Creative accounting and structuring implies an actively hostile posture towards the IRS as opposed to getting the last dollar out of your 1040.
You're doing it for the extra dollar, with negligible free-rider problems Apple's doing it with the intent of having its cake and eating it, which creates a large free-rider problem.
Yes, evasion in a manner that the IRS would do well to re-evaluate. No, it's not on the same level as what one might do with a regular tax return.
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.
The problem occurs when US operations are made to look like non-US operations, creating a very harmful free-rider situation. They are getting US protections and services without the requisite revenue paid to the US.
In addition, it is the only effective way to pursue structured revenue, especially when the US has a few world-leading departments under the DoD to help.
This needs to stop, and while it's impossible to prevent all forms of harassment from occurring online, we can start by creating a culture that shames individuals who cross the bounds of decency.
Does this include shaming individuals that fake their own threats, such as Anita Sarkeesian and silence any attempts to call them out?
Similarly, it is never acceptable to dox, harass, post nude pictures, or in any other way violate someone's privacy due to disagreement with their opinions.
Does that include the kinds of harassment performed by Chelsea "Zoe Quinn" van Valkenberg, Sarkeesian, and the like? Or is it OK if they do it, but not if anyone else calls them on it?
If you think the USA is somehow on a moral high ground here, I really wonder why.
See my title - China has been proven to do it while Snowden hasn't even gone to a US court. The only people that think that the US has lost any moral ground are those that oppose the US, and/or additionally support Snowden's allegations.
So you're fine with having someone's life be divined on the scoring of a few track-determining tests? The US system doesn't have that flaw. One can improve your academic performance at any time, get a recommendation, and then move up to Honors/AP. Try that in compulsory streaming and you end up going through an entire lower track before your performance is recognized.
Europe and Asia schools teach the three "R"s, while here in the US, the kids are taught the three "C"s (conform, comply, consume.) The K-12 system is designed to get kids on the edge into jail until age 18 (23 in California) so that private prison companies can make some cash from holding them
I guess you went to a van der Snoot Academy, since you have a high disdain for public schools. Good public schools (yes, the ones run by governments) do exist and they do send people to very good places (even Ivies!).
This is why in college engineering departments, STEM majors are usually non-Americans, since H1-b/L-1/etc. guest worker programs make it non-profitable to pursue them.
Any conclusions so far about tests can safely be considered as flawed since they do not take admission type into account. That is, an educational system that takes everybody is penalized while more selective systems (Asia, Europe) do not.
Controlling for access methods (US all-access versus Asian compulsory streaming for example) would show something a bit less favorable to Asia. Never mind that the test score in Asia leaves no room for improvement - it simply forces you on one track.
There seems to be a general "throw everything and the kitchen sink" response by employers against US citizens, while bending over backwards for foreign/guest workers. The only worry an employer has in this respect is that someone calls them out on the fraud.
Schneier's allegations require that you believe a known non-trustworthy person (Edward Snowden)'s own allegation for that to be true.
When all of that can be brought to bear in a US court with Snowden et al in custody, then you can start talking about it as truth when it is proven to be truth.
A lot of that departure was driven by the political climate in the 1980s, which was to exact vengance on those industries and their supporters. The finishing blow came when the opposition encouraged non-assimilating immigrants to flood in. To a limited extent, that's playing out in current-day United States, except through various actions.
What Thatcher (and the financial interests she enabled) couldn't kill, the opposition managed to finish off through importation of non-assimilating individuals from the Third World.
We need to separate employers from healthcare anyways.
Only if you don't like the benefits coming from economies of scale. Those disappear even in the ACA.
You can enjoy your second-tier care with an small employer while I'll enjoy less sacrifice with a direct-hire/non-contractor employer that can use economies of scale to provide more benefits per dollar.
In the future I expect more and more small businesses and boutiques. You can run a small yet profitable business with just two or three people.
Never mind that you are operating in a high-failure part of the private sector with people that cannot really afford to fail. That, and you have no scale to offset purchase costs, especially those relating to benefits.
All their cars look like Tonka toys and have the build quality of a Chinese iPhone knock off
That's part of the "Check a few boxes and ship a translated owner's manual" treatment of the Western markets. Second to that is the over-regulation by environmental groups that operate by the "small cars for thee, but not for me" philosophy.
Can we just get back those Quad 4 engines? Why does a modern Ecotoc need 2.5L to produce the same power of a 2.3L Quad 4 W41 from 1990?
Making corner-cutting, granola-eating-environmentalist pleasing 4-cylinder-based cars is not the primary specialty of General Motors - especially when you see that most of them are captive imports(Spark/Aveo, Cruze, about anything Buick). The only saving grace is that GM doesn't opt to make cylinders appear through thin air (a la Ford's EcoBoost). Let GM make the larger vehicles for less, which is their specialty, and they will do well.
