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$800M to support small businesses and crisis response

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41–50 of 92 posts

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The House just passed a two trillion dollar relief bill. That's almost 3 times the entire value of alphabet. And much of that's going to obtaining medical supplies. What are you talking about?

>The House just passed a two trillion dollar relief bill. My understanding is it is $6T, with $4T going to the Fed so the bankers can make money with it...

2010 called, it wants its memes back.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#42

This is NOT funding : - $250 million in ad grants ... - $340 million in Google Ads credits ... - A pool of $20 million in Google Cloud credits ... A company that has a Bazillion $ in the bank, has means to really make a difference. This is not. Edit/Clarification: The original title was: "$800M funding and grants to support ..". Now they changed it. I take issue with the claim of providing funding, and all they offer…

Why does a company with a Bazillion dollars in the bank need to be a charity? If we agree that's the case, we should tax companies more. If not, what's the problem?

I tend to agree with you (and I'm a Googler), but good luck passing that tax legislation in the next few days. This emergency is now. There will be plenty of time to evaluate the degree to which our country has disabled and defunded government institutions, leaving us vulnerable in this sort of crisis - but first we have to get to the other side of the crisis.

We should acknowledge the fact that these corporations are acting now, while keeping the perspective that the cash they are spending isn't in government coffers to spend on this pandemic in part because of the low corporate taxes.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The House just passed a two trillion dollar relief bill. That's almost 3 times the entire value of alphabet. And much of that's going to obtaining medical supplies. What are you talking about?

>The House just passed a two trillion dollar relief bill. My understanding is it is $6T, with $4T going to the Fed so the bankers can make money with it...

Could you provide a source for that? A quick googling returned nothing for me.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any accountants here? Isn't this just an accounting trick? They're going to lose revenue. But can't they now issue this "grant", and then pretend they aren't losing revenue -- they're just issuing a grant? Or is that not how it works? I don't know, but would like to know.

They're still losing revenue in that, when these ad credits are spent, they're not receiving any actual money from advertisements that would have shown up in place of these free ads.

I’m not an accountant, but I do know that gift cards should be recognized as revenue at the time of services rendered, not at the time of a sale of a gift card. Are grants similar in that a “gift card” is being granted and the revenue can be realized at a later date?

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#46

This is NOT funding : - $250 million in ad grants ... - $340 million in Google Ads credits ... - A pool of $20 million in Google Cloud credits ... A company that has a Bazillion $ in the bank, has means to really make a difference. This is not. Edit/Clarification: The original title was: "$800M funding and grants to support ..". Now they changed it. I take issue with the claim of providing funding, and all they offer…

Why does a company with a Bazillion dollars in the bank need to be a charity? If we agree that's the case, we should tax companies more. If not, what's the problem?

Do you think you would get better services or obviate the need for corporate charity if the US government had an extra 10% revenue?

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#47
I think Google could afford to spend a couple billions more to fund the manufacturing and distribution of masks and ventillators, instead of announcing a support package with the bulk in ad credits.

Also, Google employs some of the best marketers on the planet, they should be showing ads for how to wear masks correctly and for practical safety guidelines, and leverage everything they've learned about human psychology to disperse information that could save lives.

That's what it means to actually want to do something, not just pretend with ad credits that ultimately boost your own business.

Right now I'm getting an ad for Milka chocolate as I watch news videos about the pandemic on YouTube, instead of being offered a chance to learn how to safely disinfect groceries.

Google does not need to give out ad credits to WHO to be able to run public safety ads today across all AdSense sites. They have the money and the talent to spin up a massive public safety campaign within days.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#48
post #8

Google is helping small businesses by providing Ad credits? Of all things a small business may need, Google thinks Ads are the solution? The response to this crisis has my cynicism and disdain for our system growing every day.

Yep, ad money has suddenly dried up and auction prices have plummeted so might as well give away the ad credits to inflate the auction prices allowing both a higher tax deduction and better looking performance.

The "might as well give away the ad credits" part makes sense to me, but the part about inflating prices and getting a higher tax deduction doesn't make sense.

I'm not an accountant by any means, but I don't see how there even would be a deduction here. From what I could quickly dig up, even if you donate your services to a nonprofit, you can only deduct your costs, not the price you'd normally charge a paying customer. And of course this isn't even a nonprofit; it's just a freebie to a business.

So while cutting supply might create higher auction prices for paying customers (than you'd otherwise have), the grants themselves don't seem like they'd do anything advantageous for taxes.

Of course, there are expenses with serving ads that they can take out after revenue to reduce how much profit they'll be taxed on, but I'm not sure there are many expenses coming from this giveaway. Seems they would have incurred most of the expense without doing the giveaway because they've already got the computer hardware up and running to serve ads. This is just a way to try to get some value out of the expense that you're going to pay anyway.

Re: $800M to support small businesses and crisis response

#50
post #47

I think Google could afford to spend a couple billions more to fund the manufacturing and distribution of masks and ventillators, instead of announcing a support package with the bulk in ad credits. Also, Google employs some of the best marketers on the planet, they should be showing ads for how to wear masks correctly and for practical safety guidelines, and leverage everything they've learned about human psychology…

True, but wouldn't that incentivize people to seek out masks when the already short supply is needed for the health care workers?
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