Yes, so long as analog recording devices are avilable, one can play content, and record it, via the "analog" hole.
However, this makes mashups cumbersome, because each content source has to be played and recorded.
DRM will never stop determined pirates so long as there is a market for content that has gone through the analog hole, despite resolution loss, this inconvenience being minor to the pirate. However it will inconvenience fair uses which use that same analog hole to the point of discouraging some of them. That's a pity.
I am suggesting that there are ways these fair uses can be accomodated within a DRM-verse, with no loss of resolution.
The problem with DRM isn't that it can't stop all ppiracy: no technical measure can ever stop all crime. It can stop most, however, and I'm not sure that would be a bad thing. The problem with DRM is that, as it's presently envisioned and implemented, it is draconian and the vast majority of people do not realize the fair uses that they are losing.
The battleground isn't DRM, per se. It's fair use, and ensuring that technical DRM measures do not hinder fair use.
In other words, if mashups are legitimate fair use (I think they are, but the jury is out on that one just yet), then DRM technology MUST (not "should") accomodate them to the degree that is technically feasable. DRM-hawkers will scream and squirm at the thought of implementation techology which does not benefit their masters even as it (legally, because it enables fair use) does not harm them. But, I think that's the price to pay to make DRM acceptable.
The problem with DRM as it exists today, is that the public is being offered a bill of goods, with no idea of they price they're paying for restrictions thereupon. It's rather like selling me a steak, and after I buy it requiring me to eat it within 50 yards of the point of purchase, and "Oh, by the way, there's a grill-shop we own 30 yards away."
I was thinking of electronic analog interfaces. Remove those and analog recording becomes more difficult -- impossible if recording devices become restricted.
Yes, one can use a camcorder (again, assuming they do not become restricted or effectively crippled when viewing restricted content, which strikes me as reasonable). But, that makes the production of mashups all the more difficult because of the technical hurdles introduced, and would likely discourage many would-be mashup artists.
Yes, but I fear the days of analog interfaces are numbered.
Having to display, and rerecord content in order to produce a mashup will be sufficient disincentive to many artists to not bother -- many want to practice their art and not fumble with technology.
It's a pity, really: it should be possible to produce a mashup script for existing content, and license that separately from the content mashed up. Display would involve micro-licensing the original content fragments, on demand (for those that were not originally licensed by the displayer). Alternately,the mashup could contain licenses, or links for the various content bits, and distributed in an encrypted, licensed fashion itself.
Finally, if technical limits are established for what is a defacto fair use of third party content in a mashup, licensed machines could be made to allow production thereof. (There may be other fair uses, but they might have to be established on a case by case basis).
I am not opposed to DRM per se, but rather the draconian attempts to use it to stifle and suppress traditional fair uses. If one wants to advocate DRM, one must do so in a manner which facilitates, as much as possible, those fair uses. To pay to listen to something I've already licensed, somewhere else, is absurd: if I have the right to move the content to listen to it wherever I want, I should also have the right to have someone else facilitate that movement, even if it is logical, and not physical.
The biggest problem right now is that fair use is sufficiently nebulous that no substantial subset of it can be enforced technologically.
The basic idea is that content is encrypted with a per-user public key, where the private key is held ("securely", for some definition of "securely") in display and playback devices that the user owns. When a private key is issued to a user, it is delivered in a secure (again, for some definition of "secure" key store, from which a limited number of copies can be imported to "authorized" (using some PKI mechanism) display and playback devices.
This has the benefit that content can (a) be copied for backup and archival purposes, (b) played on a "reasonable" number of devices a user owns, (c) played on other devices via temporary "secure" key export and import functions (so you can watch your movies at your friend's house, but not on your TV at the same time, unless on an "extra" TV -- within the limits of key copies), (d) lent to a small number of friends to access your library, and (e) allow anyone to make content for your display and playback devices (remember, the encryption key is public).
This is not rocket science, and to "someone practiced in the art" of PKI, strikes me as sufficiently obvious as to invalidate any patent claims.
It suffers from two problems:
First, the concept of someone having possession of a decryption key and not access to it are at odds. Like I said, "for some definition of 'secure'" Tamper-proof crypto chips are not cheap. Of course, the cost of extracting a key to allow access to one person's licensed media probably makes it sufficiently impractical: if media are watermarked as well as encrypted on a per-licencee basis, tracking back to who's key was used to crack some content would be easy, as well as an individual who licenses excessive amounts of content (to crack, and illegally redistribute in plain form, or encrypted with others' public keys).
Second, and more troubling, is that it does not allow for arguably fair uses: mashup videos, for example, because one can't extract some of the content, and how much could be extracted as a fair use would depend on the use. Some arguably legal fair uses could be prevented, and others abused by a group of indivuduals to reproduce the whole from the sum of arbitrarily small parts.
The issue of what happens when one loses a device holding private keys to one's media also deserves consideration. Of course, content providers could form a consortium that provide key escrow services so that lost keys could be recovered.
Well, it is quite relevant. It demonstrates a fundamental difference between two lines of reasoning that you purport to be identical in effect.
They are identical. Or how does the cost passthrough argument differ?
