"could be used to launch targeted attacks against corporate networks"
A corporate network operator that allows BYOD Android devices with no MDM installed, direct network access deserves an attack.
And corporately owned Android devices would normally have a secure MDM installed with settings like "unknown sources" disabled and not user changeable.
For this malware to get access to a corporate network it would require some really poor security practices on the part of the device owner and network owner which would probably mean the company were vulnerable to much simpler attacks.
You're assuming that the MDM increases security whereas in my current experience, in order to get my device 'compliant,' I have been forced to unroot thus losing both full backup and firewalling capabilities, lessening the security of my device.
The entire population of China is only 1.4 billion people.
Somehow someone extrapolated 3.6 billion from observing 200 million smartphones. Sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me given that the entire population of China is less than 1.4 billion to start with.
You don't keep mice out of your house with mousetraps. You keep them out by sweeping up all the crumbs on your floor so they have no reason to come in anyway.
Really I mean how many reasons could there be for a gaming developer NOT want reviews of it's product before they start selling it other than that it's absolute crap?
Religion is a choice. I see no reason to effectively exclude it from discussion. I agree that it is a sensitive topic, but it has no place in a list of properties that a person does not have a choice in.
That depends on what part of the world you live in.
All business done in the US pays US taxes. That is: if iTunes sells $5 million of songs in the US, Apple pays taxes on $5 million of revenue. Simple enough.
At the same time, any US company which sells something to Japan, Germany, France, Britain, and so on also pays taxes on it. If iTunes sells $50 million of songs in Europe, Apple pays $50 million in taxes to the US.
All Apple has done is moved their iTunes operations under another company headquartered in Germany. When iTunes sells $5 million of songs in the US, Apple pays US taxes on $5 million; but when iTunes sells $50 million of songs in Europe, Apple doesn't pay the US shit.
You may notice that the US is trying to tax businesses for doing business in the US, and also tax US businesses for doing business outside the US. US businesses are simply moving their non-US business outside the US, which is where it is anyway.
Companies don't pay tax on their revenue, they pay it on their profit.
Let me summarize the situation for you, as you seem to have completely misunderstood:
Apple, Amazon and other companies make huge profits in countries (like the US) and then, using licensing payments to subsidiaries in low or no tax jurisdictions like Luxembourg, shift all the profit to where it's not taxable, thus legally avoiding paying any income tax on the profits they made as those profits have just been erased by these supposed licencing fees.
If a real person tried to do this they would go to prison for tax evasion as one cannot just create new copies of oneself as corporations do in order to shift money from one jurisdiction to another.
So yes, you are right that it's simple, and no, you are wrong in that they are not paying at all what they should be paying.
I need food to eat. If I don't eat, I can't generate income. But I can't deduct it on my personal taxes. I also have to get to work, but I can't claim any transportation amounts on my personal taxes. I need to wear clothes to work, often more expensive ones than I would generally wear if I wasn't at work, but I can't deduct the cost of clothes. But a corporation can claim deductions for any expenses whatsoever. There's almost nothing that a business can spend money on that doesn't qualify as a deduction. Whereas for individuals, only a very small percentage of what I spend my money on actually qualifies as a deduction, and most of it isn't related in any way to my employment. Things like medical expenses and charitable donations are tax deductible, but don't really have much relation to me actually generating income.
Let's not ignore that, generally speaking, corporations that commit crimes pay money and people who commit crimes go to prison.
Bribery on a scale large enough to sound painful but which the corporations write off a a risk and cost of doing business.
And by "where you are valued" you mean "where we can get away with the most bad behavior".
Paying only the taxes that you legally required to pay is not "bad behavior". Our tax laws are idiotic. It is silly to blame that on companies that legally minimize their taxes, rather than the politicians that make the laws.
