm not sure where you work, but this is no longer 2001. In today's employment landscape and economy, you are not "given" health insurance or SPP/EPP. You are offered an a-la carte menu of choices, ALL of which you must pay for out of your own paycheck.
Most large companies subsidize full-time employees' primary care insurance, and the subsidy is usually equal to at least 90% of the premium for the lowest-cost employee-only plan. That is worth several hundred dollars a month.
My company has pretty chintzy benefits, and they give us $350 a month toward them. That will *just* pay for the cheapest health insurance for the employee. Or, if (like me) your spouse has much, much better insurance that is mostly paid for for the whole family, it'll pay for supplemental disability, unemployment, and life insurance.
And yes, my husband's company picks up about 80% of our total premium for our ENTIRE family's health and dental. At *his* pay grade, anyway... they have a sliding scale, where the company's contribution drops off as your salary goes UP. People making over $200k/year pay most of their own premiums. (Brilliant!)
A *lot* of companies used the media mass hysteria as cover to take such actions, long before many of them had felt any measurable impact at all. I.e. companies that still reported profit still said the economy impact was such they simply had to take drastic measures.
Wouldn't the time to take measures be while you're still reporting a profit, though? I mean, a publicly-traded company doesn't get to exist very long if they're running in the red, so if the profit margin thins, they need to start pedaling uphill to bring revenues back up.
One reason why the banking industry is falling apart is because somehow, no one noticed they were headed for collapse. I'm no banker or economist, but I started shopping for a house in 2002 and quickly realized that things were a bit nuts, but eventually, interest rates would go back up, ARMs would adjust, people would go into foreclosure, and prices and inventory would be back at rational levels. I also wondered at that time what the banks were going to do about it. Seems *they* didn't wonder enough, though.
Well, those companies have seen the recession coming for 2-3 years now and laying off people just looks plain bad in the papers and what I call the 'emotion-driven' stock will be dumped the moment that news hits the pressroom.
Doesn't stock usually go up on announcement of layoffs?
Smart companies increase marketing spend during recession. It's a cheap way to grab marketshare.
Cheap -- but not free. They'll increase spending if they can afford to. If revenues are down, they're unlikely to cut staff and spend that money on advertising; that would set up a gift of the magi situation, where they might increase business but then not have the capacity to deliver on the increase.
So the real issue is whether the money is there to be spent, and there is definitely less money available right now.
I don't think you've ever worked in an advertising-related field. Advertising is often the "canary in the coalmine" - when things are going bad, advertising is often the first expense to be slashed. When an economy is recovering, advertising is often the first to benefit.
Yep yep. I was working for a relatively small business unit of Time Warner when the AOL debacle-- I mean, merger happened. When the whole thing was planned out, TW's revenues were X, but a year later when it went through, the dot-com bubble had developed some big leaks and advertising revenue was waaaaayyyy down. TW had made commitments to AOL, so they had to do some pretty big layoffs to meet them in light of the shrunk revenue. My business unit was one of them (all 100+ employees let go over a six-month period). Note: our business was NOT in any way internet-related.
Honestly, Google doesn't really have to worry about the economy. Unless people stop getting internet access, Google has a rather steady source of income via ads and no one but the businesses pay a cent (and really, advertising is only going to slightly increase with a slowing economy as more people want to get more customers).
Advertising is budgeted by businesses, generally as a percentage of their revenue. With revenue down, businesses will be paying less for everything... staff, materials, advertising... nothing's exempt.
Now, what we may see is a shift from more expensive advertising (TV commercials) to cheaper (internet ads)... and Google may benefit from that. But you'll also see businesses that always did online advertising cutting their spending across the board. I doubt it'll be a net gain in revenue for the big G.
Their spiel about the phone being a gift (and the employee being taxed for it), but that they're not supposed to sell it is very telling. Among other things, it tells me just how out of touch with reality Google is.
Eh, this is par for the course. Maybe it's more common among entertainment companies though. The policy allows the company to give their employees perks that, were they to be released on the open market, would devalue their brand and/or products. They also maintain greater value by being available exclusively to employees.
