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Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

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Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#751

Post by eksemplar »

Joeri wrote: post #234
eksemplar wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the flip side of this is that the society we build and paid for with income tax has become a huge risk because of automation. We’re wealthier than ever, but we can’t use the wealth to society, because we’ve moved it from the masses to the few. Now this probably isn’t a popular thing to say in American contexts because it sounds like socialism, but historically the levels of inequality we’re seeing now have lead…

The way I view it is in terms of an idealized society. What is the ideal society? One where everyone must work their entire life? Or one where people are free to choose what they do with their time, even if they don't want to work at all? I would argue the latter. Automation offers a unique ability to deliver the idealized society, but first we have to get rid of the notion that full employment is the goal. If anythi…

I'm pretty clueless about what would actually work. I'm from Scandinavia where we have a welfare system that could allow you not to work. It wouldn't be a nice life because you wouldn't be allowed to own any fortune worth more than a cheap laptop at any point in your life, so no bricks and mortar or car or nice vacations or anything like that, but you could.

Typically people who end up without jobs tend to waste away though. They start drinking, doing drugs and committing crime, largely because they are bored.

You see something similar in young people who drop out of the educational system. These are people with all the options open too, yet they struggle to fit in.

If we create a society without jobs for everyone we also need to give everyone something to do, and I don't think we can expect them to do things on their own.

That's not what worries me in the now though, I'm only worriered about the inequality of wealth because you can't have a stable and free society if the inequality grows too large.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#752

Post by pfranz »

ttoinou wrote: post #727
pfranz wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I haven't watched the doc or followed Chomsky much) I think a lot of the contention is putting faith in the "the market" (but I would hope even staunchest libertarians realize at times that can be disproportionately large companies) or governments. I feel like the extremes on both sides put too much faith in one or the other. To keep each other in check one can't be too much larger, or wield too much power over the…

I put my faith in voluntarily actions, competitive entreprises, innovative ideas and good mechanisms of check and balances. The first word that comes to my mind is 'free market', not 'huge government'..

I guess I know what side you put faith in.

"Free market" is just an illusionary goal--there's no such thing in practice. Every aspect of reality creates some bias to one party or another. Governments try to encourage competitive entreprises, innovative ideas and good mechanisms of check and balances by eliminating monopolies, reducing dynasties/incumbencies and other barriers of entry, in addition to other things like maintaining a fair legal system.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#753

Post by tamrix »

tyingq wrote: post #240
loceng wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These companies evading taxes are responsible for increased hardship and suffering of a society as well, leeching off of the nations they exist in, and being able to outcompete the honest organizations and people in them. The damages are far greater than the tax avoided. "They are doing it too" isn't a valid excuse either.

They aren't, for the most part, doing anything illegal though. They are using the existing laws to their best advantage. The fix for this can't be trying to appeal to their morals. It would have to be something else that just limits the legal choices. Edit: If you disagree, are you saying that shaming them into not doing this solely on some moral compass is the right fix? Does that scale?

I bet you're one of them.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#754

Post by nielsole »

jitbit wrote: post #221
pawelk wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I live in Poland and it's not really a secret that small companies can and do optimize their taxes by registering in the UK (mostly self-employed professionals) or Czech Republic (small companies / family businesses). It's not like you can avoid taxes, but the difference for a self-employed programmer is non-trivial, like getting a 13th monthly salary every year. The Czech deal is done mostly for simpler tax code…

Yes, I know the UK drill... But how do you hire someone in Poland being a UK company? I thought that's not possible

Why would it not be possible? To my understanding that is pretty much what the EU is about.

> The European Single Market, Internal Market or Common Market is a single market which seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and labour – the "four freedoms" – within the European Union (EU). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#755

Post by ttoinou »

pfranz wrote: post #752
ttoinou wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I put my faith in voluntarily actions, competitive entreprises, innovative ideas and good mechanisms of check and balances. The first word that comes to my mind is 'free market', not 'huge government'..

I guess I know what side you put faith in. "Free market" is just an illusionary goal--there's no such thing in practice. Every aspect of reality creates some bias to one party or another. Governments try to encourage competitive entreprises, innovative ideas and good mechanisms of check and balances by eliminating monopolies, reducing dynasties/incumbencies and other barriers of entry, in addition to other things lik…

    Every aspect of reality creates some bias to one party or another
? And every government action steals resources from someone and prevents them to do it on their own.