America has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, yet because of all the loopholes, we have one of the lowest rates of corporate tax collection. Furthermore, the nature of those loopholes gives a huge incentive for companies to move their headquarters and administrative jobs out of America. If you started from scratch, it would be challenging to design a dumber and more counterproductive tax law. How is that Apple's fault?
Fixing corporate tax law is hard, because it is easy for opponents to demagogue the issue, and claim that lowering rates is a giveaway to evil corporations. The counter argument, that no one actually pays the current rate because of all the loopholes, doesn't fit into a 30 second sound bite.
It may be legal to do something and yet not moral. The politicians are at fault, certainly, for the loopholes - and Apple (et al) are also at fault for using them. It is not mutually exclusive.
When the corporations pay no tax, you and I pick up the difference so yes, I blame them for making billions and not paying anything or even receiving benefits. It's like welfare fraud on a larger scale.
With regard to companies moving their headquarters out of a given country - let them. Then tax them even more for doing business as non-resident entities.
Most top level executives don't know DES from GPG or IDEA. What they do understand is when you send them an email with links to to three Wall Street Journal articles, Target, TJ Maxx, and Home Depot, then say "to prevent this from happening to our company, we need to have the following policies in place:".
Sounds like an excellent way to get them to click on malware links too:-)
You seemed to overlook the thousands of rockets a year fired into Israeli villages,(at citizens), or the hundreds of suicide bombs that have killed Israeli citizens as well as the fact that the terrorism perpetrated by the Palestinians was official policy of their state. Even though they publicly denounce these crimes today they still fund it so its the same old shit for them. The bigger issue is that for Israel, the people waging this war against them are not a uniformed army. It is against people hiding among the citizens, and when those citizens refuse to turn them away or fight them they mark themselves as helping these terrorists. I get that its a shitty thing to talk plainly about, but when you are attacked by the citizens of a nation, you attack the citizens of that nation if the government is unwilling to control its population. At some point, these so called innocent Palestinians will either all enter the war against Israel, (if they agree with the terrorists), or they will tire of being lumped in with the terrorists and do their part to fight them. So far, they have decided that getting killed by Israilis, (which the Israeli government warns them in advance when they are going to bomb a neighborhood), is somehow the better choice than fighting against these terrorists causing the problems in the first place. I wonder if these things could be because the government and the people support these terrorist actions? And if they do, they aren't innocent in this process. If they don't, then what possible reason could they ever have for this blind support they give?
Of course I don't overlook it, and I do not condone attacks against any civilian population.
A uniformed army? Do you really see that as an option?:-D If you were fighting a guerrilla war against a vastly superior military force who oppresses your people to the point where food and medicine have to be smuggled in by tunnel would you be stupid enough to wear a uniform? Don't be ridiculous.
The Palestinians are killed out of hand by the Israelis, who would prefer to kill 100 Palestinian children by shelling than to let one of their own soldiers die in a ground war and I don't condone that either.
Do you understand just how small the area is that we are talking about? 3 kilometers wide. How in the world do you expect civilians to actually be able to get far enough from the fighting that spans the entire breadth of the occupied territory?
Israel warns in advance...yeah maybe, and maybe not - and then attacks where they have been told there is a UN school in a UN compound. You eat propaganda like a starving child eats anything available. Not to mention that Israelis are as likely as non-Israelis to break ceasefires. In fact the best that I read was the ceasefire that would take effect except where Israeli soldiers were operating. That's really very useful!!! Total and completely useless propaganda is what it is.
You blame the civilians for not overthrowing their government. You say they are not innocent (presumably the babies are just as guilty!!) for this reason and so are justifiable targets.
Doesn't that make you a justifiable target in the eyes of those losing (innocent in many cases, babies, for example) loved ones to American or Israeli attacks?
You see only one side. That is racism and you are as guilty as any of them.
