The $10M in assets is a valuation based upon the profit margin at $1M/year.
Um, no it's not. It's based on the actual assets a company has - Property/Plant/Equipment, Accounts Receivable, Cash, etc.
This idea that reducing the profitability 50% will not effect that $10M valuation is interesting.. in a fantasy world where things dont effect each other.
I think you are confusing the value of a company (i.e. what you could sell it for) with it's assets. You'd pay more than $10M for a company that has $10M in assets and Net Income of $1M. Look at Skype - I'm sure they don't anywhere near $8B in assets.
This idea that changing taxes will not effect sales in interesting
I guess I could have been a little more clear in my original post. First of all, as I stated, I am talking about the short term. Second of all, I neglected to specify that I'm talking about relatively small changes in tax rates. Obviously increasing tax rates to 100% leads to zero output.
Any increase in cost, whether or not it comes from taxes or from an increase in labor or material costs will not affect how many units the firm can sell at a given price. If a widget costs $1 to make, and the firm prices it at $2, they will sell X units. If the widget costs $1.50 to make, and they still sell it at $2, they will still sell X units. The primary (as in first) effect of rising costs (whether it be from taxes or elsewhere) is a decrease in profit.
If the firm then decides that it can't sustain it's business at this new profit level (i.e. $0.50 vs. $1.00 per unit) then it can either close it's doors, raise prices, or find other costs to cut. It may turn out that they will decide to cut labor costs, but to do so while maintaining the X unit sales volume, they will have to increase productivity (which is output/labor). This is what a lot of firms have done over the past 3 years; the amount of labor used has gone down, but output is back up to pre-recession levels.
Now here is the really interesting part. The ability to increase productivity is there regardless of what the government's income tax policy is (leaving aside tax incentives for investing in technology - we're not talking about those taxes, just income tax). So if a company can increase productivity (and hence, save labor costs while maintaining the same level of output) they will do that whether or not the government raises or lowers taxes.
Now, it is possible that an increase in income tax could lead to a company raising it's sales price, and the probability of this happening is of course proportional to the size of the increase. But there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Any such increase will apply equally (we'd hope) to all firms, meaning that no firm will be disadvantaged versus their competitors. There may be some upward pressure on prices across the board, but there doesn't appear to be any correlation between corporate income tax rates and inflation. In fact, from 1952 to 1963 the top corporate tax rate (in the US) was 52%, the highest rate ever. Inflation in the 50s and 60s was among the lowest is was in the last 100 years. Subsequently, corporate taxes slowly declined to the current 35% rate, but inflation has gone up and down.
That chart is shit. Our deficit is $1.50? Hell, I'll skip coffee tomorrow and we're covered for a year. Also, I'd like to see the source for their numbers.
Citation needed. According to the CBO (pdf) the deficit in 2011 will be $1.48 T and it will drop to $533 B by 2014. As another child noted, ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will make up a large portion of that. Other solutions this progressive would suggest is raising the retirement age for SS by at least 1 year now, and by about 5 years over the next 20-50 years (pegging it to life expectancy); legalize and tax drugs; ending oil, gas and coal subsidies; and ending farm subsidies. I am a pretty liberal guy, but I agree with about 40% of this CATO ad.
If you raise taxes on the owners of those businesses, do you really think they're gonna pay or will they just not give raises and lay off people as they need?
The fallacy of supply side economic theory.
In the short term, they will not lower output (and hence, not lower employment) unless demand decreases. Businesses are always looking to minimize costs, regardless of the tax structure, so you can safely assume that any firm is at their current minimum level of employment given their sales. Raising (or lowering) taxes is not going to increase their sales, and so raising (or lowering) is not going to lower (or raise) employment levels.
In the long term, if a small business owner has $10 million in assets invested in his/her business, and is earning $1 million in profit, that is a ROI of 10%. If income tax goes up such that he/she is only earning $0.5 million in profit, they will shutter their business if they can expect to achieve a return greater than 5% if they invested their money elsewhere. (And presumably, when they invest that money elsewhere, that will create jobs.)
