4 ms·

What’s “corporate masters” got to do with a transaction from taxes and inflation (stolen value on your savings and spending power) to a handout?

komali2 8mo ago
If you think taxation is theft, wait till I show you some fat margins on labor value.
- tt24 8mo ago
  Large margins are not what define theft believe it or not
  - komali2 8mo ago
    I'm not sure why taking away money you could spend on goods or put into savings is ok when your boss does it, but not ok when the government does it. At least the government builds you a road in return.
    - tt24 8mo ago
      Because one is consensual and the other isn’t.
      - komali2 8mo ago
        Right, that's my point, unless you can work at a co-op, you have no say in how much value from your labor is extracted and given to someone else, and given the way society is designed, it's basically impossible to live without nonconsensually giving up the majority of your labor's value to someone else. Whereas with taxes, if you don't like them, you can elect a different politician. Look at the Americans, they do it all the time, their tax rates go all over the place. I want roads, libraries, firetrucks, and for my poop to vanish into oblivion when I pull the toilet handle. I don't really want my money to buy my boss a new car.
        tt24 8mo ago
        You can work for a different employer that extracts a different amount of value. You can’t switch governments without paying exit taxes (in the United States).
        komali2 8mo ago
        > You can work for a different employer that extracts a different amount of value. Not necessarily as easily as you can vote for a different politician, especially since you're restricted by your ability to change locations (family, property, heritage ties), or industries. And in this day and age changing employer very well may not at all mean you're changing who's extracting your value or how much. Government meanwhile, at least in a liberal democracy, is fundamentally designed to be petionable and changeable. Thus "we the people." Of course I would agree that this system has been utterly corrupted by neoliberalism and corruption ("lobbying"), but I'm talking at a theoretical level here.
        tt24 8mo ago
        > Not necessarily as easily as you can vote for a different politician Voting is easy. Of course that doesn't actually do anything, you're entirely held hostage by the 51%. Unlike switching jobs, which is entirely consensual and determined by you. If you dislike the arrangement you made with your boss you are more than welcome to leave at any moment. If I dislike the arrangement made by 51% of people my only option is to leave - an option that I have to pay exit taxes in order to exercise.
        komali2 8mo ago
        > you're entirely held hostage by the 51% Yes, we live in society. You're correct, society has in many ways enslaved you, mostly in ways you aren't aware. The language you speak, the values you hold, the way you see the world and the people in it, your bone density coming out of childhood, your literacy rate, your vaccination schedule, your perception of normalcy, and so much more, were determined for you when you were born. Some of these things you can adjust after the fact - learn new languages, adjust your values, learn to read, but you'll then forever be the "native xyz speaker that learned abc," or, "former Christian, now Zoroastrianist" or whatever. You can't really ever leave behind the impact a society had on you. Everything is deeply interconnected. So this idea that 51% of people are holding you hostage but somehow if you can change jobs then the corporate world is different is fallacious. First, that same 51% must also have determined the legal business environment you're operating in, right? Second, you're enslaved to a much smaller proportion, 1%, the capital holders who hold the majority of the power in a neoliberal democracy through lobbying. They're the reason it's getting more and more difficult for you to engage in collective bargaining with your colleagues, a far more effective strategy to change how much profit is skimmed off your labor than changing jobs. You think you're enslaved to the 51%? What about your "market rate?" They call it a "labor market," after all, so changing jobs just means getting paid roughly the same amount by someone else, which means the same profit margin being extracted. Unless you think a 10% raise is a meaningful impact when the value extracted from your labor could be as high as 500% or higher, depending on industry and profession? Just because companies don't collude in writing doesn't mean they aren't colluding when it comes to the topic of our discussion. All are competing to extract more value from your labor, not to try to win you to their side so as to get the happiest workers (barring extreme outliers such as Valve). They don't call it a "race to the bottom" for nothing. The profit motive is a shared fundamental value of all these companies, job hunt all you want, it's the same as changing churches but not the religion, in the end the result will be mostly the same. Works even better