It seems this is how big tech is responding to the VISA lockdown by Trump and co. They will simply leave. They already moved a lot of capital abroad to avoid US taxes. Instead of bringing Indians here, they will go there. The fundamental problem is that large multinationals are playing governments off against each other. Trying to get bigger concessions for the promise of jobs. Ultimately, the working people will suffer the burden of externalities dumped on their communities (pollution, overcrowding, crime, shortages,etc) The multinationals will harvest profits while the local governments are made to look ineffective, corrupt, and inefficient because of these problems.
Google to Invest $10B in India
331–340 of 349 posts
Re: Google to Invest $10B in India
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
> volunteered as servers at his daughters wedding ... subservience I don't know about you, but when I hear "working as a server at a wedding attended by many powerful people", I don't think "subservience", I think "unique opportunity to make connections, and to potentially snoop insider information."
You must not know of Amitabh and the Shahrukh -- they're not some smalltime actors that need to get a leg up. This would be like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt offering to be servers at Jeff Bezos' daughters wedding. It's absurdly subservient.
Not really, people whose status is beyond question can do stuff like this just because they feel like it. I attended a high school play at a fancy private school in Texas and to my surprise the parking lot attendant was Michael Dell, who had a kid in the school. Nobody said “yuk yuk Dell is such a loser he worked the parking lot.”
Re: Google to Invest $10B in India
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Mukhesh Ambani who's got a good connect with the current ruling Government To be fair, Mukesh has got good connections everywhere. He is India's most powerful person. Amitabh and the Shahrukh (some of the world's richest actors, both half billionaires) both volunteered as servers at his daughters wedding as a show of appreciation. If a man can command the most powerful of his country to such level of willful subser…
I'm not familiar with Mukhesh Ambani or his reputation, but sounds like he's India's version of China's Jack Ma? Jack Ma and Alibaba came to the forefront due in part to his connections to the Chinese government. On the topic itself, it's unclear what Google's intentions are and how they could benefit from such an investment. $10B is not a big sum so is the purpose altruistic or as grease for other purposes?
More like the Koch brothers. Inherited a vast company with tremendous financial and political resources and made them even vaster and more deeply rooted.
Re: Google to Invest $10B in India
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
In France and many other EU country, tax avoidance is illegal.
So, if I decide (while living in France) to avoid paying so much tax by, say, making less money, I'm now a criminal?
Yes if you declare you're making less money by leveraging on an international structure that helps you to divert profits to another country where taxation is lower.
There are plenty case in Italy and France about both companies and individual that have been charged for tax avoidance
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-tech-google-tax/go...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/google-italy-t...
Re: Google to Invest $10B in India
#335I have mixed feelings about this one, having seen their Capital G investment portfolios before. Let's hope they actually make an impact with this one.
Now let's begin with an analysis: This is the only company in their portfolio doing anything very relevant to helping India: https://ayefin.com/our-products/ The rest are profitable companies - but not like helping Indian economies or anything serving a very large amount of people. It's a micro finance model, very helpful to India (helping businessmen and farmers avoid some terrible loan sharks), however it's a business, not a charity.
Now let's talk motivations. FB recently invested in Jio, and I'm quite sure this was their most successful investment, after the 'Free Basics' idea fell through and all people protested against OTT services being subsidized and the idea of net neutrality. Now, it is well known that if you control the wire, you control the internet. You control the relevance of a website, it's advertising potential and finally, it's net revenue.
FB may have gotten some sweet insider deal from Jio, so Google may now be running helter-skelter to not become the loser in the big picture. Unless Sundar Pitchai got a boost of Indian patriotism and decided to help India, like shown in some recent movies (highly doubt it).
I mean, if they had already done something to boost small startups and create value for India, they had a 12+ year lead, lots of people - and they could have done something. But they did not. Maybe now they'll try to join forces with some telco (Airtel/Vodafone) or something, who knows.
I doubt that kind of money will ever help regular Indians become better or enhance their quality of life. Unless they turned a new leaf, let's hope so.
End Rant
Re: Google to Invest $10B in India
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why is the burden of proof on the poster arguing that India is more democratic rather than the side arguing that US is more democratic? Because they made the claim, and I found this claim more unconventional and potentially more interesting to draw out than the claims in the comment they replied to. There was no conscious hidden agenda here. If someone (on whatever side of this discussion) makes a novel claim, they…
It is only a "novel" claim in America, where America must be the best of everything.
The novelty of the claim really wasn't my main point, nor was trying to make the US out to be the most democratic country. I don't even live there, and it certainly isn't just in the US that this claim would be seen as novel or unconventional. One would think someone who points out the ignorance of "Americans" would not resort to using it themselves in the same discussion.
See the Democracy Index, which rates the US as rather more democratic than India and has at least some semblance of a loose methodology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
Re: Google to Invest $10B in India
#337With $10 billion investment you can claim Delhi throne; Just saying...
Re: Google to Invest $10B in India
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
India is so culturally dissimilar to the USA that it's almost laughable to suggest that they are similar. I'm not trying to be adversarial; I just don't see any logical basis -- aside from a few years of anglophone rule -- for your premise.
OP said more similar as opposed to "completely similar" which you are implying. India definitely is more of a western country when compared to China
OP's comment is right there above mine; I haven't obscured it.
The premise of OP's argument is that India is more similar to the West than is China. The conclusion is that relative similarity will impede a future push by the West to divest from Indian manufacturing. There's a bit of a switcheroo in that argument, because the conclusion is only weakly supported by the premise. The strength of the argument depends on a comparative advantage in India-Western similarity versus Sino-Western similarity.
I don't agree that India is more of a Western country than China, apart from the influence of British rule. Think about cultural norms, religious thinking, political philosophy, racial discrimination, and women's rights in India. Would you describe these aspects of India as "Western"? China is arguably a more capitalist country than India; does that mean it is more "Western"?
Even if India were "more similar" to the West than China, it is so dissimilar from the West that it is totally within the realm of reason that the China manufacturing quagmire could be replaced by an equivalent India quagmire within a decade or two.
Both countries are faraway, populous, third-world regional powers with nuclear weapons and territorial disputes. They are more similar to each other than either of them is to the West.
There exist many third-world nations that are smaller (thus easier to influence) and closer to home (thus easier to defend in times of insecurity). If we have to invest in creating a new manufacturing hub in a place that will inevitably profit handsomely from our consumer demand, there is little sense in repeating the mistakes of the past and putting that hub in a massive Asian nation with which we have little in common.
Re: Google to Invest $10B in India
#339China is not a democracy anymore.
????? China has never been a democracy.
Of course not. But a lot of people thought it might become one, if they just investing heavily in it and spur a lot of economic growth. But the idea that with more economic growth you generate a democratic change is just wrong. If that would be the case Saudi-Arabia would be the most democratic country in the world. The opposite is the case. Economic growth just stabilises a regime. So the hope that China will ever become a democracy died in the last years. It is better to invest in countries which are already democratic like India.
Re: Google to Invest $10B in India
#340The entities that control the biosphere no longer need the Western world to survive.