We've got several items stashed in a cabinet that, should my husband leave his company, will probably get eBayed... since he could get fired for selling them while he works there;-).
'googlers'. sigh. 'cute pet names' for employees went out the window years ago.
endearing names intended to make you feel special only make you look like some closed insider's club.
its silly and you know it.
Bah. I used to work for Kinko's, around the time of the Corporate Roll-up. Back when people who worked at Kinko's called themselves Kinkoids. And somehow, with a straight face.
I was also a Disney Cast Member for a while, at the Disney Store. It made it easier to answer questions like "Do you have any beach towels with Bugs Bunny on them?" without saying "no"... I was on stage!
Unfortunately, there's a whole bunch of us who work for companies that DO owe us something in exchange for work called a year-end bonus. It's calculated as part of compensation on top of base, and some of us take a cut in base compensation on the promise of that bonus. It's part of your negotiated overall compensation package. Getting screwed out of it can be a really big hit for some of us.
Bonuses are usually calculated as a function of overall company performance. Taking the cut in base is a gamble... you're gambling that you and your co-workers will perform well enough that the company will have extra money to give you at the end of the year in excess of what you'd make in fixed salary.
Sometimes, no matter how well you do personally, the world doesn't cooperate, and the money just isn't there. That's part of the gamble.
Now, if the company had promised a performance-based bonus, and then reneged on that promise completely, you'd have a point... but if the performance just wasn't at a level to warrant a bonus under the agreement, everyone's screwed but no one's doing the screwing.
Who's goverment? China's? Mexican? French? Australian? Where the server's are? Where the bussines central is?
As globalized as our world is, I very rarely conduct online transactions with non-US companies. A handful of times I've ordered from Canada, I think, and once or twice from the UK (from Amazon.co.uk to get books that aren't out yet here).
Globalization is something that's happened at a level higher than the individual consumer. It means that the goods I order from US vendors may have been made in some remote part of the world, but that's not where I'm buying them from.
So, it makes sense for companies doing business in the US to get their certificates from US CAs, who are regulated by the US government. Replace "US" with "country of your choice," with more flexibility for the EU where they share a common currency across national boundaries. Some countries will be unregulated, and their certificates will be cheap and nearly worthless internationally (but may be the best you can get if you're doing business in that country).
Some government will probably come up with a really brilliant regulation system that helps ensure a great product for the consumer, and then the top-end companies will all want their certs from those CAs. "They've got a Swiss certificate" or somesuch will become a hallmark of impeccable online business dealing. Competition will still exist, but between nations more than businesses.
It can work, it does work in other fields. Not sure what's so hard about the concept.
People like you need to adjust their attitude to realize that human languages are NOT the same as programming languages or scientific equations, some of the time getting it close enough really is ok.
When you are talking to programmers and engineers, there is no such thing as too much precision. When you're posting on Slashdot, you're inevitably talking to a lot of programmers and engineers.
Sure, using slightly the wrong vocabulary word, or putting an apostrophe in Starbucks, or other such minor mis-usage isn't a Federal crime... but I can totally see why people would get up in arms about incorrect units on this site.
How about you take a look? The church I attended was happy to let any one look at their finances - because indeed, they were doing the right thing. So the obvious answer to your challenge is: walk to the nearest church, and ask the pastor if you can look at his books. State that you've been told that churches do charitable work, and you don't believe it's as valuable as you've been told. Ask the pastor how many hours of counseling he does per week. Ask how many meetings are held per week. Ask how much money the church donates to outside organizations to send doctors and nurses to third world countries on childhood vaccination missions. Ask how much of the billable time (if it were a private sector business / public sector clinic) is actually billed.
It's obvious to me that the GP is right. It's also obvious to me from your attitude that you won't believe anything less than the truth as seen by your own eyes. I'm OK with that. March your eyes down to the closest church and check it out.
Of course, if the closest church to you is the Scientology Center, I'm screwed.;-)
Yes... every church that will open their books and answer honestly is doing the "right thing." And every church that tells me to take a hike is well within their rights; even though their activities are, in effect, publicly subsidized by their tax-exempt status, they have no responsibility to disclose that information to the public (i.e. me).