Actually they do. They are called upon by Allah to preach peace when outnumbered. As they currently are doing in the USA and in many places in Europe. They are, by the rules of their holy book, required to demand equality and peace. Then, as soon as they are capable, they are to wage silent jihad. That's what many muslims are doing around the world against non-muslims. The third thing they are commanded to do is to annihilate any non-muslims as soon as the muslim population is strong enough. Those are tenants straight out of the Koran and EXACTLY what muslim populations have done in the past when they are both the greater number and fully following their holy book. Look at what the Koran has to say about Medina. The city that welcomed them in and protected them against Christians was then annihilated by those majority of peaceful muslims as soon as they had the power to do so. The same thing plays out all over the middle east and africa on the smaller scale so people try to claim it was only tribal in nature but that's glossing over the FACT that they were acting in accordance to their faith. Many of these large muslim populations are using that first tenant to play it safe, but that doesn't mean the instant a war is waged on a massive scale that they will remain peaceful. Yes, the extremists that blow up things in other countries are the most devout followers, but the demand for blood is in the thoughts of every practicing muslim or they aren't following their holy book and are therefore not technically muslims. At worst they are pretending in order to not face death themselves, but at worst they are simply lying to themselves that its acceptable to pick and choose and still be a muslim.
And how many times have Christians annihilated Muslim and other populations throughout history? Have you forgotten the Inquisition, perhaps, where Catholics tortured and killed how many of even their own faith? You look only from your perspective and you see only the good that your people do, never the bad.
How many Muslim countries have you actually lived in, among the people?
I have lived in several and none of the people there tried to kill me even though I was very clearly neither of their religion, nor likely to become so. Obviously they outnumbered me and if they had wished me harm they could easily have done so.
"Yes, the extremists that blow up things in other countries are the most devout followers, but the demand for blood is in the thoughts of every practicing muslim or they aren't following their holy book and are therefore not technically muslims."
The exact same has been said of US citizens who voted for or failed to prevent the rise of the government that bombs and kills innumerable Muslim civilians.
With regard to you saying that those who are not demanding blood not being real Muslims...you are being irrational in your hatred.
What about Christians who do not follow the violence proscribed in the bible? Are they not 'real' Christians?
In all cases, not only in Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, etc, etc, etc, religious doctrine is used and misused to incite hatred and violence to manipulate people into attacking others so that those in power will benefit.
I do not justify or glorify that done by Muslims in their hate against others (including other Muslims), but neither am I blind to the violence done by Catholics, Christians, Protestants, Jews and all the rest when it suits them.
here is a breakdown by country. for example all of opec countries give us 3.700 TBPD canada alone gives us 3.100 TBPD (there is no US so im unaware of our own internal production that we keep vs exporting)
All imports are 9.700 TBPD and 2/3rds of that is non opec (makes you wonder why open dictates the price of oil here as much as it does)
TBPD = thousand barrels per day
Yep, thanks but none of which answers the question of how much of what is consumed in the US is produced in the US. If the US were a mass exporter of petroleum products you would think that you wouldn't need to import at all and would, indeed, be independent of OPEC - which is obviously not at all the case.
Since we don't have the actual data, it seems more likely that the US does not, in fact, produce most of what it consumes based on US reliance of external oil sources.
"Some historians see the Crusades as part of a purely defensive war against Islamic conquest; some see them as part of long-running conflict at the frontiers of Europe; and others see them as confident, aggressive, papal-led expansion attempts by Western Christendom." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
The crusades were just a continuation of continual battles for land, power struggle with religion as an excuse and motivator for the lower masses, along with the possible increase in wealth for the poor by the prospect of pillage and a certain increase in the wealth of the already wealthy buy just not giving back the lands conquered.
All sides committed atrocities, the Christians included.
From the same source: "The crusaders often pillaged the countries through which they traveled in the typical medieval manner of supplying an army on the move." "Nobles often retained much of the territory gained rather than returning it to the Byzantines as they had sworn to do" "The Peoples' Crusade prompted Rhineland massacres and the murder of thousands of Jews"
So stop acting like the Christians were the good guys. They were just as bad as everyone else in those days.
