AFAIK the US Law does not state any such thing. That therefore must mean you do not have any such right, and are obliged to listen to whatever anyone has to say./sarcasm
(Sarcasm tag aside...) for a private person: what is not prohibited by law it is permitted. Thus, one doesn't need to have a law granting a right to enjoy it (for govts is the other way around: what is not specificity allowed by a law, it is supposed to be prohibited).
No, it's the other way around. Closing a local business is a loss for the community on a short term. The building is eventually filled with a new business performing a different function.
etc...
Well, I feel the community is being affected on long term by job losses, even if business closures may be better on short term. Since there's an "active experiment of this kind" running now in US, I guess we can only wait and see how it will evolve.
Thanks for pointing out the difference between the "maximize value for stakeholders" and "maximize profit" - it's quite subtle. So subtle that, in real world, I guess many corporate officers don't realize there is one; as a consequence I'm afraid this is actually more than a benign "hot grits/OMG ponies" meme
(other that that: I didn't say the maximisation of the profit is the only duty, don't waste your time in demolishing this straw man)
Changing the function of a bookstore is also an indication of a failing business model.
Wasn't this exactly the scenario that we were discussing? Like "the expensive and crappy bookstore goes out of business. People are actually saving $10 buying from Amazon, so they can reward the local farmers. No damage done to the community if the bookstore goes bankrupt"?
To which I said: maybe there are other possibilities that would worth exploring to keep the local bookstore keeper busy in a beneficial way for the community, even if the bookstore as a business goes under. Maybe, from the saved $10, some part of it would be better if given (not even as an investment or loan) to the former bookstore keeper to help her reorient to other business models?
My point is: you let the local businesses disappear and don't care what happens with the persons that use to work there results in a loss for the community on long term (even if on a short term may be better). At no point was I suggesting to start digging trenches with a teaspoon just to keep people busy. But between the two extremes ("don't care".. "can waste you money within community"), there have to be some other possible solutions that are meaningful (or, if you like it better, purposeful) for keeping the community members "in a business".
duty to use any means legally available to maximize the profit.
You're either ignorant or a liar. No such duty exists.
Sir, I demand apologies for your gratuitous insults.
eBay v. Newmark, page 60 bottom continuing page 61, reads (with my emphasis):
Having chosen a for-profit corporate form, the craigslist directors are
bound by the fiduciary duties and standards that accompany that form. Those
standards include acting to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of
its stockholders. The “Inc.” after the company name has to mean at least that.
Thus, I cannot accept as valid for the purposes of implementing the Rights Plan a
corporate policy that specifically, clearly, and admittedly seeks not to maximize
the economic value of a for-profit Delaware corporation for the benefit of its
stockholders—no matter whether those stockholders are individuals of modest
means 106 or a corporate titan of online commerce.
When did I say they can't or shouldn't do whatever their citizens please? I never placed blame.
Neither did I say that you have made any moral judgement. I just asked if you implied or did not imply one - because it wasn't clear from the context. The question being answered, I thank you for it.
My point is that management does not have a legal duty to maximise short term after-tax profits as you claimed. But, yes, most management have a strong financial incentive to maximise short-term profits (just not a legal duty).
Theoretically, you are right. Practically... as you yourself admit... it's only a theoretical gimmick.
No, it's not. And their tax laws have everything to do with it. Their tax laws are setup such that only local companies pay taxes. Companies like Google pay nothing. Any other brilliant arguments, dipshit?
And this is somehow their fault? If positive, can you explain why a country shouldn't be able to do whatever their citizens please within their own borders?
Being an American corporation, it is their officers' duty to use any means legally available to maximize the profit
Yes, but... management has a lot of discretion over the best method to maximise profits. There is no requirement to maximise short term profits, so management can easily say that paying taxes improves the good will that the company enjoys and thus will maximise profits over the long term.
The reason companies tend to obsess over quarterly profits is because management is measured (and profits from) short term measurements of stock price.
