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This is entirely impractical. Companies wouldn’t even be able own subsidiaries in other countries that can legally act as employers or tax payers there. It wou

This is entirely impractical. Companies wouldn’t even be able own subsidiaries in other countries that can legally act as employers or tax payers there. It would make it impossible for governments to own minority stakes in local subsidiaries of global corporations to veto some things. It would make it impossible to impose capital requirements on subsidiaries of big financial institutions. It would be impossible for larger competitors to rescue failing peers and keep them operating as a going concern. And it would very likely create the most suffocating oligopolies on a national level as well as on an industry level as competitors would find it extremely hard to enter markets with entrenched incumbents if the only way to do it was to build from scratch.

jacquesm 5y ago
> Companies wouldn’t even be able own subsidiaries in other countries that can legally act as employers or tax payers there. So? That would enable local companies that occupy the same niche to do so. All these multinationals are not necessarily a good thing. > It would make it impossible for governments to own minority stakes in local subsidiaries of global corporations to veto some things. Only if you believe that those local subsidiaries should exist in the first place and that need not be the case. > It would make it impossible to impose capital requirements on subsidiaries of big financial institutions. There would be no such subsidiaries. > It would be impossible for larger competitors to rescue failing peers and keep them operating as a going concern. These could be structured as asset sales. And a whole lot of trickery that causes these peers to fail would go out the window. You are making the mistake of looking at the glass 'half empty', when in fact the better way to look at it is what we would get for it in return. Capitalism, but with a much more direct link between UBO and the companies they have a hand in, far less opportunity for nation state level wealth to end up concentrated with a very small number of people and less opportunity for companies to play shell games with their income. Capitalism, like money is a great invention. But like everything else when taken to extremes it is a net negative, in moderation it could well be uniformly good. But the whole externalization game needs to stop or it will harm us greatly.
- fauigerzigerk 5y ago
  So what you're saying is that companies should never employ people or put capital to work in more than one country or do anything else across borders that requires a legal entity that can be locally regulated, taxed and held accountable. All failing companies should be liquidated and sold off in bits and pieces, employees fired, contracts and debts voided, pension schemes closed. Entrenched local incumbents could only ever be disrupted by individuals starting new companies, funded exclusively by other individuals. Presumably, none of these individuals would be allowed to own a controlling stake in another company, otherwise it would effectively be one company. You would have to convince those wealthy individuals to start companies in small countries in spite of the fact that the growth potential of their company would be far more limited than if they started a company in a big country. The only incentive would be local protectionism. You would also have to make sure that companies don't enter into contractual relationships that effectively make them act as one (such as McDonald's franchises) You would effectively hand absolute power to local family clans and oligarchs closely intertwined with local bureaucrats and politicians. It's a recipe for stagnation and corruption. This is not a glass half full and it's not moderation. It's a glass smashed in an act of vandalism and blind rage. It's the sort of revolution that countries take a century to recover from. Turning the clocks back a couple of centuries is not progressive either.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    > So what you're saying is that companies should never employ people [in more than one country] No, that's not what I'm saying, besides that could be easily covered through employment law, but we already have the concept of internationally operating free-lancers. > or do anything else across borders that requires a legal entity that can be locally regulated, taxed and held accountable. Not if that legal entity is going to have a company as its shareholders. But there would be no reason why it could not exist and have natural persons as its shareholders, they could even be the same shareholders as in some other company abroad. You are still arguing about this from the perspective of everything that it can't do, which is pretty easy to deal with because most of those things it can do. What it can't do is to hide the UBOs, which is really the only big change. Everything else can easily be worked around.

jacquesm 5y ago

> Companies wouldn’t even be able own subsidiaries in other countries that can legally act as employers or tax payers there. So? That would enable local companies that occupy the same niche to do so. All these multinationals are not necessarily a good thing. > It would make it impossible for governments to own minority stakes in local subsidiaries of global corporations to veto some things. Only if you believe that those local subsidiaries should exist in the first place and that need not be the case. > It would make it impossible to impose capital requirements on subsidiaries of big financial institutions. There would be no such subsidiaries. > It would be impossible for larger competitors to rescue failing peers and keep them operating as a going concern. These could be structured as asset sales. And a whole lot of trickery that causes these peers to fail would go out the window. You are making the mistake of looking at the glass 'half empty', when in fact the better way to look at it is what we would get for it in return. Capitalism, but with a much more direct link between UBO and the companies they have a hand in, far less opportunity for nation state level wealth to end up concentrated with a very small number of people and less opportunity for companies to play shell games with their income. Capitalism, like money is a great invention. But like everything else when taken to extremes it is a net negative, in moderation it could well be uniformly good. But the whole externalization game needs to stop or it will harm us greatly.

fauigerzigerk 5y ago
So what you're saying is that companies should never employ people or put capital to work in more than one country or do anything else across borders that requires a legal entity that can be locally regulated, taxed and held accountable. All failing companies should be liquidated and sold off in bits and pieces, employees fired, contracts and debts voided, pension schemes closed. Entrenched local incumbents could only ever be disrupted by individuals starting new companies, funded exclusively by other individuals. Presumably, none of these individuals would be allowed to own a controlling stake in another company, otherwise it would effectively be one company. You would have to convince those wealthy individuals to start companies in small countries in spite of the fact that the growth potential of their company would be far more limited than if they started a company in a big country. The only incentive would be local protectionism. You would also have to make sure that companies don't enter into contractual relationships that effectively make them act as one (such as McDonald's franchises) You would effectively hand absolute power to local family clans and oligarchs closely intertwined with local bureaucrats and politicians. It's a recipe for stagnation and corruption. This is not a glass half full and it's not moderation. It's a glass smashed in an act of vandalism and blind rage. It's the sort of revolution that countries take a century to recover from. Turning the clocks back a couple of centuries is not progressive either.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > So what you're saying is that companies should never employ people [in more than one country] No, that's not what I'm saying, besides that could be easily covered through employment law, but we already have the concept of internationally operating free-lancers. > or do anything else across borders that requires a legal entity that can be locally regulated, taxed and held accountable. Not if that legal entity is going to have a company as its shareholders. But there would be no reason why it could not exist and have natural persons as its shareholders, they could even be the same shareholders as in some other company abroad. You are still arguing about this from the perspective of everything that it can't do, which is pretty easy to deal with because most of those things it can do. What it can't do is to hide the UBOs, which is really the only big change. Everything else can easily be worked around.