This would appear to be a bug in the international tax system.
Quite the contrary. It's not a bug it's a feature. The kind of deal Amazon was able to strike with Luxembourg is an important defense against overly greedy countries (like the U.S.) which try to tax more than they should be entitled to. Note that the story says this is only about non-U.S. earning. Why should the U.S. be entitled to taxes on non-U.S. earnings?
If Luxembourg is willing to offer lower tax rates than other countries, why shouldn't Amazon accept? It's no different than choosing to shop at a store that offers the lowest prices.
Turn it around. Why should Amazon be allowed to transfer profits made in any one country out of that country to avoid paying taxes there?
You, as a taxpayer, should really be asking this question because it's you, as a taxpayer, that is going to have to pick up the difference in who funds the national bill.
As far as which country, it doesn't matter. If Amazon does business in country ABC, it should pay taxes in that country per the laws of the country as part of its business model.
When mega-companies like this avoid paying taxes it's you and me that pick up the bill and I don't know about you but my personal thinking is "Fuck that let Amazon foot their part of the costs of running the country".
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing worse than a lawyer is a law student, they think they can use the courts for anything.
You're assuming they're wrong.
One uses the tools available to accomplish a given goal.
Clever but as they've just shown the entire world how to make it we'll have to see who actually brings it to market first.
"could be used to launch targeted attacks against corporate networks"
A corporate network operator that allows BYOD Android devices with no MDM installed, direct network access deserves an attack.
And corporately owned Android devices would normally have a secure MDM installed with settings like "unknown sources" disabled and not user changeable.
For this malware to get access to a corporate network it would require some really poor security practices on the part of the device owner and network owner which would probably mean the company were vulnerable to much simpler attacks.
You're assuming that the MDM increases security whereas in my current experience, in order to get my device 'compliant,' I have been forced to unroot thus losing both full backup and firewalling capabilities, lessening the security of my device.
That it doesn't matter what we do, no form of government can overcome our failings as species.
Obligatory:
I for one, welcome our AI overlords...
Remember that ISIS is our enemy now.
So you prefer OSPF then?
Maybe I just missed it in the comments, but: here is the TripAdvisor page for the hotel.
"Ranked #858 of 894"
Let's see how long until it's at 894 of 894
Is your phone over 10 years old and just traveled millions of miles through space?
No, it isn't.
This will be, what, 14-15 year old tech by now?
Do let us know when you get your iPhone to a comet and can send back pictures with it. Then we might be impressed.
I hear that's slated for iPhone 7.
The entire population of China is only 1.4 billion people.
Somehow someone extrapolated 3.6 billion from observing 200 million smartphones. Sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me given that the entire population of China is less than 1.4 billion to start with.
You don't keep mice out of your house with mousetraps. You keep them out by sweeping up all the crumbs on your floor so they have no reason to come in anyway.
Thank you Master Po.
Really I mean how many reasons could there be for a gaming developer NOT want reviews of it's product before they start selling it other than that it's absolute crap?
Religion is a choice. I see no reason to effectively exclude it from discussion. I agree that it is a sensitive topic, but it has no place in a list of properties that a person does not have a choice in.
That depends on what part of the world you live in.
They're paying what they should be paying.
All business done in the US pays US taxes. That is: if iTunes sells $5 million of songs in the US, Apple pays taxes on $5 million of revenue. Simple enough.
At the same time, any US company which sells something to Japan, Germany, France, Britain, and so on also pays taxes on it. If iTunes sells $50 million of songs in Europe, Apple pays $50 million in taxes to the US.
All Apple has done is moved their iTunes operations under another company headquartered in Germany. When iTunes sells $5 million of songs in the US, Apple pays US taxes on $5 million; but when iTunes sells $50 million of songs in Europe, Apple doesn't pay the US shit.