I do understand the reason, but I fail to see how - given the circumstances - one can expect any other reaction from the management. Given the percentage of shares are actually traded in a speculative way, you think that any management team would actually be able to escape the "focus on short term profit"? Not even Apple is immune to this pressure on long term.
Being an American corporation, it is their officers' duty to use any means legally available to maximize the profit. This include, without being limited to:
a. tax avoidance - (tax evasion is illegal. "Tax avoidance" using the loopholes but still within the boundaries of the applicable laws is not)
b. cost externalization
c. risk externalization
And, just in case you didn't know: in US, corporations can legally run for Congress; for the present, the fact they are lobbying instead has to do with their public image; but one cannot exclude a time when one/some corporation(s) are economically strong enough to actually give a fsck about the short term impact on US market and actually get into a body that can repeal a good chunk of legislation that's "upsetting" for them.
Here's a thought; if you want companies to pay more taxes then make taxes reasonably low enough that companies find it more bothersome to play legal shell games than simply pay a tax.
Well... opening a shell company in a tax heaven and paying 3-4 accounting critters to take care of recording profits in zero-tax places is going to cost the company probably... say... half a million/year? Are you sure you want corporate taxes lowered that much in US/UK?
why not use the concept in universities and other educational institutions?
Because flunking people who don't care about learning is preferable to pandering to them?
Why stop at gamification? I mean... playing computer games is so 2000-ish. Let the twittification start...
(on top of being modern, this comes with the advantage of flunking even more people without an inner call for the topic)
Would you say that Interstate Highways are communist? Maybe they are, but they are essential to the competitiveness of the US economy. Some people have never been on a highway in their entire life, but their taxes were still used to build these highways.
Agreed. But allow me to restate: to certain problems, the appropriate solutions. And let the ideology aside
Again, I'm not saying that bailing out banks was good or bad. I'm saying that it wasn't an easy decision to take, and that it was done for a reason. Saying it's communism does not help much in the debate.
Do you feel you know well the problems in China? Are you absolutely sure that what their are doing now is springing from an ideology? Because if not, why tag China as communist (as the post I was replying did)? How would this help the debate?
Some notes: * China - population 1,347,350,000, population density: 141/sq.km.
* US - population: 314,931,000, population density: 34/sq km
The above consideration alone would make one think that maybe, just maybe, the Chinese society is pushed into favoring cooperation as a successful survival behavior and thus stays away from the individualism so characteristic to nowadays US. What the Americans calls "cheating", the Chinese may call "sharing" (you know? One of the values parents used to teach the kids a while back. Are they still teaching it now?)
How does adopting an ideologically rooted terminology helps one understand and deal with the actual realities in China?
Nah, the answer of artificially funding a business because it's "better for the local economy" is as far off the mark as you can be. It simply doesn't correlate. What do you have then? A local business that's propped up by debt dollars injected into the economy by all the student loans and mortgages. Held for historical reasons, but not practically useful, and essentially acting as a broken window.
Without meaning any disrespect, I'd classify the above as a failure of imagination... (the risks of looking to the world through "principle based, black-and-white only glasses" - one doesn't look how to solve a problem, only how well possible solutions fit to some principle one keeps so dear)
E.g. what about transforming the bookstore in a coffee shop where one can read books? With a minor investment, even some eBooks can be made available on tablets owned by the coffee-shop. I know I'd spend some hours (and some money) every week, would it be close enough to my home; if there are others like me, possibly would be just enough to keep a former bookstore keeper in (another) business inside the community. Would this still be a "broken window"?
Why don't they make investment into areas that would result in well-being and abundances?
Paupers pay less, but still pay; the risk with well-being and abundance...where's the need to want something bad enough if you have the lot of the rest? Maybe... God forbids... one reaches the conclusion they can do without?
(although... looking at Apple fans, I would say there are slim chances for this to happen)
If America weren't a debt society living on the edge of credit and facing imminent foreclosure, I'd say we were pretty wealthy here. As it is, we as a nation have run up our credit cards to the max and can't afford to pay them much longer, and we're just running them up further. All money is loaned into existence, loaned to the banks who loan to the people (businesses, mortgages, credit cards...) who buy stuff and pass those dollars to pay salaries supported ultimately by debt. The Federal Government borrows money from other countries, collecting debt money in taxes, with no asset base to work from. How dysfunctional.
