The problem with your thesis is that without some form of IP protection the ability to attract investment to a particular field becomes quite limited. After all, as a capitalist why should I invest my precious capital into a product development process that takes years and hundreds of megabucks to result in a product that is instantly available for free once it comes to market? In some cases it actually becomes available for free before it is released to market?
Ultimately if you are going to put forth the idea that a nation should adopt development of new products as an economic strategy, you have to realize the success of that strategy will depend on how successful you are at monetizing those innovations.
It isn't a question of an individual being able to live off an idea for a lifetime, it's a question of what the ROI for the society is.
Your idea that a society must live through innovation and at the same time proposing reduced economic protection for the fruits of the innovation is simply a fundamentally inconsistent scenario.
Every tax year cited in that article is post-collapse and is thus eligible for deductions due to the financial collapse. If you look it up you'll find GE lost $32 billion as a result of this.
Also the statement that GE paid zero taxes is total bullshit. What they paid is zero federal income tax. They paid plenty in local and payroll taxes.
The train is ok. It's when you have to commute between office and home and there is no train and it's 40 miles all of them in NJ.
There are probably other reasons too - NJ has very high per capita income, population density and a lot of it is served by both FIOS and cable giving some competition that seems to generate promotional deals and service tiers with high bandwidth for bragging rights.
Conduits definitely. Nobody knows what the future will bring, and even if it's optical the likelihood is that it will be an optical format that doesn't exist today.
Eh? The original AT&T was forbidden from entering the computer business as part of it's regulatory restrictions in exchange for having a monopoly on voice telecom. It was doomed anyway.
First, be more careful of your terminology. Tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance is not.
Tax avoidance is not unethical. It is in fact legally required of publicly held corporations who must operate to the maximum legal advantage of their stockholders.
If the tax system is not working properly it is the fault of government who writes the rules.
Sometimes monopolies benefit consumers. Such monopolies can occur when cost of production continues to drop as the size of the company increases. With regulation these savings can be passed to consumers.
Actually Microsoft being a publicly held company is obligated by law to operate in efficient manner to the benefit their shareholders. Part of this is to not pay more taxes than is reasonably necessary.
If the states don't like what is happening they need to fix their screwy tax codes.
Prior to the invention of corporations people like Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan formed limited partnerships (US Steel) and trusts (Standard Oil) to do business.
The right to freely associate has nothing to do with the formation of modern corporations. It is a 20th century legal fiction created by the states looking to gain fees associated with the charter process.
The current 'personhood' rights of corporations is due to the current Supreme Court interpretation of the word 'person' in the 14th amendment. It has nothing to do with the first amendment.
The increase in valuation of the AUS dollar is due to sale of raw materials internationally, mostly coal to China. Once China gets it's shale gas fracking going I think that will tail off quite a bit.
I think this is a good point. US prices are quite often lower than anywhere else in the world. There are several factors for this:
1. USD is world reserve currency. This means you don't have to convert currencies when dealing in almighty greenbacks on international sales.
2, US is largest monolithic market. 300 million high paid peeps all speaking same language in same political unit. Set up one call center and a warehouse in Kansas and you are good to go.
3. Low energy prices = low physical distribution costs.
4. Major volume and competition in distribution channels means they are efficient as hell. I hear rumors that someday the guy delivering your Amazon printed cardboard may arrive in an Amazon truck wearing an Amazon shirt.
I buy a lot of German made tools. From what I understand they are 30-40% cheaper in US than in Germany. I know these tools are 2x in Oz. I had the experience once of taking a Japanese electronics industry executive to Best Buy. He told me the Japanese brands were much cheaper there than in Japan.
There are some things we pay more for though - the worst of these is pharmaceuticals. Generally when that happens it's a government fuckup causing it.
No they haven't. They probably haven't been even taxed once.
Your dividends have been, sort of....
Personally though I don't think corps should be taxed at all. It gives them too much ammo to say things like 'taxation without representation' etc.
If we didn't tax corps then I think it would be easier to ban political speech by corporations.
The income to individuals from corps would then be taxable as ordinary income and we wouldn't have the whining about dividends being taxed twice, or the baloney about US taxes on corporations being high.
We also wouldn't have the baloney regarding local jurisdictions competing for corps based on tax give backs.
> The US Treasury and the Fed bailed out both of them. Your distinction is driven by political ideology.
Nonsense. The idea that the economic crash is due to Freddie and Fanny has been debunked many times including in the links I posted plus many more. Many conservative economists know that it is a wrong idea. Even the Republican members of the congressional commission that investigated it know it to be false.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a particularly exclusive club, and the badge seems to be in plentiful supply, so the honor is not that great.
Over half of the US trading partners are on the list.
However Canada does get special recognition for being on the Priority Watch List. Buckle down now though because according to the report
"These countries will be the subject of particularly intense bilateral engagement during the coming year."
The problem with your thesis is that without some form of IP protection the ability to attract investment to a particular field becomes quite limited. After all, as a capitalist why should I invest my precious capital into a product development process that takes years and hundreds of megabucks to result in a product that is instantly available for free once it comes to market? In some cases it actually becomes available for free before it is released to market?
Ultimately if you are going to put forth the idea that a nation should adopt development of new products as an economic strategy, you have to realize the success of that strategy will depend on how successful you are at monetizing those innovations.
It isn't a question of an individual being able to live off an idea for a lifetime, it's a question of what the ROI for the society is.
Your idea that a society must live through innovation and at the same time proposing reduced economic protection for the fruits of the innovation is simply a fundamentally inconsistent scenario.
