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Can America compete?
- doggonematte 14y agoWhat's that corollary about titles that ask questions?
- weaksauce 14y agoBetteridge's Law of Headlines – In journalism, "any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'". from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws
- pyre 14y agoHow about: Will the answer to this headline be 'no?'
- tzs 14y agoThat's not applicable to this article. It applies, if at all, to articles where the question mark is added because the author is trying to strengthen a weak article. For instance, if researchers discovered a new drug that helps with HIV, by writing the headline as "Has a cure for HIV been found?" it makes the article sound like it is reporting on a stronger result. In this case, the article is about a group of people that are actually trying to answer the question "Can America Compete?". The title is appropriate.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoYes. Next.
- johnohara 14y agoPossible, but difficult, given current obligations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_War http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933935.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933935.html
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- russell 14y agoDeclare victory and come home. Leave nation building to the natives not the contractors. Fix the tax code so that the rich pay taxes commensurate with the rest of us, so that corporations cant shift earnings offshore, so that resource extraction companies dont get depletion allowance, so that excessive earnings get put to productive use, on and on. Then we will have money to pay down our debt and to move forward.
- Daniel_Newby 14y agoThis is great material for a bunch of teenagers protesting The Man, but how do you propose to keep earnings out of foreign countries? I.e., how can you ban a German subsidiary from holding the German profits? How do you define "excessive earnings" or windfalls or other such garbage? Many businesses are cyclical, like venture capital and energy. If you tax away the profitable part of the cycle, they will shut down and tax revenue actually falls. I had better stop talking or I will end up waving my cane and shouting about the Laffer curve.
- yzhengyu 14y agoI think no one has issues with say, the German subsidiary holding onto profits generated in Germany. The primary observation now is large corporations channeling their reserves and holding them in various locations that is friendly to capital - i.e. no taxes or other costs in simply holding large amounts of cash in reserve. I think at this stage of global economic development, it is an issue the world has to face. How in the world are you going to incentivise these entities holding all these vast amounts of capital to put this capital to real wealth generating activities instead of sitting on it or leaving it to the financial sector to push it around?
- russell 14y agoThe article actually supposes that large businesses really care to think locally. If a business can shut down a factory in Michigan and reopen in China for some perceived cost advantage or switch from a local supplier to a foreign one, think locally isnt going to produce anything. I would posit that rethinking manufacturing (entrepreneurially) to take advantage of our skilled workforce and superior design capabilities would be the way to go. One suggestion did make sense: reduce the influence of stock based incentives. Even more importantly, get away from decisions being driven by quarterly reports.
- enraged_camel 14y ago>>If a business can shut down a factory in Michigan and reopen in China for some perceived cost advantage... In the vast majority of cases, the "perceived" cost advantage is real, and very significant.
- dreamdu5t 14y agoCompete by what standard? The article doesn't even define the premise it's referring to.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]