Regarding Apple's potential tax break in North Carolina: Taxes should be the same in every state and there should be no tax variances/abatements granted to anyone. Those are nothing more than bribery. We have had a lot of those here in Texas and they never bring the jobs and secondary economic boost promised. Just more corporate welfare.
Taxes should be the same in every state!?!?! Gah! What if people in Vermont don't want the same public policies as people in California do?
Great site for a Server Farm? "North Carolina has a long and notorious history of destruction by hurricanes. ...
Yeah, I don't get why they picked North Carolina at all. I wish someone with some actual knowledge of server farms would comment here as this seems like a very weird deal from what I can find out.
First off, it seems like a billion dollar server farm is absolutely HUGE. Is this their first "home grown" server farm? If so, it's weird for them to start off by building one twice the size of everyone else's.
Secondly, it seems like a billion bucks is about a sixth of what all the top five Internet companies combined spent on capital expenditures last year? That can't be right can it?
Third, everyone else is building server farms in the Pacific Northwest where it's cool, temperate, and there is abundant cheap power (hydroelectric). Why is Apple building something in a hot, stormy area down south? And maybe someone who lives there can say what kind of power they have in North Carolina? I thought it was all coal-fired down there which makes no sense at all.
I thought it was all coal-fired down there which makes no sense at all.
Nuclear or Coal, depending on the county, 7.78c/kWh commercial, which is cheaper than Oregon, way cheaper than California, and slightly more expensive than Washington state.
I just can't see how giving Apple a $1 Billion tax incentive to hire less than 100 people is helping anything.
But I guess the money Apple would have to invest in this would make up for it.
It's a 45 million tax incentive, over ten years. That's just $4.5 million a year.
The 100 people is just the first step. Once the thing is up to speed, they'll need a lot more people than that.
But don't forget that it will easily take a thousand people to build the place for them. That should count.
In addition, most of the materials will come from in-state. That's a lot of building material, which will support many more jobs during construction.
Then there is the continuing requirements that a plant of any type needs. People will be employed in food services, and other support rolls outside the company. Maintenance services, etc.
Apple may employ 100 people at first, but that's a good several hundred whose services will be needed. Later, all the jobs supported directly by Apple and from outside will number in the thousands.
this seems like a monster place .i wonder how many servers it takes to run all those billion dollar s of servers and would you need a few more servers to runthose servers ?? or wouild a g3 imac do the job ??
i guess itunes just got powerful
orange
Well, Google has several hundred thousand servers.
Akamai isn't enough for Apple anymore, so they are using an additional company. Both of those companies have many tens of thousands of servers.
Since we don't know just what Apple has planned, we can't say what would b enough.
But when we consider that one large supercomputer can cost hundreds of millions, this isn't so surprising.
I think it's funny how Americans always go on about how things "aren't made in the USA anymore" and what a shame it is, but the only reason it's true is because USA workers don't want to really work and won't accept the same wages that others will accept in other countries.
It's not rocket science. If USA workers actually wanted to work hard for their money or pay a fair price for quality manufactured stuff, everything could be made in the USA. As long as the majority of the population is lazy, overpaid and addicted to cheap asian knockoffs of their own brands, the situation will pretty much continue as it is.
So you're saying that we should accept Chinese wages and benefits?
Europe is having the same problem. Japan is having to drop the "hire for life" proposition as well.
It's all crumbling.
When trading partners have about the same economic level, this works well, but when one very large member is well below the rest, manufacturing naturally moves to the lowest cost provider.
it's the fault of the consumer. They're the ones who want to pay less. Companies have no choice but to locate where they can make that possible.
After a while, costs in China and other areas in Asia will move up the way they did in japan, and have been doing in S Korea and Taiwan.
That will take at least a couple of decades. But when it does, then it won't matter where something is manufactured, and transportation costs will become a bigger part of the equation. We saw it with Japanese auto manufacturers. When it became more expensive to manufacture in Japan AND ship here, they opened plants here.
I think it's funny how Americans always go on about how things "aren't made in the USA anymore" and what a shame it is, but the only reason it's true is because USA workers don't want to really work and won't accept the same wages that others will accept in other countries.
It's not rocket science. If USA workers actually wanted to work hard for their money or pay a fair price for quality manufactured stuff, everything could be made in the USA. As long as the majority of the population is lazy, overpaid and addicted to cheap asian knockoffs of their own brands, the situation will pretty much continue as it is.