Personally, I'd not mind if GM decided to make Buick solely a Chinese brand, and then bring in Oldsmobile in their traditional positioning to cover the void in the US. Then find a creative way to (effectively) offer more car than what EPA's CAFE regulations would allow - perhaps by allowing US-spec imports of 4-cylinder cars to be placed on order but not generally stocked. If one were to go beyond that, lobby to have the EPA's regulations removed or curtailed.
It's also being moved from the U.S. to China, as an acknowledgment of where the heart of the tech hardware business is now.
It also indicates the further wish to be out of touch with Western markets and continue to decline in overall quality. Checking a few boxes and translating the manual makes for a bad execution on implementing a product in other markets - as opposed to integrating the expectations made by the target market.
Besides, having it in Los Angeles doesn't diminish the value of Eastern contributions, but serves as a barrier to entry for the unqualified.
China and their fellow freedom-reducing brethren operate on the idea of stealing from nations that innovate. A proven secondary use for that is for them to use it against their own citizens.
The US and the rest of the civilized world operate on the idea of creating something new or advancing existing technology in a new way. Unlike China, there has been no solid evidence to prove use against citizens - just the allegations of a spurned traitor(who in turn gave what he had to China and Russia, of all irony).
So entitlement mentality (in this case, an arrogant disregard for the residents around you) is OK if you have a measure of success, but not if you don't?
In the specific case of Facebook, it is not about driving wages down. Facebook pays decent wages, even for Silicon Valley standards. It is about not increasing wages.
If it's not (in any way) about wages, then there would be no problem for Congress to repeal the 1965 Immigration Act in its entirety, cancel all the programs enabled by it, and (via the market) actively/aggressively solicit long-term unemployed US citizens in their place - as regular workers. There are more than enough of them to go around to be not only qualified, but very well qualified. Unfortunately, citizenship in the US makes people expensive, even for hard-working, by-the-book immigrants that want to come to the US.
Truth of the matter is, in the SF Bay Area, it is hard to be unemployed if you're a properly skilled tech worker, citizen, green-card holder or otherwise.
Truth of the matter is that "properly skilled" can be redefined to exclude otherwise-suitable US citizens too easily. In the eyes of an H1-b/L1/etc. supporter, "properly skilled" is equivalent to saying "has proper fear of an employer". If you were to go to the extreme end of business-friendliness (which spawned the H1-b preference), the ultimately qualified worker is a slave. They cost nothing and are the easiest to dispose.
That doesn't mean I condone the way that the H1-B program often is being abused today. I've seen abuse, and we'll always see that.
Then get rid of what enables the abuse - every single guest worker program. After that, strict enforcement of immigration laws already on the books - SB1070 and similar laws show that it works.
But this is only made possible due to the ridiculous limits on permanent resident visas vs the amount of H1-B visas, as I pointed out in this comment
The only proper limit for all guest worker programs is 0. If you want someone enough, they'll take up naturalization where they can't be corralled between sponsor employers. It might make them incur business-unfriendly "costs of freedom" (by being able to choose their employer), but the market also functions to raise prices.
No thank you, but China's reputation has been to make it worse in the name of making it "cheaper".
They've done it themselves, and do it to about every brand they touch.
Lenovo? They have the opposite of the Midas Touch - everything they touch becomes worse (Thinkpads, servers, etc.). The GM H2/H3? It's not even a Suburban. Buick? At least you could get a decent one before China was prioritized. Now it's Opels, Daewoos, and cut-down I4 mysterymeat cars everywhere. Geely? They've devalued the Volvo brand in ways that no other country would dare.
No thank you, but I'll pass on something that had problems *before* China got involved.
Concerts don't generally pack people into sealed areas with no provisions for leaving the venue(which in the case of the airline, is the plane at 35,000). As for cars, the same generally applies - as you can pull over to a safe area and exit in a speedier manner. Air travel has no such advantages, so a certain degree of comfort is expected at minimum - enough that people have no thought to warrant a diverted flight.
If you're going to be packed in a crammed space, cannot leave it, and it is not punitive in nature, it is a generally bad idea to do extra charges. That, and bad customer service might work for the bean counters that end up having enough status to escape their design, but not everyone is fortunate enough to have it.
Slashdot Mirror
Creative accounting and structuring implies an actively hostile posture towards the IRS as opposed to getting the last dollar out of your 1040.
You're doing it for the extra dollar, with negligible free-rider problems
Apple's doing it with the intent of having its cake and eating it, which creates a large free-rider problem.
They're paying what they should be paying.
Only with such structured evasion.
Yes, evasion in a manner that the IRS would do well to re-evaluate. No, it's not on the same level as what one might do with a regular tax return.
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.
The problem occurs when US operations are made to look like non-US operations, creating a very harmful free-rider situation. They are getting US protections and services without the requisite revenue paid to the US.
