Technology giants face European 'digital tax' blow
Big technology firms face paying more tax under plans announced by the European Commission. It said companies with significant online revenues should pay a 3% tax on turnover for various online services, bringing in an estimated €5bn (£4.4bn). The proposal would affect firms such as Facebook and Google with global annual revenues above €750m and taxable EU revenue above €50m.
The move follows criticism that tech giants pay too little tax in Europe. EU economics affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici said the "current legal vacuum is creating a serious shortfall in the public revenue of our member states". He stressed it was not a move against the US or "GAFA" - the acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. According to the Commission, top digital firms pay an average tax rate of just 9.5% in the EU - far less than the 23.3% paid by traditional companies.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 22 2018, @03:34PM (42 children)
That's kinda funny, actually. Of course it's aimed at GAFA, Microsoft, and a number of other international companies that are taking advantage of tax loopholes.
But, that's cool. Make 'em pay. Apple, for instance, has been floating on more liquid funds than most nations can even dream about. Make the bastards pay their way. What do they owe for infrastructure? (We won't even go into what they owe Chinese citizens for near slave condition labor here!) I mean, they pay squat in taxes, all around the world - but they use our highways, power grid, internet - basically everything that any government provides and/or regulates. Make 'em pay. I get very little for free. Water? Monthly bill. Road use? Police and emergency services? I pay for all of it. County, state, and federal taxes, not to mention sales taxes. WTF does Apple pay? Precious litle, or they wouldn't have so many billions lying around with no purpose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @03:36PM
If it were aimed at FAFA, I would have been even happier.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:08PM (35 children)
Infrastructure only makes up a small part of these countries' spending. The 9.5% or whatever is probably more than adequate for that.
Already covered through wages. It's not like the Chinese would be less "near slave", if we took away these good paying jobs after all (remember "good paying" is relative after all).
And aside from the highways, costs the state very little.
Just because they have money lying around (hypothetically, since it's accounting games), doesn't mean that a parasitic state deserves that money.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:19PM (8 children)
> parasitic state
WTF?
Political and military stability -> military; welfare state
Worker's health -> health services (in EU at least)
R&D funding -> many technologies GAFA use had origins in a government lab or university
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:56PM (7 children)
[...]
[...]
Apple doesn't use a bit of the first two. That's just payouts to voters. As to the R&D funding, Apple may milk EU research, but it doesn't have to. Meanwhile just because the EU is attached to this research it'll be more expensive. Order of magnitude increase in cost without a corresponding increase in research quality or quantity is typical IMHO for government-funded research, particularly for big projects like ITER.
These are examples of the parasitism I spoke of.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:17PM (6 children)
You're talking as if Apple didn't have lots of physical stores, or thousands of EU employees in the stores and in their Irish Tax-saving and engineering headquarters.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:01PM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:17PM (4 children)
You talk as if some companies operating in a country should be exempted from paying the taxes that others do pay, just because ... ?
Abolish the business tax, sure. You now need to raise the equivalent amount money: do you raise the sales tax, or the income tax ? First hits the poor, second is seen as unfair and causes the rich to flee. Come on, it's so easy, you must have the answer that 200 countries are all looking for!
Paying tax on profits is indeed silly, because that encourages having to pay MyGAFAatCaymans LLC some exorbitant "license fees". Paying taxes on a fraction of your worldwide profits which matches the ratio of your activities in the country is a lot more fair, but it takes a lot of people to very you're not fudging numbers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:28PM (3 children)
Who are these others? If they're businesses as well, I advocate reducing their taxes. I have no problem with 0% business taxes in the first place. Businesses are valuable, unemployed people are not.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:38PM (2 children)
Dang, it's almost as if I addressed the 0% in the next paragraph, and you ignored it in your response...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:46PM
Well it is khallow, he does not let facts interrupt his ideological narrative.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:24PM
Income tax, of course.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:21PM (10 children)
I can easily make the argument that Apple is the parasite here. Let us remember that businesses require licenses to operate. Theoretically, a business provides good to the community, or the business is denied a license. Apple is entitled to pay for expenses, and to make some profit. But - the billions they are sitting on represents far more than a reasonable profit. If a sizeable portion of those liquid assets were divided amongst those persons and businesses that made Apple what they are today, then I might defend Apple against these new taxes.
Maybe if Apple operated soup kitchens in the ghettos, I wouldn't begrudge all those liquid assets. Or, if, maybe, Apple were to pay off some mortgages for poor people. There are a lot of things Apple COULD DO to earn some trust and respect. But, they won't do any of that. Fek the stockholders. Put the money to good use, because it's criminal to sit on all that wealth to no purpose.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:05PM (9 children)
Businesses operate just fine without licenses.