A consumer has little recourse if the price of a good is increased to cover a greater tax burden other than to chose to not purchase it. If it is an essential good (food), he or she does not even have that choice.
The working consumer has a much harder time to compensate by demanding an increase in wages.
The burden of an increase in corporate taxes therefore, immediately falls on the consumer, and only later on the corporation as this translates into a demand for higher wages. There is a multiplier effect, but since wage increases lag corporate tax increases (if they materialize at all), it is the consumer who suffers. The corporation, which is legally obligated to the interests if it's shareholders will do all it can before it reduces dividends. Capital valuation might fall which will impact shareholders, but all shareholders, many of which are again, consumers who invest via mutual funds in their retirement accounts.
Why should they pay anything?
Because it's the law?
Wrong answer. The law currently makes the type of tax avoidance you bemoan quite legal. You would make a currently legal practice illegal with nothing to show for it except primarily increased costs to those at the bottom of the income chain and little effect on "the rich".
When I purchase something, and money changes hands across the counter by the cash register, the rate of "money transfer tax" is 0%. Oh, the horror!.
Sales tax here is about 8-9%
I'm not talking about the sales tax. I'm talking about a new tax, like the one you are all salivating over, on the mere transfer of money. A corporation (hopefully) earns profits which are either reinvested, or distributed as wages and dividends. Those are taxed. You seek to tax them a second time within the corporate veil.
More to the point: Why should income earned abroad be taxed locally when none of the services it supposedly funds are available in the jurisdiction where the income was earned?
Which income is that? Why should a company be able to radically change their tax obligation by moving their paper HQ to bermuda? You should pay taxes on operations in a country
Because (a) they legally can, (b) to tax them at all is taxing earnings twice: in the hands of the corporation, and in the hands of it's employees and shareholders.
One can argue that earnings should be subject to some total aggregate rate of tax, and levy it at various points, instead of all at the same point (earnings). But that is not an argument that every individual rate of tax (personal, dividend, or corporate) should be the same.
Corporate tax rates are historically low to encourage capital investment to create firms where people can be employed. Offshore income that hasn't been repatriated isn't taxed because it (a) isn't practical, and (b)harms the corporation's ability to operate effectively in a global market.
Finally, where do you get the idea that something "should" be taxed in the first place? Because the poor deserve a subsidy simply for existing?
But, if they take bigger profits, they are taxed more personally. This is the point you do not seem to get. The revenue is taxed more than once.
I do get it - revenue is not taxed - profits are. Salary comes out of profit, so no it isn't.
No. Taxes are paid out of revenues, as are salaries, other operating expenses, and net profits. Read an income statement and balance sheet sometime. Taxes are levied on gross profits, but are paid out of revenue (or reserves, but a well-r
Hmm. Is it easier for you to be charged more for a gallon of milk, or to get a raise from your boss?
Irrelevant. I'm just applying the same logic as the idiot I responded to.
Well, it is quite relevant. It demonstrates a fundamental difference between two lines of reasoning that you purport to be identical in effect.
The problem with this scenario is that now corporations are doubly squeezed: the government taxing them more on one hand, and their workers demanding increased wages to pay the higher costs of living because other corporations have raised the prices of the goods they sell.
Won't someone think of the poor multinationals paying more than 3%.
Why should they pay anything?
When I purchase something, and money changes hands across the counter by the cash register, the rate of "money transfer tax" is 0%. Oh, the horror!.
More to the point: Why should income earned abroad be taxed locally when none of the services it supposedly funds are available in the jurisdiction where the income was earned? Furthermore, how would one force repatriation of the money to seize it? Foreign earnings are taxed when they are "repatriated".
I suppose one could levy the tax on offshore income on domestic earnings, but that would severely hurt the local arm of the business if much of their revenue was earned offshore. So, the effect would be to bring business home, where it would operate with higher expenses, and have to charge more for products produced, which would depress demand, lower overall revenue, and result in the loss of domestic jobs or depressed domestic wages.
As an increasingly technologically advanced nation, the U.S. has, for a long time, exported "shit work". Tough noogies for those who's skills are no longer marketable at a rate that matches their cost of living here. If you can't earn a living wage making shoes here, then move to Bangladesh and make them there. Or, learn to program textile sowing machines for final assembly here.
You might think that this forces "the rich" shareholders to finally cry "Uncle!" and accept lower profits to pay the higher corporate taxes instead of passing them on to their customers, but what actually happens is insidious: the corporation is driven to losses, and has to lay off workers, leading to a downward economic spiral.
Yes, because your only choices are getting gouged and having the gouger die. Business owners would never take smaller profits over bankruptcy.
But, if they take bigger profits, they are taxed more personally. This is the point you do not seem to get. The revenue is taxed more than once.
The only thing taxes do is take money from those who earned it and redistribute it to those who didn't.
Spoken so soon after the wallstreet clusterfuck. You must be a real prize.
So? Make a case for AIG to fail and not be bailed out. Those harmed would be those who have invested in dubious loans.
But to argue about unfair taxes is akin to the mugger's victim lining up the next victim for the mugger: "You robbed me.I It's unfair that you do not rob him too." The proper response is to kill the mugger.