Quite a big if, indeed. Because the wealth defined like this is illusory, as not being sustainable... ran the race in the last 10 years on "performance enhancement drugs"... to bad they not a substitute for real performance.
And what pushed the Americans in living on debt rather than on honest earnings? In my opinion, exactly the false dichotomy of "be efficient or die" and the corporatist way of action of "profit now, externalize the costs and the risks, responsibility towards the society be damned". To exemplify, those $10 one saves by buying on Amazon: perhaps 3 of them would be better given (not even "invested" or "on loan") to the bookstore keeper to retrain her and help her start a business that makes sense and would be viable locally? (For those about to yell: hold your horses; I know, I know... this is red-hot communism. Silly me to even think that there could be other - middle-ground - approaches, besides "be cheap or die"... Or "behave or you'll rot in jail, as sure as death and the taxes I'm paying to keep you there").
Now let's say you order from Amazon because it's $10 cheaper. That money leaves the local community, but $10 stays... you're $10 wealthier. The local bookstore has terrible selection and is expensive... it goes out of business. Meanwhile you've got a local farmer's market and you shop there with the extra $10 you have. That's wealth creation: you have the same goods (a book) plus more money ($10) to buy other goods (fresh food). If this is the general trend, the Farmer's Market garners that much more business, expands, and replaces the local book shop's place in the community--the community demand for a farmer's market was higher than a local bookstore, the community is now wealthier.
Interesting but oh, so very wrong. And it's wrong because it's a localized and on short term thinking. Its like the joke about drinking alcohol to kill weaker neurons, thus becoming smarter (or the "corporate fat trimming" game)
Let's extend a bit the frame of reference: say all in that community that want books will buy from Amazon and "earn" the $10. The $10 become disposable income and assuming enough of them decide to spend the $10 at Farmer's Market, the price for your vegies will increase - it's only natural to be so, the price is "whatever you are willing to pay" and people with more disposable income will likely be willing to pay more.
And that until the local farmers increase the price high enough to be seen in the place of the "bookstore keeper"... and be shot down because, you know? on Amazon, one is already able to buy Tuscan milk by the gallon at possibly lower prices. And... oh, gully... with the "earned" money the people in community may do such nice things!!!... Like: deciding to get a mortgage for a home at super-inflated prices... because they are willing to pay more, they saved a lot, haven't they?... (sounds familiar when you think of US as the "community"?) The result: a community will less capability of survival (local businesses being shot down) and with not much wealth after all.
Essentially, we got faster, cheaper, and lower power, all at once. Then, we cranked up the speed, put more dollars into cutting-edge technology, and things became faster, hotter, and more expensive. We've gained wealth, though--we've gained it and we've spent it to get even more speed. We had all of speed, power consumption, and cost, and we paid the cost and power consumption gains back in and opted for even more speed. In the end, though, the output's still bigger than our original input.
As for the meaning of "wealth": ever since the currency was floated, the "absolute wealth" is relative: the society no longer values it, but values "wealth increase rate". Doesn't strike you as peculiar that the finance people never judge an economy by the absolute value of the GDP, but only by the "grow rate"? To put the problem in your term: as big would it be your current output, after so many businesses being shot down (and relocated in China), what are the chances that you'll still be able to stay relevant in the "growing race"? And if you are not able, how long until your "bigger output" will mean exactly nothing?
Slashdot Mirror
Can be made from studying a spec in a picture? Distance, light intensity?, anything else?
Space doesn't exists without matter/energy?
AFAIK the US Law does not state any such thing. That therefore must mean you do not have any such right, and are obliged to listen to whatever anyone has to say. /sarcasm
(Sarcasm tag aside...) for a private person: what is not prohibited by law it is permitted. Thus, one doesn't need to have a law granting a right to enjoy it (for govts is the other way around: what is not specificity allowed by a law, it is supposed to be prohibited).
