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> I particularly like the idea that corporate tax returns should be public This is the sort of thing that sounds interesting but would be an absolute disaster.

> I particularly like the idea that corporate tax returns should be public This is the sort of thing that sounds interesting but would be an absolute disaster. This is particularly true in the context of a globally competitive marketplace. Simple example: If I want to enter your market and know your exact cost structure, sales, etc. I can engineer a viable competitive entry, secure IP and financing/investment come into the market and destroy you. If, for example, I know your margins are running very thin and funds low, I can squeeze you out of existence. Put in simpler terms, this is the reason you don't tell your opponent what you are thinking and what your strategy and concerns might be during (and even after) a chess game. Same reason armies don't publish their battle plans either. Business isn't a vacation in paradise. Every single competitor (and other actors) is actively trying to kill you. If they are not, they aren't a real competitor. Public corporations are a very different story. Until the advent of SPACs (aka: Ponzi Scheme) a company was very careful about when to go public and had to achieve a certain mass and scale to be able to justify and endure the scrutiny and exposure. The world of successful businesses is paved with stories from entrepreneurs and companies who went to the very edge of insolvency in pursuit of a dream, mission or objective and came out of the other end with a massive success.

vidarh 6y ago
In no country I've been involved in filing corporate tax returns would the tax returns reveal the level of detail you worry about. Notably they'd reveal less than the accounts I'm already having to file, that are public in lots of countries.
wpietri 6y ago
This seems quite extreme to me. Do a lot of companies put "what you are thinking and what your strategy and concerns might be" in their tax returns? The truth is that in any mature industry, companies have a very good idea of each other's "exact cost structure, sales, etc". Talk with a restaurateur about the competition, for example, and they'll be able tell you in great detail about how they operate. The sale prices are right on the menu. They're buying from the same suppliers, hiring from the same labor pool. And anybody can figure out how busy they are with a a quick look in the windows. But restaurants are somehow not "an absolute disaster". And of course you're focused here on empathy for corporations. But the whole theory of functioning marketplaces is that companies shouldn't be comfortable. It's best for the world when they compete vigorously.
- robomartin 6y ago
  It isn't about empathy for corporations. It's amazing to me how people always find a way to attach evil intent through language. What drives me is far simpler than that: We (I'll use that to mean the US and Europe) are in a straight path to being economically decimated by China. Nobody understands this more than those who have been intimately involved in manufacturing for a non-trivial amount of time. In my case, over thirty years. Someone devoid of this perspective isn't equipped to understand where we are (again, Europe and the US), where we came from and where we are going. Capitalist, socialist, communist, Martian. I don't care. The simple fact is that the ONLY thing that can give us (US and Europe) any hope of reverting the unrelenting path we have allowed ourselves to navigate is an almost unreasonably intense shift to being pro-business and pro-entrepreneurship. Nothing else. NOTHING. Can slow this down, much less revert it. Well, you could have a war. Great. No amount of social programs, infrastructure rebuilding or, the great oxymoron "government money" is powerful enough to give us the tools and opportunities necessary to avoid what's coming. You think things are bad in terms of unemployment and income inequality today? Continue on this demented path and see just how much worse this becomes. There are people like me screaming at the top of our lungs. Have been for years. No political affiliation. Just math and facts. Simple math/facts: Right now, today, we are allowing people to freely enter the US through the southern border at a rate of about TWO MILLION per year. Anyone, please, kindly name where in this nation we are generating 150,000 ADDITIONAL new jobs every month. Because, if we are not, what we are importing is deep unemployment. By the millions. The unemployment rate in black and Hispanic sectors in the US is in the order of 20% at this time. How can we possibly justify making it worse? If we (US and Europe) want to have a chance to not lose even more industries we need to focus intently on the things that matter. Today. Immediately. No more bullshit. So, yes, companies should pay no taxes. We should NOT throw money at nonsense "infrastructure" (don't get me started on that) and, instead, invest in technology, semiconductors, entrepreneurship, anything and everything that can possibly rebuild the ecosystem we relinquished to China. Not all of it. Enough of it. In other words. Invest in business. Some corners of industry are gone forever. As a simple example, I used to buy specialized hardened glass from a company in NY. They got killed by the Chinese. That was the last US-based company for that product. I then switched to buying from the only company left in Europe for this product, it was in Germany. That lasted about a year. They could not compete with government-subsidized Chinese companies ripping through the market at 50% of their price. Gone. I then had no choice but to buy from China. A year later they doubled their prices. About 18 months later they doubled them again. At that point nobody outside of China would, unless they were stupid, dare to re-enter the market. They knew exactly what would happen with regards to predatory pricing. A chemical company isn't something you spin up with an Ansible script. It requires time and investment. And so, the Chinese ended up killing all competition and owning that industry. I don't hate China at all. They are doing exactly what we should be doing. They focusing on what matters for them. And they are doing an amazing job of it. So, you see, my intensity with regards to these matters doesn't come from some theoretical indoctrination received in school. No sir. It comes from, as they say, having had skin in the game for quite some time. The simple fact is: We are focusing on nonsense while the Chinese are focusing on advancement. Businesses are not evil. We need them in order to survive and advance. Destroy them at your own peril. I have a contract right now that I am hoping to close this week. It will require designing a device and then manufacturing 5K to 10K units per month. I was initially looking at this and though: Great! We'll invest in developing a fully automated assembly line. Hire engineers and technicians and a few operators. We'll make them right here in the US. Now I am looking at our politicians talking about raising corporate taxes and all kinds of other nonsense. They should be doing exactly the opposite. But, no, let's go out of our way to put as many competitive barriers as possible in front of our own businesses. So, I'm looking at this and thinking: Fuck it! I'm done. Atlas Shrugged moment. It is SO EASY to manufacture in China. If they don't want my business in the US I am done. I am not going to bang my head against the wall trying to be a good citizen if my own country and government will actively try to kill me and refuses to support my efforts and sacrifice. Why should I? Sorry, this ideology is 100% demented, will drive away business, grow unemployment and income inequality. If businesses are evil. Fine. Go figure out how to earn a living not working for one. And don't complain when people like me give up and offshore even more layers from our economy and you can't find a job.