Corporations do not pay taxes, at all! If we impose a 75% tax on every corporation and eliminate all loopholes and tax havens, corporations still won't pay a cent in taxes. All wealth is held by individuals.
You're an idiot. Corporations are a legal entity with balance sheets, and they pay taxes.
Yes, and they pass that expense either to their shareholders in terms of lower net profit, or their customers, in terms of higher gross prices.
When a corporation is taxed, you and I pay that tax when we buy their products.
I don't pay taxes. When uncle sam comes for its share, I pass that cost on to the place I work for.
Hmm. Is it easier for you to be charged more for a gallon of milk, or to get a raise from your boss?
If only they'd teach economics in school these days
If only you'd retake some classes, you wouldn't sound like a wingnut.
Must be a union man, to think that demanding a raise is easier than having to pay more.
The problem with this scenario is that now corporations are doubly squeezed: the government taxing them more on one hand, and their workers demanding increased wages to pay the higher costs of living because other corporations have raised the prices of the goods they sell.
You might think that this forces "the rich" shareholders to finally cry "Uncle!" and accept lower profits to pay the higher corporate taxes instead of passing them on to their customers, but what actually happens is insidious: the corporation is driven to losses, and has to lay off workers, leading to a downward economic spiral.
Government taxes and union greed are the two most detrimental influences on wealth creation.
Do you really think "the rich" swim around in piles of hundred dollar bills? Idle money is money that is not earning interest. No, that money is either spent (creating jobs for others), loaned (creating opportunity for others), or reinvested in business (creating jobs for others).
The only thing taxes do is take money from those who earned it and redistribute it to those who didn't.
Corps: Ya know, we're about done, time to retire. We'll close up shop, fire everyone, and leave.
... and verily the weight of the economy grinding to a halt rested upon the president's shoulders, for it had come to pass that Atlas had, at long last, shrugged.
More OT: how about we start by replacing congresscritter pensions with the same damn social (in)security that everyone else gets?
Installed from floppies in the early 90's. 0.99.something.
On an x386 with 6 Mb RAM.
Primary purpose at work was to have a networking stack and ftp files off my computer to other PCs in the lab, without having to resort to floppies.
No X (but that came soon enough). No package managers.
The big argument was whether it was ".tar.gz" or ".tgz".
I remember writing a script to ftp archives that made up the installation floppy sets (the A set, B set, etc., eventually the X set), and checking hashes to see if anything had changed between the time I started a download and it finished (at 9600 bps).
God: "I refuse to prove I exist, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
Man: "Ah, but look at quantum photosynthesis. That something so incredibly convenient to life (plant and herbivore and omnivore animals) should arise by accident is inconceivable. It proves you exist, so therefore you don't."
You must be new here if your id is larger than mine.
That said, I defer to NYCL's understanding of the law as superior to my own and enjoy learning a bit or two about it.
<rant>
However, I do wish the law were more accessable to the intelligent lay person. For example, if I have to spend $11k in legal expenses to enforce a power of sale over property, why the hell can't I recover all of those? I won the original suit ($3k legal expenses), but had to keep returning to court to have the order judgment enforced, and was NOT awarded additional legal fees on the grounds that the original decision was repeatedly upheld, the argument being that they were "excessive". Hell yes they were excessive! Defendent repeatedly ignored the court requiring me to keep returning!
Actually, less worse, because Guantanamo detainees have habeas corpus to draw upon in their defense, whereas individuals can be legally held incommunicado without trial indefinitely in Canada.
I never said the American government does not break it's own laws, but when it does, one can cry "Foul!"
It's not my country. Not any more. I left for the U.S. and am a lawful permanent resident thereof.
It is easy to say that one should fix one's own's country's problems. However, in practice this can be very difficult when one is (a) the victim of it's policies, (b) exploited tax-wise for the benefit of others, (c) one's taxes also support the exploitive system itself.
What can one do? Bitch, complain, and try to raise awareness to effect a peaceful revolt at the polls?
I, and others, tried that, through referenced, researched, and publicized criticism of existing policies. It's a little unnerving to criticise the government, however, when the only thing that says you own your home is a record in a government database (Ontario has no real sense of title to property.), and, if you're deemed a security risk to the state, you can be held without trial, incommnunicado, indefinitely, and the charges against you kept a state secret from you or your attorney. Look up Canadian Security Certificate. Yes, the U.S. arguably does the same thing, but at least has founding documents that says it can't, and therefore a violent revolution against such behavior would have some air of legitimacy. Still, the recognition of habeous corpus for Guantanamo detainees gives me some hope, even as I might think them guilty of actions against the U.S. -- let a trial settle the issue.
The best way for me to fight, actually, was to leave. As a non-resident, the state was not entitled to my tax dollars any more. The U.S. is.
And, I have been treated far, far, FAR, better as a lawful permanent resident foreigner of the U.S. than I ever was as a citizen of the country of my birth.
I dunno. I'd say women in labor in Ontario denied epidural anasthetic ranks up there with "stuck in the stone age". See, it's an "unnecessary" expense.
And no, "the rich" can't pay for it out of pocket above the socialized care. See, that would be unfair to those who can't afford it.