And why do you think that is true?
Let us keep in mind that Apple does do the above [zendesk.com] (for example, a fair bit of change for disaster relief which includes some of the above), you just don't give them trust and respect for it.
Further, what is this trust and respect worth? Does it just mean that you'll find some other excuse for sticking it to Apple and other such companies?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:21PM (8 children)
Sorry, I'm not a capitalist. I don't trust many companies. I owe no loyalty to any corporation. I only know what I see and hear. Apple is sitting on billions in liquid assets, that could be put to work, somehow. Even capitalists hate to see money sitting - they generally want to invest that money into something that will make more profit. Although I'm no socialist, I recognize that billions sitting in vaults are worthless, or worse. Apple could invest that money into Elon Musk and/or similar ventures. Apple could improve mankind's existence - or at least try. This is one of the reasons I like - almost admire - Musk. With Musk, a profit is necessary to stay in business, but profit isn't the end game. Musk has goals - Apple really has none.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:48PM (1 child)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:33PM
Helps when you are able to help write that rule book (Tax Law).
Here's a game: (easy rules)
I win and you lose.
See how easy it is to say that they are playing by the same rules as everyone else? If everyone could use the same rules they are or pay off a government (Ireland we are looking at you) to change the rules in your favor. Then gee willakers we could all be living with no general services for anyone. No roads, no fire/police, no common defense, no public education but then everyone would be following the rules and that would be ok right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:15PM (1 child)
I respect Musk for SpaceX, Tesla is overvalued and underperforming while the hyperloop is crazy town. Apple forgot that it was creatives who initially embraced their products. Mass market success has resulted in hardware line-ups that fail to preserve or expand on their historical market niche. Dr Jordan Peterson (of whom aristarchus is a huge fan) has made the point that creatives and entrepreneurs have the same personality type and exist outside the traditional hierarchies found in company structures. [youtube.com] Corporations, by their very nature, remove the risk takers and non-conformists they need to innovate. R&D is also expensive, it's easier for capitalists to allow others to take the risk; investors are suckers! [techcrunch.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday March 22 2018, @08:53PM
If you think Tesla is overvalued now, wait until you hear about Musk's obscenely large package.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:17PM (3 children)
I was pretty sure he was a right of center American, so hearing him espouse an anti-capitalist view seems sort of... odd.
Are the bodysnatchers here? Did gewg steal Runaway's password as a prank?
Inquiring minds want to know!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:44PM
Why? Surely you're above projecting stereotypes onto people and judging them based on your personal prejudice rather than the real nuances of their beliefs?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @09:15PM
Right of center does not always equate for every issue. I met an old conservative who thought we should save the trees and got called a goddamn communist for telling his friend to not cut down some big old trees that weren't a problem.
I don't recall runaway ever going full capitard and often he decries the corporate abuses. He is a ratherconfusing mix of things.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 23 2018, @02:22AM
This is fairly common from my observation of him: like me, he is a straight shooter in a world of crazy hairpin turns, loop-de-loops, and the kind of upside-down corkscrew tunnels that would make Sonic the Hedgehog lose his lunch. We both stick to our principles, come hell or high water. Unlike me, he seems not to do much research or have much basic human decency, but the underlying MO is still pretty much the same. That may be why we piss one another off so much.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by zocalo on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:10PM (12 children)
By happy coincidence I got my annual UK tax breakdown for 2016-2017 yesterday, so I can provide some firm data on one EU country. Note that this covers income tax and national insurance only; VAT & other duties are excluded, which seems reasonable as you'd be in serious Big Brother territory if central government could determine exactly how much VAT (sales tax) a specific individual had paid in a given tax year as they'd have to know *everything* you'd purchased. Apparently, the biggest outlay from this pot of tax for the UK is Welfare (almost 25%), followed by Health (20%) and State Pensions (13%). "Infrastructure" isn't a specific line item, but Transport, Environment and Housing/Utilities which is very roughly the same thing add up to 7.5%. My EU Budget Contribution was right down at the bottom of the list at 0.7%.
The UK Government likes to claim that everything goes into one big pot and there's no direct link between related income/outlay like (say) Vehicle Tax and road maintenance, so if that's true those percentages should more or less apply to the entire total of tax revenue collected, regardless of source. Note that other countries in the EU have radically different tax schemes and proportions of expenditure, so those numbers are highly unlikely to be representative of any other EU countries.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:51PM (11 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:18PM (10 children)
Apple doesn't benefit from healthcare? They don't care if their employees are too sick to work? They don't care if their customers are too poor to buy fruitbadged-blinkenbobs because they've been bankrupted by illness?