The nearest church is across the street. It's not the "Church" of Scientology (which is about a mile up the street) but a Foursquare Gospel charismatic, founded by Aimee Semple MacPherson. And the office building that my company (a secular non-profit healthcare provider, with a 990 on file and 10% admin overhead) is headquartered in is owned by the church, as is a lot of the surrounding real estate. They occupy four or five floors in this building, and the floors they're on have all just had very expensive-looking remodeling done. Maybe a parishioner donated all that travertine, though.
As I said, many churches do put much of that money back into the community (though I'd be surprised if more than a handful run at as low an overhead as the average secular non-profit). The problem is, they are not required to demonstrate that to the public, even though they benefit from tax-exempt status. And, because of that, many DON'T put substantial proportions of their income back into the community, so they're basically parasitical in nature. It should not be my responsibility to walk into every church and ask to see their books to determine if they're a "good guy" or not. They should have the burden of proving that they're worthy of non-profit tax exemption.
Even as an atheist, churches getting tax-exempt status is something I have trouble objecting to.
I don't have trouble objecting to churches qualifying as non-profits under the same rules as secular charities and institutions. However, they DON'T have to play by the same rules. They don't have to file a form 990, and they don't have to meet the same requirements.
You could abolish the existing tax exemption for "churches," and many churches would qualify under the other rules. Let those have tax-exempt status, and let the rest get fairly taxed on their income.
Religions more than carry their weight in society. They don't pay taxes, but they do provide services to the community that more than make up for that, which would cost the state far more to provide on its own than the tax revenue it would gain.
I challenge you to back up that statement with any verifiable data. Because churches don't have to file form 990, there's NO way to verify that they do indeed put substantial money back into the community. Some do, some don't. (And some own the office building across the street, and have just installed really gorgeous travertine mosaics in the elevator lobbies of all the floors they occupy.)
Based on good estimates of how much churches actually spend on works, it turns out that people who give only to secular charities end up putting MORE money back into the community. This is because most charities run at 10-20% admin overhead, and churches run much higher, so much less of the money donated to the church actually goes to program.
I see no evidence this is true and plenty of evidence that innovation is coming fast and furious without any need for government intervention by creating more monopolies.
Innovation is coming fast and furious in an environment where government intervention *has* created monopolies. There's tons of research on the effects of patents (much on the results of the Bayh-Dole Act), which has drawn the uncomfortable conclusion that patents absolutely ARE still a very relevant tool in fostering innovation. Believe me, I don't want it to be that way either... but I spent an entire quarter studying this stuff;-) and patents do what they say they do.
The problem is that they do *other* things that have a chilling effect, and so the system does need to be overhauled to protect the rights of legitimate inventors, but not give advantages to enormous corporations or patent trolls. I don't have a concept for how it would look, I'm afraid.
Slashdot Mirror
I live in California... I think we have a state law now that all online sales get charged state sales tax.
The whole thing about not having to pay sales tax when buying from out-of-state is older than computerized shopping. It was considered too much of a burden on catalog companies to keep track of the jurisdictional issues with charging the correct sales tax for the buyer's location, and too big a loophole to just have them charge the sales tax for their own location (then all the catalog companies would just base themselves in states with little or no sales tax).
But now, when it's trivial to code the shopping cart to calculate the correct tax for your zip code, they really should update the laws.
Of course there are actual people doing the work, and "the work" may be very difficult or dangerous. But my business relationship is with the company, and it's up to that company to hire sufficient people to do that work. If something goes down, then that implies that they did NOT hire enough or the right people... or that $#!% happens, and things went down anyway despite their efforts. If it happens rarely and I get apologies, I assume the latter. If it happens frequently and I get blown off, I assume the former.
I count on the company to hire skilled, dedicated individuals and to maintain their morale regardless of the working conditions. I *can't* count on the individuals, because I don't have any means of contacting or contracting them.
That said, I'm glad they do their job, and on the rare occasions I *do* come in contact with them, I'm inclined to say thanks. (I stopped and said "Thank you for the job you're doing" to two people picking up litter at the Zoo the other day... It is the kind of thing I'd do.)