In addition, it is the only effective way to pursue structured revenue, especially when the US has a few world-leading departments under the DoD to help.
This needs to stop, and while it's impossible to prevent all forms of harassment from occurring online, we can start by creating a culture that shames individuals who cross the bounds of decency.
Does this include shaming individuals that fake their own threats, such as Anita Sarkeesian and silence any attempts to call them out?
Similarly, it is never acceptable to dox, harass, post nude pictures, or in any other way violate someone's privacy due to disagreement with their opinions.
Does that include the kinds of harassment performed by Chelsea "Zoe Quinn" van Valkenberg, Sarkeesian, and the like? Or is it OK if they do it, but not if anyone else calls them on it?
I guess you didn't read the Snowden allegations
FTFY.
If you think the USA is somehow on a moral high ground here, I really wonder why.
See my title - China has been proven to do it while Snowden hasn't even gone to a US court. The only people that think that the US has lost any moral ground are those that oppose the US, and/or additionally support Snowden's allegations.
Miami has more entrepreneurial activity per capita than silicon valley
Only if you count trackable, legal activity.
Probably why the company is in Florida, the state that sacrifices everyone else to you if you run a business.
So is the alternative, the defined-contribution model.
You get less overall performance and casino-like odds on returns.
Presuming conventional admissions cases to secondary level institutions, yes.
At the secondary level(or what goes on after the 9th/8th year), people are streamed into rigid tracks that discourage and delay upward movement.
Nothing wrong with Europe's system
So you're fine with having someone's life be divined on the scoring of a few track-determining tests? The US system doesn't have that flaw.
One can improve your academic performance at any time, get a recommendation, and then move up to Honors/AP. Try that in compulsory streaming and you end up going through an entire lower track before your performance is recognized.
Europe and Asia schools teach the three "R"s, while here in the US, the kids are taught the three "C"s (conform, comply, consume.) The K-12 system is designed to get kids on the edge into jail until age 18 (23 in California) so that private prison companies can make some cash from holding them
I guess you went to a van der Snoot Academy, since you have a high disdain for public schools. Good public schools (yes, the ones run by governments) do exist and they do send people to very good places (even Ivies!).
This is why in college engineering departments, STEM majors are usually non-Americans, since H1-b/L-1/etc. guest worker programs make it non-profitable to pursue them.
FTFY.
Any conclusions so far about tests can safely be considered as flawed since they do not take admission type into account. That is, an educational system that takes everybody is penalized while more selective systems (Asia, Europe) do not.
Controlling for access methods (US all-access versus Asian compulsory streaming for example) would show something a bit less favorable to Asia. Never mind that the test score in Asia leaves no room for improvement - it simply forces you on one track.
There seems to be a general "throw everything and the kitchen sink" response by employers against US citizens, while bending over backwards for foreign/guest workers. The only worry an employer has in this respect is that someone calls them out on the fraud.
Schneier's allegations require that you believe a known non-trustworthy person (Edward Snowden)'s own allegation for that to be true.
When all of that can be brought to bear in a US court with Snowden et al in custody, then you can start talking about it as truth when it is proven to be truth.
A lot of that departure was driven by the political climate in the 1980s, which was to exact vengance on those industries and their supporters. The finishing blow came when the opposition encouraged non-assimilating immigrants to flood in. To a limited extent, that's playing out in current-day United States, except through various actions.
What Thatcher (and the financial interests she enabled) couldn't kill, the opposition managed to finish off through importation of non-assimilating individuals from the Third World.
We need to separate employers from healthcare anyways.
Only if you don't like the benefits coming from economies of scale. Those disappear even in the ACA.
You can enjoy your second-tier care with an small employer while I'll enjoy less sacrifice with a direct-hire/non-contractor employer that can use economies of scale to provide more benefits per dollar.
In the future I expect more and more small businesses and boutiques. You can run a small yet profitable business with just two or three people.
Never mind that you are operating in a high-failure part of the private sector with people that cannot really afford to fail. That, and you have no scale to offset purchase costs, especially those relating to benefits.
All their cars look like Tonka toys and have the build quality of a Chinese iPhone knock off
That's part of the "Check a few boxes and ship a translated owner's manual" treatment of the Western markets. Second to that is the over-regulation by environmental groups that operate by the "small cars for thee, but not for me" philosophy.
Can we just get back those Quad 4 engines? Why does a modern Ecotoc need 2.5L to produce the same power of a 2.3L Quad 4 W41 from 1990?
Making corner-cutting, granola-eating-environmentalist pleasing 4-cylinder-based cars is not the primary specialty of General Motors - especially when you see that most of them are captive imports(Spark/Aveo, Cruze, about anything Buick). The only saving grace is that GM doesn't opt to make cylinders appear through thin air (a la Ford's EcoBoost). Let GM make the larger vehicles for less, which is their specialty, and they will do well.
