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Again, Google is an Irish company, supposedly, to avoid paying American taxes. You think that's rad?
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Do they pay Irish taxes? And if they pay salary to an employee who works in America, do they pay income tax to the American government? If so then I can't argue with it. The taxes should get paid where the money gets made.
Which, incidentally, means I do support California's assertion that if Amazon sells something to someone in California, then Amazon should pay California sales tax. Similarly, if an American company operating in America pays Google money for something, then Google should pay American taxes on it, no matter where Google's headquarters happens to be.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see a problem with locating your company in a place that has an advantageous tax situation, BUT I also think that taxes should be paid based on where the customer is located and not where the service provider is located. -
So it seems like if Bermuda didn't let companies claim that they should pay taxes based on where the headquarters is, then the whole thing would fall apart. (I agree that it's some shady shit but it seems like the bad actor here is Bermuda intentionally writing tax policy to encourage companies to have headquarters there. I imagine that there's some requirement--like, "own at least X amount of real estate and pay taxes on it" or "have at least Y number of domestic persons as employees"--that the Bermudan government levies against companies that headquarter there.)
Alternatively, the American government could declare that overseas expenses can't be taken as deductions against domestic revenue. It is true to say that this would discourage investment in overseas activity, and be an act less encouraging of business growth overall.
I agree that this is some shady shit. -
Yeah, and this kind of shell game is what most giant corporations are doing.
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China's solution: if you want to sell to the Chinese people, setup shop in China and pay ridiculous licensing fees to operate in China.
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xenomouse said:"You have to recognize that this whole stylizing yourself as a gangsta — you’re going to be a gangsta wannabe, well people are going to perceive you as a menace. That’s what happens. It is an instant, reflexive action." -Geraldo Rivera
The low was observe to be 52 degrees in Sanford, FL on the night in the incident. There is nothing gangsta about desire to stay warm on a cold night. -
Hoodies are gangsta now? I thought everyone wears hoodies these days?
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In response to the outrage, Geraldo Rivera Doubles Down On Trayvon Martin Hoodie Comments: 'Half Of It Is The Way The Young Men Look' (VIDEO)"I'm telling you, half of it is the way the young men look," he said. "...If a cop looks at three kids on the corner, and they've got those hoodies up -- and this is where I got in trouble with the Trayvon Martin case -- if they've got those hoodies up, and they're hanging out on the corner, the cops look at them and say, 'Hmm, hoodies. Who else wears hoodies? Everybody that ever stuck up a convenience store, D.B. Cooper, the guy that hijacked a plane, Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber...'"
Apparently, Geraldo's son is very disappoint over the whole matter.
Geraldo Rivera: My Son Is ‘Ashamed’ Of Me
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Ah, so the root of all suspicious nature is school spirit stores.
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So according to his logic, since the Nazis all wore pants, people should assume anyone who wears pants could be a Nazi?
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MY COVER IS BLOWN THANKSALOT GERALDO!!!
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the Nazis didn't wear pants they wore lederhosen.
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Someone on twitter said it was a good thing he wasn't wearing a mini skirt instead.
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The problem that Geraldo is failing miserably to articulate is that white people of either gender wearing hoodies are not treated the same way as black men wearing hoodies. That is, the problem is racism, not any particular article of clothing. The solution is not to prohibit young black men from wearing hoodies, it's to discourage racists from being so goddamn fearful of anyone with a skin tone that doesn't match their own.
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So yeah, I remember reading about Emmett Till in History class and thinking "thank God I live in more enlightened times. Maybe back then people would blame the victim of the most horrific crime imaginable so they'd feel less racist about themselves, but today we know better."
And then Glen Beck's website accuses the kid of being a dangerous criminal because he was suspended from school.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/21/the-blaze-site-founded-by_n_1370843.html?ref=black-voices
Geraldo Rivera says that the kid was asking for trouble because he was wearing a hoodie.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2012/03/geraldo-rivera-blames-hoodie-for-trayvon-martins-death/1
And Newt Gingrich calls Obama empathizing with Trayvon's parents as a black man "disgraceful and appalling." Just...acknowledging the fact that race may have played an issue in the crime and assuring the parents that he shares their concerns as a father and a black man. "Disgraceful" and "appalling."
http://lezgetreal.com/2012/03/gingrich-appalled-again/
And it's not just the three-headed dog of dumbass that guards the gates of hell. Conservative outlets everywhere are playing up the fact that the shooter was 1/2 latino, an answer to a question NOBODY FUCKING ASKED. Are they so jazzed to perpetuate the myth of the unfairly oppressed white, chistian, male that they totally ignore the fact that a black kid was murdered in a hate crime, and if not for the story coming to light, the police would have let him off for it?
The crime happening at all is proof that our nation still has racial issues, and nobody could seriously think otherwise. But the way certain pundits and politicians have responded to it...they'd all feel right at home in that history book. Un-fucking-believeable. -
so this is an interesting read
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/03/23/shopping-for-zero-days-an-price-list-for-hackers-secret-software-exploits/
I'm not really surprised but its good to know how this shit goes down. -
Fascinating stuff, although "the Grugq" is such a nonsensical name that my brain kept find/replacing it with "the Shadow Broker."