Simple. Kill the attack vector and the attack will stop.
No, it's the other way around. Closing a local business is a loss for the community on a short term. The building is eventually filled with a new business performing a different function.
etc...
Well, I feel the community is being affected on long term by job losses, even if business closures may be better on short term. Since there's an "active experiment of this kind" running now in US, I guess we can only wait and see how it will evolve.
Apologies accepted.
Thanks for pointing out the difference between the "maximize value for stakeholders" and "maximize profit" - it's quite subtle. So subtle that, in real world, I guess many corporate officers don't realize there is one; as a consequence I'm afraid this is actually more than a benign "hot grits/OMG ponies" meme
(other that that: I didn't say the maximisation of the profit is the only duty, don't waste your time in demolishing this straw man)
Changing the function of a bookstore is also an indication of a failing business model.
Wasn't this exactly the scenario that we were discussing? Like "the expensive and crappy bookstore goes out of business. People are actually saving $10 buying from Amazon, so they can reward the local farmers. No damage done to the community if the bookstore goes bankrupt"?
To which I said: maybe there are other possibilities that would worth exploring to keep the local bookstore keeper busy in a beneficial way for the community, even if the bookstore as a business goes under. Maybe, from the saved $10, some part of it would be better if given (not even as an investment or loan) to the former bookstore keeper to help her reorient to other business models?
My point is: you let the local businesses disappear and don't care what happens with the persons that use to work there results in a loss for the community on long term (even if on a short term may be better). At no point was I suggesting to start digging trenches with a teaspoon just to keep people busy. But between the two extremes ("don't care" .. "can waste you money within community"), there have to be some other possible solutions that are meaningful (or, if you like it better, purposeful) for keeping the community members "in a business".
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Sexist and discriminatory.
(grin)
IP is granted a monopoly. It's not part of a free market.
Ah, yes. Free Market - the Goddess with a golden hand. Have anyone seen her lately?
duty to use any means legally available to maximize the profit.
You're either ignorant or a liar. No such duty exists.
Sir, I demand apologies for your gratuitous insults.
eBay v. Newmark, page 60 bottom continuing page 61, reads (with my emphasis):
Having chosen a for-profit corporate form, the craigslist directors are bound by the fiduciary duties and standards that accompany that form. Those standards include acting to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of its stockholders. The “Inc.” after the company name has to mean at least that. Thus, I cannot accept as valid for the purposes of implementing the Rights Plan a corporate policy that specifically, clearly, and admittedly seeks not to maximize the economic value of a for-profit Delaware corporation for the benefit of its stockholders—no matter whether those stockholders are individuals of modest means 106 or a corporate titan of online commerce.
You sure it doesn't mean that those with the physical constitution to withstand 4 cups of coffee are resistant to oral cancers?
These studies are meaningless.
You will discover the meaning only if you drink coffee. No, I mean lots of coffee... you should strive to get over the 4 cups.
When did I say they can't or shouldn't do whatever their citizens please? I never placed blame.
Neither did I say that you have made any moral judgement.
I just asked if you implied or did not imply one - because it wasn't clear from the context.
The question being answered, I thank you for it.
My point is that management does not have a legal duty to maximise short term after-tax profits as you claimed. But, yes, most management have a strong financial incentive to maximise short-term profits (just not a legal duty).
Theoretically, you are right. Practically... as you yourself admit... it's only a theoretical gimmick.
No, it's not. And their tax laws have everything to do with it. Their tax laws are setup such that only local companies pay taxes. Companies like Google pay nothing. Any other brilliant arguments, dipshit?
And this is somehow their fault? If positive, can you explain why a country shouldn't be able to do whatever their citizens please within their own borders?
It's funny you mention that, because in a competitive capitalist market price approaches cost.
It's funny that you mention that.
Care to exemplify how this apply to Apple products? What about Google's?
Yes, but... management has a lot of discretion over the best method to maximise profits. There is no requirement to maximise short term profits, so management can easily say that paying taxes improves the good will that the company enjoys and thus will maximise profits over the long term.
