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IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

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Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#581
post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same kind of mental gymnastics that gave us trickle down economics. The societal ethics, morality and the spirit of the law should all be taken into account when judging behaviour. Exploiting tax structures in order to conceal income is absolutely immoral and shouldn't be tolerated. This is especially egregious when the tax loopholes are effectively gated behind behing a multi-national corporation. It lea…

Immoral or shrewd?

It's possible to be technically correct but still be an asshole.

Making use of the ability to employ considerable resources to reduce your corporation's tax burden in ways that organisations without those resources cannot is absolutely a violation of the social contract surrounding taxation, which typically follows the convention that those who profit the most from society should return the most. As a result it's no longer shrewd but immoral.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the furniture market is just insane. If you want a chest of drawers, you either pay $100 for a cheap flat pack self-assembled one from IKEA and take it home today, or similar prices for a similar one online from Wayfair.com (a bit more of a gamble), or you pay over $1000 for something that won’t show up for 6 months. It’s bizarre that you can buy a brand new car with cash and take it home today, but the supply…

Or you get a good one second hand for $50?

And risk thousands of dollars and years of trauma from bed bugs.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which degree should we start judging at? When people deduct taxes for donations to universities to increase the odds of their child being accepted? When people deduct taxes for charity to their church/temple/organization/other tribe in order to direct resources in a way that might benefit them more directly versus the nation as a whole? It's either legal or it's not. If you want the "abuse" to stop, then elect the le…

>Which degree should we start judging at? Morality doesn't need to be codified into exact terms in order to be relevant. At what point does killing become a crime? When you kill an ant for no reason? When you kill an animal for food? Or when you kill another human for survival? Intuitively I know the differences. But articulating my intuition into words can lead to loop holes so I'd rather not. The moral module in yo…

>You don't need a law to tell the difference from right and wrong and nothing is as simple as electing the right person to make things right again.

A business that tries to do the "right" thing in a system that allows everyone else to do the "wrong" thing, will not survive.

Is it wrong to not offer a new mother sufficient time to bond with her newborn and breastfeed her newborn for a minimum year per the recommendation of medical research? Yet almost no employers in the US, and especially no employers of lower paid workers can afford to give a mother proper time for maternity leave or to pump breastmilk. The margins are so cutthroat that the business would not exist anymore.

I'm not saying this is comparable to IKEA's tax avoidance, or that IKEA would cease to exist if it didn't do what it was doing. But almost all businesses are doing the "wrong" thing, some more than others, but I won't blame them if they're playing within the rules.

However, if IKEA is then using its proceeds to lobby politicians to continue the existence of a tax code that allows it to steal from society, I do consider that morally repugnant and would judge IKEA negatively for that.

In my new mother not being able to breastfeed scenario, I'm not going to blame the individual business for only giving 15 min of break time. I'm going to blame the government, which only forced employers to give 15 minute breaks for pumping milk, which anyone who has ever pumped milk would tell you is an impossibly short time to travel to the break room, setup supplies, pump milk, store it, and go back to work.

I myself take advantage of various tax loopholes, such as the 1031 tax exchange. However, I use it to keep up with my competition, and further, I contribute and lobby those who I can to remove these tax loopholes.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#584
post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

The quality is such a big differentiator. In my household we have a mix of IKEA furniture and flat-pack stuff from other vendors (the Brick, Wayfair, etc), and IKEA is so much better on all fronts— the materials are thicker and tougher, the fasteners are larger and stronger, the designs are better thought out and easier to assemble; there's just no comparison.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#585
post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immoral or shrewd?

It's possible to be technically correct but still be an asshole. Making use of the ability to employ considerable resources to reduce your corporation's tax burden in ways that organisations without those resources cannot is absolutely a violation of the social contract surrounding taxation, which typically follows the convention that those who profit the most from society should return the most. As a result it's no…

Even if the tax structure they're using enables them to hire more employees so those employees can survive more comfortably?

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#586
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why people hate IKEA. Did you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA#Criticisms ? There seems to be many reasons to dislike the company, even as a happy customer. One thing that stuck with me is this: "The IKEA group has a complex corporate structure, which members of the European Parliament have alleged was designed to avoid over €1 billion in tax payments over the 2009–2014 period." It seems e…

That’s a problem of unnecessarily complicated tax laws.

That's a problem of companies trying to avoid paying taxes. Something that worker class can't do or solve.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#587

It's none of my business if Ikea wants to buy productive forest land and take it out of production. However, I don't understand how it is any kind of signal of virtue. Would it be virtuous to buy productive farm land and take it out of circulation? How is forest land any different? In a previous life, it would be broadly correct to say that I worked in the forest industry. My body still hurts when I think about it. I…

It's a rather poorly written, biased article, with a typo in the first sentence, but IKEA isn't taking the land/trees out of circulation. They're using the resources while also aligning this move with their other sustainability goals, including on the carbon side.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly. If you want to fix furniture, you need space and tools, so you need bigger houses (or the ability to move the furniture to a community spot) and tools. Tools will generally be made of metal, and needs factories to make these tools. Some of the parts are available freely: I'm guessing not all are. Manufacturing will need to be different as well if your pieces aren't designed to be repaired in such a way: Who…

What 'Tools' are needed to repair a chair or a wardrobe? A screwdriver, a saw, a drill? They last decades, and can be used to repair tens of thousands of items. To suggest that their environmental impact is higher than that of equivalent favtory equipment needed to produce furniture is delusional.

The issue isn't so much that ONE drill or saw is so much more - though, there are specialized tools for furniture that I do not have, but I also don't have a drill. The issue is that isn't just me needing these things if you want furniture repaired. If you want folks to fix things at home, you need everyone to have access to them if not own them. Everyone needs space to work on things if needed. If it isn't at the house, you need transportation. You aren't even reducing the factory equipment on-hand because it still would need to be produced. Dining chairs, for example, tend to get abused just by use and break in ways that cannot be fixed (oops, leg broke in half and I can't make this without woodworking tools and lots of training).

You are simply reducing manufacturing of one type of furniture with another (that doesn't use the scraps in production) and very much increasing a lot of other manufacturing and increasing the space people need to have available to do these things.

Edit: I'll mention that many folks are simply going to buy the cheapest tools to fix stuff: A decent drill isn't cheap, but a cheap drill might get you by if you only use it lightly and occasionally. If people are using them more, I suspect more will be thrown away. At least the furniture is using some renewable products: Drills aren't made of wood and pressure and glues.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#589

It's none of my business if Ikea wants to buy productive forest land and take it out of production. However, I don't understand how it is any kind of signal of virtue. Would it be virtuous to buy productive farm land and take it out of circulation? How is forest land any different? In a previous life, it would be broadly correct to say that I worked in the forest industry. My body still hurts when I think about it. I…

What's the overall effect of forests vs farm/crop land? Forests provide homes to lots of animals. Farms do not. Forests help recycle the air. Farms do not. I'm sure there's others, but you get the point. At least, I hope you can honestly see a difference between a forest and farm land and that this is just some sort of mental gymnastics excersising of your devil's advocate muscles.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I hate IKEA because they are selling pure crap.

I've been very happy with my Ikea purchases. Some of the materials are cheaper, but usually the overall function is better than products that would cost some multiple of the price. We have the means to buy the more expensive furniture, but I can't find any retailers that offer things that are as well-designed as IKEA, and IKEA seems to concern itself with the environment (although it's frustratingly easy for a retail…

They're also a good source for certain fully manufactured products.

Eg. If you want rechargeable NiMH batteries, IKEA's are some of the best you can get. Their smart bulbs also have a good reputation.

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