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Grug?
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Today was the start of oral arguments for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act case at the Supreme Court. GET EXCITED!
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It's going to be interesting seeing how this whole thing shakes out. I can't imagine the "individual mandate" making it past SCOTUS.
Also, doesn't SCOTUS sound like the name you'd give an evil AI out to enslave humanity? -
When I see "SCOTUS," I think of a venereal disease. "Fuck, I need some ciprofloxacin for my raging SCOTUS." And in related news, did you see the Santorum all over the SCOTUS today?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2012/0326/Rick-Santorum-puts-Romneycare-on-trial-on-steps-of-Supreme-Court-video
>.> -
Scrotus?
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The individual mandate will almost certainly pass, the only thing congress isnt allowed to regulate is guns near schools and violence against women.
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Right, Lopez and Morrison both dealt with laws that essentially required state police powers to exercise. Still, I'm wondering if this will be our third (and if so, likely very narrow) exception. They only need one justice, and this case is loaded to bear with horseshit thanks to... let's call it the "rigorous public debate." Sure.
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I know we already talked about the whole Travyon Martin issue, but this blog post really got to me: http://4thletter.net/2012/03/thats-just-the-way-it-is/
I've honestly never given much thought to race relations, but this has left me troubled of mind. -
This is going to get me a lot of shit and to preface it, I liked the rest of his article. That said, that first paragraph could be applied to me, a 20 something white male with 2 parents and a younger sister. Yes, even the skin color part. Not saying it isn't valid, but by putting that foot forward I immediately didn't follow what he was putting down.
I get profiled by police a lot. As often as some black males? No, but more often than anyone I associate with, regardless of their skin color. Growing up I heard, "blah blah blah white boy" pretty often. I'm not saying oh woes is me because I do have priviledges, just that any color can be a minority sometimes and starting it that way could turn away a bunch of readers. -
Come to Australia, we love white people.
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...and hate aboriginals.
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Well our motto is:
If you're white, she'll be right
If you're black, it's more welfare you lack
If you're brown, turn around
And if you're yellow, well... as long as you're a rich fellow. -
Wow, that's like the kind of thing you'd hear some hack standup do in an off-the-Strip casino in Vegas.
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grumps said:
The individual mandate will almost certainly pass, the only thing congress isnt allowed to regulate is guns near schools and violence against women.
People aren't sure about that right now, and if the mandate fails everything else will as well. It's almost funny to see Sen. Johnson (the same guy who helped pass the Virginia Ultrasound Bill and shot down an amendment that didn't require women to pay for the procedure) complain about being asked to pay for a service he doesn't want. That guy should put his money where his mealy-mouth is and drop his insurance plan. And then get hit by a truck.
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It will be their biggest protest to date if they pull it off. The method of the DDoS is pretty interesting.
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I know people arent sure about the mandate passing muster, but I just really have my doubts about it failing. The arguments against it seem so weak. Then again I havent been paying a lot of attention. Also if they had just called the thing a tax instead of a penalty, which it essentially is, we probably wouldnt even need to have this shitshow. I havent been following it too closely but it really baffles me why they didnt just call it a tax.
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Because if they called it a tax, then it wouldn't be Health Care Reform, it would be Raising Taxes And Dumping More Money Into Medicare. And Barack Obama was elected by people who wanted Health Care Reform, not Raising Taxes And Dumping More Money Into Medicare.
Although I do like the rope-a-dope theories that suggest this is a fight they wanted to lose all along, so that they could turn it into "well we TRIED to fix healthcare, but those Evil Republicans in the (Congress or Supreme Court) wouldn't LET us, so NOW we have to bust out the Big Gun Single-Payer Option!" And that Medicare-For-All plan that was supposedly politically impossible will turn out to be totally possible after all. -
That's funny, because what you are describing was exactly the Republican response a few years back when this healthcare thing was going on. "Well we TRIED to compromise, but they wouldn't accept our compromise where we made absolutely no concessions. BUT WE TRIED."
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It was a waste of time inviting them to the healthcare summit at all. And it should be noted that the individual mandate was their own damn idea. When the Clinton Healthcare plan required all employers to insure their employees, Republicans were like "no, fuck that. The people should have to pay. And they should be required to pay for their own health insurance because that's just personal responsibility."
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That the Republicans had proposed something similar 15 years previously doesn't mean that the mandate as proposed in 2009-2010 was the same thing.
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RobotBastard said:
That the Republicans had proposed something similar 15 years previously doesn't mean that the mandate as proposed in 2009-2010 was the same thing.
Sorry Arby, but if they're deriding the concept in general instead of the specific details of the plan, they're still hardcore hypocrites. And that's even ignoring all the healthcare decisions their governors are making for women while ALSO making them pay for it. This has nothing to do with actual ideology and more to do with political gamesmanship. They couldn't give a fuck about the consequences. If Obama was against the mandate, they'd be for it, and they'd be SO for it, they'd question the moral, ethical, and patriotic integrity of anybody opposed to it.