He's not going to instruct his bean counters to let on with the truth, which is that I really prefer tactile books, with pages that you turn and bookmark with real bookmarks.
There, fixed that for you. Some of us like not having bookmarks fall out of our books, or being able to carry several books with us in less space than one physical book.
This is the last Xmas I use Amazon. They botched every order, and when subcontractors ran out of stock on toys, they all waited until Xmas Eve to let me know they wouldn't be filling my order. One went ahead and charged my credit card anyhow.
Everything we ordered from Amazon, even stuff from "subcontractors" (which aren't, they're third-party sites that basically pay a fee to have their stuff listed on Amazon), came promptly when expected. Sucks to be you. Please provide feedback about the retailers who screwed you over, so that those millions of us who will continue to shop on Amazon will avoid them.
Who missed the point? I thought the article actually made that point with discussion of the Matthew Effect and the research verifying it.
Except that the top albums now sell a fraction of the number that the top albums used to. Ditto for books.
Did you RTFA? Because the first example they gave is about a book that has broken records in units sold... records that were set just in the last few years by previous releases in the same series.
While music isn't selling as well (on physical media), other sectors are seeing record-breaking units and revenue.
They don't operate that way YET. But remember we are in the 'early days' of the web.
The long tail makes a huge amount of sense, the book is just predicting what will be happening over time, not a phenomena that has totally taken over from the old system already.
give it time.
My thoughts exactly. The fact is, even among people who do use the internet routinely, they don't shop any differently just because the internet is there. My mother *lives* by her email, and does all her holiday shopping online.
But the other day, she asked me if I had a thought on where she should go to look for an obscure component for some home device (maybe it was a special light bulb? I forget). I said, "Well, I'd start with Google" and she looked like she'd been hit by lightning. She said it never even *occurred* to her to look online.
My ILs are even worse. Yes, they use email all the time, and they frequently buy things online too... but when it comes to finding something random or obscure, they're just not in the mode of thinking "The Internet sells EVERYTHING."
OTOH, I'm a member of some online attachment parenting communities. There are a lot of products... baby slings, cloth diaper covers, chem-free detergents... that are very commonly used in those communities, and everyone knows where to buy them (online). They're not at Babies R Us, though, and probably never will be. This is the Long Tail: the Babyhawk XT may be a "blockbuster" mei tai wrap among babywearers, but "babywearers" are a small niche market altogether. Without the internet, though, they wouldn't get to be much of a market at all, because their buying power is too dilute in the physical marketplace.
I agree with you that some churches are better than others, and that the good ones will gladly open their books for you. I don't know that most secular non-profits are more thrifty than most churches however.
It's hard to be sure, since there aren't form 990s to look at from the church side, but surveys have generally found this to be the case. I'm afraid I can't dig up the cite at the moment, though :-/. I read about it several years back.
As far as tax-exempt status goes, you do know that churches pay property tax, right?
I live in California. Property tax is a joke. We make it up with sales tax revenue.
They don't pay income tax, so the federal level services *are* free - but now we're talking military protection from invading armies, the EPA, Ag Department, National Parks, banking regulations, and bond debt service, et. cetera.
And I don't have a problem with that per se; after all, I work for an organization that also gets that all for free. My problem is only that we have to follow rules that the churches don't, just because they're a church. Our organization was founded by a bunch of doctors; we have to file a form 990. The guys across the street were founded by a charismatic preacher, they don't. Why is that reasonable or fair?
Lastly, there's the difference between non-profits that get to bill the government for services provided, and churches, which don't.
1) Non-profits only get to bill the government for services if they apply for funding and qualify. Many of those funding apps are highly competitive.
2) Many FBOs bill the government for services too. Google "Charitable Choice." Heck, even before it was passed, 50% of Catholic Charities budget came from Federal funding.
think that a church that hosts an AA meeting is a far more benevolent organization than, say, The American Red Cross, who takes donated blankets and sells them to disaster victims. The charity provided by a church is 100% charity. Not so with most secular non-profits.