Canada, along with Cuba and North Korea, is one of only three places where a citizen can not spend their own money to save their own life. The state literally owns your life.
When my son was sick there, I presented his American passport, and offered money, and he was seen right away. Unfortunately, as a Canadian citizen, I had to return to the U.S. to have the same privilege.
Yup. Lived in WA and worked in CA for 4 months of 2007 and 4 months of 2008.
Still, the "lost" deduction is only about $1000.
The tax code is not perfect in terms of matching application with intent, and the complexities of making it so are probably outweighed by the savings that might be had.
My worse problem is that CA will likely try to tax my out of state earnings for 2007 before I arrived there and for 2008 after I left. They are notorious for this (and it causes grief for people who reside in Nevada but work in California) And yes, I had a long-term lease in WA, and month to month rentals in CA, so my CA residency was clearly temporary.
The question you should be asking yourself is what part of the right to bear arms INCLUDES fully automatic weapons.
Jeebus H. Freaking Krist.
What part of "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" (Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) do you not understand?
The only responsibility I should have, if armed with an AK-47, or nuke for that matter, is to adequately demonstrate to my neighbors that their safety is not compromised.
I drive a car. I can probably kill more people with it, on a busy street, than I could with an AK-47, if I wanted. Funny thing is, I don't. Imagine that.
And I,for one, prefer civilization to the freedom-only-for-the-rich promoted by libertarians.
What part of my not taking anything from you makes you less free?
What part of you taking something from me does not make me less free?
You want your freedom? Respect mine, thief.
As for the government services I use, send me a bill. If you want me to support your life through charity, appeal to my charitable nature.
The parent poster's rants are based on the presumption that "the rich" (i.e. those who have more than he does) never do anything to support "the poor" (i.e. those who have as much as him or less), and, indeed "exploit them". While there might be some wealthy person where this is true, to generalize is about as bad as treating all blacks as armed robbers, because, in this case, O.J. really "did it".
The parent poster posits that the "rich" will deprive the poor of their "freedom", i.e. take something they have away from them. This is theft.
Generally, only a thief thinks that others steal as a matter of course, because that's all he knows. Describes most economic liberals, actually.
.
Most people, surprisingly, are actually quite generous. Have you ever seen a street performer attract a crowd? Those assembled usually take a dim view of someone who enjoys the performance, but does not contribute to the performer's welfare, even though they have no legal obligation to contribute anything. We are willing to educate all our youth, regardless of their ability to afford private education (though, understandably, we like a say in the nature of that education). We are even willing to help those who have fallen on hard times, through no fault of their own. Americans are among the most generous people on earth: individual donations to hurricane relief totaled some two billion dollars, far more than government and foreign aid.
But, we have become lazy and chosen to let others decide what causes are worthy, and derelict in our oversight as to what causes they chose. All to often it is their own enrichment, or that of their cronies..
Money, itself, is not evil. It can be spent, to someone else's gain; saved, in which case it will be reinvested in the community through loans; hoarded, which does little for the hoarder. About the only real evil with money it's use to "purchase" law, and therefore power.
You have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You do not have the right for me to subsidize those for you, though.
Let failures fail. And, hold the current administration to account for this mess: they wanted power, they knew what they were inheriting. The buck may stop with congress, and the competence with Obama, but damn it, it starts with you and him and her, and me, and it's high time we remind those who spend it of that fact.
There were a significant number of tax protests yesterday. I was particularly surprised and pleased to see the turnout in Washington (a generally socialist state).
Best sign I saw read: "I'll keep my money, my guns, and my freedom. You can keep the CHANGE."
Heh.
The only thing better than 5000 tax protesters at the seat of government are 5000 tax protesters with AR-15s (which would leave me wondering how many "illegally" [1] modified them to be fully-auto).
[1] What part of the "right to bear arms" excludes fully automatic weapons?
What really burns my ass (and I paid about $30k in federal income tax last year, including a $700 check sent yesterday), is that the head of the IRS is apparently in tax arrears by some $34,000.
There is open talk of "tax revolution" and such "tea parties" (LOL: people actually attach tea bags to their hats and dump mock tea barrels into bodies of water) growing in the coming months. Further, as the recession grows, unemployment rises, and state tax revenues dwindle, the response in many states is the floating to tax "trial balloons". There are rumors of a state income tax in WA, as Boeing workers are being laid off. As if that will go over well.
Yes, the anguish comes from doing a good job and getting punished for it. While I don't like to have to fix bugs other than my own, it is part of the job.
The problem arises when one has the conflicting goals of getting bugs fixed (so, everyone chips in), and getting a good review (which is based on having to fix few bugs).
In all fairness to Microsoft, I don't see the system intentionally designed to punish those who are effective problem solvers, and reward those who get others to fix their mess.
But, the review metrics are sometimes based on the assumption that one does not fix bugs other than in one's own code, and the development process in some departments involves load-balancing bugs across developers (sometimes very inefficiently in terms of a given developer's knowledge in the area of a particular bug).
And, there are some people who's greatest skill is hacking inconsistencies in process and review to their benefit.