as a metaphor if you're Catholic, since in the end the collection tray money always goes to the same place in Italy regardless of the church you attend. Furthermore, if you're a chemical engineer working in oil and gas, the margin on the profit of your labor is always spent on the same lobbyists who influence your government to let the same 5 companies devastate your natural environment for their profit. The CEO and board is made up of the former or current executive team of other oil and gas companies. If you're a software engineer, that margin is used to get a return on investment for the same 20 something investment firms and accelerators kicking startups back and forth between them. Now, for petitioning: see if you can convince Bain to stop putting the pressure on your boss to seek hockey stick growth, instead targeting a sustainable gentle linear that'll pay off their investment a few years later, just not 1000x. See if you can even get the phone number of someone there from your boss. Try to convince your boss. Or quit and go work for some other company - see if you can find one Bain hasn't invested in, or a drop in replacement for same with the exact same goals. If you dislike the way the government is working, you have many options beyond leaving: you can walk into the office of your congressperson, or make a phone call, or attend a town hall meeting (for various levels of government). You can, as mentioned, vote. If you feel held hostage by 51%, you can go try to convince other people on the other side to your way of thinking - much easier than convincing your boss, in my personal experience! You're not even held hostage by 51% anyway, more like 30%, so really you can be more effective by convincing people who already agree with you to actually get out and vote; this is what canvassers do, not try to convince opposition to vote for their candidate, but rather to convince amicable voters to make it to the polls, and help them plan how to do so. Tax is an easy enemy to pick because you see a number on your tax statement at the end of the year of exactly how much money you gave to the government that year. If you want, you can easily then download a pdf of the budget and see how they spent it. That's the most transparent visibility you'll ever see for a dollar that leaves your pocket - you'll see who collected it, who determined how much should be collected, how it was divided to be spent on exactly what, who divided it that way, and when it gets spent, exactly to whom it finally ended up, and usually how they spent it (such as a construction company for a public works project having strict reporting requirements), and who decided to choose that person too! Your boss gives you a paycheck and if you're lucky might tell you a little something of the company finances - startups are an outlier here, most people get 0 visibility or insight. If the company is public, you get a little more insight, but no more than anyone else, and it's not as transparent as how your taxes are spent. Something tells me that if at the end of the year everyone got a form from their employers demonstrating the dollar value extracted from their labor, minus their salary, people wouldn't blink an eye at taxes.
- EQmWgw87pw 8mo ago
  Do you think people would do the following arrangement; work for free until the business becomes profitable (which could be never), but then get a much higher share of the labor margin?
  - komali2 8mo ago
    It's an interesting question, but it's too narrowly focused. Surely we can think of more risk-reward structures than just "founding engineer?" What about worker co-ops? Revenue sharing agreements? Profit sharing? Equity on top of salary? Base pay plus performance? Capital owners aren't the only ones taking a risk, laborers do as well. Why is it that only capital risk is considered?
    - spankalee 8mo ago
      SBA loans and other state funding...
      - komali2 8mo ago
        State funding is socialism, I thought we weren't about that here? Anyway that's basically what this Ireland thing is about. SBA loans are given at the whim of a bank, who is looking for a very strong guarantee of return on investment. It can also come with terms that restrict business behaviors - this is HN, just imagine Bain capital gave you ten million dollars, do you then get to run your business in a way that targets a healthy, sustainable profit margin with albeit flat growth line? Anyway that's boring and been done before. Surely after ~300 years of plain Jane capitalism we can start playing with more exotic modes of organization? Why do only the banks get to invent new financial instruments to destroy markets with?
- philipallstar 8mo ago
  If you only price labour, you miss out on a lot of the picture.
jimnotgym 8mo ago
Where in the world do they tax your savings? Are you against all taxation?
- whywhywhywhy 8mo ago
  Inflation is a tax on savings. Yeah I'm against almost all taxation, the amount I pay a month is more than most people monthly salaries in my country and I just don't think I get the level of society back from it to justify me being rinsed this much.

