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Well Bush II lowered taxes to the point of unprofitability (I assume you are speaking from a national governmental view). Governments engage in deficit spendin

Well Bush II lowered taxes to the point of unprofitability (I assume you are speaking from a national governmental view). Governments engage in deficit spending and some foolishly lowers taxes at the behest of its monied interests. You appear to assign to the government of Ireland some sort of rationality and ignore things like regulatory capture and corruption. Your belief that a government will only lower until "revenues raised == cost of services + small margin" is not rooted in fact.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
You are referring to all government services and all revenue collected. I'm referring solely to services provided to corporations and revenue collected from corporations. I fully agree that the losses from the War on Iraqis/SS/medicare/etc don't outweigh the profits made by taxing Apple/etc and providing them with a few cheap services (corporate registration, enforcement of contracts, etc). That's a separate issue. Regulatory competition helps - if the profitable people/businesses flee from corruption/inefficiency, then those wasteful programs will eventually run out of money. The existence of corruption and regulatory capture is all the more reason to have regulatory competition. If California is captured by corrupt special interests (e.g., prison guard unions), corporations can purchase corporate registration and contract enforcement from states which offer a better value.
- yequalsx 15y ago
  I fully agree that the losses from the War on Iraqis/SS/medicare/etc don't outweigh the profits made by taxing Apple/etc and providing them with a few cheap services (corporate registration, enforcement of contracts, etc). That's a separate issue. Ironic that you mention SS and Medicare. Two programs designed to help companies out (and people too). Do the cheap services include a road system? Do they include an education system capable of producing adequate workers? Do they include protection from enemies? These things are not cheap. And it is especially helpful to be located in a country with great influence that helps smooth things in other countries. I think you don't understand what regulatory capture is. When an industry has capture the regulators that is a good thing from the perspective of that industry. Regulatory capture is what oligopolies want. It's the good kind of corruption from their perspective. Large companies don't flee from corrupt societies. They use that corruption to their advantage. Obviously there are counterexamples to this but overall the gist is correct.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    The cheap services do indeed include a road system, which tends to be paid for by property taxes in a given locality. Apple pays for CA roads in proportion to the land they own in CA. Their works also pay for roads via gas taxes, and charge Apple commensurately. Why should Apple be taxed on profits earned in Ireland to pay for CA roads? As for protection from enemies, we should simply stop defending Ireland. Then Ireland will be forced to defend itself (from Iraq, I suppose) and charge corporations commensurately.
    - yequalsx 15y ago
      The first part of the article was about Apple avoiding California taxes by having a small office in Reno. You haven't shown that Apple pays its fair share of California's road system (don't ignore the federal road system), schools, sewers, police protection, or its use of American soft power for its purposes overseas. But supposing Apple does pay it's share of all these things. Given our current deficit and that a large portion of our deficit goes toward maintenance of both soft and hard power and that such power is used for the benefit (not solely) of large corporations its clear that business are not paying their share of the burden. And a large portion of the current deficit comes from stabilizing the economy. Without infusions of cash into the system after Lehman went bankrupt Apple would have been greatly disrupted. Corporations in the U.S. currently sit on a great hoard of cash. I don't know another hoard of cash government can access to pay for the maintenance of the system. From you last paragraph it seems it would be advisable for you to read the Wikileaks cables. Your view about the role of military power and its relationship with soft power the use of said power for the benefit of corporate interests appears to naive. In an environment where public policy has been co-opted by corporate interests to serve business interests to the detriment of other interests it's hardly reasonable to think that "we should simply stop defending Ireland". Why would businesses want such a thing when they benefit from our power without having to pay for it?