Hey Virgil I like your past posts, but this one sucked.
American workers have the HIGHEST productivity in the free world.
Except for Mexico which is number one.
In America we produce way more per hour than anyone else .
we also take less days off than anyone else
Europe shuts down for the summer .
And most of the innovation comes from here. For many reasons we have lost a lot of jobs . BUT IT WILL NEVER BE BECAUSE OF LAZY AMERICANS . And any one who says so is a complete asshole .
Our workplace is the model for the rest of the world .
Our gov't and scum bag special interests never protected our industries in the correct manner. In NYS they even subsidize companies to out source NYS jobs to India so fcuk me, my taxes pay for my buddies to lose there jobs.
Korea dumped steel until almost all our shipyards and steel works were killed off .THIS IS WHAT CHINA DID TO OUR TOY INDUSTRY. Across the board this tactic of other gov't and special interests dumping on us until whole industries collapse is why we are so bad off here and not because we are lazy.
There is real pain the Usa right now And the pain is not from our great hard working citizens doing something wrong. Which also makes us very bitter that we were fooled so badly. AND That our elected leaders could be bought off so cheaply. The right and left did this.
Of course the CEO'S are to blame for lost jobs too.
peace
9
YOU have take care of our home fires first.Then we can aid other people .
American .I mean north american industries HAVE ONLY WANTED A LEVEL playing field in which in to compete .
Well, Google has several hundred thousand servers.
Akamai isn't enough for Apple anymore, so they are using an additional company. Both of those companies have many tens of thousands of servers.
Since we don't know just what Apple has planned, we can't say what would b enough.
But when we consider that one large supercomputer can cost hundreds of millions, this isn't so surprising.
I can see now that it's only 300 million the most .Two large farms built at once side by side. So if one blows up There's a backup. Another 300 million for expansion and access to cooling waters . And the electricity should be over 400 million in 10 yrs .I read up all night about these server farms Apple can even build its own larger servers .
they even hook up all these server's together at the factory .and then put them in a container . and then the container's itself gets installed in the large server room . wow
makes it easy to upgrade
So anyway if akamai and google and apple and hp all join together and light all the remaining dark fiber optic. It will be like magic for steaming everything and anything on this planet And they will put the phone companies out of biz .
My first thought was too slam you bad, But then I thought that is how your kind creates the teckspud kind .I went and fixed my last two offensive posts. Yes, they were poor. It was late, I was sloppy and the new gaming site really rocks . And I do change them because to a point ,I do want to fit in. And I would never want to upset anyone here ,for any reason. Even bill gates would get a hug from me .
Much better.
You should know that the crazy disjointed style you usually write in makes it very hard to read and I generally just skip your posts as a result. I may be the only one, but I doubt it. So, if the post you replied to was too negative for your tastes, consider what I'm saying - if you want your posts to be read and replied to, do yourself a favor and write in a style like everyone else. It's for your own good if you want to participate.
When trading partners have about the same economic level, this works well, but when one very large member is well below the rest, manufacturing naturally moves to the lowest cost provider.
it's the fault of the consumer. They're the ones who want to pay less. Companies have no choice but to locate where they can make that possible.
After a while, costs in China and other areas in Asia will move up the way they did in japan, and have been doing in S Korea and Taiwan.
You act like that's a bad thing. When things are made more cheaply, the overall welfare of the world improves. Trading with people who can't do things more cheaply than you makes no sense because you can do the same thing yourself. When rich companies trade with poorer ones, both sides benefit.
I can see now that it's only 300 million the most .Two large farms built at once side by side. So if one blows up There's a backup. Another 300 million for expansion and access to cooling waters . And the electricity should be over 400 million in 10 yrs .I read up all night about these server farms Apple can even build its own larger servers .
they even hook up all these server's together at the factory .and then put them in a container . and then the container's itself gets installed in the large server room . wow
makes it easy to upgrade
So anyway if akamai and google and apple and hp all join together and light all the remaining dark fiber optic. It will be like magic for steaming everything and anything on this planet And they will put the phone companies out of biz .
I'm not so sure there's much, if any dark fiber left. They expanded too fast in the beginning, then left much. But it's been years since that time. internet use has jumped more than a bit as has bandwidth.
When we started our commercial photo lab here in NYC back in about '81, it cost us about $100,000 to get the electricity up and running.
