Earlier quoted context omitted.
But I mean… Ireland has a higher English proficiency? There are of course a lot of things doable fully in English. But when running a company not mastering the native language (even when all of the people you talk to speak English!) can be a big drawback.
I'm willing to bet that an American would understand the English spoken in Amsterdam better than that spoken in pubs or on playgrounds in Ireland.
Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement
371–380 of 384 posts
Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still required them to actually pay for the thing, which is a funny usage of financed. NYC public transit trains and subway were predominately privately-owned and -operated until 1940: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City... How long did the second avenue subway take to finish under benevolent government leadership?
"Still required" does not refute the fact that early railroads acquired immense real estate holdings which were (and remain) fantasically valueable as directly exploited, sold, or used as collaeteral in securing loans and bonds. The land itself immediately increased in value as transportation was made available to and through it. One excellent example is the city of Denver, Colorado, bypassed by the original transcon…
As you point out, the government's power is used to stamp out competition, or it subsidizes alternatives which drive the companies out of business.
> Serving high-need areas though wih little revenue potential
That's, by definition, not a high need. It's why our public transit is so expensive and such a small fraction of commute miles: because we don't have a focus on useful aka what people are willing to pay for. We let bums make it unsafe and dirty. We build it next to expensive, wide roads then wonder why people continue to drive when it doesn't actually go directly to where you want to go.
Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
All that money we spent on roads has locked us into car-dependent infrastructure, killing 40k+/year directly and hundreds of thousands indirectly (air pollution, etc). Great job us.
There are non-car-dependent societies that still spend money on roads.
Every year (2000-2016) we added 30,427 lane-miles of road.
The priority is clear. I guarantee it's not this lopsided in Europe. There's not even anywhere useful those roads could go.
Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement
#374My take on this is that Ireland is now willing to come into compliance because post-Brexit, they now have a monopoly on "urban core that could sustain an HQ for multinationals in a natively-English-speaking country in the EU." In other words, they relied on tax advantages as a differentiator for companies to choose Dublin over London for their EU HQ. But now, what would you choose if not Dublin? Obviously Paris and B…
Dublin is a beautiful city. It is very small though, compared to London. Imagine moving Wall St from NYC to Austin TX.
Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not ignoring any such thing, as Churchill famously said "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried". It's inconvenient even for those who are persuasive, but especially for those who are not and for those who are authoritarian - sets that tend to overlap, in my experience. As to Poland, there are no publicised plans for changes to laws that directly affec…
> If you think stripping away democracy so that Polish gays can marry is worth it then you're entitled to that view. Ah, a straw man. Please don’t do that, it’s tiresome. I’m not a fan of “stripping away democracy” per the words you tried to put into my mouth. I am however rather clear eyed about the drawbacks of democracies in how they tend to treat minorities. If that reads as being anti democracy to you, then ther…
Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US can change their tax system, if they want to. Eg they could tax land value. It's very hard to move land out of the country or hide it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax Or they could tax sales / consumption instead of trying to tax company profits. Company profits are just a bit too nebulous to tax properly. Eg you can reduce your profits just fine by shifting your capital structure from being finan…
The extent to which you can take a sizeable cut of corporate profits by taxing land / real estate is pretty limited because many profitable companies don't need much real estate. There is no rate at which you can sufficiently tax Netflix, Apple or Jane Street just with LVT while not impossibly over taxing most other businesses that use more real estate per dollar of corporate profit. And the solutions to that are not…
(Though the companies you mention do use quite a bit of real estate by value.)
Taxing corporate profits is silly, and we shouldn't even try to do it.
I suggested LVT just as the least bad way to get revenue for the fisc.
Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US can change their tax system, if they want to. Eg they could tax land value. It's very hard to move land out of the country or hide it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax Or they could tax sales / consumption instead of trying to tax company profits. Company profits are just a bit too nebulous to tax properly. Eg you can reduce your profits just fine by shifting your capital structure from being finan…
> Eg they could tax land value. It's very hard to move land out of the country or hide it. Remote work would be their solution.
If I was a bit unclear: I am not suggesting LVT as a better way to tax corporate profits. In fact I think taxing corporate profits is a silly thing to even try.
LVT is just the least bad way to raise general revenue for the fisc.
Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Texas at least has the promise of a federal system to reign in its more unpopular legislative instincts, Poland not so much. That's very weird? Wouldn't the state legislature, being elected by local people be more likely to be popular with local people than the federal government with is largely elected by people outside of Texas? (Or do you mean 'unpopular' with people outside of Texas?)
State politics in the US is not based on how many people vote for or against something in a state. It’s based on how many legislative districts vote for or against something. The difference is important when you think about how legislative districts are drawn.
Gerrymandering is a problem, yes. But even a gerrymandered state would arguably have more democratic legitimation within the state, than the federal government, which is still largely voted for by non-Texans and also with somewhat idiosyncratic election rules.
Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
>How so? Because you weren't having a conversation with someone trying to convince them of anything, you jumped in to police the speech of someone expressing their frustration with the state of their nation. >When you talk down to people, tell them that they are uncivilized, and call them stupid or “deplorable” they’ll sink the entire ship and take themselves down with you just to spite you. And if you go around piss…
> Because you weren't having a conversation with someone trying to convince them of anything, you jumped in to police the speech of someone expressing their frustration with the state of their nation. So they were having a conversation and I’m not? I don’t really get your point. > And if you go around pissing off the people who are trying to achieve the same goals as you, they'll stop putting in any effort. …sure ok.…
My point is there is a major contextual difference between someone entering a conversation between you and a third party to say rude things about the third party and someone making general statements in a public forum and you jumping in on behalf of a theoretical third party who may not actually be offended.
Re: Ireland joins OECD International Tax agreement
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excuse me? are there not senior officials [0] in these organisations that convene these things, set timelines and such? I’m sorry if I am using some definition of the colloquially term “brass” that you are not familiar with. You condescending fool. EDIT [0] https://search.oecd.org/about/structure/
This fool has been well aware for decades that they have various deliberative and measuring staff but no ability to order anyone* around. The world needs organizations like the oecd but they hardly have “brass” like, say, the EU does, much less national governments. * ok, if your job is to track, say, land usage and you don’t do your job you have a boss who can presumably fire you but that’s about as exciting as it g…