Slashdot Mirror
You're missing my point.
Yes, so long as analog recording devices are avilable, one can play content, and record it, via the "analog" hole.
However, this makes mashups cumbersome, because each content source has to be played and recorded.
DRM will never stop determined pirates so long as there is a market for content that has gone through the analog hole, despite resolution loss, this inconvenience being minor to the pirate. However it will inconvenience fair uses which use that same analog hole to the point of discouraging some of them. That's a pity.
I am suggesting that there are ways these fair uses can be accomodated within a DRM-verse, with no loss of resolution.
The problem with DRM isn't that it can't stop all ppiracy: no technical measure can ever stop all crime. It can stop most, however, and I'm not sure that would be a bad thing. The problem with DRM is that, as it's presently envisioned and implemented, it is draconian and the vast majority of people do not realize the fair uses that they are losing.
The battleground isn't DRM, per se. It's fair use, and ensuring that technical DRM measures do not hinder fair use.
In other words, if mashups are legitimate fair use (I think they are, but the jury is out on that one just yet), then DRM technology MUST (not "should") accomodate them to the degree that is technically feasable. DRM-hawkers will scream and squirm at the thought of implementation techology which does not benefit their masters even as it (legally, because it enables fair use) does not harm them. But, I think that's the price to pay to make DRM acceptable.
The problem with DRM as it exists today, is that the public is being offered a bill of goods, with no idea of they price they're paying for restrictions thereupon. It's rather like selling me a steak, and after I buy it requiring me to eat it within 50 yards of the point of purchase, and "Oh, by the way, there's a grill-shop we own 30 yards away."
I was thinking of electronic analog interfaces. Remove those and analog recording becomes more difficult -- impossible if recording devices become restricted.
Yes, one can use a camcorder (again, assuming they do not become restricted or effectively crippled when viewing restricted content, which strikes me as reasonable). But, that makes the production of mashups all the more difficult because of the technical hurdles introduced, and would likely discourage many would-be mashup artists.
Yes, but I fear the days of analog interfaces are numbered.
Having to display, and rerecord content in order to produce a mashup will be sufficient disincentive to many artists to not bother -- many want to practice their art and not fumble with technology.
It's a pity, really: it should be possible to produce a mashup script for existing content, and license that separately from the content mashed up. Display would involve micro-licensing the original content fragments, on demand (for those that were not originally licensed by the displayer). Alternately,the mashup could contain licenses, or links for the various content bits, and distributed in an encrypted, licensed fashion itself.
Finally, if technical limits are established for what is a defacto fair use of third party content in a mashup, licensed machines could be made to allow production thereof. (There may be other fair uses, but they might have to be established on a case by case basis).
I am not opposed to DRM per se, but rather the draconian attempts to use it to stifle and suppress traditional fair uses. If one wants to advocate DRM, one must do so in a manner which facilitates, as much as possible, those fair uses. To pay to listen to something I've already licensed, somewhere else, is absurd: if I have the right to move the content to listen to it wherever I want, I should also have the right to have someone else facilitate that movement, even if it is logical, and not physical.
The biggest problem right now is that fair use is sufficiently nebulous that no substantial subset of it can be enforced technologically.
The basic idea is that content is encrypted with a per-user public key, where the private key is held ("securely", for some definition of "securely") in display and playback devices that the user owns. When a private key is issued to a user, it is delivered in a secure (again, for some definition of "secure" key store, from which a limited number of copies can be imported to "authorized" (using some PKI mechanism) display and playback devices.
This has the benefit that content can (a) be copied for backup and archival purposes, (b) played on a "reasonable" number of devices a user owns, (c) played on other devices via temporary "secure" key export and import functions (so you can watch your movies at your friend's house, but not on your TV at the same time, unless on an "extra" TV -- within the limits of key copies), (d) lent to a small number of friends to access your library, and (e) allow anyone to make content for your display and playback devices (remember, the encryption key is public).
This is not rocket science, and to "someone practiced in the art" of PKI, strikes me as sufficiently obvious as to invalidate any patent claims.
It suffers from two problems:
First, the concept of someone having possession of a decryption key and not access to it are at odds. Like I said, "for some definition of 'secure'" Tamper-proof crypto chips are not cheap. Of course, the cost of extracting a key to allow access to one person's licensed media probably makes it sufficiently impractical: if media are watermarked as well as encrypted on a per-licencee basis, tracking back to who's key was used to crack some content would be easy, as well as an individual who licenses excessive amounts of content (to crack, and illegally redistribute in plain form, or encrypted with others' public keys).
Second, and more troubling, is that it does not allow for arguably fair uses: mashup videos, for example, because one can't extract some of the content, and how much could be extracted as a fair use would depend on the use. Some arguably legal fair uses could be prevented, and others abused by a group of indivuduals to reproduce the whole from the sum of arbitrarily small parts.
The issue of what happens when one loses a device holding private keys to one's media also deserves consideration. Of course, content providers could form a consortium that provide key escrow services so that lost keys could be recovered.
Well, it is quite relevant. It demonstrates a fundamental difference between two lines of reasoning that you purport to be identical in effect.
They are identical. Or how does the cost passthrough argument differ?