The reason companies tend to obsess over quarterly profits is because management is measured (and profits from) short term measurements of stock price.
I do understand the reason, but I fail to see how - given the circumstances - one can expect any other reaction from the management. Given the percentage of shares are actually traded in a speculative way, you think that any management team would actually be able to escape the "focus on short term profit"? Not even Apple is immune to this pressure on long term.
Microsoft is an American company.
Being an American corporation, it is their officers' duty to use any means legally available to maximize the profit. This include, without being limited to:
a. tax avoidance - (tax evasion is illegal. "Tax avoidance" using the loopholes but still within the boundaries of the applicable laws is not)
b. cost externalization
c. risk externalization
And, just in case you didn't know: in US, corporations can legally run for Congress ; for the present, the fact they are lobbying instead has to do with their public image; but one cannot exclude a time when one/some corporation(s) are economically strong enough to actually give a fsck about the short term impact on US market and actually get into a body that can repeal a good chunk of legislation that's "upsetting" for them.
Here's a thought; if you want companies to pay more taxes then make taxes reasonably low enough that companies find it more bothersome to play legal shell games than simply pay a tax.
Well... opening a shell company in a tax heaven and paying 3-4 accounting critters to take care of recording profits in zero-tax places is going to cost the company probably... say... half a million/year? Are you sure you want corporate taxes lowered that much in US/UK?
Because flunking people who don't care about learning is preferable to pandering to them?
Why stop at gamification?
I mean... playing computer games is so 2000-ish. Let the twittification start...
(on top of being modern, this comes with the advantage of flunking even more people without an inner call for the topic)
*ducks*
Would you say that Interstate Highways are communist? Maybe they are, but they are essential to the competitiveness of the US economy. Some people have never been on a highway in their entire life, but their taxes were still used to build these highways.
Agreed. But allow me to restate: to certain problems, the appropriate solutions. And let the ideology aside
Again, I'm not saying that bailing out banks was good or bad. I'm saying that it wasn't an easy decision to take, and that it was done for a reason. Saying it's communism does not help much in the debate.
Do you feel you know well the problems in China? Are you absolutely sure that what their are doing now is springing from an ideology?
Because if not, why tag China as communist (as the post I was replying did)? How would this help the debate?
Some notes: /sq.km.
* China - population 1,347,350,000, population density: 141
* US - population: 314,931,000, population density: 34/sq km
The above consideration alone would make one think that maybe, just maybe, the Chinese society is pushed into favoring cooperation as a successful survival behavior and thus stays away from the individualism so characteristic to nowadays US. What the Americans calls "cheating", the Chinese may call "sharing" (you know? One of the values parents used to teach the kids a while back. Are they still teaching it now?)
How does adopting an ideologically rooted terminology helps one understand and deal with the actual realities in China?
Nah, the answer of artificially funding a business because it's "better for the local economy" is as far off the mark as you can be. It simply doesn't correlate. What do you have then? A local business that's propped up by debt dollars injected into the economy by all the student loans and mortgages. Held for historical reasons, but not practically useful, and essentially acting as a broken window.
Without meaning any disrespect, I'd classify the above as a failure of imagination... (the risks of looking to the world through "principle based, black-and-white only glasses" - one doesn't look how to solve a problem, only how well possible solutions fit to some principle one keeps so dear)
E.g. what about transforming the bookstore in a coffee shop where one can read books? With a minor investment, even some eBooks can be made available on tablets owned by the coffee-shop. I know I'd spend some hours (and some money) every week, would it be close enough to my home; if there are others like me, possibly would be just enough to keep a former bookstore keeper in (another) business inside the community. Would this still be a "broken window"?
Why don't they make investment into areas that would result in well-being and abundances?
Paupers pay less, but still pay; the risk with well-being and abundance...where's the need to want something bad enough if you have the lot of the rest? Maybe... God forbids... one reaches the conclusion they can do without?
(although... looking at Apple fans, I would say there are slim chances for this to happen)
Big pricks incorporated
Prick... wasn't this suppose to already have a touch to the connotation of "derisively small"?