vidarh 6y ago

In no country I've been involved in filing corporate tax returns would the tax returns reveal the level of detail you worry about. Notably they'd reveal less than the accounts I'm already having to file, that are public in lots of countries.

wpietri 6y ago

This seems quite extreme to me. Do a lot of companies put "what you are thinking and what your strategy and concerns might be" in their tax returns? The truth is that in any mature industry, companies have a very good idea of each other's "exact cost structure, sales, etc". Talk with a restaurateur about the competition, for example, and they'll be able tell you in great detail about how they operate. The sale prices are right on the menu. They're buying from the same suppliers, hiring from the same labor pool. And anybody can figure out how busy they are with a a quick look in the windows. But restaurants are somehow not "an absolute disaster". And of course you're focused here on empathy for corporations. But the whole theory of functioning marketplaces is that companies shouldn't be comfortable. It's best for the world when they compete vigorously.

robomartin 6y ago
It isn't about empathy for corporations. It's amazing to me how people always find a way to attach evil intent through language. What drives me is far simpler than that: We (I'll use that to mean the US and Europe) are in a straight path to being economically decimated by China. Nobody understands this more than those who have been intimately involved in manufacturing for a non-trivial amount of time. In my case, over thirty years. Someone devoid of this perspective isn't equipped to understand where we are (again, Europe and the US), where we came from and where we are going. Capitalist, socialist, communist, Martian. I don't care. The simple fact is that the ONLY thing that can give us (US and Europe) any hope of reverting the unrelenting path we have allowed ourselves to navigate is an almost unreasonably intense shift to being pro-business and pro-entrepreneurship. Nothing else. NOTHING. Can slow this down, much less revert it. Well, you could have a war. Great. No amount of social programs, infrastructure rebuilding or, the great oxymoron "government money" is powerful enough to give us the tools and opportunities necessary to avoid what's coming. You think things are bad in terms of unemployment and income inequality today? Continue on this demented path and see just how much worse this becomes. There are people like me screaming at the top of our lungs. Have been for years. No political affiliation. Just math and facts. Simple math/facts: Right now, today, we are allowing people to freely enter the US through the southern border at a rate of about TWO MILLION per year. Anyone, please, kindly name where in this nation we are generating 150,000 ADDITIONAL new jobs every month. Because, if we are not, what we are importing is deep unemployment. By the millions. The unemployment rate in black and Hispanic sectors in the US is in the order of 20% at this time. How can we possibly justify making it worse? If we (US and Europe) want to have a chance to not lose even more industries we need to focus intently on the things that matter. Today. Immediately. No more bullshit. So, yes, companies should pay no taxes. We should NOT throw money at nonsense "infrastructure" (don't get me started on that) and, instead, invest in technology, semiconductors, entrepreneurship, anything and everything that can possibly rebuild the ecosystem we relinquished to China. Not all of it. Enough of it. In other words. Invest in business. Some corners of industry are gone forever. As a simple example, I used to buy specialized hardened glass from a company in NY. They got killed by the Chinese. That was the last US-based company for that product. I then switched to buying from the only company left in Europe for this product, it was in Germany. That lasted about a year. They could not compete with government-subsidized Chinese companies ripping through the market at 50% of their price. Gone. I then had no choice but to buy from China. A year later they doubled their prices. About 18 months later they doubled them again. At that point nobody outside of China would, unless they were stupid, dare to re-enter the market. They knew exactly what would happen with regards to predatory pricing. A chemical company isn't something you spin up with an Ansible script. It requires time and investment. And so, the Chinese ended up killing all competition and owning that industry. I don't hate China at all. They are doing exactly what we should be doing. They focusing on what matters for them. And they are doing an amazing job of it. So, you see, my intensity with regards to these matters doesn't come from some theoretical indoctrination received in school. No sir. It comes from, as they say, having had skin in the game for quite some time. The simple fact is: We are focusing on nonsense while the Chinese are focusing on advancement. Businesses are not evil. We need them in order to survive and advance. Destroy them at your own peril. I have a contract right now that I am hoping to close this week. It will require designing a device and then manufacturing 5K to 10K units per month. I was initially looking at this and though: Great! We'll invest in developing a fully automated assembly line. Hire engineers and technicians and a few operators. We'll make them right here in the US. Now I am looking at our politicians talking about raising corporate taxes and all kinds of other nonsense. They should be doing exactly the opposite. But, no, let's go out of our way to put as many competitive barriers as possible in front of our own businesses. So, I'm looking at this and thinking: Fuck it! I'm done. Atlas Shrugged moment. It is SO EASY to manufacture in China. If they don't want my business in the US I am done. I am not going to bang my head against the wall trying to be a good citizen if my own country and government will actively try to kill me and refuses to support my efforts and sacrifice. Why should I? Sorry, this ideology is 100% demented, will drive away business, grow unemployment and income inequality. If businesses are evil. Fine. Go figure out how to earn a living not working for one. And don't complain when people like me give up and offshore even more layers from our economy and you can't find a job.