5 ms·

All you people saying all governments favour local companies are, in my opinion, completely delusional. Counter-evidence one: Google is #1 in Europe. That's su

All you people saying all governments favour local companies are, in my opinion, completely delusional. Counter-evidence one: Google is #1 in Europe. That's sufficient to squash your point. But also: You seem to have no idea what China is like. Foreign companies will get government-supported mobs to break into your office and trash the place, during daylight hours for hours, and the police will refuse to show up. The best you can do is call the police and say "this mob slamming at the doors make me fear for my life. If you don't get me out of here I'll call my embassy and say there's a hostage situation". Suddenly the… no the police doesn't show up… the police tell you that the mob will disappear soon, and you have 5 minutes to leave before they come back.

shanghaiaway 8y ago
Source
bepotts 8y ago
People say "governments favour local companies" to defend the EU's ridiculous anti-trust claims against US tech, and to attack America for not breaking up American tech monopolies. Apparently America is propping up all its tech companies and it's not allowing European companies to compete, thus is similar to CCP's support of Chinese tech companies; which is of course ridiculous for all the things you just mentioned. The constant drum beat of "America is morally wrong for not using anti-trust on its tech companies" is just ridiculous. Especially when trying to compare the US government's approach to the free market to China's.
- nrow 8y ago
  How is the EU's anti-trust claims ridiculous? Apple, and Google (and probably more companies), made special deals with Ireland and Luxembourg to pay something like <5% VAT and <5% corporate tax, while everyone else were paying >20% and >20%. And those deals largely isn't available to EU companies because they can't use the favorable US tax laws to do it. Despite Android being open source Google forced manufacturers to not sell any other versions of it if they also wanted to sell Googles. Which of course would be disastrous for any company. Enforcement against that is only ridiculous if you don't like competition.
  - jeffbax 8y ago
    Until the tax law change this year, US companies were generally at a tax dis-advantage. Whether or not tech companies were more advantaged I don't think is as simple to say as the headlines would want you to believe but a large swath of US companies were at a global disadvantage for taxes. Effective Corporate taxes in the US were of the highest, and now they're more toward the global average.
    - nrow2 8y ago
      They weren't at a disadvantage outside the US, that is the whole point. Apple's effective tax rate on profits in the EU, before the EC ruled otherwise, was less than 0.05% between 2011 and 2014. Money which they are using to compete in the rest of the world. For example from Apple's SEC Form 10-K, 2017: "[...] undistributed foreign earnings, a substantial portion of which was generated by subsidiaries organized in Ireland, for which no U.S. taxes are provided when such earnings are intended to be indefinitely reinvested outside the U.S." http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=320193-17-70&CIK=320193 http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=320193-17-7... http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm
      - jeffbax 8y ago
        I wasn't talking about Apple specifically as the nature of digital companies is different, but US Corporations on the whole faced a ~38% tax rate globally vs. most countries being closer to 20% and this is something even the Obama administration wanted to change / partisan angles about this are dumb.
  - knorker 8y ago
    > while everyone else were paying >20% and >20% Uhm, no. This is a deliberate tax loophole that the government is fine with small companies using, but only feign being upset when large companies do it too. They could just close it, but they don't want to. Creating local optimizations for marketplaces is what the EU is for*.
hackandtrip 8y ago
That's the first time I read something like that, no sources on google seems to pop-up, nothing on "mobs china foreign countries". It's obvious that China's biggest companies are tied to government, but I would be surprised if this didn't make to the news.
- ohBlahDeeBlah 8y ago
  Actually, I can't recall the context, but maybe a couple of years ago, I remember someone posting links to a video or two, that fits the description @knorker provides. It was a really strange video of perhaps 150 people going on a rampage, in a strip-mall style office park, with low two story buildings that had suites with large store front windows. The mob was organized, with picket signs that had slogans, and they were smashing windows and jumping on cars. It didn't have subtitles, and it looked like a weird protest, which you might just shrug at. Why were there over a hundred people swarming some innocuous, cheap looking suite of offices in China, smashing things to hell and getting away with it? No idea, click, next video. Looking back, this concept fits the bill for what I saw. I had always been curious about what I was looking at, and the profile fits.
puzzle 8y ago
Sir, I was at Google before and after the China pullout. You have no idea. All governments, to some degree, will of course side with local companies (tax incentives, etc.), but China is in a league of its own. https://searchengineland.com/did-dalai-lama-award-cause-china-to-redirect-google-yahoo-microsoft-search-traffic-to-baidu-12464 https://searchengineland.com/did-dalai-lama-award-cause-chin... Just one of many examples.
gruez 8y ago
>The best you can do is call the police and say "this mob slamming at the doors make me fear for my life. If you don't get me out of here I'll call my embassy and say there's a hostage situation". what is the american embassy going to do? call in seal team 6 to rescue you? the worst that will come of this is some strong words from the secretary of state.
- knorker 8y ago
  It's another way of saying "do you want to turn this into an international incident?".