The amount of electrical power and distribution that Apple would need could increase that number by 500x.
The costs for the campus and buildings, and there would be more than one, are extremely high. Air conditioning is in the tens of millions for facilities like this as is back-up power.
Then you need the computing facilities to connect the network of servers together.
I can see that over a period of nine years why this could cost a billion.
You act like that's a bad thing. When things are made more cheaply, the overall welfare of the world improves. Trading with people who can't do things more cheaply than you makes no sense because you can do the same thing yourself. When rich companies trade with poorer ones, both sides benefit.
That's not really true. It's only true for some. The standards of living in these places isn't what you would want to live at.
It's like the old expression, which is true; bad money drives out good money.
Bad products do drive out good ones.
You can't forget that it took 200 years for the industrial countries to get to the levels we're at. There were a great many struggles to get there.
China has stated that they want to get there in a couple more decades. While that seems nice for them, it really isn't.
They are the worlds biggest polluter. Even their own government admitted that about 700,000 people died there last year because of pollution, and other organizations estimate it really could be three to four times as many.
They are displacing tens of millions to make way for dams that even groups in China say are not required, and will cause destruction of vast tracts of farmland. Farmland that China is increasingly in need of, as their policies are resulting in more farmland turning into desert every day, as they direct water to industrial production.
There isn't much good to be had in trying to gain economically too quickly. What I mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
The government isn't running any part of the banks or the car companies. If they were, maybe we would have banks that actually lent money instead of horded it.
These are myths that are perpetuated on the Internet. Yes he did take a private jet sometimes. So does Steve Jobs. But according to http://www.apple.com/hotnews/agreenerapple/, Steve Jobs wants Apple to "be greener". So does it make Steve Jobs a hypocrite for saying he cares about the environment, when he doesn't because he takes a private jet?
And I don't see how he "scares people" to make money. He made a documentary that made a lot of money. He writes books that make a lot of money. The science in them is sound, and in fact is supported by peer-reviewed journals. Note that not a single peer reviewed scientific journal has refuted a single fact in "An Inconvenient Truth". In fact many of them lauded it. So tell me again, how does he "scare people"? If the truth is scary, tough shit.
Since when is good grammar and spelling personal?
Technically they aren't. There have been no bankruptcy proceedings. But anyway, the United States of America would be bankrupt, if it didn't just print more money and issue more bonds whenever it needs it. If California could just issue more bounds it would, but they can't because nobody will buy them. The US Government issues bonds--lots of them in fact--and relies on the fact that China will buy them. When China stopped a couple months ago, the world paniced and Obama accused China of manipulating world economies (which is true).
Prove it. According to federal sources summed up @ http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08230/904931-109.stm, California has the 6th highest tax burden of any state, when measured as a percentage of GDP. Get the facts right.
The budget crisis is largely a result of the stock market crash. Capital gains taxes account for large amounts of tax revenue for California, which is the case for many large states with wealthy populations like New York. Nobody wants to sell stock when prices are low, so all those Apple employees with options below water are just sitting on them. Therefore, California loses out on revenue.
Finally, the recently passed tax increases in California actually LOWER taxes for corporations. It changes the way the revenue basis for tax purposes is calculated in such a way that is favorable to corporations. Basically without going into too much detail it allows companies based in California use the number of employees in California/revenue, instead of purely revenue, to determine taxation. For some companies this will increase taxes, but that means they are making a lot of money with few employees in California yet still claim California is their corporate headquarters--so yeah boo to them. For large companies like Apple and Google, who are all headquartered in the Bay, this will be beneficial.
False. First, California's unemployment isn't the highest in the nation, they are fourth (that's easily googled). Second, California doesn't have the highest taxes in the nation as noted above. Third, MANY states have budget shortfalls. California's is huge, but then again California is the largest state in the nation by far. More than 1/10 of the country lives in that state, and 1/8th of the nation's economy is from California. Put another way, the US deficit from 2007 was almost 500 billion, or $1,428/person. California's $48 billion deficit is approximately $1,333/person.
The inexperienced Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is responsible for California's budget problems. Darrell Issa spent 1.7 million to blame (for the energy crisis) and recall Governor Grey Davis. Cutting the car registration tax resulted a substantial ($21B) short fall.
From a personal Income perspective (they make more), the people in California are taxed less as a percentage then MOST other sates.