How much extra would they have to pay their staff for private pensions if the state wasn't providing a state pension?
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:27PM (9 children)
Yes. Not much point to the rest of your post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @08:46PM (8 children)
And your posts almost never have a point, just screeching about taxes == theft and other capitalist apologia.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @08:48PM (7 children)
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @09:22PM
Nope, all the facts show that socialized healthcare is superior in every way. Only if private doctors are outlawed would be there be a downside: the rich couldn't pay for higher priority, a situation that has me crying big old salty tears.
You sir are a disingenuous hack with nothing better to do than spew your terrible ideology. The few valid complaints you have are lost in the ocean of stupid you would foist upon humanity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @10:38PM (5 children)
Yes, as it is frequently pointed out, US has much cheaper healthcare than the EU, with better overall outcome. /s
You, sir, are a fucking moron.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @10:55PM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @02:36AM (3 children)
Oh, you were worried about the US paying for healthcare in Ireland? You sir are STILL a fucking moron.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 23 2018, @03:45AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @04:40AM (1 child)
The topic was apple workers in Ireland, you said "the EU or worse, the us pay for it" so what do you expect me to think? What magic phrase didni miss here?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 23 2018, @05:58AM
Um, that was never true. The story itself is about generic online companies paying a "turnover" tax in the EU. Nothing about Apple workers in Ireland though presumably they'd be affected one way or another. In the entire discussion prior to my post, 96 comments at the time, Ireland has only been mentioned three times, including your post above. That indicates Irish Apple workers were never the topic.
My post which you quoted about was in response to the alleged advantages of public spending in health care to Apple. I pointed out that any such benefit, should it actually exist, could be better paid for by Apple than through the government channels of the EU or even worse the US (which you agreed was indeed worse). That's it. I'm not making some sophisticated tie-in to the turnover tax of the story or to Irish workers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:33PM (1 child)
And aside from the highways, costs the state very little.
What does the enforcement of all those imaginary property laws they enjoy cost?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @11:03PM
Well, let's look then. For example, of the 2015 US budget [nationalpriorities.org] of around $3.8 trillion, only $1.1 trillion is "discretionary" (the rest is interest payments and "mandatory" spending which is almost pure entitlement spending). That part contains funding for property law enforcement. So right there, we've shrunk the part of the pie that has that stuff into less than a third of the budget. From that same link, we see thin slivers for "Food and Agriculture", "Energy and Environment", and "Government" which contain most business regulation, something like $120-130 billion in total. That's 3-4% of the pie.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:48PM (4 children)
Why leave Microsoft out of this?
MAGAF = Microsoft Apple Google Amazon Facebook
use google as a verb.
Are there other Big Tech companies that don't pay enough tacks? Somehow I doubt this is limited to GAFA or MAGAF.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday March 22 2018, @08:56PM (3 children)
I think people pity what's left of Microsoft.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 23 2018, @02:24AM (1 child)
That's a dangerous, complacent attitude to take. MS is infecting Linux, and that's without even going into the slightly crazy conspiracy theory I've been nurturing that RedHat is secretly dealing with them. Don't turn your back on your foe until he's dead, and preferably in several pieces...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @04:56AM
Slightly crazy? Not crazy at all, they can see the gradual shift indicating that users are fed up. Remember the Balmer chant, "developers developers developers develop!"
Of course they want to secure that portion.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 23 2018, @01:26PM
Not I!
May their ashes be scattered to the four winds. People that have the slightest pity simply don't remember or even know how evil Microsoft was in the 1980's and 90's.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @03:34PM
9.5 vs 23.3?
This decision for raising this tax seems late already. But better late than never.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @03:52PM (1 child)
"Why do you rob banks?"
"Because that's where the money is."
(Score: 1, Redundant) by DannyB on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:40PM
"Why do you rob banks?"
"Because there's money in it."
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:14PM (32 children)
A turnover tax is seriously stupid, They cannot possibly say "this tax only applies to companies X, Y and Z". That will fail in the courts. So they will have to apply this to all companies. Now, which companies have the biggest profit margins, i.e., which ones can best afford to pay a turnover tax? Only the largest. Smaller companies tend to run on smaller margins. Hence, a turnover tax will be hugely anti-competitive, seriously hampering small and mid-sized companies. It's corporate cronyism all over again - a shuge lock-in for the giants.