Personally, I'd not mind if GM decided to make Buick solely a Chinese brand, and then bring in Oldsmobile in their traditional positioning to cover the void in the US. Then find a creative way to (effectively) offer more car than what EPA's CAFE regulations would allow - perhaps by allowing US-spec imports of 4-cylinder cars to be placed on order but not generally stocked. If one were to go beyond that, lobby to have the EPA's regulations removed or curtailed.
It's also being moved from the U.S. to China, as an acknowledgment of where the heart of the tech hardware business is now.
It also indicates the further wish to be out of touch with Western markets and continue to decline in overall quality. Checking a few boxes and translating the manual makes for a bad execution on implementing a product in other markets - as opposed to integrating the expectations made by the target market.
Besides, having it in Los Angeles doesn't diminish the value of Eastern contributions, but serves as a barrier to entry for the unqualified.
China and their fellow freedom-reducing brethren operate on the idea of stealing from nations that innovate. A proven secondary use for that is for them to use it against their own citizens.
The US and the rest of the civilized world operate on the idea of creating something new or advancing existing technology in a new way. Unlike China, there has been no solid evidence to prove use against citizens - just the allegations of a spurned traitor(who in turn gave what he had to China and Russia, of all irony).
H-1B's are the only realistic way to immigrate to the US based on skill. Kill H-1Bs and you kill skill based immigration.
Nope. Kill them, replace it with a citizen-favoring system and you end up having to work with the US population.
Canada and Europe would like nothing more than that, because they make it easy to shaft their own citizens
FTFY.
So entitlement mentality (in this case, an arrogant disregard for the residents around you) is OK if you have a measure of success, but not if you don't?
You should try actually being a "guest worker" in another country sometime. Then maybe you'd see how completely full of crap you are.
That doesn't disprove the issues in the US. All that it does is show other guest worker programs, where similar contempt exists.
In the specific case of Facebook, it is not about driving wages down. Facebook pays decent wages, even for Silicon Valley standards. It is about not increasing wages.
If it's not (in any way) about wages, then there would be no problem for Congress to repeal the 1965 Immigration Act in its entirety, cancel all the programs enabled by it, and (via the market) actively/aggressively solicit long-term unemployed US citizens in their place - as regular workers. There are more than enough of them to go around to be not only qualified, but very well qualified. Unfortunately, citizenship in the US makes people expensive, even for hard-working, by-the-book immigrants that want to come to the US.
Truth of the matter is, in the SF Bay Area, it is hard to be unemployed if you're a properly skilled tech worker, citizen, green-card holder or otherwise.
Truth of the matter is that "properly skilled" can be redefined to exclude otherwise-suitable US citizens too easily. In the eyes of an H1-b/L1/etc. supporter, "properly skilled" is equivalent to saying "has proper fear of an employer". If you were to go to the extreme end of business-friendliness (which spawned the H1-b preference), the ultimately qualified worker is a slave. They cost nothing and are the easiest to dispose.
That doesn't mean I condone the way that the H1-B program often is being abused today. I've seen abuse, and we'll always see that.
Then get rid of what enables the abuse - every single guest worker program. After that, strict enforcement of immigration laws already on the books - SB1070 and similar laws show that it works.
But this is only made possible due to the ridiculous limits on permanent resident visas vs the amount of H1-B visas, as I pointed out in this comment
The only proper limit for all guest worker programs is 0. If you want someone enough, they'll take up naturalization where they can't be corralled between sponsor employers. It might make them incur business-unfriendly "costs of freedom" (by being able to choose their employer), but the market also functions to raise prices.
No thank you, but China's reputation has been to make it worse in the name of making it "cheaper".
They've done it themselves, and do it to about every brand they touch.
Lenovo? They have the opposite of the Midas Touch - everything they touch becomes worse (Thinkpads, servers, etc.).
The GM H2/H3? It's not even a Suburban.
Buick? At least you could get a decent one before China was prioritized. Now it's Opels, Daewoos, and cut-down I4 mysterymeat cars everywhere.
Geely? They've devalued the Volvo brand in ways that no other country would dare.
No thank you, but I'll pass on something that had problems *before* China got involved.
Concerts don't generally pack people into sealed areas with no provisions for leaving the venue(which in the case of the airline, is the plane at 35,000). As for cars, the same generally applies - as you can pull over to a safe area and exit in a speedier manner. Air travel has no such advantages, so a certain degree of comfort is expected at minimum - enough that people have no thought to warrant a diverted flight.
If you're going to be packed in a crammed space, cannot leave it, and it is not punitive in nature, it is a generally bad idea to do extra charges. That, and bad customer service might work for the bean counters that end up having enough status to escape their design, but not everyone is fortunate enough to have it.