Have youbever seen govt reducing barriers of entry ? I need examples

Only govt can create monopolies, unless you're talking about mafias.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#756

Post by adamlett »

tooltalk wrote: post #738
adamlett wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m hesitant to answer you, because the internet has made me jaded, and I foresee getting into a long discussion about what constitutes an unregulated market and what constitutes a monopoly. As to how natural monopolies arise, Wikipedia has a good article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

Sure, that's what I thought -- because I don't know of any monopoly that didn't benefit from gov't subsidies or explicit protectionist policies.

Sure, that's what I thought

Wow, that sure make me think we can have a fruitful discussion.

because I don't know of any monopoly that didn't benefit from gov't subsidies or explicit protectionist policies.

Two points:

- What you don't know, is a lot. The inclination to believe that since you don't know of it, it must not exist or – to put it differently – that what you know is all there is to know, is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's a sign that you actually don't know much at all.

- Just because a monopoly benefits from certain regulations, it doesn't necessarily mean that those benefits was what helped create the monopoly. All companies benefit from regulation at times. They don't all become monopolies.

But you tell me: What in your mind caused At&T to become a monopoly?

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#757

Post by ionised »

fastball wrote: post #461
kennydude wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do, in income tax.

Exactly. So why the double taxing? Basically the implication is that we should tax people more when they act as part of a productive collective (corporation), which to me seems counterintuitive.

> So why the double taxing?

I don't see it as double taxing.

The money the company makes and the money the people make are two different streams of income and capital.

You are not taxing the people twice. You are taxing them once and the company once. A company is an entity in itself and it has a cash-flow, revenues, profits, expenditures and savings all of its own, separate to the people it employs.

It also uses up land in entirely separate way to the people it employs.

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#758

Post by ionised »

pitaj wrote: post #564
jaymzcampbell wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be happy if we were paying taxes on a level playing field - but we're not. That is the "moral" part of it for me. How that money is spent is another argument.

Why should any company pay taxes on profit? I think that corporate taxes shouldn't exist _at all_ as they are merely an abstraction over sales taxes, income taxes, or capital gains taxes.

Why should anyone pay any taxes whatsoever?

Why should anyone contribute to the society that allowed them to make their money the first place?

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#759

Post by eecc »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #68
jacquesm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social responsibility part is what it is all about. If corporations use their legal and bargaining power to opt-out of the social contract then everybody will lose. There is such a thing as being too big and I firmly believe that most multinationals are no longer playing by the rules in the sense that they violate the spirit of those rules whereever they can by focusing solely on the letter of the rules. That's a…

What's to be done about it? We're the ants. That depressing truth has a way of manifesting. I'm not quite sure what to feel about it. Our attempts here are futile. We're not going to get any legislation passed. The fact is, companies can opt out of the social contract. They are big, and they're going to play by different rules. But I don't think that's strange -- that's just life. It happens in China and Russia. Why…

Unionize? There used to be this thing in the '70s called "Solidarity Strike".

Re: Paradise Papers: Dear Tim Cook

#760

Post by ionised »

dennis_jeeves wrote: post #502
soVeryTired wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess. You're in favour of private healthcare, private security, private education, and no social safety net. In short, nothing to aid social mobility, and nothing to restrain powerful people who have gained the upper hand. You know, to some of us, that libertarian utopia sounds like a fucking nightmare.

>You know, to some of us, that libertarian utopia sounds like a fucking nightmare. Correct, nobody is obliged to help you. What a sense of entitlement! So your only option is go ahead ask your government to arm twist rich people into funding your healthcare etc. ( and the rich includes the ones that have both legitimately and illegitimately obtained wealth).

> Correct, nobody is obliged to help you. What a sense of entitlement!

Actually, they are.

It's an innate instinctual behaviour inherent in all healthy human beings and we are social creatures that have succeeded through co-operation. If you have never felt the urge to help someone, prevent abuses and exploitation you might actually be a sociopath.

In the wild, members of social species that don't conform to this become outcasts and eventually die off as they cannot contribute to the group. It's an evolutionary weakness.

People like you try to wax philosophical about self-reliance and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, but it's simple greed masquerading as some kind of stoicism and self-reliance.

The simple fact is, neither you nor Apple nor anyone else in this vein has made their living without the benefits and support that a tax-paying society has afforded you. Considering especially that it is people like you that espouse this naive view of the world and your support for companies like this engaging in these socially-damaging practices, it is interesting that it also happens to be these very same 'captains of industry' that receive all manner of corporate welfare, bailouts and handouts.

Privatise the profits, socialise the losses. Capitalism when you are winning, socialism when you are losing.

It's interesting how that works isn't it? Almost like it isn't some kind of profound personal philosophy, but rather just simple greed.

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