It's also cupidity. If EU countries didn't spend like drunken sailors, they wouldn't be so desperate for. When I lived and worked in Germany, I took home less than half of my pay, and then paid nearly 20% VAT on anything I bought with the remainder. That was 20 years ago - I'm sure it's worse now.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:22PM (31 children)
The alternative is the US system? I would rather pay thank you.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:30PM (30 children)
If want something done in society, you should convince people to hand over their money voluntarily, not force them to pay for your stupid ideas at the point of a gun.
That's the alternative. It's the alternative that has made modern society so comparatively wealthy; one day, we'll expand that philosophy to government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:39PM (28 children)
You may want to familiarise yourself with the concept of the "social contract" [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:46PM
I'm not sure what your point is.
Also, from what I can tell, that's a misnomer; it looks nothing like a contract. Nothing at all.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:09PM (26 children)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:30PM (4 children)
Firstly, it's not a very solid argument to say "Show me my signature" simply because people think that your heritage and your benefit from the existing system implies consent; when in Rome, you consent to doing as the Romans do.
The real point remains:
It's a fragile system of social organization when it depends so enormously on implicit consent; it's a fragile system when people resent that system. Put another way: Society is something that emerges from the will of every individual; that's why capitalism is the necessary foundation of any functional society, because an anti-fragile system of social organization can only emerge when that very system is aligned with each (or nearly each) individual's self interest and thus said individual's explicit approval. In this case, the explicit approval might be the purchase of a good or service (as opposed to forced funding at the point of a gun).
Even in a society were the explicit philosophy of organization is anti-Capitalism, it is always the case that Capitalism serves as the foundation of whatever stability exist: Black markets arise, which keep people alive when such a society devolves inevitably into dysfunctional bread lines.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:58PM (2 children)
I wouldn't call that thinking. Words have meaning. "Social contract" is a dishonest term.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:50PM (1 child)
You're an idiot who benefits from social contracts every day. You can wish for utopia all you want but since you are incapable of comprehending basic human society you're gonna have a tough time of it.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 23 2018, @02:26AM
The word you're looking for here is "sociopath." Though I'm sure he'd prefer "libertarian." The fundamental fallacy of libertarianism is that they think they exist in vacuum, and have no understanding of things like history, culture, idea diffusion, ancestral memory etc. It's completely at odds with reality, but it takes some effort to observe that reality in the first place, which means it's unfortunately probably one of those cognitive shortcuts people like to take...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:48PM
FTFY
Not even saying it's all that bad. But the mindset that labels everything "consent" is disingenuous in the extreme.
For instance, I'm happy (IOW, I do in fact consent) to pay for a portion of the healthcare of our citizens and immigrants. Likewise, insofar far as gasoline taxes go towards roads and the maintenance thereof, I am perfectly happy to pay them. And when my taxes go towards education, scientific research, GPS, public transport, etc., etc., I consider that all good.
But OTOH, I am extremely unhappy to pay for almost all the various military actions we're involved with, as well as military bases anywhere but here; anything at all to do with the war on personal/consensual informed adult choice; any undertaking whatsoever counter to the plain-English intent of the constitution as presently amended; and only do so because I am forced to do so. If the force were removed, I would stop doing so immediately.
There's that whole bit about religion being given a free tax ride, too – that's extremely galling on several levels.
And to describe all this as a "social contract" – that's utterly disingenuous bullshit. It's the strong forcing the weak to comply through threat of (and actual imposition of, if you don't comply) violence. No more, no less. The reasons may or may not be good; compliance may or may not be with good will; but there is always the threat of the centurions, ready to make sure you bloody well do comply.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:43PM (2 children)
In any common law country, the requirement for a contract to be valid is evidence that will convince a court that a 'meeting of minds' has taken place. A signature has a lot of precedent that it should be interpreted as implying this, but it is certainly not the only way. For example, if you are presented with a contract of employment and don't sign it, but do turn up, do work, and accept the payment, then you will most likely be considered to have accepted the contract (otherwise, why are you turning up to work?).
Similarly with the social contract, no EU country makes emigrating difficult. In contrast to the USA, you don't even have to keep paying taxes if you leave. If you choose to stay, do business in the EU, and benefit from everything that a civilised society has to offer, then you are assumed to accept the social contract. If you want to opt out, it's quite easy for EU citizens to move to a lot of other places in the world, with more or less government. A number of countries, such as China and a number of African countries, will even pay you to move there if you have a degree from a European university and some marketable skills.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:20PM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:18PM
That's true: you have the right of peaceful demonstration against your government. And if they're smart, they'll listen, because it takes a lot of inertia to get people out on the streets.