If America weren't a debt society living on the edge of credit and facing imminent foreclosure, I'd say we were pretty wealthy here. As it is, we as a nation have run up our credit cards to the max and can't afford to pay them much longer, and we're just running them up further. All money is loaned into existence, loaned to the banks who loan to the people (businesses, mortgages, credit cards...) who buy stuff and pass those dollars to pay salaries supported ultimately by debt. The Federal Government borrows money from other countries, collecting debt money in taxes, with no asset base to work from. How dysfunctional.
Quite a big if, indeed. Because the wealth defined like this is illusory, as not being sustainable... ran the race in the last 10 years on "performance enhancement drugs"... to bad they not a substitute for real performance.
And what pushed the Americans in living on debt rather than on honest earnings?
In my opinion, exactly the false dichotomy of "be efficient or die" and the corporatist way of action of "profit now, externalize the costs and the risks, responsibility towards the society be damned".
To exemplify, those $10 one saves by buying on Amazon: perhaps 3 of them would be better given (not even "invested" or "on loan") to the bookstore keeper to retrain her and help her start a business that makes sense and would be viable locally?
(For those about to yell: hold your horses; I know, I know... this is red-hot communism. Silly me to even think that there could be other - middle-ground - approaches, besides "be cheap or die"... Or "behave or you'll rot in jail, as sure as death and the taxes I'm paying to keep you there").
Americans should not have any bars when it comes to face a COMMUNIST country.
Hmmm... remind me what would you call the "bailout" that saved some American banks? Or the GM one?
Now let's say you order from Amazon because it's $10 cheaper. That money leaves the local community, but $10 stays ... you're $10 wealthier. The local bookstore has terrible selection and is expensive... it goes out of business. Meanwhile you've got a local farmer's market and you shop there with the extra $10 you have. That's wealth creation: you have the same goods (a book) plus more money ($10) to buy other goods (fresh food). If this is the general trend, the Farmer's Market garners that much more business, expands, and replaces the local book shop's place in the community--the community demand for a farmer's market was higher than a local bookstore, the community is now wealthier.
Interesting but oh, so very wrong. And it's wrong because it's a localized and on short term thinking. Its like the joke about drinking alcohol to kill weaker neurons, thus becoming smarter (or the "corporate fat trimming" game)
Let's extend a bit the frame of reference: say all in that community that want books will buy from Amazon and "earn" the $10. The $10 become disposable income and assuming enough of them decide to spend the $10 at Farmer's Market, the price for your vegies will increase - it's only natural to be so, the price is "whatever you are willing to pay" and people with more disposable income will likely be willing to pay more.
And that until the local farmers increase the price high enough to be seen in the place of the "bookstore keeper"... and be shot down because, you know? on Amazon, one is already able to buy Tuscan milk by the gallon at possibly lower prices.
And... oh, gully... with the "earned" money the people in community may do such nice things!!!...
Like: deciding to get a mortgage for a home at super-inflated prices... because they are willing to pay more, they saved a lot, haven't they?... (sounds familiar when you think of US as the "community"?)
The result: a community will less capability of survival (local businesses being shot down) and with not much wealth after all.
Essentially, we got faster, cheaper, and lower power, all at once. Then, we cranked up the speed, put more dollars into cutting-edge technology, and things became faster, hotter, and more expensive. We've gained wealth, though--we've gained it and we've spent it to get even more speed. We had all of speed, power consumption, and cost, and we paid the cost and power consumption gains back in and opted for even more speed. In the end, though, the output's still bigger than our original input.
As for the meaning of "wealth": ever since the currency was floated, the "absolute wealth" is relative: the society no longer values it, but values "wealth increase rate". Doesn't strike you as peculiar that the finance people never judge an economy by the absolute value of the GDP, but only by the "grow rate"?
To put the problem in your term: as big would it be your current output, after so many businesses being shot down (and relocated in China), what are the chances that you'll still be able to stay relevant in the "growing race"? And if you are not able, how long until your "bigger output" will mean exactly nothing?