A big component in the "cost of during business" is the cost of real estate which is expensive in California (employees need to be paid more to live). That's a market driven component (not based on costs) mostly out of the control of the government.
That's not really true. It's only true for some. The standards of living in these places isn't what you would want to live at.
Of course it's only true for some. That's why I said the overall standard of living. Some people lose (the ones who are not as skilled/educated/hard working/lucky) and many more gain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
You can't forget that it took 200 years for the industrial countries to get to the levels we're at. There were a great many struggles to get there.
Yep, and you have to go through the hard part before you get to the good part. The rich guilt that causes many Americans to try to fight for better conditions in third world countries that we trade with only hurts those countries overall. It's great that people have better working conditions, but the cost is that fewer people there benefit from the work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
China has stated that they want to get there in a couple more decades. While that seems nice for them, it really isn't.
They are the worlds biggest polluter. Even their own government admitted that about 700,000 people died there last year because of pollution, and other organizations estimate it really could be three to four times as many.
They are displacing tens of millions to make way for dams that even groups in China say are not required, and will cause destruction of vast tracts of farmland. Farmland that China is increasingly in need of, as their policies are resulting in more farmland turning into desert every day, as they direct water to industrial production.
There isn't much good to be had in trying to gain economically too quickly. What I mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
China is the world's biggest polluter. That's a shame, but it does not affect the economics of the situation. Thank god the world was not so concerned with healthy workers and pollution while the USA was at the stage that China is at now. Who knows what would have happened.
When governments get involved in free trade, the only possible outcome is that the benefits from trade are lowered. Governments may decide that the benefits from mucking with the trade are worth it, but the bottom line is that overall welfare goes down when trade is hindered.
Comments
Regarding Apple's potential tax break in North Carolina: Taxes should be the same in every state and there should be no tax variances/abatements granted to anyone. Those are nothing more than bribery. We have had a lot of those here in Texas and they never bring the jobs and secondary economic boost promised. Just more corporate welfare.
Taxes should be the same in every state!?!?! Gah! What if people in Vermont don't want the same public policies as people in California do?
Great site for a Server Farm? "North Carolina has a long and notorious history of destruction by hurricanes. ...
Yeah, I don't get why they picked North Carolina at all. I wish someone with some actual knowledge of server farms would comment here as this seems like a very weird deal from what I can find out.
First off, it seems like a billion dollar server farm is absolutely HUGE. Is this their first "home grown" server farm? If so, it's weird for them to start off by building one twice the size of everyone else's.
Secondly, it seems like a billion bucks is about a sixth of what all the top five Internet companies combined spent on capital expenditures last year? That can't be right can it?
Third, everyone else is building server farms in the Pacific Northwest where it's cool, temperate, and there is abundant cheap power (hydroelectric). Why is Apple building something in a hot, stormy area down south? And maybe someone who lives there can say what kind of power they have in North Carolina? I thought it was all coal-fired down there which makes no sense at all.
I thought it was all coal-fired down there which makes no sense at all.
Nuclear or Coal, depending on the county, 7.78c/kWh commercial, which is cheaper than Oregon, way cheaper than California, and slightly more expensive than Washington state.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electri...able5_6_a.html
I just can't see how giving Apple a $1 Billion tax incentive to hire less than 100 people is helping anything.
But I guess the money Apple would have to invest in this would make up for it.
It's a 45 million tax incentive, over ten years. That's just $4.5 million a year.
The 100 people is just the first step. Once the thing is up to speed, they'll need a lot more people than that.
But don't forget that it will easily take a thousand people to build the place for them. That should count.
In addition, most of the materials will come from in-state. That's a lot of building material, which will support many more jobs during construction.
Then there is the continuing requirements that a plant of any type needs. People will be employed in food services, and other support rolls outside the company. Maintenance services, etc.
Apple may employ 100 people at first, but that's a good several hundred whose services will be needed. Later, all the jobs supported directly by Apple and from outside will number in the thousands.
One billion dollars to build a server farm? Where are they buying these servers, the Apple Store?
It could cost $500 million for the purchase of land, buildings, infrastructure etc.
It costs hundreds of dollars to build a crappy stadium these days. This is a much bigger project.
wow
really
what does one billion dollars buy
its just a farm .
for servers
and the price of everything has fallen .
this seems like a monster place .i wonder how many servers it takes to run all those billion dollar s of servers and would you need a few more servers to runthose servers ?? or wouild a g3 imac do the job ??
i guess itunes just got powerful
orange
Well, Google has several hundred thousand servers.