A consumer has little recourse if the price of a good is increased to cover a greater tax burden other than to chose to not purchase it. If it is an essential good (food), he or she does not even have that choice.
The working consumer has a much harder time to compensate by demanding an increase in wages.
The burden of an increase in corporate taxes therefore, immediately falls on the consumer, and only later on the corporation as this translates into a demand for higher wages. There is a multiplier effect, but since wage increases lag corporate tax increases (if they materialize at all), it is the consumer who suffers. The corporation, which is legally obligated to the interests if it's shareholders will do all it can before it reduces dividends. Capital valuation might fall which will impact shareholders, but all shareholders, many of which are again, consumers who invest via mutual funds in their retirement accounts.
Why should they pay anything?
Because it's the law?
Wrong answer. The law currently makes the type of tax avoidance you bemoan quite legal. You would make a currently legal practice illegal with nothing to show for it except primarily increased costs to those at the bottom of the income chain and little effect on "the rich".
When I purchase something, and money changes hands across the counter by the cash register, the rate of "money transfer tax" is 0%. Oh, the horror!.
Sales tax here is about 8-9%
I'm not talking about the sales tax. I'm talking about a new tax, like the one you are all salivating over, on the mere transfer of money. A corporation (hopefully) earns profits which are either reinvested, or distributed as wages and dividends. Those are taxed. You seek to tax them a second time within the corporate veil.
More to the point: Why should income earned abroad be taxed locally when none of the services it supposedly funds are available in the jurisdiction where the income was earned?
Which income is that? Why should a company be able to radically change their tax obligation by moving their paper HQ to bermuda? You should pay taxes on operations in a country
Because (a) they legally can, (b) to tax them at all is taxing earnings twice: in the hands of the corporation, and in the hands of it's employees and shareholders.
One can argue that earnings should be subject to some total aggregate rate of tax, and levy it at various points, instead of all at the same point (earnings). But that is not an argument that every individual rate of tax (personal, dividend, or corporate) should be the same.
Corporate tax rates are historically low to encourage capital investment to create firms where people can be employed. Offshore income that hasn't been repatriated isn't taxed because it (a) isn't practical, and (b)harms the corporation's ability to operate effectively in a global market.
Finally, where do you get the idea that something "should" be taxed in the first place? Because the poor deserve a subsidy simply for existing?
But, if they take bigger profits, they are taxed more personally. This is the point you do not seem to get. The revenue is taxed more than once.
I do get it - revenue is not taxed - profits are. Salary comes out of profit, so no it isn't.
No. Taxes are paid out of revenues, as are salaries, other operating expenses, and net profits. Read an income statement and balance sheet sometime. Taxes are levied on gross profits, but are paid out of revenue (or reserves, but a well-r
Hmm. Is it easier for you to be charged more for a gallon of milk, or to get a raise from your boss?
Irrelevant. I'm just applying the same logic as the idiot I responded to.
Well, it is quite relevant. It demonstrates a fundamental difference between two lines of reasoning that you purport to be identical in effect.
The problem with this scenario is that now corporations are doubly squeezed: the government taxing them more on one hand, and their workers demanding increased wages to pay the higher costs of living because other corporations have raised the prices of the goods they sell.
Won't someone think of the poor multinationals paying more than 3%.
Why should they pay anything?
When I purchase something, and money changes hands across the counter by the cash register, the rate of "money transfer tax" is 0%. Oh, the horror!.
More to the point: Why should income earned abroad be taxed locally when none of the services it supposedly funds are available in the jurisdiction where the income was earned? Furthermore, how would one force repatriation of the money to seize it? Foreign earnings are taxed when they are "repatriated".
I suppose one could levy the tax on offshore income on domestic earnings, but that would severely hurt the local arm of the business if much of their revenue was earned offshore. So, the effect would be to bring business home, where it would operate with higher expenses, and have to charge more for products produced, which would depress demand, lower overall revenue, and result in the loss of domestic jobs or depressed domestic wages.
As an increasingly technologically advanced nation, the U.S. has, for a long time, exported "shit work". Tough noogies for those who's skills are no longer marketable at a rate that matches their cost of living here. If you can't earn a living wage making shoes here, then move to Bangladesh and make them there. Or, learn to program textile sowing machines for final assembly here.
You might think that this forces "the rich" shareholders to finally cry "Uncle!" and accept lower profits to pay the higher corporate taxes instead of passing them on to their customers, but what actually happens is insidious: the corporation is driven to losses, and has to lay off workers, leading to a downward economic spiral.
Yes, because your only choices are getting gouged and having the gouger die. Business owners would never take smaller profits over bankruptcy.
But, if they take bigger profits, they are taxed more personally. This is the point you do not seem to get. The revenue is taxed more than once.
The only thing taxes do is take money from those who earned it and redistribute it to those who didn't.
Spoken so soon after the wallstreet clusterfuck. You must be a real prize.
So? Make a case for AIG to fail and not be bailed out. Those harmed would be those who have invested in dubious loans.
But to argue about unfair taxes is akin to the mugger's victim lining up the next victim for the mugger: "You robbed me.I It's unfair that you do not rob him too." The proper response is to kill the mugger.
