A libertarian explanation is that in the age of the Regulatory State, it's often more important to be the biggest lobbyist than to make the best product. "In the Game of Crony Capitalism, you lobby or you die."
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The rise of the corporate colossus is a giant problem
91–100 of 151 posts
Re: The rise of the corporate colossus is a giant problem
#92> None of this helps the image of big business. Paying tax seems to be unavoidable for individuals but optional for firms This kind of grinds me. There are tons of tax breaks for individuals: mortgage interest deduction, tax-free health care, etc. In fact, the exclusion of health care benefits from taxation costs the government more than all corporate tax avoidance schemes put together.
There are a few tax breaks for individuals, but many more for companies. They're called "business expenses" :). I wish I could deduct everything I required as an individual (notably, there is no rent deduction for individuals).
There are enormous tax breaks for individuals. The mortgage interest deduction (which is an abomination), for instance, costs $70bn.
Re: The rise of the corporate colossus is a giant problem
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a few tax breaks for individuals, but many more for companies. They're called "business expenses" :). I wish I could deduct everything I required as an individual (notably, there is no rent deduction for individuals).
There are enormous tax breaks for individuals. The mortgage interest deduction (which is an abomination), for instance, costs $70bn.
I'd flip that around and say that's $70bn saved for people. It's not called a tax break for nothing.
Why do you consider the mortgage interest deduction an abomination?
Re: The rise of the corporate colossus is a giant problem
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are enormous tax breaks for individuals. The mortgage interest deduction (which is an abomination), for instance, costs $70bn.
I'd flip that around and say that's $70bn saved for people. It's not called a tax break for nothing. Why do you consider the mortgage interest deduction an abomination?
Because it's hugely regressive.
Re: The rise of the corporate colossus is a giant problem
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
What type of data are you wanting to move? Would you just want a huge movable block of space that you could mount somewhere?
All data associated with my user account, perhaps with some kind of a schema if applicable. Other services could then implement data import features for this, or for just the part of the data that concerns the service they are providing. Basically, it should be clear that all data connected to a person is irrevocably theirs. Any provider can build services for taking advantage of the data -- but it'd be the user's ri…
Standards happen so slowly. By the time people agreed on what should be in this, that agreement would be antiquated.
We need something like what happened with OpenID and Oauth. OpenID may be gone, but one company made a few bucks on it and OAuth is largely inspired by it. Someone needs to find a way to make a buck moving profile data around in a meaningful way then that becomes a de-facto standard that gets copied and used all over.
Then the government can regulate something that already exists rather than regulate something shitty into existence.
Re: The rise of the corporate colossus is a giant problem
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
One specific problem is that global companies are currently able to engage in tax arbitrage where they get to shuffle their profits around the world to wherever the most favorable tax rate is. This leaves many of the countries that actually host these companies and provide services to them - like educated employees, transportation infrastructure, and a judicial system - without any tax revenue from the company.
The solution is simple. Stop taxing profits. Tax consumption. Defining "profit" is nigh impossible. Starbucks is headquarted in the United States. Their research in Canada. Their beans from Columbia. European distribution is out of Germany. London finances new franchises. A location in France sells a latte for 4€. How much of that 4€ is profit and how big of a slice does each country get? Because each country has a v…
In other words, use VATs, not income taxes...
It seems that every country that use them decide to apply them in addition to income taxes. And that means the VAT is never big enough, and there is no political climate to gradually replace one with the other.
In theory, a VAT, land taxes, and universal income should form the perfect taxation system together.
Re: The rise of the corporate colossus is a giant problem
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because some areas of the law have changes in the regulations doesn't mean that the overall amount of regulation isn't increasing. Consider that the tax code[1] in 1984 was 26,000 pages long. By 1995 it was 40,000 pages. And by 2013 it was 70,000 pages. 1. http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations...
Huh? The tax code isn't even close to 70,000 pages long. What specific document are you claiming to be 70,000 pages long? The Standard Federal Tax Reporter? That's not the tax code.
I see, you are correct. It's the explanatory material that has had to grow. While it's not a given, I would assume there there is a positive relationship between the code and the explainers.
Re: The rise of the corporate colossus is a giant problem
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because some areas of the law have changes in the regulations doesn't mean that the overall amount of regulation isn't increasing. Consider that the tax code[1] in 1984 was 26,000 pages long. By 1995 it was 40,000 pages. And by 2013 it was 70,000 pages. 1. http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations...
The number of pages of regulations can increase even as the actual economic effect of regulation goes down. Air cargo deregulation is a good example: http://mercatus.org/publication/unleashing-innovation-deregu... . NLRB is another good example. I guarantee you it has more pages of regulations than it did in the 1940s--but nobody would argue it has as much power over the economy as it did back then. Indeed, increased…
I wouldn't think that an agency's ability to wield power and the amount of regulation are the same thing.
Re: The rise of the corporate colossus is a giant problem
#99A libertarian explanation is that in the age of the Regulatory State, it's often more important to be the biggest lobbyist than to make the best product. "In the Game of Crony Capitalism, you lobby or you die."
The problem with the libertarian explanation is that it contradicts the actual facts. The "age of the Regulatory" state started in the 1930's. It has been in decline for decades--with major sectors of the economy being deregulated in the 1980's and 1990's. In the 1950's and 1960's, regulatory agencies often had the power to directly exclude potential competition and set prices for goods. They have a fraction of those…
Antitrust enforcement was greatly weakened by Reagan and has never been restored to its previous level, even during Democratic Administrations [0].
Superficially, that appears to be a decrease in regulatory activity. But it's one that obviously favors consolidation, and probably has the support of a lot of big-company lobbyists.
So the reality is more complex, I think, than either you or BurningFrog are suggesting.
[0] http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril-2010/who-br...
Re: The rise of the corporate colossus is a giant problem
#100Blame "too big to fail" and negative interest rates. When big banks had problems, the solution was to make even bigger banks and giving them free money in order to look good. They take savers money with negative interest rates and give it free to big banks and companies like Google, Microsoft or Deutsche Bank. Given that if you(as a person or small company) ask a bank for money you will have to pay 20% interest rates…
This argument doesn't make any sense to me. Neither Google or Facebook or Apple have been using cheap loans to fuel growth. They have more cash flow from operations than they know what to do with, they don't need loans.
They also can't borrow at negative real interest rates. Only some governments can. And you can't blame the governments for low interest rates. At least in the medium term, interest rates are mostly set by the market, supply and demand for loans. There's not a lot of demand.