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"If Obama was against the mandate, they'd be for it, and they'd be SO for it, they'd question the moral, ethical, and patriotic integrity of anybody opposed to it."
And black people are always liars and thieves, right?
Who's "they", by the way? Considering the turnover of Congress between 1994 and now. It's not hypocritical for someone elected in 2010 to argue a position different than someone who was a member of Congress in 1994.
Unless you're saying that there's no such thing as individual thought and it's all just Team Red Vs. Team Blue forever. -
RobotBastard said:
"If Obama was against the mandate, they'd be for it, and they'd be SO for it, they'd question the moral, ethical, and patriotic integrity of anybody opposed to it."
And black people are always liars and thieves, right?
I'm going to do you a solid and not even address the false equivalency here.
RobotBastard said:Who's "they", by the way? Considering the turnover of Congress between 1994 and now. It's not hypocritical for someone elected in 2010 to argue a position different than someone who was a member of Congress in 1994.
Unless you're saying that there's no such thing as individual thought and it's all just Team Red Vs. Team Blue forever.
Gingrich, for sure. Romney obviously supported the mandate previously. That's 2/3 of the Republican presidential field right there. It's pretty much a guarantee that there will be a Republican nominee who once supported the mandate that is now trashing the mandate. There are more than a few other Republicans who did a reversal on it as well, like Chuck Grassley. And of course, you don't even need to look back that long to see the hypocrisy. Add that to the Republicans who today support the Virginia Ultrasound bill, the Pennsylvania Ultrasound bill, the Oklahoma Ultrasound bill, The Idaho Ultrasound Bill, The Illinois Ultrasound Bill, The Arizona bill allowing doctors to withhold important health information, the Kansas bill that would allow doctors to withhold important health information. There's a point where the left hand can still claim ignorance of what the right hand is doing, but when it comes to the basic question of Republicans supporting additional government control of healthcare, their party has to own the issues they chose to fight for. And they made a united effort to intrude upon women's healthcare in this election cycle. They have to own that as a party, even if individuals can claim innocence. I'm sure a lot of conservatives want to claim it's all the Tea Party candidates, but guess what? When you legitimize a collection of lunatics and absorb them into the Republican collective as "Real Americans," then you are also accountable for the shift in ideology it creates. There's no separation anymore.
I'm not denying that there's individual thought. Some Democrats oppose Abortions. Some Republicans support gay marriage. But when the leadership of a party is as united as the Republicans are, and when they politicize an issue such as healthcare so that it BECOMES a conservative vs. liberal issue, then it's absolutely fair to attribute a political belief to that party. The party lines of this issue have been drawn, and the Republicans have drawn them. I'm Catholic and I believe in gay marriage, but yeah, it's also fair to say that the Catholic church, as an organization, does not.
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Whatever your political beliefs on the policy - in constitutional terms its just silly. Health insurance fits so squarely within interstate commerce that its unassailable. Congress levies taxes to incentivise behavior every single day and no one argues its constitutionality because duh. Its absurd. My guess is that its going to go down 6-3 with Roberts and Kennedy siding with the liberals, I thought Scalia would have gone for it too but apparently he was pretty hostile and kept shouting about the government forcing everyone to buy broccoli.
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If all I had to buy to get some free health care was broccoli I would buy the entirety of the stores supply of broccoli every time I went to the store.
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I'm still saying 5-4, but yeah, Graz, I saw a lot of the same stuff you did. The broccoli examples were hilarious. Sadly, Breyer did a better job of arguing the government's case than the government did.
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If it's a tax then call it a tax. I don't have a problem with Congress saying "we're gonna raise taxes and throw the money into paying for healthcare for everyone that doesn't get it from their job". I have a problem with Congress acting like this is no big deal and we shouldn't complain because it's a 'government-mandated expenditure' instead of a 'tax'.
"Congress levies taxes to incentivise behavior every single day and no one argues its constitutionality because duh. Its absurd."
Nobody argues its constitutionality because the Sixteenth Amendment explicitly declares that taxing things is constitutional.
"Health insurance fits so squarely within interstate commerce that its unassailable. "
I go to doctors in the same state as me. The headquarters and production facilities of the companies that make my diabetic supplies are in the same state as me. The closest I get to "interstate commerce" involving my healthcare is that one of the companies is owned by another company that's in Wisconsin. How is my health insurance an "interstate" activity?
Or, to put it differently, if insurance is an interstate commerce affair then why does each state get to have different car insurance requirements? -
RobotBastard said:
I go to doctors in the same state as me. The headquarters and production facilities of the companies that make my diabetic supplies are in the same state as me. The closest I get to "interstate commerce" involving my healthcare is that one of the companies is owned by another company that's in Wisconsin. How is my health insurance an "interstate" activity?
Or, to put it differently, if insurance is an interstate commerce affair then why does each state get to have different car insurance requirements?
See: ERISA and Wickard v. Filburn.