Corporations do not pay taxes, at all! If we impose a 75% tax on every corporation and eliminate all loopholes and tax havens, corporations still won't pay a cent in taxes. All wealth is held by individuals.
You're an idiot. Corporations are a legal entity with balance sheets, and they pay taxes.
Yes, and they pass that expense either to their shareholders in terms of lower net profit, or their customers, in terms of higher gross prices.
When a corporation is taxed, you and I pay that tax when we buy their products.
I don't pay taxes. When uncle sam comes for its share, I pass that cost on to the place I work for.
Hmm. Is it easier for you to be charged more for a gallon of milk, or to get a raise from your boss?
If only they'd teach economics in school these days
If only you'd retake some classes, you wouldn't sound like a wingnut.
Must be a union man, to think that demanding a raise is easier than having to pay more.
The problem with this scenario is that now corporations are doubly squeezed: the government taxing them more on one hand, and their workers demanding increased wages to pay the higher costs of living because other corporations have raised the prices of the goods they sell.
You might think that this forces "the rich" shareholders to finally cry "Uncle!" and accept lower profits to pay the higher corporate taxes instead of passing them on to their customers, but what actually happens is insidious: the corporation is driven to losses, and has to lay off workers, leading to a downward economic spiral.
Government taxes and union greed are the two most detrimental influences on wealth creation.
Do you really think "the rich" swim around in piles of hundred dollar bills? Idle money is money that is not earning interest. No, that money is either spent (creating jobs for others), loaned (creating opportunity for others), or reinvested in business (creating jobs for others).
The only thing taxes do is take money from those who earned it and redistribute it to those who didn't.
Corps: Ya know, we're about done, time to retire. We'll close up shop, fire everyone, and leave.
More OT: how about we start by replacing congresscritter pensions with the same damn social (in)security that everyone else gets?
Installed from floppies in the early 90's. 0.99.something.
On an x386 with 6 Mb RAM.
Primary purpose at work was to have a networking stack and ftp files off my computer to other PCs in the lab, without having to resort to floppies.
No X (but that came soon enough). No package managers.
The big argument was whether it was ".tar.gz" or ".tgz".
I remember writing a script to ftp archives that made up the installation floppy sets (the A set, B set, etc., eventually the X set), and checking hashes to see if anything had changed between the time I started a download and it finished (at 9600 bps).
No web in those days.
I was expecting a remark about dingo's kidneys.
Man: "Ah, but look at quantum photosynthesis. That something so incredibly convenient to life (plant and herbivore and omnivore animals) should arise by accident is inconceivable. It proves you exist, so therefore you don't."
God: "Oh dear, I hadn't... <logic>puff</logic>
Just that no one really noticed.
What more evidence than M$FT laying off code monkeys do you need? It's all downhill from here. Hang on, it's gonna be one heck of a ride.
Er, respondent, not defendent. It was a civil case.
That said, I defer to NYCL's understanding of the law as superior to my own and enjoy learning a bit or two about it.
<rant>
However, I do wish the law were more accessable to the intelligent lay person. For example, if I have to spend $11k in legal expenses to enforce a power of sale over property, why the hell can't I recover all of those? I won the original suit ($3k legal expenses), but had to keep returning to court to have the order judgment enforced, and was NOT awarded additional legal fees on the grounds that the original decision was repeatedly upheld, the argument being that they were "excessive". Hell yes they were excessive! Defendent repeatedly ignored the court requiring me to keep returning!
O.K.
</rant>
Actually, less worse, because Guantanamo detainees have habeas corpus to draw upon in their defense, whereas individuals can be legally held incommunicado without trial indefinitely in Canada.
I never said the American government does not break it's own laws, but when it does, one can cry "Foul!"
Not so in Canada.
And, lets not forget Canadians Ahmed Said al-Khadr, and his family.
Heck, even then Prime Minister Chretien supported their terrorist groups.
I was born a Canadian and am happy to have escaped. I live on American soil, have an American son, pay American taxes, and fly an American flag.
It is easy to say that one should fix one's own's country's problems. However, in practice this can be very difficult when one is (a) the victim of it's policies, (b) exploited tax-wise for the benefit of others, (c) one's taxes also support the exploitive system itself.
What can one do? Bitch, complain, and try to raise awareness to effect a peaceful revolt at the polls?
I, and others, tried that, through referenced, researched, and publicized criticism of existing policies. It's a little unnerving to criticise the government, however, when the only thing that says you own your home is a record in a government database (Ontario has no real sense of title to property.), and, if you're deemed a security risk to the state, you can be held without trial, incommnunicado, indefinitely, and the charges against you kept a state secret from you or your attorney. Look up Canadian Security Certificate. Yes, the U.S. arguably does the same thing, but at least has founding documents that says it can't, and therefore a violent revolution against such behavior would have some air of legitimacy. Still, the recognition of habeous corpus for Guantanamo detainees gives me some hope, even as I might think them guilty of actions against the U.S. -- let a trial settle the issue.
The best way for me to fight, actually, was to leave. As a non-resident, the state was not entitled to my tax dollars any more. The U.S. is.
