11–20 of 133 posts
> When Google received funding for its algorithm from the National Science Foundation (NSF), is it right that after it earned billions nothing went back to the NSF Serious mental gymnastics. Page and Brin doing research with NSF grants isn't even remotely the same thing as Google, their future company, getting a check directly from the government. Page and Brin produced publicly available research with NSF money. The…
He makes it sound like the USA would be just as well off if big tech companies weren't here.
The US government is basically a ~15% shareholder in all US companies due to salary and other taxes. If they can invest in technology research and build more US companies, then the US government earns a net profit.
I would like to see a breakdown for a major technology company to see what percentage of their revenue goes to income tax withholding, and then see how much government funding went into helping that company come to life.
Edits:
1. Number adjustment
2. By "income tax witholding" I mean the income tax that the employees pay. If 50% of revenue goes to salaries, and 20% of salaries go to income tax witholding, then 10% of a company's revenue goes to income tax.
"Economists think this will happen via tax (from the jobs created, and from the profits of the companies), yet so many of the companies that receive such benefits from state funding, bring their jobs elsewhere, and of course we know they also pay very little tax." He makes it sound like the USA would be just as well off if big tech companies weren't here. The US government is basically a ~15% shareholder in all US co…
> When Google received funding for its algorithm from the National Science Foundation (NSF), is it right that after it earned billions nothing went back to the NSF Serious mental gymnastics. Page and Brin doing research with NSF grants isn't even remotely the same thing as Google, their future company, getting a check directly from the government. Page and Brin produced publicly available research with NSF money. The…
Then why does Stanford own the PageRank patent instead of Page and Brin?
> When Google received funding for its algorithm from the National Science Foundation (NSF), is it right that after it earned billions nothing went back to the NSF Serious mental gymnastics. Page and Brin doing research with NSF grants isn't even remotely the same thing as Google, their future company, getting a check directly from the government. Page and Brin produced publicly available research with NSF money. The…
Then why does Stanford own the PageRank patent instead of Page and Brin?
"Economists think this will happen via tax (from the jobs created, and from the profits of the companies), yet so many of the companies that receive such benefits from state funding, bring their jobs elsewhere, and of course we know they also pay very little tax." He makes it sound like the USA would be just as well off if big tech companies weren't here. The US government is basically a ~15% shareholder in all US co…
remember that time GE paid basically 0% in taxes? the 30% number is only in theory (there is the salary breakdown but I don't think 30% is the number that ends up hitting)
> When Google received funding for its algorithm from the National Science Foundation (NSF), is it right that after it earned billions nothing went back to the NSF Serious mental gymnastics. Page and Brin doing research with NSF grants isn't even remotely the same thing as Google, their future company, getting a check directly from the government. Page and Brin produced publicly available research with NSF money. The…
"Economists think this will happen via tax (from the jobs created, and from the profits of the companies), yet so many of the companies that receive such benefits from state funding, bring their jobs elsewhere, and of course we know they also pay very little tax." He makes it sound like the USA would be just as well off if big tech companies weren't here. The US government is basically a ~15% shareholder in all US co…
remember that time GE paid basically 0% in taxes? the 30% number is only in theory (there is the salary breakdown but I don't think 30% is the number that ends up hitting)
If your beef is that the US govt shouldn't subsidize things via the tax code, then that's a separate issue. If your beef is that GE should pay nonzero taxes, then you should view it as "GE paid X% taxes, and then did things it did not want to do unsubsidized in order to earn back -X% taxes as a reward." In which case, GE did pay taxes. They just then took advantage of an opportunity to earn back those taxes in exchange for investing in green energy related things.
The title of this piece is terrible, and detracts from what is actually a thoughtful discussion. Mazzucato points out how the government is actually good at funding very high risk work, with a low chance of pay off (think DARPA research in the US). She does say the sentence used in the title, but the context is very important: What this means is that we have socialized the risk of innovation but privatised the reward…
I agree but not for the same reasons I am sure. This title is an old saw from the socialists and has been around for decades. The implicit conclusion is that to make things "fair" we should socialize risk AND reward. How convenient for the socialists. No. The discussion we should be having is; What is the proper function of government? What is your standard?
> Her argument appears to be that public funds need to be directed into areas that have a chance of "industry transformation", which may create job or new (tax paying) industries in the country that funded them.
The end of this road is fascism or communism, take your pick but it doesn't really matter if you value freedom.