komali2 8mo ago

If you think taxation is theft, wait till I show you some fat margins on labor value.

tt24 8mo ago
Large margins are not what define theft believe it or not
- komali2 8mo ago
  I'm not sure why taking away money you could spend on goods or put into savings is ok when your boss does it, but not ok when the government does it. At least the government builds you a road in return.
  - tt24 8mo ago
    Because one is consensual and the other isn’t.
    - komali2 8mo ago
      Right, that's my point, unless you can work at a co-op, you have no say in how much value from your labor is extracted and given to someone else, and given the way society is designed, it's basically impossible to live without nonconsensually giving up the majority of your labor's value to someone else. Whereas with taxes, if you don't like them, you can elect a different politician. Look at the Americans, they do it all the time, their tax rates go all over the place. I want roads, libraries, firetrucks, and for my poop to vanish into oblivion when I pull the toilet handle. I don't really want my money to buy my boss a new car.
      - tt24 8mo ago
        You can work for a different employer that extracts a different amount of value. You can’t switch governments without paying exit taxes (in the United States).
        komali2 8mo ago
        > You can work for a different employer that extracts a different amount of value. Not necessarily as easily as you can vote for a different politician, especially since you're restricted by your ability to change locations (family, property, heritage ties), or industries. And in this day and age changing employer very well may not at all mean you're changing who's extracting your value or how much. Government meanwhile, at least in a liberal democracy, is fundamentally designed to be petionable and changeable. Thus "we the people." Of course I would agree that this system has been utterly corrupted by neoliberalism and corruption ("lobbying"), but I'm talking at a theoretical level here.
        tt24 8mo ago
        > Not necessarily as easily as you can vote for a different politician Voting is easy. Of course that doesn't actually do anything, you're entirely held hostage by the 51%. Unlike switching jobs, which is entirely consensual and determined by you. If you dislike the arrangement you made with your boss you are more than welcome to leave at any moment. If I dislike the arrangement made by 51% of people my only option is to leave - an option that I have to pay exit taxes in order to exercise.
        komali2 8mo ago
        > you're entirely held hostage by the 51% Yes, we live in society. You're correct, society has in many ways enslaved you, mostly in ways you aren't aware. The language you speak, the values you hold, the way you see the world and the people in it, your bone density coming out of childhood, your literacy rate, your vaccination schedule, your perception of normalcy, and so much more, were determined for you when you were born. Some of these things you can adjust after the fact - learn new languages, adjust your values, learn to read, but you'll then forever be the "native xyz speaker that learned abc," or, "former Christian, now Zoroastrianist" or whatever. You can't really ever leave behind the impact a society had on you. Everything is deeply interconnected. So this idea that 51% of people are holding you hostage but somehow if you can change jobs then the corporate world is different is fallacious. First, that same 51% must also have determined the legal business environment you're operating in, right? Second, you're enslaved to a much smaller proportion, 1%, the capital holders who hold the majority of the power in a neoliberal democracy through lobbying. They're the reason it's getting more and more difficult for you to engage in collective bargaining with your colleagues, a far more effective strategy to change how much profit is skimmed off your labor than changing jobs. You think you're enslaved to the 51%? What about your "market rate?" They call it a "labor market," after all, so changing jobs just means getting paid roughly the same amount by someone else, which means the same profit margin being extracted. Unless you think a 10% raise is a meaningful impact when the value extracted from your labor could be as high as 500% or higher, depending on industry and profession? Just because companies don't collude in writing doesn't mean they aren't colluding when it comes to the topic of our discussion. All are competing to extract more value from your labor, not to try to win you to their side so as to get the happiest workers (barring extreme outliers such as Valve). They don't call it a "race to the bottom" for nothing. The profit motive is a shared fundamental value of all these companies, job hunt all you want, it's the same as changing churches but not the religion, in the end the result will be mostly the same. Works even better as a metaphor if you're Catholic, since in the end the collection tray