      - yummyfajitas 15y ago
        Roads, sewers, police and fire are dirt cheap. Bringing them up is disingenuous. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2010USbt_13bs1n#usgs302 http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2010USbt_1... As for the federal road system, that's paid for by gas taxes - Apple (or fedex, or whoever delivers iPhones) pays for it whenever they fill up their gas tanks roughly in proportion to how much they use it. It's also hardly clear that businesses are not paying their share of the burden. The services businesses require cost very little - corporate registration, police protection, roads, etc. The fact that these services are cheap is demonstrated by the fact that Nevada provides those services and charges very little for it. Most other services are given to individuals and different individuals (usually younger ones) are charged for those services. The individuals who work for Apple raise their prices commensurately.
protomyth 15y ago
"Well Bush II lowered taxes to the point of unprofitability" The US has been running up the debt for many years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_public_debt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_pu...
- yequalsx 15y ago
  What you say is true. What I said is true too. Both statements are true. Bush II tax cuts are a very large portion of the current deficient that we have. Taxes are currently at a 50 year low as a percent of GDP. Bush II taxes greatly increased the deficit. Other tax cuts have too. I was just giving an example of the statement that I responded to being false.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    If they repealed all the Bush era tax cuts, the deficit would still be growing at a higher rate than before. Obama has run up the deficit at a faster pace (approaching double) than Bush and those tax cuts aren't even the major part of it. The biggest problem is the lack of a passed federal budget in over a 1,000 days. This is causing a lot of budget increasing in a time when we cannot afford it. What the media and politicians (from both sides) chose to concentrate on is emotion grabbing (good for votes and ratings), systemic issues with how the government is being run are boring and not emphasized. Low taxes don't kill budgets (check right after WWII when they had to drop), it is runaway spending. Income from taxes of all sorts has averaged 19% GDP, spending above that is the problem.
    - yequalsx 15y ago
      The point I made in showing that yummyfajita's remarks to be wrong stand. I might be wrong on my belief that repealing the Bush tax cuts would greatly improve the fiscal outlook of the federal government but this does not in any way detract from my point. Your last two paragraphs are not germane to my point and they are wrong in any case. However, let's assume your last statement is correct. Right now taxes around 15.4% GDP [1]. You seem to believe that 19% GDP in taxes is a reasonable amount to pay for government services. The GDP of the U.S. is around $15 trillion [2]. A 3.5% GDP increase in taxes to get us to 19% GDP for taxes would mean an increase of taxes by $525 billion. Current budgetary projections have the U.S. deficit at slightly over $500 billion in 4 years [3]. A lot of the current deficit is in non-recurring expenditures that are related to the fiscal crisis that started in 2008. I might be wrong on my belief about the Bush II tax cuts being a large portion of our long term fiscal problems but from your sentence one must conclude that you agree that raising taxes by a reasonable amount would eliminate our long term fiscal problems. [1] http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205 http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc... [2] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD [3] http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.ht...