Did you use it, when the Republican administration signed their "reverse Robin Hood" law [wikipedia.org]? If not, does that mean you're happy with that law? If you don't speak up then you won't be heard.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:47PM (17 children)
It appears you have little understanding of the "social contract" concept (despite the fact that much of our western society is based upon it).
And yes, "social" seems to be a dirty word for many Americans. No "social" media for you then. Fine by me. Let's get rid of that pestilence called "Facebook" for starters.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:26PM (16 children)
I understand it quite fine. It's just not a contract. It's a collective exploitation of everyone that usually is more trouble to contest than to go along with.
A biological analogy is a tapeworm infection. An infection is a lot of trouble to get rid of. You have to ingest a poison (which happens to be more toxic to the tapeworm than to you). But if you're not actively ingesting poison to get rid of that tapeworm? Then you have a "social contract" with the tapeworm.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:42PM (7 children)
Somehow I wonder if you were educated in public schools (even private schools use public money is some ways) or grew up on the streets with no education.
I think perhaps you belong to the IGM group (I Got Mine). People who took from this social contract but then when it became time for them to share their responsibilities say no. Somehow I doubt you didn't partake of the social contract to your benefit but don't want to pay the bill (taxes) for your part of the deal.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:21PM (6 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:33PM (5 children)
So somehow it is an ad hominem attack when you said you never signed a contract? I was pointing out the fallacy of your statement by showing that yes you did sign by accepting the "social contract" for your benefit. But you can always deflect instead of answer the statements.
Your argument is crap as you took the goods but never made payment in kind. That is why it is a social contract. Everyone gets benefits from certain pieces of the contract and in return they need to pay back in when it becomes their turn. I know my family didn't have their house catch on fire but I understand how having a fire department to stop the spread of fire from one house to another is for the common good. Same for your education and your use of the roads and infrastructure. My taxes pay and paid into that for the common good. Like some people are fond of saying, "Don't like it? Go find another country that doesn't have these things." Perhaps the African warlords could use some more citizens.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:51PM (4 children)
Nope.
No, you didn't. You wrote:
Let's review the ways this is different:
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @08:20PM (3 children)
So you are confused?
You brought yourself into the discussion by saying you never signed a contract. (not an ad hominem if you are the subject of the discussion)
1) I never said you were uneducated. Try reading it again. I was pointing out that "I suppose" as the only out for not feeling the contract applies to you.
2) I said you belong to the IGM because you "got yours" and now don't want to continue your part of the social contract. Your push back against the social contract being the basis for this thinking.
3) I never said you didn't give back. You said that the social contract is the government forcing you to do something you don't want to through taxes. Your push back meaning you don't want to contribute to continuing the common good.
4) I never said you had to match it. I am saying that we all pay into the common good pot for things we need directly and things we don't need also. We all chip in to get a better result for the whole (not the parts).
But if you would like to continue deflecting away from the question of why you think it is OK to get the benefit of the social contract without making the payments back into said social contract, I am all ears.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @08:44PM (2 children)
What is there to be confused about? No, I'm not confused.
An argument is not merely getting the subject right.
Fine. You merely "wondered" (that is, heavily insinuated it). I see we're into semantics games. As to the second sentence, no one has in this entire discussion (65 comments as of the time of this post) used the phrase "I suppose" prior to your fake quote above.
Yes, and I noted that was an unfounded claim. Your next claim is:
Let's review:
Your words say otherwise. Moving on:
No, you said:
While your backtracking is welcome (the original statement was deeply in error), it still leaves the weaselly outcome that chipping in a lot of money for things one finds abhorrent and destructive, like say, a $400 billion fighter jet or a several trillion dollar war, is somehow part of the common good.
What question? Let's look at the past few AC posts for such "questions":
So just a couple of leading questions, both which I answered BTW. This wasn't deflected because this wasn't asked.
But let's suppose hypothetically that you were to ask a question like:
And I would answer, no, I don't think it would be ok. But instead we have this primitive thinking that one provides something that's not very valuable nor given with regard for the interests or consent of other parties who hypothetically benefit, and then expects to be paid well for it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @09:01PM (1 child)
>>Do I think it is OK to get benefits from society without compensating those providing those benefits appropriately to the value I think I receive from the benefits?
"And I would answer, no, I don't think it would be ok." (I will discuss the rest of the statement later)
So then by that reasoning, Apple is in the wrong for using loopholes and special deals to get out of their responsibilities to the common good. This is not the values you have been espousing through this article's comments.
If Apple is getting the benefits (trained employees, roads, etc) but not paying back in kind for them, this is not ok (by your own statement in the rebuttal).