And, I have been treated far, far, FAR, better as a lawful permanent resident foreigner of the U.S. than I ever was as a citizen of the country of my birth.
And no, "the rich" can't pay for it out of pocket above the socialized care. See, that would be unfair to those who can't afford it.
Canada, along with Cuba and North Korea, is one of only three places where a citizen can not spend their own money to save their own life. The state literally owns your life.
When my son was sick there, I presented his American passport, and offered money, and he was seen right away. Unfortunately, as a Canadian citizen, I had to return to the U.S. to have the same privilege.
Hmm, as I recall my High School terror^H^H^H^H^H^Hchemistry classes, that produces Manganese Heptoxide.
You've never seen a bazooka-launched tactical nuke (designed to take out tank columns), have you?
Still, the "lost" deduction is only about $1000.
The tax code is not perfect in terms of matching application with intent, and the complexities of making it so are probably outweighed by the savings that might be had.
My worse problem is that CA will likely try to tax my out of state earnings for 2007 before I arrived there and for 2008 after I left. They are notorious for this (and it causes grief for people who reside in Nevada but work in California) And yes, I had a long-term lease in WA, and month to month rentals in CA, so my CA residency was clearly temporary.
Jeebus H. Freaking Krist.
What part of "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" (Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) do you not understand?
The only responsibility I should have, if armed with an AK-47, or nuke for that matter, is to adequately demonstrate to my neighbors that their safety is not compromised.
I drive a car. I can probably kill more people with it, on a busy street, than I could with an AK-47, if I wanted. Funny thing is, I don't. Imagine that.
What part of my not taking anything from you makes you less free?
What part of you taking something from me does not make me less free?
You want your freedom? Respect mine, thief.
As for the government services I use, send me a bill. If you want me to support your life through charity, appeal to my charitable nature.
The parent poster's rants are based on the presumption that "the rich" (i.e. those who have more than he does) never do anything to support "the poor" (i.e. those who have as much as him or less), and, indeed "exploit them". While there might be some wealthy person where this is true, to generalize is about as bad as treating all blacks as armed robbers, because, in this case, O.J. really "did it".
The parent poster posits that the "rich" will deprive the poor of their "freedom", i.e. take something they have away from them. This is theft.
Generally, only a thief thinks that others steal as a matter of course, because that's all he knows. Describes most economic liberals, actually. .
Most people, surprisingly, are actually quite generous. Have you ever seen a street performer attract a crowd? Those assembled usually take a dim view of someone who enjoys the performance, but does not contribute to the performer's welfare, even though they have no legal obligation to contribute anything. We are willing to educate all our youth, regardless of their ability to afford private education (though, understandably, we like a say in the nature of that education). We are even willing to help those who have fallen on hard times, through no fault of their own. Americans are among the most generous people on earth: individual donations to hurricane relief totaled some two billion dollars, far more than government and foreign aid.
But, we have become lazy and chosen to let others decide what causes are worthy, and derelict in our oversight as to what causes they chose. All to often it is their own enrichment, or that of their cronies..
Money, itself, is not evil. It can be spent, to someone else's gain; saved, in which case it will be reinvested in the community through loans; hoarded, which does little for the hoarder. About the only real evil with money it's use to "purchase" law, and therefore power.
You have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You do not have the right for me to subsidize those for you, though.
Let failures fail. And, hold the current administration to account for this mess: they wanted power, they knew what they were inheriting. The buck may stop with congress, and the competence with Obama, but damn it, it starts with you and him and her, and me, and it's high time we remind those who spend it of that fact.
Dunno about the political affiliation of the head of the IRS, but I recently read that he's in tax arrears by some $34,000.
Best sign I saw read: "I'll keep my money, my guns, and my freedom. You can keep the CHANGE."
Heh.
The only thing better than 5000 tax protesters at the seat of government are 5000 tax protesters with AR-15s (which would leave me wondering how many "illegally" [1] modified them to be fully-auto).
[1] What part of the "right to bear arms" excludes fully automatic weapons?
What really burns my ass (and I paid about $30k in federal income tax last year, including a $700 check sent yesterday), is that the head of the IRS is apparently in tax arrears by some $34,000.
There is open talk of "tax revolution" and such "tea parties" (LOL: people actually attach tea bags to their hats and dump mock tea barrels into bodies of water) growing in the coming months. Further, as the recession grows, unemployment rises, and state tax revenues dwindle, the response in many states is the floating to tax "trial balloons". There are rumors of a state income tax in WA, as Boeing workers are being laid off. As if that will go over well.
The problem arises when one has the conflicting goals of getting bugs fixed (so, everyone chips in), and getting a good review (which is based on having to fix few bugs).
In all fairness to Microsoft, I don't see the system intentionally designed to punish those who are effective problem solvers, and reward those who get others to fix their mess.
But, the review metrics are sometimes based on the assumption that one does not fix bugs other than in one's own code, and the development process in some departments involves load-balancing bugs across developers (sometimes very inefficiently in terms of a given developer's knowledge in the area of a particular bug).
And, there are some people who's greatest skill is hacking inconsistencies in process and review to their benefit.