yummyfajitas 15y ago

You are referring to all government services and all revenue collected. I'm referring solely to services provided to corporations and revenue collected from corporations. I fully agree that the losses from the War on Iraqis/SS/medicare/etc don't outweigh the profits made by taxing Apple/etc and providing them with a few cheap services (corporate registration, enforcement of contracts, etc). That's a separate issue. Regulatory competition helps - if the profitable people/businesses flee from corruption/inefficiency, then those wasteful programs will eventually run out of money. The existence of corruption and regulatory capture is all the more reason to have regulatory competition. If California is captured by corrupt special interests (e.g., prison guard unions), corporations can purchase corporate registration and contract enforcement from states which offer a better value.

yequalsx 15y ago
I fully agree that the losses from the War on Iraqis/SS/medicare/etc don't outweigh the profits made by taxing Apple/etc and providing them with a few cheap services (corporate registration, enforcement of contracts, etc). That's a separate issue. Ironic that you mention SS and Medicare. Two programs designed to help companies out (and people too). Do the cheap services include a road system? Do they include an education system capable of producing adequate workers? Do they include protection from enemies? These things are not cheap. And it is especially helpful to be located in a country with great influence that helps smooth things in other countries. I think you don't understand what regulatory capture is. When an industry has capture the regulators that is a good thing from the perspective of that industry. Regulatory capture is what oligopolies want. It's the good kind of corruption from their perspective. Large companies don't flee from corrupt societies. They use that corruption to their advantage. Obviously there are counterexamples to this but overall the gist is correct.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  The cheap services do indeed include a road system, which tends to be paid for by property taxes in a given locality. Apple pays for CA roads in proportion to the land they own in CA. Their works also pay for roads via gas taxes, and charge Apple commensurately. Why should Apple be taxed on profits earned in Ireland to pay for CA roads? As for protection from enemies, we should simply stop defending Ireland. Then Ireland will be forced to defend itself (from Iraq, I suppose) and charge corporations commensurately.
  - yequalsx 15y ago
    The first part of the article was about Apple avoiding California taxes by having a small office in Reno. You haven't shown that Apple pays its fair share of California's road system (don't ignore the federal road system), schools, sewers, police protection, or its use of American soft power for its purposes overseas. But supposing Apple does pay it's share of all these things. Given our current deficit and that a large portion of our deficit goes toward maintenance of both soft and hard power and that such power is used for the benefit (not solely) of large corporations its clear that business are not paying their share of the burden. And a large portion of the current deficit comes from stabilizing the economy. Without infusions of cash into the system after Lehman went bankrupt Apple would have been greatly disrupted. Corporations in the U.S. currently sit on a great hoard of cash. I don't know another hoard of cash government can access to pay for the maintenance of the system. From you last paragraph it seems it would be advisable for you to read the Wikileaks cables. Your view about the role of military power and its relationship with soft power the use of said power for the benefit of corporate interests appears to naive. In an environment where public policy has been co-opted by corporate interests to serve business interests to the detriment of other interests it's hardly reasonable to think that "we should simply stop defending Ireland". Why would businesses want such a thing when they benefit from our power without having to pay for it?
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago
      Roads, sewers, police and fire are dirt cheap. Bringing them up is disingenuous. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2010USbt_13bs1n#usgs302 http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2010USbt_1... As for the federal road system, that's paid for by gas taxes - Apple (or fedex, or whoever delivers iPhones) pays for it whenever they fill up their gas tanks roughly in proportion to how much they use it. It's also hardly clear that businesses are not paying their share of the burden. The services businesses require cost very little - corporate registration, police protection, roads, etc. The fact that these services are cheap is demonstrated by the fact that Nevada provides those services and charges very little for it. Most other services are given to individuals and different individuals (usually younger ones) are charged for those services. The individuals who work for Apple raise their prices commensurately.

protomyth 15y ago

"Well Bush II lowered taxes to the point of unprofitability" The US has been running up the debt for many years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_public_debt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_pu...

yequalsx 15y ago
What you say is true. What I said is true too. Both statements are true. Bush II tax cuts are a very large portion of the current deficient that we have. Taxes are currently at a 50 year low as a percent of GDP. Bush II taxes greatly increased the deficit. Other tax cuts have too. I was just giving an example of the statement that I responded to being false.
- protomyth 15y ago
  If they repealed all the Bush era tax cuts, the deficit would still be growing at a higher rate than before. Obama has run up the deficit at a faster pace (approaching double) than Bush and those tax cuts aren't even the major part of it. The biggest problem is the lack of a passed federal budget in over a 1,000 days. This is causing a lot of budget increasing in a time when we cannot afford it. What the media and politicians (from both sides) chose to concentrate on is emotion grabbing (good for votes and ratings), systemic issues with how the government is being run are boring and not emphasized. Low taxes don't kill budgets (check right after WWII when they had to drop), it is runaway spending. Income from taxes of all sorts has averaged 19% GDP, spending above that is the problem.
  - yequalsx 15y ago
    The point I made in showing that yummyfajita's remarks to be wrong stand. I might be wrong on my belief that repealing the Bush tax cuts would greatly improve the fiscal outlook of the federal government but this does not in any way detract from my point. Your last two paragraphs are not germane to my point and they are wrong in any case. However, let's assume your last statement is correct. Right now taxes around 15.4% GDP [1]. You seem to believe that 19% GDP in taxes is a reasonable amount to pay for government services. The GDP of the U.S. is around $15 trillion [2]. A 3.5% GDP increase in taxes to get us to 19% GDP for taxes would mean an increase of taxes by $525 billion. Current budgetary projections have the U.S. deficit at slightly over $500 billion in 4 years [3]. A lot of the current deficit is in non-recurring expenditures that are related to the fiscal crisis that started in 2008. I might be wrong on my belief about the Bush II tax cuts being a large portion of our long term fiscal problems but from your sentence one must conclude that you agree that raising taxes by a reasonable amount would eliminate our long term fiscal problems. [1] http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205 http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc... [2] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD [3] http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.ht...