"But instead we have this primitive thinking that one provides something that's not very valuable nor given with regard for the interests or consent of other parties who hypothetically benefit, and then expects to be paid
well for it!"
I am not sure what you are saying here. I am not sure what this "something" provided and being paid for is in your statement. I am not sure how "primitive thinking" fits into this discussion. Who decides the value? The parents of the child being educated, or the single man with no children, or the society who wants to have productive citizens (ad infinitum)? What is hypothetical benefit of education of the children (just one example)? I don't know what you mean by expects to be paid well for it. Once again this whole part of the response is confusing.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @09:54PM
Notice my phrase "appropriate to the value I think I receive". Why shouldn't Apple use those "loopholes and special deals" to get out of costs that aren't appropriate to the benefits they receive? The number one way I can tell people are bullshitting on this issue, is that they can't describe the value of "social contracts" or even what a social contract is supposed to be. They can't describe "responsibilities". They can't describe "common good". These are just trite, stock phrases they use to rationalize taking what they want. It's such an infantile way to view the world.
"IF". zocalo already noted [soylentnews.org], for example, that 60% of the UK's budget is for items that are irrelevant to Apple (having nothing to do with trained employees, roads, etc). In that light, 9.5% in taxes is 40% of 23.3% in taxes. Sounds to me like every business should be paying those lower taxes for the little they actually consume.
The dirty secret here is that businesses don't use that much in the way of infrastructure or programs for what they do. Apple doesn't need a pension, health care, or welfare (which is 60% of the UK budget). Individual people do.
Every time you mangled one of my posts to make an ad hominem attack, that's primitive thinking. Every time you speak of Apple's responsibilities without even the slightest understanding of who is actually creating the costs nor presenting even the slightest reasoning in support of why Apple should have those responsibilities, you're engaging in primitive thinking. Or speaking of the cost of "trained employees, roads" while ignoring that there's at least an order of magnitude more public spending than that. Or why there are publicly funded benefits for people and businesses who can readily provide those benefits to themselves without inflicting the costs on the public - primitive thinking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:49PM (1 child)
I guess you pumped your fist after writing that drivel.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:21PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:56PM (5 children)
Point of interest, in your metaphor YOU are the tapeworm trying to feed off the larger body.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:22PM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @08:51PM (3 children)
Why would I bother to follow a link to more of your stupidity? Your stance is inherently flawed, that you are unable to comprehend that only illustrates your ignorance and selfishness.
To quote your role model, you "fail bigly."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @09:57PM (2 children)
Because you obviously have nothing better to do with your time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @08:09PM (1 child)
@khallow As the AC who first mentioned the "social contract", I obviously do not agree with many of your views, but I do appreciate your persistence in expressing them. Nearly 20% of the posts in this thread come from you.
As the saying goes: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
[shakes hands]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 23 2018, @09:00PM
I'll finish by summarizing what really angers me about this "social contract". First, as I mentioned, it's not really a contract nor is it usually invoked as such, but rather to excuse coercion. Any real contract would have provisions for a) honoring promises made in good faith and rejecting those made in bad faith, b) protecting the future of society, particularly of future generations, and c) apply equally to all, not just marginalized protesters who have good reason to dislike what's going on.
Second, it's commonly invoked to excuse tax collection for venal or short-sighted reasons. Sure, it's nice that older generations voted themselves a hefty pension and health services at the expense of younger generations (a near universal phenomenon in the developed world). But that dishonesty should be rewarded with a severe cutback to the benefits, not disruption of young peoples' lives and the decay of the society. Similarly, we're seeing most countries shifting to debt loads that are at least as large as their GDP (a crude measure of the size of the economy), again a glaring sign that the electorate isn't thinking about the future.
Third, it's telling that most advocates of the social contract can only point to simple things like roads or police as benefits of social contracts while the actual expenditures cover far more. If you can only point to 5-10% of government expenditure as a benefit (usually with a horrid inefficiency in benefit for the cost), then that's a strong sign to me that the government in question should be radically shrunk, perhaps as part of said social contract. Yet somehow the social contract is that we should pay our taxes, not that we should fight hard to reduce the government burden on our lives.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 23 2018, @09:29AM
The Danes are happy [sciencealert.com] to pay 45% taxes [usnews.com].
Do you suggest they declare themselves happy at the point of a gun?
Icelanders pay 37%-46% taxes [wikipedia.org] and they are happy too. Point of a gun as well?