Akamai isn't enough for Apple anymore, so they are using an additional company. Both of those companies have many tens of thousands of servers.
Since we don't know just what Apple has planned, we can't say what would b enough.
But when we consider that one large supercomputer can cost hundreds of millions, this isn't so surprising.
The government is buying GM...didn't you get the memo? I guess when you own something you aren't running any part of it...right?
No, they're not buying it.
At least know what you're talking about.
As quick FYI: iWork isn't created in California, its actually created Pennsylvania.
Software that can create entire states? Where can I buy that!
I think it's funny how Americans always go on about how things "aren't made in the USA anymore" and what a shame it is, but the only reason it's true is because USA workers don't want to really work and won't accept the same wages that others will accept in other countries.
It's not rocket science. If USA workers actually wanted to work hard for their money or pay a fair price for quality manufactured stuff, everything could be made in the USA. As long as the majority of the population is lazy, overpaid and addicted to cheap asian knockoffs of their own brands, the situation will pretty much continue as it is.
So you're saying that we should accept Chinese wages and benefits?
Europe is having the same problem. Japan is having to drop the "hire for life" proposition as well.
It's all crumbling.
When trading partners have about the same economic level, this works well, but when one very large member is well below the rest, manufacturing naturally moves to the lowest cost provider.
it's the fault of the consumer. They're the ones who want to pay less. Companies have no choice but to locate where they can make that possible.
After a while, costs in China and other areas in Asia will move up the way they did in japan, and have been doing in S Korea and Taiwan.
That will take at least a couple of decades. But when it does, then it won't matter where something is manufactured, and transportation costs will become a bigger part of the equation. We saw it with Japanese auto manufacturers. When it became more expensive to manufacture in Japan AND ship here, they opened plants here.
I think it's funny how Americans always go on about how things "aren't made in the USA anymore" and what a shame it is, but the only reason it's true is because USA workers don't want to really work and won't accept the same wages that others will accept in other countries.
It's not rocket science. If USA workers actually wanted to work hard for their money or pay a fair price for quality manufactured stuff, everything could be made in the USA. As long as the majority of the population is lazy, overpaid and addicted to cheap asian knockoffs of their own brands, the situation will pretty much continue as it is.
Hey Virgil I like your past posts, but this one sucked.
American workers have the HIGHEST productivity in the free world.
Except for Mexico which is number one.
In America we produce way more per hour than anyone else .
we also take less days off than anyone else
Europe shuts down for the summer .
And most of the innovation comes from here. For many reasons we have lost a lot of jobs . BUT IT WILL NEVER BE BECAUSE OF LAZY AMERICANS . And any one who says so is a complete asshole .
Our workplace is the model for the rest of the world .
Our gov't and scum bag special interests never protected our industries in the correct manner. In NYS they even subsidize companies to out source NYS jobs to India so fcuk me, my taxes pay for my buddies to lose there jobs.
Korea dumped steel until almost all our shipyards and steel works were killed off .THIS IS WHAT CHINA DID TO OUR TOY INDUSTRY. Across the board this tactic of other gov't and special interests dumping on us until whole industries collapse is why we are so bad off here and not because we are lazy.
There is real pain the Usa right now And the pain is not from our great hard working citizens doing something wrong. Which also makes us very bitter that we were fooled so badly. AND That our elected leaders could be bought off so cheaply. The right and left did this.
Of course the CEO'S are to blame for lost jobs too.
peace
9
YOU have take care of our home fires first.Then we can aid other people .
American .I mean north american industries HAVE ONLY WANTED A LEVEL playing field in which in to compete .
Why post ?wow? 2 dozen times and write the word ?weeeeeeee? by itself, not to mention the rest of your posts?
Perhaps brucep was referring to this site: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee
On the upside: beautiful scenery, hiking & kayaking.
On the downside: speedtraps, baptist-billboards & blue laws.
Well, Google has several hundred thousand servers.
Akamai isn't enough for Apple anymore, so they are using an additional company. Both of those companies have many tens of thousands of servers.
Since we don't know just what Apple has planned, we can't say what would b enough.
But when we consider that one large supercomputer can cost hundreds of millions, this isn't so surprising.