Even if the bugs were worked out so that a car "experienced a bug" only once every 100,000 miles, given the number of vehicles presently on the road and how much they are driven every day, that would still be too many "crashes" for society to find acceptable.
Well, the Google cars have logged over 140,000 miles as of last fall without an accident*, though that is with "occasional human intervention." Looking up human driver statistics, I found that there is about 2 accidents per million miles. This statistic probably doesn't include minor fender benders that aren't reported to police/insurance. I think the Google robot car probably has a little more proving of itself to do, but I think if they can get to 140k, getting to 500k won't be too difficult.
The most impressive thing about this, and the thing that makes this idea viable in the real world, is that the car doesn't need any infrastructure to support it. Most robot car ideas I've seen that are intended for public use (e.g. to ease freeway congestion, etc.) involve placing sensors or emitters in the roadway or in other cars for the robot car to use as guides. The Google car can, potentially, be deployed regardless of other users adoption or government investment.
*OK, there was one accident where they were rear-ended while stopped at at traffic light. Oh, the irony.
Given the speed in which/. as identified cell tower pushing as the best way to implement this idea, we can be assured that the government will do something else.
Many of us had websites that didn't have to prostitute personal data to stay around and we still don't
Except, we're not talking about selling private information to unauthorized 3rd parties (though based on the ToS you sign to use most sites, it's probably impossible for them to do so as "unauthorized 3rd parties" as such don't exist). We're talk (in the GP and TFS) about bugs that cause data to be disclosed. And the logical extension would be to extend it to parties like Sony whose lack security standards put user data at risk.
If you put companies on the hook (to a serious degree per user) for any accidental disclosure, or disclosure by buggy software or inept/inadequate policies, then no new companies will be likely to come onto the scene.
I agree that companies need to bear responsibility for sensitive data they hold, but you have to be careful in enacting such regulations. You can very easily discourage all new development if any breach of a website will force that company to declare bankruptcy.
(Disclaimer: I'm generally very liberal and not trustful of corporations.)
Netflicks has shown us we don't need video rental places or even network TV. We can watch WTF we want, when we want it.
Really? You can watch Star Wars? The original Star Trek II? What about Deadwood, The Sopranos, or Game of Thrones? Justified? Lost? What about Casablanca or Citizen Kane? The original Tron? No? Well, there's always foreign movies, like Princess Mononoke or Run, Lola, Run, right? Oh, no, not those either?
I love Netflix Instant, but there is A LOT of stuff you can't get there. I've been reduced to watching a Canadian crime drams ("Intelligence") which isn't too bad, but it's still Canadian, yeah?
Also, I have a PS3 and while it asks me to log into PSN, I don't and I can still watch Netflix.
We do the same thing. We've tried the group video chat using the free preview, but in the end the video screen ended up being hidden, even by those of us with multiple monitors. We also used MapTool (rptools.net) for a virtual tabletop, so that was always maximized on one screen, and I usually had the SRD or our campaign wiki open on the other screen.
Skype sat in the background, giving us the group voice chat. We'd occasionally text chat there too, but MapTool has it's own chat window (which now supports hyperlinks) so Skype pretty much handles only the voice.
We've never had any major issues, although occasionally when I'm hosting the map as DM I have to have someone else host the call as my kids are usually streaming Netflix in the other room and I don't have the bandwidth to support all that at once.
Slashdot Mirror
The $10M in assets is a valuation based upon the profit margin at $1M/year.
Um, no it's not. It's based on the actual assets a company has - Property/Plant/Equipment, Accounts Receivable, Cash, etc.
This idea that reducing the profitability 50% will not effect that $10M valuation is interesting.. in a fantasy world where things dont effect each other.
I think you are confusing the value of a company (i.e. what you could sell it for) with it's assets. You'd pay more than $10M for a company that has $10M in assets and Net Income of $1M. Look at Skype - I'm sure they don't anywhere near $8B in assets.
This idea that changing taxes will not effect sales in interesting
I guess I could have been a little more clear in my original post. First of all, as I stated, I am talking about the short term. Second of all, I neglected to specify that I'm talking about relatively small changes in tax rates. Obviously increasing tax rates to 100% leads to zero output.