See, I see this in the opposite light: most services provided by churches have strings attached. You want dinner from the Sally Army? You're going to hear a sermon. Want more help? You need to get more involved in the god-stuff. An AA meeting hosted in a church isn't a truly publicly-accessible resource; you need to believe in a god to use AA, and the church generally doesn't strip iconography for the purposes of such meetings, meaning you're subject to their message the entire time you're there. It's not much different than a company donating school supplies emblazoned with their logo, to legitimize targeting their advertising at children.
And heck, the ARC (not a stellar example of non-profit management these days) does have to make public where their revenue comes from, including selling blankets. You have the RIGHT to know they're doing that, and then can direct your money elsewhere. Your church has no obligation or responsibility at all to report how it handles the money you donate to it, though. It's a black box.
I'm not sure where you work, but this is no longer 2001. In today's employment landscape and economy, you are not "given" health insurance or SPP/EPP. You are offered an a-la carte menu of choices, ALL of which you must pay for out of your own paycheck.
Most large companies subsidize full-time employees' primary care insurance, and the subsidy is usually equal to at least 90% of the premium for the lowest-cost employee-only plan. That is worth several hundred dollars a month.
My company has pretty chintzy benefits, and they give us $350 a month toward them. That will *just* pay for the cheapest health insurance for the employee. Or, if (like me) your spouse has much, much better insurance that is mostly paid for for the whole family, it'll pay for supplemental disability, unemployment, and life insurance.
And yes, my husband's company picks up about 80% of our total premium for our ENTIRE family's health and dental. At *his* pay grade, anyway... they have a sliding scale, where the company's contribution drops off as your salary goes UP. People making over $200k/year pay most of their own premiums. (Brilliant!)
A *lot* of companies used the media mass hysteria as cover to take such actions, long before many of them had felt any measurable impact at all. I.e. companies that still reported profit still said the economy impact was such they simply had to take drastic measures.
Wouldn't the time to take measures be while you're still reporting a profit, though? I mean, a publicly-traded company doesn't get to exist very long if they're running in the red, so if the profit margin thins, they need to start pedaling uphill to bring revenues back up.
One reason why the banking industry is falling apart is because somehow, no one noticed they were headed for collapse. I'm no banker or economist, but I started shopping for a house in 2002 and quickly realized that things were a bit nuts, but eventually, interest rates would go back up, ARMs would adjust, people would go into foreclosure, and prices and inventory would be back at rational levels. I also wondered at that time what the banks were going to do about it. Seems *they* didn't wonder enough, though.
Well, those companies have seen the recession coming for 2-3 years now and laying off people just looks plain bad in the papers and what I call the 'emotion-driven' stock will be dumped the moment that news hits the pressroom.
Doesn't stock usually go up on announcement of layoffs?
To be fair, a lot of people rely on their yearly bonuses to make ends meet.
A lot of people also counted on their ARM payments staying the same.
That doesn't make it a reasonable fiscal policy.
Smart companies increase marketing spend during recession. It's a cheap way to grab marketshare.
Cheap -- but not free. They'll increase spending if they can afford to. If revenues are down, they're unlikely to cut staff and spend that money on advertising; that would set up a gift of the magi situation, where they might increase business but then not have the capacity to deliver on the increase.
So the real issue is whether the money is there to be spent, and there is definitely less money available right now.
I don't think you've ever worked in an advertising-related field. Advertising is often the "canary in the coalmine" - when things are going bad, advertising is often the first expense to be slashed. When an economy is recovering, advertising is often the first to benefit.
Yep yep. I was working for a relatively small business unit of Time Warner when the AOL debacle-- I mean, merger happened. When the whole thing was planned out, TW's revenues were X, but a year later when it went through, the dot-com bubble had developed some big leaks and advertising revenue was waaaaayyyy down. TW had made commitments to AOL, so they had to do some pretty big layoffs to meet them in light of the shrunk revenue. My business unit was one of them (all 100+ employees let go over a six-month period). Note: our business was NOT in any way internet-related.