I can see now that it's only 300 million the most .Two large farms built at once side by side. So if one blows up There's a backup. Another 300 million for expansion and access to cooling waters . And the electricity should be over 400 million in 10 yrs .I read up all night about these server farms Apple can even build its own larger servers .
they even hook up all these server's together at the factory .and then put them in a container . and then the container's itself gets installed in the large server room . wow
makes it easy to upgrade
So anyway if akamai and google and apple and hp all join together and light all the remaining dark fiber optic. It will be like magic for steaming everything and anything on this planet And they will put the phone companies out of biz .
My first thought was too slam you bad, But then I thought that is how your kind creates the teckspud kind .I went and fixed my last two offensive posts. Yes, they were poor. It was late, I was sloppy and the new gaming site really rocks . And I do change them because to a point ,I do want to fit in. And I would never want to upset anyone here ,for any reason. Even bill gates would get a hug from me .
Much better.
You should know that the crazy disjointed style you usually write in makes it very hard to read and I generally just skip your posts as a result. I may be the only one, but I doubt it. So, if the post you replied to was too negative for your tastes, consider what I'm saying - if you want your posts to be read and replied to, do yourself a favor and write in a style like everyone else. It's for your own good if you want to participate.
Perhaps brucep was referring to this site: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPhWf...layer_embedded
It's all crumbling.
When trading partners have about the same economic level, this works well, but when one very large member is well below the rest, manufacturing naturally moves to the lowest cost provider.
it's the fault of the consumer. They're the ones who want to pay less. Companies have no choice but to locate where they can make that possible.
After a while, costs in China and other areas in Asia will move up the way they did in japan, and have been doing in S Korea and Taiwan.
You act like that's a bad thing. When things are made more cheaply, the overall welfare of the world improves. Trading with people who can't do things more cheaply than you makes no sense because you can do the same thing yourself. When rich companies trade with poorer ones, both sides benefit.
I can see now that it's only 300 million the most .Two large farms built at once side by side. So if one blows up There's a backup. Another 300 million for expansion and access to cooling waters . And the electricity should be over 400 million in 10 yrs .I read up all night about these server farms Apple can even build its own larger servers .
they even hook up all these server's together at the factory .and then put them in a container . and then the container's itself gets installed in the large server room . wow
makes it easy to upgrade
So anyway if akamai and google and apple and hp all join together and light all the remaining dark fiber optic. It will be like magic for steaming everything and anything on this planet And they will put the phone companies out of biz .
I'm not so sure there's much, if any dark fiber left. They expanded too fast in the beginning, then left much. But it's been years since that time. internet use has jumped more than a bit as has bandwidth.
When we started our commercial photo lab here in NYC back in about '81, it cost us about $100,000 to get the electricity up and running.
The amount of electrical power and distribution that Apple would need could increase that number by 500x.
The costs for the campus and buildings, and there would be more than one, are extremely high. Air conditioning is in the tens of millions for facilities like this as is back-up power.
Then you need the computing facilities to connect the network of servers together.
I can see that over a period of nine years why this could cost a billion.
You act like that's a bad thing. When things are made more cheaply, the overall welfare of the world improves. Trading with people who can't do things more cheaply than you makes no sense because you can do the same thing yourself. When rich companies trade with poorer ones, both sides benefit.
That's not really true. It's only true for some. The standards of living in these places isn't what you would want to live at.
It's like the old expression, which is true; bad money drives out good money.
Bad products do drive out good ones.
You can't forget that it took 200 years for the industrial countries to get to the levels we're at. There were a great many struggles to get there.
China has stated that they want to get there in a couple more decades. While that seems nice for them, it really isn't.
They are the worlds biggest polluter. Even their own government admitted that about 700,000 people died there last year because of pollution, and other organizations estimate it really could be three to four times as many.
They are displacing tens of millions to make way for dams that even groups in China say are not required, and will cause destruction of vast tracts of farmland. Farmland that China is increasingly in need of, as their policies are resulting in more farmland turning into desert every day, as they direct water to industrial production.
There isn't much good to be had in trying to gain economically too quickly. What I mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
The government isn't running any part of the banks or the car companies. If they were, maybe we would have banks that actually lent money instead of horded it.
These are myths that are perpetuated on the Internet. Yes he did take a private jet sometimes. So does Steve Jobs. But according to http://www.apple.com/hotnews/agreenerapple/, Steve Jobs wants Apple to "be greener". So does it make Steve Jobs a hypocrite for saying he cares about the environment, when he doesn't because he takes a private jet?