You may notice that the US is trying to tax businesses for doing business in the US, and also tax US businesses for doing business outside the US. US businesses are simply moving their non-US business outside the US, which is where it is anyway.
Companies don't pay tax on their revenue, they pay it on their profit.
Let me summarize the situation for you, as you seem to have completely misunderstood:
Apple, Amazon and other companies make huge profits in countries (like the US) and then, using licensing payments to subsidiaries in low or no tax jurisdictions like Luxembourg, shift all the profit to where it's not taxable, thus legally avoiding paying any income tax on the profits they made as those profits have just been erased by these supposed licencing fees.
If a real person tried to do this they would go to prison for tax evasion as one cannot just create new copies of oneself as corporations do in order to shift money from one jurisdiction to another.
So yes, you are right that it's simple, and no, you are wrong in that they are not paying at all what they should be paying.
I need food to eat. If I don't eat, I can't generate income. But I can't deduct it on my personal taxes. I also have to get to work, but I can't claim any transportation amounts on my personal taxes. I need to wear clothes to work, often more expensive ones than I would generally wear if I wasn't at work, but I can't deduct the cost of clothes. But a corporation can claim deductions for any expenses whatsoever. There's almost nothing that a business can spend money on that doesn't qualify as a deduction. Whereas for individuals, only a very small percentage of what I spend my money on actually qualifies as a deduction, and most of it isn't related in any way to my employment. Things like medical expenses and charitable donations are tax deductible, but don't really have much relation to me actually generating income.
Let's not ignore that, generally speaking, corporations that commit crimes pay money and people who commit crimes go to prison.
Bribery on a scale large enough to sound painful but which the corporations write off a a risk and cost of doing business.
And by "where you are valued" you mean "where we can get away with the most bad behavior".
Paying only the taxes that you legally required to pay is not "bad behavior". Our tax laws are idiotic. It is silly to blame that on companies that legally minimize their taxes, rather than the politicians that make the laws.
America has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, yet because of all the loopholes, we have one of the lowest rates of corporate tax collection. Furthermore, the nature of those loopholes gives a huge incentive for companies to move their headquarters and administrative jobs out of America. If you started from scratch, it would be challenging to design a dumber and more counterproductive tax law. How is that Apple's fault?
Fixing corporate tax law is hard, because it is easy for opponents to demagogue the issue, and claim that lowering rates is a giveaway to evil corporations. The counter argument, that no one actually pays the current rate because of all the loopholes, doesn't fit into a 30 second sound bite.
It may be legal to do something and yet not moral. The politicians are at fault, certainly, for the loopholes - and Apple (et al) are also at fault for using them. It is not mutually exclusive.
When the corporations pay no tax, you and I pick up the difference so yes, I blame them for making billions and not paying anything or even receiving benefits. It's like welfare fraud on a larger scale.
With regard to companies moving their headquarters out of a given country - let them. Then tax them even more for doing business as non-resident entities.
I like your point, but seriously... "copyright", "copyrited", AND "copywrite" all in one post?
Well at least one of them will be write.
I never heard Israeli kids spouting that type of garbage.
How very surprising, when it is exactly that which you are screaming.
And yes, I call you a racist.
Most top level executives don't know DES from GPG or IDEA.
What they do understand is when you send them an email with links to to three Wall Street Journal articles, Target, TJ Maxx, and Home Depot, then say "to prevent this from happening to our company, we need to have the following policies in place:".
Sounds like an excellent way to get them to click on malware links too :-)
Any corporate executive traveling will have encrypted communications from their company as a matter of course.
This post is nothing but a weak attempt at Kaspersky marketing.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/...
Net imports accounted for 40% of the petroleum consumed in the United States, the lowest annual average since 1991.
The top five source countries of U.S. petroleum imports in 2012 were Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Russia.