Any increase in cost, whether or not it comes from taxes or from an increase in labor or material costs will not affect how many units the firm can sell at a given price. If a widget costs $1 to make, and the firm prices it at $2, they will sell X units. If the widget costs $1.50 to make, and they still sell it at $2, they will still sell X units. The primary (as in first) effect of rising costs (whether it be from taxes or elsewhere) is a decrease in profit.
If the firm then decides that it can't sustain it's business at this new profit level (i.e. $0.50 vs. $1.00 per unit) then it can either close it's doors, raise prices, or find other costs to cut. It may turn out that they will decide to cut labor costs, but to do so while maintaining the X unit sales volume, they will have to increase productivity (which is output/labor). This is what a lot of firms have done over the past 3 years; the amount of labor used has gone down, but output is back up to pre-recession levels.
Now here is the really interesting part. The ability to increase productivity is there regardless of what the government's income tax policy is (leaving aside tax incentives for investing in technology - we're not talking about those taxes, just income tax). So if a company can increase productivity (and hence, save labor costs while maintaining the same level of output) they will do that whether or not the government raises or lowers taxes.
Now, it is possible that an increase in income tax could lead to a company raising it's sales price, and the probability of this happening is of course proportional to the size of the increase. But there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Any such increase will apply equally (we'd hope) to all firms, meaning that no firm will be disadvantaged versus their competitors. There may be some upward pressure on prices across the board, but there doesn't appear to be any correlation between corporate income tax rates and inflation. In fact, from 1952 to 1963 the top corporate tax rate (in the US) was 52%, the highest rate ever. Inflation in the 50s and 60s was among the lowest is was in the last 100 years. Subsequently, corporate taxes slowly declined to the current 35% rate, but inflation has gone up and down.
I get the lawn joke. It's almost amusing. The "nub" name calling is immature.
Says, the AC. *laugh*
So I guess the US is winning the War on Drugs and the War on Terror.
Oops. Missed that. Thanks.
I'd still like to see the numbers behind it.
Thanks for the info.
Now get off my lawn, nub.
Why are you such an asshole? Did your father neglect you?
That chart is shit. Our deficit is $1.50? Hell, I'll skip coffee tomorrow and we're covered for a year. Also, I'd like to see the source for their numbers.
It's your parent. The debt is about $14 trillion. The deficit is about $1.4 T. GGP's $2.2T figure is wrong.
Our deficit is $2.2T
Citation needed. According to the CBO (pdf) the deficit in 2011 will be $1.48 T and it will drop to $533 B by 2014. As another child noted, ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will make up a large portion of that. Other solutions this progressive would suggest is raising the retirement age for SS by at least 1 year now, and by about 5 years over the next 20-50 years (pegging it to life expectancy); legalize and tax drugs; ending oil, gas and coal subsidies; and ending farm subsidies. I am a pretty liberal guy, but I agree with about 40% of this CATO ad.
If you raise taxes on the owners of those businesses, do you really think they're gonna pay or will they just not give raises and lay off people as they need?
The fallacy of supply side economic theory.
In the short term, they will not lower output (and hence, not lower employment) unless demand decreases. Businesses are always looking to minimize costs, regardless of the tax structure, so you can safely assume that any firm is at their current minimum level of employment given their sales. Raising (or lowering) taxes is not going to increase their sales, and so raising (or lowering) is not going to lower (or raise) employment levels.
In the long term, if a small business owner has $10 million in assets invested in his/her business, and is earning $1 million in profit, that is a ROI of 10%. If income tax goes up such that he/she is only earning $0.5 million in profit, they will shutter their business if they can expect to achieve a return greater than 5% if they invested their money elsewhere. (And presumably, when they invest that money elsewhere, that will create jobs.)
Article I, Section 8
[Congress shall have the power t]o regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
If states can allow and levy taxes on Indian Casinos, why can they not levy taxes on corporations selling to or from their state?
I don't recall them officially adding "... well, you can be a little evil if it means a competitive advantage."
Well, not officially. But you can't help but look at some of their behavior and realize that a little evilness doesn't hurt the bottom line.