>They also have a history of not paying tax and in getting large tax deductions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE#Recent_controversies
Every tax year cited in that article is post-collapse and is thus eligible for deductions due to the financial collapse. If you look it up you'll find GE lost $32 billion as a result of this.
Also the statement that GE paid zero taxes is total bullshit. What they paid is zero federal income tax. They paid plenty in local and payroll taxes.
Here's the accurate story:
http://factcheck.org/2012/04/warren-ge-pays-no-taxes/
Or that granite countertop in your kitchen.
The train is ok. It's when you have to commute between office and home and there is no train and it's 40 miles all of them in NJ.
There are probably other reasons too - NJ has very high per capita income, population density and a lot of it is served by both FIOS and cable giving some competition that seems to generate promotional deals and service tiers with high bandwidth for bragging rights.
Conduits definitely. Nobody knows what the future will bring, and even if it's optical the likelihood is that it will be an optical format that doesn't exist today.
Nonsense. Freedom of movement is a long-standing right in the US. It's been recognized by the Supreme Court since 1823.
See Corfield v. Coryell, 6 Fed. Cas. 546 (1823).
Eh? The original AT&T was forbidden from entering the computer business as part of it's regulatory restrictions in exchange for having a monopoly on voice telecom. It was doomed anyway.
I would think the artist would figure out a different location to host his work.
Can't really call it theft if you have the right to vote or move to another location.
First, be more careful of your terminology. Tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance is not.
Tax avoidance is not unethical. It is in fact legally required of publicly held corporations who must operate to the maximum legal advantage of their stockholders.
If the tax system is not working properly it is the fault of government who writes the rules.
GE paid $0 because they had horrific losses in the financial collapse. There was a time where it appeared they would go bankrupt.
Wealth is already taxed in some ways. It's called real estate tax.
It's miserable. I'd much rather pay a higher income tax.
>Monopolies are bad since they hurt the consumer
Overly simplistic.
Sometimes monopolies benefit consumers. Such monopolies can occur when cost of production continues to drop as the size of the company increases. With regulation these savings can be passed to consumers.
Actually Microsoft being a publicly held company is obligated by law to operate in efficient manner to the benefit their shareholders. Part of this is to not pay more taxes than is reasonably necessary.
If the states don't like what is happening they need to fix their screwy tax codes.
The Aussie dollar has already taken some hits as China's infrastructure investment growth rates and therefore iron ore growth rates are tailing off.
All those LNG investments are looking dicey too as Shell etc are starting up shale gas development in China.
Better spend a bit less time in that paddock.
Prior to the invention of corporations people like Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan formed limited partnerships (US Steel) and trusts (Standard Oil) to do business.
The right to freely associate has nothing to do with the formation of modern corporations. It is a 20th century legal fiction created by the states looking to gain fees associated with the charter process.
The current 'personhood' rights of corporations is due to the current Supreme Court interpretation of the word 'person' in the 14th amendment. It has nothing to do with the first amendment.
Obviously the reason for that is competition. The little NJ retail shop has to be close in price to Amazon, the largest retailer in the world.
In Australia they don't.
The increase in valuation of the AUS dollar is due to sale of raw materials internationally, mostly coal to China. Once China gets it's shale gas fracking going I think that will tail off quite a bit.
That's a problem between you and your politicians.
I think this is a good point. US prices are quite often lower than anywhere else in the world. There are several factors for this:
1. USD is world reserve currency. This means you don't have to convert currencies when dealing in almighty greenbacks on international sales.
2, US is largest monolithic market. 300 million high paid peeps all speaking same language in same political unit. Set up one call center and a warehouse in Kansas and you are good to go.
3. Low energy prices = low physical distribution costs.
4. Major volume and competition in distribution channels means they are efficient as hell. I hear rumors that someday the guy delivering your Amazon printed cardboard may arrive in an Amazon truck wearing an Amazon shirt.
I buy a lot of German made tools. From what I understand they are 30-40% cheaper in US than in Germany. I know these tools are 2x in Oz. I had the experience once of taking a Japanese electronics industry executive to Best Buy. He told me the Japanese brands were much cheaper there than in Japan.
There are some things we pay more for though - the worst of these is pharmaceuticals. Generally when that happens it's a government fuckup causing it.
I wouldn't say they were generally better. In fact I'd say they were rarely better.
We don't say they are
1. Living
2. Breathing
3. Biological entities
all we do is create a legal fiction that gives them some of the rights of people.
Just too many...
No they haven't. They probably haven't been even taxed once.
Your dividends have been, sort of....
Personally though I don't think corps should be taxed at all. It gives them too much ammo to say things like 'taxation without representation' etc.
If we didn't tax corps then I think it would be easier to ban political speech by corporations.
The income to individuals from corps would then be taxable as ordinary income and we wouldn't have the whining about dividends being taxed twice, or the baloney about US taxes on corporations being high.
We also wouldn't have the baloney regarding local jurisdictions competing for corps based on tax give backs.
All in all it would be a nicer world....
> The US Treasury and the Fed bailed out both of them. Your distinction is driven by political ideology.
Nonsense. The idea that the economic crash is due to Freddie and Fanny has been debunked many times including in the links I posted plus many more. Many conservative economists know that it is a wrong idea. Even the Republican members of the congressional commission that investigated it know it to be false.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-21/romney-gingrich-bid-to-pin-crisis-on-government-ignores-culprits.html
Tell me - what did Freddie and Fanny have to do with the collapse of Lehman, the event everyone points to as the beginning of the collapse?
And what culpability do the banks have for selling flat out fraudulent mortgages to F&F?
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20120222/REAL_ESTATE/120229979