Honestly, Google doesn't really have to worry about the economy. Unless people stop getting internet access, Google has a rather steady source of income via ads and no one but the businesses pay a cent (and really, advertising is only going to slightly increase with a slowing economy as more people want to get more customers).
Advertising is budgeted by businesses, generally as a percentage of their revenue. With revenue down, businesses will be paying less for everything... staff, materials, advertising... nothing's exempt.
Now, what we may see is a shift from more expensive advertising (TV commercials) to cheaper (internet ads)... and Google may benefit from that. But you'll also see businesses that always did online advertising cutting their spending across the board. I doubt it'll be a net gain in revenue for the big G.
Yep, we're the unofficial 51st state
Don't you mean the 53rd? All my British friends seem to think there are 52 states in the Union.
Their spiel about the phone being a gift (and the employee being taxed for it), but that they're not supposed to sell it is very telling. Among other things, it tells me just how out of touch with reality Google is.
Eh, this is par for the course. Maybe it's more common among entertainment companies though. The policy allows the company to give their employees perks that, were they to be released on the open market, would devalue their brand and/or products. They also maintain greater value by being available exclusively to employees.
We've got several items stashed in a cabinet that, should my husband leave his company, will probably get eBayed... since he could get fired for selling them while he works there ;-).
its NOT cute and your employees are not children.
'googlers'. sigh. 'cute pet names' for employees went out the window years ago.
endearing names intended to make you feel special only make you look like some closed insider's club.
its silly and you know it.
Bah. I used to work for Kinko's, around the time of the Corporate Roll-up. Back when people who worked at Kinko's called themselves Kinkoids. And somehow, with a straight face.
I was also a Disney Cast Member for a while, at the Disney Store. It made it easier to answer questions like "Do you have any beach towels with Bugs Bunny on them?" without saying "no"... I was on stage!
(am I supposed to use a G for google?)
"Google" is a company. "google" is a verb.
Unfortunately, there's a whole bunch of us who work for companies that DO owe us something in exchange for work called a year-end bonus. It's calculated as part of compensation on top of base, and some of us take a cut in base compensation on the promise of that bonus. It's part of your negotiated overall compensation package. Getting screwed out of it can be a really big hit for some of us.
Bonuses are usually calculated as a function of overall company performance. Taking the cut in base is a gamble... you're gambling that you and your co-workers will perform well enough that the company will have extra money to give you at the end of the year in excess of what you'd make in fixed salary.
Sometimes, no matter how well you do personally, the world doesn't cooperate, and the money just isn't there. That's part of the gamble.
Now, if the company had promised a performance-based bonus, and then reneged on that promise completely, you'd have a point... but if the performance just wasn't at a level to warrant a bonus under the agreement, everyone's screwed but no one's doing the screwing.
Who's goverment? China's? Mexican? French? Australian? Where the server's are? Where the bussines central is?
As globalized as our world is, I very rarely conduct online transactions with non-US companies. A handful of times I've ordered from Canada, I think, and once or twice from the UK (from Amazon.co.uk to get books that aren't out yet here).
Globalization is something that's happened at a level higher than the individual consumer. It means that the goods I order from US vendors may have been made in some remote part of the world, but that's not where I'm buying them from.
So, it makes sense for companies doing business in the US to get their certificates from US CAs, who are regulated by the US government. Replace "US" with "country of your choice," with more flexibility for the EU where they share a common currency across national boundaries. Some countries will be unregulated, and their certificates will be cheap and nearly worthless internationally (but may be the best you can get if you're doing business in that country).
Some government will probably come up with a really brilliant regulation system that helps ensure a great product for the consumer, and then the top-end companies will all want their certs from those CAs. "They've got a Swiss certificate" or somesuch will become a hallmark of impeccable online business dealing. Competition will still exist, but between nations more than businesses.
It can work, it does work in other fields. Not sure what's so hard about the concept.
People like you need to adjust their attitude to realize that human languages are NOT the same as programming languages or scientific equations, some of the time getting it close enough really is ok.
When you are talking to programmers and engineers, there is no such thing as too much precision. When you're posting on Slashdot, you're inevitably talking to a lot of programmers and engineers.