Should I continue?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:51PM (14 children)
Kudos to EU for not playing along in this stupid funny money charade.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:55PM (11 children)
Also, you can't get funnier funding than extracting resources from people at the point of a gun.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:20PM (10 children)
Let us all shed a tear for the GAFA, forced at the point of a gun to conduct unprofitable business in countries with oppressive taxation...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @05:41PM (9 children)
You really think that it makes sense to organization society around black-box, lump-sum, ad-hoc, largely arbitrary and capricious percentages? Why should Apple's success be a government's success? Why should this one particular organization in society (the one that calls itself "government") get a cut?
This way of organizing society is an old, tired, and objectively stupid idea. It traces its roots back to the "duty" that one had to pay to a conquering overlord (who often claimed to be divine, and thus surrounded himself with pledges of allegiance, sacred symbols, collective hymns, anthems, colored flags, rituals, holidays, special animals, etc.). It's time for society to move past it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:06PM (8 children)
One: You didn't address the point.
Two: Not everyone views their governments as an oppressive almost-foreign force. People regularly demonstrating in the European streets tend to demand that the government act in their (often narrow-minded) interest. European laws force companies to treat workers as (mostly) human, and not just use and discard them like every other commodity that proves occasionally useful to the bottom line. Are they often going too far? Yep. Is the opposite really that much better? Knowing people from both sides, I can tell you the middle-class Europeans are a lot less worried about the fundamentals: disease, educating their children, and their own retirement. Pay high taxes, lose some opportunities, get a more peaceful life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:16PM (7 children)
Also, the other AC's reply works just as well here, meaning you've not made any point.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:28PM (6 children)
> > > > Let us all shed a tear for the GAFA, forced at the point of a gun to conduct unprofitable business in countries with oppressive taxation...
> Also, the other AC's reply works just as well here, meaning you've not made any point.
I'll translate for the dim-witted: Those companies want the profit, but not the constraints.
If the EU is so terrible and destroys your local benefits with oppressive taxes, why sell there at all? Just stay on the West Coast, sell to the Chinese, the Africans ... who's forcing you to go through the unbearable pain of selling in the EU?
Ah? You like the money stash to be made in the richest market on the planet, but want to cheat the rules other companies comply with. What does that make you? A thief, at best.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:43PM (5 children)
Why is there a dispute at all?
It's because the reasoning behind the interaction between Apple and the State makes no sense; it's arbitrary and capricious, because the system is inherently arbitrary and capricious.
Also, the "government" is making those arguments on behalf of millions of other people who may not want such representation. That facet of the dispute is also a result of the loosey-goosey nature of this system of social organization.
There's this massive, block-box, opaque, one-size-fits-all, arbitrary and capricious, resource-commandeering thing sitting atop the interactions of millions of people. It's weird and very stupid, and these endless disputes over "fair share" are the inevitable result of that weirdness and stupidity.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday March 22 2018, @08:33PM (4 children)
Every multi-million-people human society has a government, and every government needs funding to operate.
What's your proposition ? Peer-to-peer contracts enforced by the guy with the most henchmen?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @08:46PM (3 children)
Cut the funding first. Then we'll talk. I'm not interested when the government is taking 50%. That's happening in large parts of Europe and parts of the US.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @09:26PM
Wow, you're a bigger moron than anyone realized.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:57AM (1 child)
The problem seems to be that an overwhelming part of people living in Europe agree and support the idea of payinng high taxes which the goverments bounce back at them in the shape of public benefits and social assets. Again, this probably is a conseguence of people not seeing the goverment as an oppressive entity that works against them but instead as an ally.
If GAFA do not like it, they can just leave. Rest asured no tears will be shed for them. I love it that the EU is not USA, for many reasons.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 24 2018, @05:43AM
We already see a number of countries in Europe that are no longer managing that, such as the "PIGS". And immigration policy already is a mess because those public benefits and "social assets" need taxes from young workers to cover. If your population isn't growing them, then you need to import them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:21PM (1 child)
All the EU need to do is make cross border, high interest, intra-company loans for the purposes of tax avoidance illegal. They could easily do this by making it unlawful to charge interest above commercial rates. Turnover taxes are retarded and will ultimately hinder the process of continual investment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:17AM
Why, I see turnover tax as a way to stop monopolies and allow space for growth and operation for smaller companies. It is the mechanism to discourage a behemoth to grow and grow infinitely. You might call it success, I call it monoculture and I do not want it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:35PM (12 children)
"Fair share". Bleed the successful dry.
(Score: 4, Funny) by maxwell demon on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:18PM (10 children)
Yeah, that poor starving Apple …</sarcasm>
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @07:34PM (9 children)
Clearly, there is a dispute over who owes whom what.