And I don't see how he "scares people" to make money. He made a documentary that made a lot of money. He writes books that make a lot of money. The science in them is sound, and in fact is supported by peer-reviewed journals. Note that not a single peer reviewed scientific journal has refuted a single fact in "An Inconvenient Truth". In fact many of them lauded it. So tell me again, how does he "scare people"? If the truth is scary, tough shit.
Since when is good grammar and spelling personal?
Technically they aren't. There have been no bankruptcy proceedings. But anyway, the United States of America would be bankrupt, if it didn't just print more money and issue more bonds whenever it needs it. If California could just issue more bounds it would, but they can't because nobody will buy them. The US Government issues bonds--lots of them in fact--and relies on the fact that China will buy them. When China stopped a couple months ago, the world paniced and Obama accused China of manipulating world economies (which is true).
Prove it. According to federal sources summed up @ http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08230/904931-109.stm, California has the 6th highest tax burden of any state, when measured as a percentage of GDP. Get the facts right.
The budget crisis is largely a result of the stock market crash. Capital gains taxes account for large amounts of tax revenue for California, which is the case for many large states with wealthy populations like New York. Nobody wants to sell stock when prices are low, so all those Apple employees with options below water are just sitting on them. Therefore, California loses out on revenue.
Finally, the recently passed tax increases in California actually LOWER taxes for corporations. It changes the way the revenue basis for tax purposes is calculated in such a way that is favorable to corporations. Basically without going into too much detail it allows companies based in California use the number of employees in California/revenue, instead of purely revenue, to determine taxation. For some companies this will increase taxes, but that means they are making a lot of money with few employees in California yet still claim California is their corporate headquarters--so yeah boo to them. For large companies like Apple and Google, who are all headquartered in the Bay, this will be beneficial.
False. First, California's unemployment isn't the highest in the nation, they are fourth (that's easily googled). Second, California doesn't have the highest taxes in the nation as noted above. Third, MANY states have budget shortfalls. California's is huge, but then again California is the largest state in the nation by far. More than 1/10 of the country lives in that state, and 1/8th of the nation's economy is from California. Put another way, the US deficit from 2007 was almost 500 billion, or $1,428/person. California's $48 billion deficit is approximately $1,333/person.
The inexperienced Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is responsible for California's budget problems. Darrell Issa spent 1.7 million to blame (for the energy crisis) and recall Governor Grey Davis. Cutting the car registration tax resulted a substantial ($21B) short fall.
From a personal Income perspective (they make more), the people in California are taxed less as a percentage then MOST other sates.
A big component in the "cost of during business" is the cost of real estate which is expensive in California (employees need to be paid more to live). That's a market driven component (not based on costs) mostly out of the control of the government.
That's not really true. It's only true for some. The standards of living in these places isn't what you would want to live at.
Of course it's only true for some. That's why I said the overall standard of living. Some people lose (the ones who are not as skilled/educated/hard working/lucky) and many more gain.
You can't forget that it took 200 years for the industrial countries to get to the levels we're at. There were a great many struggles to get there.
Yep, and you have to go through the hard part before you get to the good part. The rich guilt that causes many Americans to try to fight for better conditions in third world countries that we trade with only hurts those countries overall. It's great that people have better working conditions, but the cost is that fewer people there benefit from the work.
China has stated that they want to get there in a couple more decades. While that seems nice for them, it really isn't.
They are the worlds biggest polluter. Even their own government admitted that about 700,000 people died there last year because of pollution, and other organizations estimate it really could be three to four times as many.
They are displacing tens of millions to make way for dams that even groups in China say are not required, and will cause destruction of vast tracts of farmland. Farmland that China is increasingly in need of, as their policies are resulting in more farmland turning into desert every day, as they direct water to industrial production.
There isn't much good to be had in trying to gain economically too quickly. What I mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
China is the world's biggest polluter. That's a shame, but it does not affect the economics of the situation. Thank god the world was not so concerned with healthy workers and pollution while the USA was at the stage that China is at now. Who knows what would have happened.
When governments get involved in free trade, the only possible outcome is that the benefits from trade are lowered. Governments may decide that the benefits from mucking with the trade are worth it, but the bottom line is that overall welfare goes down when trade is hindered.