Sure, using slightly the wrong vocabulary word, or putting an apostrophe in Starbucks, or other such minor mis-usage isn't a Federal crime... but I can totally see why people would get up in arms about incorrect units on this site.
How about you take a look? The church I attended was happy to let any one look at their finances - because indeed, they were doing the right thing. So the obvious answer to your challenge is: walk to the nearest church, and ask the pastor if you can look at his books. State that you've been told that churches do charitable work, and you don't believe it's as valuable as you've been told. Ask the pastor how many hours of counseling he does per week. Ask how many meetings are held per week. Ask how much money the church donates to outside organizations to send doctors and nurses to third world countries on childhood vaccination missions. Ask how much of the billable time (if it were a private sector business / public sector clinic) is actually billed.
It's obvious to me that the GP is right. It's also obvious to me from your attitude that you won't believe anything less than the truth as seen by your own eyes. I'm OK with that. March your eyes down to the closest church and check it out.
Of course, if the closest church to you is the Scientology Center, I'm screwed. ;-)
Yes... every church that will open their books and answer honestly is doing the "right thing." And every church that tells me to take a hike is well within their rights; even though their activities are, in effect, publicly subsidized by their tax-exempt status, they have no responsibility to disclose that information to the public (i.e. me).
The nearest church is across the street. It's not the "Church" of Scientology (which is about a mile up the street) but a Foursquare Gospel charismatic, founded by Aimee Semple MacPherson. And the office building that my company (a secular non-profit healthcare provider, with a 990 on file and 10% admin overhead) is headquartered in is owned by the church, as is a lot of the surrounding real estate. They occupy four or five floors in this building, and the floors they're on have all just had very expensive-looking remodeling done. Maybe a parishioner donated all that travertine, though.
As I said, many churches do put much of that money back into the community (though I'd be surprised if more than a handful run at as low an overhead as the average secular non-profit). The problem is, they are not required to demonstrate that to the public, even though they benefit from tax-exempt status. And, because of that, many DON'T put substantial proportions of their income back into the community, so they're basically parasitical in nature. It should not be my responsibility to walk into every church and ask to see their books to determine if they're a "good guy" or not. They should have the burden of proving that they're worthy of non-profit tax exemption.
Even as an atheist, churches getting tax-exempt status is something I have trouble objecting to.
I don't have trouble objecting to churches qualifying as non-profits under the same rules as secular charities and institutions. However, they DON'T have to play by the same rules. They don't have to file a form 990, and they don't have to meet the same requirements.
You could abolish the existing tax exemption for "churches," and many churches would qualify under the other rules. Let those have tax-exempt status, and let the rest get fairly taxed on their income.
Religions more than carry their weight in society. They don't pay taxes, but they do provide services to the community that more than make up for that, which would cost the state far more to provide on its own than the tax revenue it would gain.
I challenge you to back up that statement with any verifiable data. Because churches don't have to file form 990, there's NO way to verify that they do indeed put substantial money back into the community. Some do, some don't. (And some own the office building across the street, and have just installed really gorgeous travertine mosaics in the elevator lobbies of all the floors they occupy.)
Based on good estimates of how much churches actually spend on works, it turns out that people who give only to secular charities end up putting MORE money back into the community. This is because most charities run at 10-20% admin overhead, and churches run much higher, so much less of the money donated to the church actually goes to program.
I see no evidence this is true and plenty of evidence that innovation is coming fast and furious without any need for government intervention by creating more monopolies.
Innovation is coming fast and furious in an environment where government intervention *has* created monopolies. There's tons of research on the effects of patents (much on the results of the Bayh-Dole Act), which has drawn the uncomfortable conclusion that patents absolutely ARE still a very relevant tool in fostering innovation. Believe me, I don't want it to be that way either... but I spent an entire quarter studying this stuff ;-) and patents do what they say they do.
The problem is that they do *other* things that have a chilling effect, and so the system does need to be overhauled to protect the rights of legitimate inventors, but not give advantages to enormous corporations or patent trolls. I don't have a concept for how it would look, I'm afraid.