Okay I stand corrected, thanks for the info -
You seemed to overlook the thousands of rockets a year fired into Israeli villages,(at citizens), or the hundreds of suicide bombs that have killed Israeli citizens as well as the fact that the terrorism perpetrated by the Palestinians was official policy of their state. Even though they publicly denounce these crimes today they still fund it so its the same old shit for them. The bigger issue is that for Israel, the people waging this war against them are not a uniformed army. It is against people hiding among the citizens, and when those citizens refuse to turn them away or fight them they mark themselves as helping these terrorists. I get that its a shitty thing to talk plainly about, but when you are attacked by the citizens of a nation, you attack the citizens of that nation if the government is unwilling to control its population. At some point, these so called innocent Palestinians will either all enter the war against Israel, (if they agree with the terrorists), or they will tire of being lumped in with the terrorists and do their part to fight them. So far, they have decided that getting killed by Israilis, (which the Israeli government warns them in advance when they are going to bomb a neighborhood), is somehow the better choice than fighting against these terrorists causing the problems in the first place. I wonder if these things could be because the government and the people support these terrorist actions? And if they do, they aren't innocent in this process. If they don't, then what possible reason could they ever have for this blind support they give?
Of course I don't overlook it, and I do not condone attacks against any civilian population.
A uniformed army? Do you really see that as an option? :-D If you were fighting a guerrilla war against a vastly superior military force who oppresses your people to the point where food and medicine have to be smuggled in by tunnel would you be stupid enough to wear a uniform? Don't be ridiculous.
The Palestinians are killed out of hand by the Israelis, who would prefer to kill 100 Palestinian children by shelling than to let one of their own soldiers die in a ground war and I don't condone that either.
Do you understand just how small the area is that we are talking about? 3 kilometers wide. How in the world do you expect civilians to actually be able to get far enough from the fighting that spans the entire breadth of the occupied territory?
Israel warns in advance...yeah maybe, and maybe not - and then attacks where they have been told there is a UN school in a UN compound. You eat propaganda like a starving child eats anything available. Not to mention that Israelis are as likely as non-Israelis to break ceasefires. In fact the best that I read was the ceasefire that would take effect except where Israeli soldiers were operating. That's really very useful!!! Total and completely useless propaganda is what it is.
You blame the civilians for not overthrowing their government. You say they are not innocent (presumably the babies are just as guilty!!) for this reason and so are justifiable targets.
Doesn't that make you a justifiable target in the eyes of those losing (innocent in many cases, babies, for example) loved ones to American or Israeli attacks?
You see only one side. That is racism and you are as guilty as any of them.
Actually they do. They are called upon by Allah to preach peace when outnumbered. As they currently are doing in the USA and in many places in Europe. They are, by the rules of their holy book, required to demand equality and peace. Then, as soon as they are capable, they are to wage silent jihad. That's what many muslims are doing around the world against non-muslims. The third thing they are commanded to do is to annihilate any non-muslims as soon as the muslim population is strong enough. Those are tenants straight out of the Koran and EXACTLY what muslim populations have done in the past when they are both the greater number and fully following their holy book. Look at what the Koran has to say about Medina. The city that welcomed them in and protected them against Christians was then annihilated by those majority of peaceful muslims as soon as they had the power to do so. The same thing plays out all over the middle east and africa on the smaller scale so people try to claim it was only tribal in nature but that's glossing over the FACT that they were acting in accordance to their faith. Many of these large muslim populations are using that first tenant to play it safe, but that doesn't mean the instant a war is waged on a massive scale that they will remain peaceful. Yes, the extremists that blow up things in other countries are the most devout followers, but the demand for blood is in the thoughts of every practicing muslim or they aren't following their holy book and are therefore not technically muslims. At worst they are pretending in order to not face death themselves, but at worst they are simply lying to themselves that its acceptable to pick and choose and still be a muslim.
And how many times have Christians annihilated Muslim and other populations throughout history? Have you forgotten the Inquisition, perhaps, where Catholics tortured and killed how many of even their own faith? You look only from your perspective and you see only the good that your people do, never the bad.