WaPo copied Dave Weigel at Slate who wrote about this a day earlier.
Even if the bugs were worked out so that a car "experienced a bug" only once every 100,000 miles, given the number of vehicles presently on the road and how much they are driven every day, that would still be too many "crashes" for society to find acceptable.
Well, the Google cars have logged over 140,000 miles as of last fall without an accident*, though that is with "occasional human intervention." Looking up human driver statistics, I found that there is about 2 accidents per million miles. This statistic probably doesn't include minor fender benders that aren't reported to police/insurance. I think the Google robot car probably has a little more proving of itself to do, but I think if they can get to 140k, getting to 500k won't be too difficult.
The most impressive thing about this, and the thing that makes this idea viable in the real world, is that the car doesn't need any infrastructure to support it. Most robot car ideas I've seen that are intended for public use (e.g. to ease freeway congestion, etc.) involve placing sensors or emitters in the roadway or in other cars for the robot car to use as guides. The Google car can, potentially, be deployed regardless of other users adoption or government investment.
*OK, there was one accident where they were rear-ended while stopped at at traffic light. Oh, the irony.
Long story short - why do they want a separate chip, exactly?
+1 Insightful
Given the speed in which /. as identified cell tower pushing as the best way to implement this idea, we can be assured that the government will do something else.
Given that the Chief Executives of most companies can't seem to comprehend BCC, I don't put much faith in the CE of the country.
Many of us had websites that didn't have to prostitute personal data to stay around and we still don't
Except, we're not talking about selling private information to unauthorized 3rd parties (though based on the ToS you sign to use most sites, it's probably impossible for them to do so as "unauthorized 3rd parties" as such don't exist). We're talk (in the GP and TFS) about bugs that cause data to be disclosed. And the logical extension would be to extend it to parties like Sony whose lack security standards put user data at risk.
If you put companies on the hook (to a serious degree per user) for any accidental disclosure, or disclosure by buggy software or inept/inadequate policies, then no new companies will be likely to come onto the scene.
I agree that companies need to bear responsibility for sensitive data they hold, but you have to be careful in enacting such regulations. You can very easily discourage all new development if any breach of a website will force that company to declare bankruptcy.
(Disclaimer: I'm generally very liberal and not trustful of corporations.)
There should be a law requiring a fine for each user who's personal information is compromised as a result of bugs like this.
Well, that would kill the internet pretty quickly, so it would certainly solve the problem I suppose.
Am I wrong here?
You're not wrong Walter. You're just an asshole.
[Not really, but I love that movie.]
Luckily I live in the US where the science isn't settled on Global Warming.
Netflicks has shown us we don't need video rental places or even network TV. We can watch WTF we want, when we want it.
Really? You can watch Star Wars? The original Star Trek II? What about Deadwood, The Sopranos, or Game of Thrones? Justified? Lost? What about Casablanca or Citizen Kane? The original Tron? No? Well, there's always foreign movies, like Princess Mononoke or Run, Lola, Run, right? Oh, no, not those either?
I love Netflix Instant, but there is A LOT of stuff you can't get there. I've been reduced to watching a Canadian crime drams ("Intelligence") which isn't too bad, but it's still Canadian, yeah?
Also, I have a PS3 and while it asks me to log into PSN, I don't and I can still watch Netflix.
Different instance of the class.
Actually, it's like suing the trucking company that shipped the gun to the store. Get your /. car analogies right.
We do the same thing. We've tried the group video chat using the free preview, but in the end the video screen ended up being hidden, even by those of us with multiple monitors. We also used MapTool (rptools.net) for a virtual tabletop, so that was always maximized on one screen, and I usually had the SRD or our campaign wiki open on the other screen.
Skype sat in the background, giving us the group voice chat. We'd occasionally text chat there too, but MapTool has it's own chat window (which now supports hyperlinks) so Skype pretty much handles only the voice.
We've never had any major issues, although occasionally when I'm hosting the map as DM I have to have someone else host the call as my kids are usually streaming Netflix in the other room and I don't have the bandwidth to support all that at once.