shanghaiaway 8y ago

Source

bepotts 8y ago

People say "governments favour local companies" to defend the EU's ridiculous anti-trust claims against US tech, and to attack America for not breaking up American tech monopolies. Apparently America is propping up all its tech companies and it's not allowing European companies to compete, thus is similar to CCP's support of Chinese tech companies; which is of course ridiculous for all the things you just mentioned. The constant drum beat of "America is morally wrong for not using anti-trust on its tech companies" is just ridiculous. Especially when trying to compare the US government's approach to the free market to China's.

nrow 8y ago
How is the EU's anti-trust claims ridiculous? Apple, and Google (and probably more companies), made special deals with Ireland and Luxembourg to pay something like <5% VAT and <5% corporate tax, while everyone else were paying >20% and >20%. And those deals largely isn't available to EU companies because they can't use the favorable US tax laws to do it. Despite Android being open source Google forced manufacturers to not sell any other versions of it if they also wanted to sell Googles. Which of course would be disastrous for any company. Enforcement against that is only ridiculous if you don't like competition.
- jeffbax 8y ago
  Until the tax law change this year, US companies were generally at a tax dis-advantage. Whether or not tech companies were more advantaged I don't think is as simple to say as the headlines would want you to believe but a large swath of US companies were at a global disadvantage for taxes. Effective Corporate taxes in the US were of the highest, and now they're more toward the global average.
  - nrow2 8y ago
    They weren't at a disadvantage outside the US, that is the whole point. Apple's effective tax rate on profits in the EU, before the EC ruled otherwise, was less than 0.05% between 2011 and 2014. Money which they are using to compete in the rest of the world. For example from Apple's SEC Form 10-K, 2017: "[...] undistributed foreign earnings, a substantial portion of which was generated by subsidiaries organized in Ireland, for which no U.S. taxes are provided when such earnings are intended to be indefinitely reinvested outside the U.S." http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=320193-17-70&CIK=320193 http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=320193-17-7... http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-2923_en.htm
    - jeffbax 8y ago
      I wasn't talking about Apple specifically as the nature of digital companies is different, but US Corporations on the whole faced a ~38% tax rate globally vs. most countries being closer to 20% and this is something even the Obama administration wanted to change / partisan angles about this are dumb.
- knorker 8y ago
  > while everyone else were paying >20% and >20% Uhm, no. This is a deliberate tax loophole that the government is fine with small companies using, but only feign being upset when large companies do it too. They could just close it, but they don't want to. Creating local optimizations for marketplaces is what the EU is for*.

hackandtrip 8y ago

That's the first time I read something like that, no sources on google seems to pop-up, nothing on "mobs china foreign countries". It's obvious that China's biggest companies are tied to government, but I would be surprised if this didn't make to the news.

ohBlahDeeBlah 8y ago
Actually, I can't recall the context, but maybe a couple of years ago, I remember someone posting links to a video or two, that fits the description @knorker provides. It was a really strange video of perhaps 150 people going on a rampage, in a strip-mall style office park, with low two story buildings that had suites with large store front windows. The mob was organized, with picket signs that had slogans, and they were smashing windows and jumping on cars. It didn't have subtitles, and it looked like a weird protest, which you might just shrug at. Why were there over a hundred people swarming some innocuous, cheap looking suite of offices in China, smashing things to hell and getting away with it? No idea, click, next video. Looking back, this concept fits the bill for what I saw. I had always been curious about what I was looking at, and the profile fits.

puzzle 8y ago

Sir, I was at Google before and after the China pullout. You have no idea. All governments, to some degree, will of course side with local companies (tax incentives, etc.), but China is in a league of its own. https://searchengineland.com/did-dalai-lama-award-cause-china-to-redirect-google-yahoo-microsoft-search-traffic-to-baidu-12464 https://searchengineland.com/did-dalai-lama-award-cause-chin... Just one of many examples.

gruez 8y ago

>The best you can do is call the police and say "this mob slamming at the doors make me fear for my life. If you don't get me out of here I'll call my embassy and say there's a hostage situation". what is the american embassy going to do? call in seal team 6 to rescue you? the worst that will come of this is some strong words from the secretary of state.

knorker 8y ago
It's another way of saying "do you want to turn this into an international incident?".