How many Muslim countries have you actually lived in, among the people?
I have lived in several and none of the people there tried to kill me even though I was very clearly neither of their religion, nor likely to become so. Obviously they outnumbered me and if they had wished me harm they could easily have done so.
"Yes, the extremists that blow up things in other countries are the most devout followers, but the demand for blood is in the thoughts of every practicing muslim or they aren't following their holy book and are therefore not technically muslims."
The exact same has been said of US citizens who voted for or failed to prevent the rise of the government that bombs and kills innumerable Muslim civilians.
With regard to you saying that those who are not demanding blood not being real Muslims...you are being irrational in your hatred.
What about Christians who do not follow the violence proscribed in the bible? Are they not 'real' Christians?
In all cases, not only in Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, etc, etc, etc, religious doctrine is used and misused to incite hatred and violence to manipulate people into attacking others so that those in power will benefit.
I do not justify or glorify that done by Muslims in their hate against others (including other Muslims), but neither am I blind to the violence done by Catholics, Christians, Protestants, Jews and all the rest when it suits them.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pe...
here is a breakdown by country. for example all of opec countries give us 3.700 TBPD canada alone gives us 3.100 TBPD (there is no US so im unaware of our own internal production that we keep vs exporting)
All imports are 9.700 TBPD and 2/3rds of that is non opec (makes you wonder why open dictates the price of oil here as much as it does)
TBPD = thousand barrels per day
Yep, thanks but none of which answers the question of how much of what is consumed in the US is produced in the US. If the US were a mass exporter of petroleum products you would think that you wouldn't need to import at all and would, indeed, be independent of OPEC - which is obviously not at all the case.
Since we don't have the actual data, it seems more likely that the US does not, in fact, produce most of what it consumes based on US reliance of external oil sources.
"Some historians see the Crusades as part of a purely defensive war against Islamic conquest; some see them as part of long-running conflict at the frontiers of Europe; and others see them as confident, aggressive, papal-led expansion attempts by Western Christendom."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
The crusades were just a continuation of continual battles for land, power struggle with religion as an excuse and motivator for the lower masses, along with the possible increase in wealth for the poor by the prospect of pillage and a certain increase in the wealth of the already wealthy buy just not giving back the lands conquered.
All sides committed atrocities, the Christians included.
From the same source:
"The crusaders often pillaged the countries through which they traveled in the typical medieval manner of supplying an army on the move."
"Nobles often retained much of the territory gained rather than returning it to the Byzantines as they had sworn to do"
"The Peoples' Crusade prompted Rhineland massacres and the murder of thousands of Jews"
So stop acting like the Christians were the good guys. They were just as bad as everyone else in those days.
that's what the USA does. most of our oil is from right here and canada
References?
I have trouble believing that 'most' of the oil and byproducts thereof consumed in the US is domestically (including CA if you want) sourced.
This would appear to be a bug in the international tax system.
Quite the contrary. It's not a bug it's a feature. The kind of deal Amazon was able to strike with Luxembourg is an important defense against overly greedy countries (like the U.S.) which try to tax more than they should be entitled to. Note that the story says this is only about non-U.S. earning. Why should the U.S. be entitled to taxes on non-U.S. earnings?
If Luxembourg is willing to offer lower tax rates than other countries, why shouldn't Amazon accept? It's no different than choosing to shop at a store that offers the lowest prices.
Turn it around. Why should Amazon be allowed to transfer profits made in any one country out of that country to avoid paying taxes there?
You, as a taxpayer, should really be asking this question because it's you, as a taxpayer, that is going to have to pick up the difference in who funds the national bill.
As far as which country, it doesn't matter. If Amazon does business in country ABC, it should pay taxes in that country per the laws of the country as part of its business model.
When mega-companies like this avoid paying taxes it's you and me that pick up the bill and I don't know about you but my personal thinking is "Fuck that let Amazon foot their part of the costs of running the country".