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>> Edelman said that people tend to trust businesses more than governments, in part because “business gets stuff done” while government is seen as “incapable.”

>> Edelman said that people tend to trust businesses more than governments, in part because “business gets stuff done” while government is seen as “incapable.” People trust technology companies in particular because “they deliver value.” << UK Brexit vote: most (not all) business leaders were advising a remain vote. Apart from the 'immigration' trigger, the 'take back control' trigger does come up in my conversations with those who voted leave. The Labour party spokesbeing on the radio this morning was developing a vaguely anti-globalist line about spreading the fruits of recovery more evenly and defending social spending. We shall see.

jacquesm 10y ago
The latest plan seems to be to cut corporate taxes to try to stop the larger companies from leaving the UK, and possibly to attract new ones. The race to the bottom started with Ireland, suggestions are to cut the tax to 15% in the rest of the UK, with some voices pushing for 10% or even 5% corporate tax. Of course this has nothing to do with using the opportunity created by the brexit power vacuum to reward some special interests.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  > The latest plan seems to be to cut corporate taxes to try to stop the larger companies from leaving the UK, and possibly to attract new ones. < The same taxes that the larger corporates avoid in the first place? This seems a flawed plan.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    It's just some nice pork for the friends of those that made this decision, other than that I don't think it has even a remote chance of working. Businesses favor stability over almost everything else and the way the UK has been going in the last couple of weeks the degree of uncertainty is so large that they'd have to set the rate at a negative percentage to attract new business. Nobody in their right mind is looking to move their currently successful business to the UK unless it is a business that can be moved out at a moments notice.
- mrmffh 10y ago
  Race to the bottom (i.e. competition) is a good thing, it reduces waste and inefficiency.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    In lala-economic-theory-land yes. But this is not companies competing for the favors of customers. This is nation states competing for the favors of companies and that is a totally different matter. In the real world you need taxes to operate a country and with big business being able to relocate their capital and their profits at a moments notice corporations have a substantial advantage over nation states (which are by definition somewhat immobile). So the 'inefficiency' that you seek to eliminate is the oil required to keep the machine running. Note that a company couldn't care less if your country roads fall into disrepair, healthcare sucks and education starts to fall behind. It won't show up in the quarterly reports for a long time and by the time it does they can easily move on to another place. Having a very low corporate tax is only possible if your country does not require major infrastructure and that's one of the reasons why most tax havens are either nearly un-inhabitable (Cyprus, Panama) or extremely small (Monaco, Lichtenstein, Vaduz, Luxemburg). Ireland is the exception and it only succeeded there for reasons that the UK will find hard to emulate.
    - logicchains 10y ago
      >Having a very low corporate tax is only possible if your country does not require major infrastructure and that's one of the reasons why most tax havens are either nearly un-inhabitable (Cyprus, Panama) or extremely small (Monaco, Lichtenstein, Vaduz, Luxemburg). Infrastructure spending represents an incredibly low percentage of government spending in most countries, see e.g https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... and http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_budget_pie_chart http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_budget_pie_chart. >Note that a company couldn't care less if your country roads fall into disrepair, healthcare sucks and education starts to fall behind. East Asian countries like Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong maintain achieve better healthcare and education outcomes than most western countries in spite of lower government spending. While they may have less welfare spending and greater economic inequality, this certainly isn't an impediment to productivity.
- nradov 10y ago
  Let's cut corporate income taxes to 0%. And increase income taxes on investors and employees to make the change revenue neutral. That would increase economic growth and efficiency by allowing corporations to focus on generating real customer value instead of financial engineering for tax avoidance.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    This only works if you'd do it in a larger body of entities (such as... the EU), otherwise it will just lead to companies taking advantage of the fact that they are mobile and countries are not.
  - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    The UK has made a step in that direction, the last budget increased taxes on dividends.
douche 10y ago
You really can't rule out the "they took our jobs!" angle[1], whether it is legitimate or not. [1] http://southpark.cc.com/clips/104259/they-took-our-jobs http://southpark.cc.com/clips/104259/they-took-our-jobs

jacquesm 10y ago

The latest plan seems to be to cut corporate taxes to try to stop the larger companies from leaving the UK, and possibly to attract new ones. The race to the bottom started with Ireland, suggestions are to cut the tax to 15% in the rest of the UK, with some voices pushing for 10% or even 5% corporate tax. Of course this has nothing to do with using the opportunity created by the brexit power vacuum to reward some special interests.

lostlogin 10y ago
> The latest plan seems to be to cut corporate taxes to try to stop the larger companies from leaving the UK, and possibly to attract new ones. < The same taxes that the larger corporates avoid in the first place? This seems a flawed plan.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  It's just some nice pork for the friends of those that made this decision, other than that I don't think it has even a remote chance of working. Businesses favor stability over almost everything else and the way the UK has been going in the last couple of weeks the degree of uncertainty is so large that they'd have to set the rate at a negative percentage to attract new business. Nobody in their right mind is looking to move their currently successful business to the UK unless it is a business that can be moved out at a moments notice.
mrmffh 10y ago
Race to the bottom (i.e. competition) is a good thing, it reduces waste and inefficiency.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  In lala-economic-theory-land yes. But this is not companies competing for the favors of customers. This is nation states competing for the favors of companies and that is a totally different matter. In the real world you need taxes to operate a country and with big business being able to relocate their capital and their profits at a moments notice corporations have a substantial advantage over nation states (which are by definition somewhat immobile). So the 'inefficiency' that you seek to eliminate is the oil required to keep the machine running. Note that a company couldn't care less if your country roads fall into disrepair, healthcare sucks and education starts to fall behind. It won't show up in the quarterly reports for a long time and by the time it does they can easily move on to another place. Having a very low corporate tax is only possible if your country does not require major infrastructure and that's one of the reasons why most tax havens are either nearly un-inhabitable (Cyprus, Panama) or extremely small (Monaco, Lichtenstein, Vaduz, Luxemburg). Ireland is the exception and it only succeeded there for reasons that the UK will find hard to emulate.
  - logicchains 10y ago
    >Having a very low corporate tax is only possible if your country does not require major infrastructure and that's one of the reasons why most tax havens are either nearly un-inhabitable (Cyprus, Panama) or extremely small (Monaco, Lichtenstein, Vaduz, Luxemburg). Infrastructure spending represents an incredibly low percentage of government spending in most countries, see e.g https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... and http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_budget_pie_chart http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_budget_pie_chart. >Note that a company couldn't care less if your country roads fall into disrepair, healthcare sucks and education starts to fall behind. East Asian countries like Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong maintain achieve better healthcare and education outcomes than most western countries in spite of lower government spending. While they may have less welfare spending and greater economic inequality, this certainly isn't an impediment to productivity.
nradov 10y ago
Let's cut corporate income taxes to 0%. And increase income taxes on investors and employees to make the change revenue neutral. That would increase economic growth and efficiency by allowing corporations to focus on generating real customer value instead of financial engineering for tax avoidance.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  This only works if you'd do it in a larger body of entities (such as... the EU), otherwise it will just lead to companies taking advantage of the fact that they are mobile and countries are not.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  The UK has made a step in that direction, the last budget increased taxes on dividends.

douche 10y ago

You really can't rule out the "they took our jobs!" angle[1], whether it is legitimate or not. [1] http://southpark.cc.com/clips/104259/they-took-our-jobs http://southpark.cc.com/clips/104259/they-took-our-jobs