money always goes to the same place in Italy regardless of the church you attend. Furthermore, if you're a chemical engineer working in oil and gas, the margin on the profit of your labor is always spent on the same lobbyists who influence your government to let the same 5 companies devastate your natural environment for their profit. The CEO and board is made up of the former or current executive team of other oil and gas companies. If you're a software engineer, that margin is used to get a return on investment for the same 20 something investment firms and accelerators kicking startups back and forth between them. Now, for petitioning: see if you can convince Bain to stop putting the pressure on your boss to seek hockey stick growth, instead targeting a sustainable gentle linear that'll pay off their investment a few years later, just not 1000x. See if you can even get the phone number of someone there from your boss. Try to convince your boss. Or quit and go work for some other company - see if you can find one Bain hasn't invested in, or a drop in replacement for same with the exact same goals. If you dislike the way the government is working, you have many options beyond leaving: you can walk into the office of your congressperson, or make a phone call, or attend a town hall meeting (for various levels of government). You can, as mentioned, vote. If you feel held hostage by 51%, you can go try to convince other people on the other side to your way of thinking - much easier than convincing your boss, in my personal experience! You're not even held hostage by 51% anyway, more like 30%, so really you can be more effective by convincing people who already agree with you to actually get out and vote; this is what canvassers do, not try to convince opposition to vote for their candidate, but rather to convince amicable voters to make it to the polls, and help them plan how to do so. Tax is an easy enemy to pick because you see a number on your tax statement at the end of the year of exactly how much money you gave to the government that year. If you want, you can easily then download a pdf of the budget and see how they spent it. That's the most transparent visibility you'll ever see for a dollar that leaves your pocket - you'll see who collected it, who determined how much should be collected, how it was divided to be spent on exactly what, who divided it that way, and when it gets spent, exactly to whom it finally ended up, and usually how they spent it (such as a construction company for a public works project having strict reporting requirements), and who decided to choose that person too! Your boss gives you a paycheck and if you're lucky might tell you a little something of the company finances - startups are an outlier here, most people get 0 visibility or insight. If the company is public, you get a little more insight, but no more than anyone else, and it's not as transparent as how your taxes are spent. Something tells me that if at the end of the year everyone got a form from their employers demonstrating the dollar value extracted from their labor, minus their salary, people wouldn't blink an eye at taxes.
EQmWgw87pw 8mo ago
Do you think people would do the following arrangement; work for free until the business becomes profitable (which could be never), but then get a much higher share of the labor margin?
- komali2 8mo ago
  It's an interesting question, but it's too narrowly focused. Surely we can think of more risk-reward structures than just "founding engineer?" What about worker co-ops? Revenue sharing agreements? Profit sharing? Equity on top of salary? Base pay plus performance? Capital owners aren't the only ones taking a risk, laborers do as well. Why is it that only capital risk is considered?
  - spankalee 8mo ago
    SBA loans and other state funding...
    - komali2 8mo ago
      State funding is socialism, I thought we weren't about that here? Anyway that's basically what this Ireland thing is about. SBA loans are given at the whim of a bank, who is looking for a very strong guarantee of return on investment. It can also come with terms that restrict business behaviors - this is HN, just imagine Bain capital gave you ten million dollars, do you then get to run your business in a way that targets a healthy, sustainable profit margin with albeit flat growth line? Anyway that's boring and been done before. Surely after ~300 years of plain Jane capitalism we can start playing with more exotic modes of organization? Why do only the banks get to invent new financial instruments to destroy markets with?
philipallstar 8mo ago
If you only price labour, you miss out on a lot of the picture.

jimnotgym 8mo ago

Where in the world do they tax your savings? Are you against all taxation?

whywhywhywhy 8mo ago
Inflation is a tax on savings. Yeah I'm against almost all taxation, the amount I pay a month is more than most people monthly salaries in my country and I just don't think I get the level of society back from it to justify me being rinsed this much.