It's not enough just to say "Yeah, but you've got plenty!" Fuck you. That's not for you to decide unilaterally; if you want peace, you have to come to an agreement in advance of interaction.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @09:31PM (8 children)
Actually yes, humanity will only thrive once we get past this point of stupid competition mindset. You are no better than an animal who would hunt its food supply to extinction and then go belly up yourself. Society is the veneer that covers our animal nature but you would like that removed because you're a greedy fuck. Stupid.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @09:48PM (2 children)
Competition within a Free Market is how people cooperate to find a sustainable way to organize society. No one knows what the shape of society should be at any given time; it's a shape that must be found continuously; it must emerge through evolution by variation and selection.
In contrast, a government is a monopoly, which naturally stifles such cooperation by preventing such competition; indeed, a government is the worst kind of monopoly: One that is founded on and arises from violent imposition rather than voluntary exchange.
Society is nothing but interaction between individuals. A government is just another organization in the market place, albeit one that uses coercion (rather than agreement) to choose how society's resources should be used. You want to make for a robust, self-sustaining society? Get rid of government; replace it with freedom; that is, replace it with capitalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @11:10PM (1 child)
The Free Market (tm) is a relatively modern invention.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @01:09AM
The phenomenon known as the "Free Market" has always existed, but it's only been explicitly acknowledged in relatively recent times; the principles have always been at play in humanity's productivity, but it has only been realized, expressed explicitly, and packaged up under the philosophy of Capitalism in relatively recent times.
Truths are eternal; names for those truths are not.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @10:52PM (4 children)
What's stupid about it? To the contrary, I believe competition in a capitalist system to be one of the more effective forms of cooperation. For example, consider the recent case of SpaceX. Back in 2011, it was decided by the US government to build a Saturn V-class rocket (lifting up to 130 metric tons to low Earth orbit (LEO)) and manned spacecraft, the Space Launch System [wikipedia.org]. The cost at the time was estimated to be $18 billion just through 2017. Superficially, this displays the advertised advantages of cooperation on a large scale - get together, decide what is the best approach, and fund it with the pooled resources of several hundred million people.
However, without any similar national-scale cooperative effort, SpaceX put together the Falcon Heavy, which can lift about almost half that maximum mass (64 metric tons for the completely disposable version, which has the highest possible payload) for a development cost of $0.5-1 billion. And if SpaceX can pull off its "BFR" rocket, it will kill the SLS by having a larger payload capacity at a much cheaper price - all without the cooperation that was supposed to be so valuable.
The problem is that cooperation here was weakened by several factors. First, the SLS is too big a project. They're spending $20 billion this decade on a project that should be costing a small fraction of that. Second, it has huge conflicts of interest. The governing parties are more interested in steering funding to contractors than in building a rocket and nobody involved cares about the question - where is the money going to come from for payloads using this rocket? Third, no one ever considered the possibility that the SLS might not be the best approach. Well, looks like it's far from best nowadays.
And that's where the competition approach works better. The competing teams are smaller and more focused. That means you're likely to both get more bang for the buck, and since one is far less invested in any of them, lose much less from the teams that don't make it. For example, NASA could probably fund a competition with ten Saturn V-class competitors for the cost of SLS to date, and throw away all but the best one, and still be ahead. If done right, they wouldn't even need to provide the investment. I'm sure there would be a fair number of viable competitors, if a $20 billion prize were dangled with no other funding.
Just put rules on the competition so it doesn't get out of hand. It's a solved problem. Even the people who don't want government involved at all, will have those rules.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @02:42AM (3 children)
Wow, what a wall o text. I didn't read anything except the "just put rules on the competition so it doesn't get out of hand". What do you think gov regulations are? What do you think social services are for??? They are there to prevent our animal nature from tearing down the very foundation upon which our society is built!!!
You sir are a fucking moron. Grow the fuck up.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 23 2018, @03:44AM (2 children)
You missed an opportunity to learn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @02:10PM (1 child)
Nope, I've seen enough of your explanations to get the gist. Competition can be good, but forming everything around it is so very flawed. No better than communists who think having a central beaurucracy control every detail is society is the best way to go. As always the best system is a mix of all, but obviously you drank the US capitalist koolaid. The really sad part is the success of capitalism and technology that you types like to flaunt as evidence of superiority might actually end up killing more humans than ever before. Ecological collapse is possible, then we'll be lucky to survive at all.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 23 2018, @04:33PM
That's fine. I didn't expect anything more than what you've written above.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @03:19AM
The successful that squash the other ones just because they can, I know.