An example of the problem with monopolies or near-monopolies is illustrated by several of Amazon's recent actions. For the first 20 years of the public internet consumers did not have to pay sales taxes on online purchases. However Amazon themselves lobbied for the taxing of online purchases because they knew it will hurt their smaller competitors who do not have the army of accountants at their disposal to keep track of all the local tax jurisdictions.
Then too their sweetheart deal with the Post Office.
Sure, you may enjoy cheap Prime Shipping, but not only does this put stress on the USPS, but it likewise hurts their smaller competitors who aren't able to negotiate such sweetheart deals.
Then of course Bezos buys the Washington Post so he can shape public opinion in a way which benefits his business interests.
Do any of his competitors enjoy such advantages? No.
Now I'm not sure how you would go about breaking up Amazon, true, but surely their power should be reined in in some manner.
For years Amazon avoided putting warehouses across the country so that they would not be required to collect tax in states where they had no physical presence. Advantage Amazon.
It was brick and mortar stores who initially lobbied legislators for internet sales to be taxable, but in Amazon's case it backfired on them.
When retailers seemed to be getting some traction with lawmakers Amazon changed strategies. Here in Florida Amazon said fine we'll pay sales tax but in return received $10's of millions in incentives to build the local warehouses which would enable their two-day delivery and thus even more competition with traditional retailers rather than less. Advantage Amazon again.
Unintended consequences often flow from legislative action. I strongly suspect the current Congress has not spent enough time on what those might be.
Can we break up the Federal Government into 50 smaller governments, and just let the Federal Government worry about borrowing money, regulating commerce with foreign nations and between the States (actual commerce between those states, not inferred commerce), Naturalizing, bankruptcy, coining money, fixing standard of weights and measures, punishing counterfeiters, establishing post offices, roads, patents/copyrights, punishing piracies on the high seas, declaring war and making rules concerning natures on land and water, making and regulating armies and a navy, making militias to execute the laws of the US and to suppress insurrections and invasions.
IMO more than half the readers won't get the joke.
Are you suggesting the libertarian tech & stock market geek majority here don’t read the founding documents they claim to worship?
Just make them pay fair taxes in US. I’m thinking at least 30% just as Apple charges for the AppStore
A better idea would be to charge everyone 30% tax on net income, including religious organizations and zero refunds.
Or even better-er, charge everyone 23% on things they purchase, and not on their income. Also, have a pre-bate, where the tax load on the basics of life are paid out to everyone.
Income taxes are inherently wrong, as they implicitly state that the money isn't yours. What the government lets you keep is yours, only if you jump through hoops and are controlled by those that write the rules, so I guess the money isn't really yours.
How would you collect taxes from those whose extreme wealth lets them rent everything?
Income tax isn’t “inherently wrong”. If you want to benefit from being part of a society (infrastructure, security, and trying to build your wealth by conducting business that relies on the same), you have to contribute back to that society. The more you make from the society, the more you should contribute back to it. Tax breaks for the rich and for corporations utterly defeat the point and put all the burden on the rest of us. If your angry about taxation, go after those who are abusing the system, rather than gutting society.
gatorguy said: Some proposals in the US and elsewhere suggest Apple's hardware business being separated from the services: App Store, Apple TV, Apple Music, etc would become a standalone business with separate executive management and ownership.
I just don't see that type of proposal as being practical from a legal standpoint or from a public opinion standpoint. Too different from how other markets in the U.S. are allowed to operate. There are tons of companies outside of technology that offer both products and services.
Then we reel in THOSE companies as well! This is NOT a difficult question!
It’s anticompetitive for a grocery store to cut out its suppliers by creating their own store-branded copycat products, brands, etc., to make sure they control more and more of the supply chain. It’s a conflict of interest, and it hurts customers and markets.
There are so many places where I can’t find brands of products I prefer, because the store has decided to drop that brand to make space for its own (which is often not truly a 1-to-1 replacement).
But hey, conflict of interest is the norm, right? That’s how the USA is ruled. Plutocratic oligarchy. The revolving door between the lands of the corporate and the lawmaker. We live under a corporate congress, serving corporate demands. If corporations could figure out how to tax us without actually expending effort and money actually making anything for us, they would do it in a heartbeat.
So yeah, split off the services at Apple. We don’t need internal competition for resources between the actual products we need and the “optional services” that might be useful but aren’t necessary. We don’t NEED the company continuing to sabotage the products in order to push us toward those services (sabotage by leaving out functionality, driving us to the services, or just by failing to do the work because services make more profit).
Why should the products we use be constantly compromised by the focus on things we don’t need from the company, like them being a music retailer and a TV studio?
Apple software quality has taken a tumble ever since they started sucking on the “services are mostly profit” teat that Wall Street loves. Maybe valuable resources could be put back to OS and hardware development if they split off that whole “Apple car” project, and all the services (including the latest Wall Street toy, payment services), to other companies. Regain some focus. Stop the competition for resources and time between internal departments.
When the new idea you’re tossing around suddenly makes you lots of money, your other ideas get the shaft. No different for corporations. Especially when their leadership isn’t about great product... because it’s clearly image over substance, at this point; Wall Street is all that matters.
Let’s break Wall Street while we’re at it. It’s a gambling den, not an economy.
While there is absolutely no reason to break up Apple as they don't enjoy a monopoly in any of their business segments, the same cannot be said for Facebook.
In fact why Facebook was allowed to purchase Instagram and WhatsApp in the first place is beyond me, especially considering Facebook used their VPN app Onavo to spy on users and this is how they discovered how valuable WhatsApp was to begin with....
So yeah, I would break up FB in a NY second as we have antitrust laws for a reason, which is to say, monopolies are not your friend.
If one falls they will all fall. Leaving Apple untouched and complete while disadvantaging every other tech via breakup won't happen for very obvious reasons. Don't be so quick to be a cheerleader for everyone but Apple. This isn't about monopolies but instead a perception of outsized power to control and influence wielded by massively wealthy techs, and Apple is right there with the others.
Just who is this "them" you are speaking of? You realize corporations aren't people, right? You realize that customers end up paying corporate taxes, right?
Taxes are NOT "free" money. Sheesh.
Why isn't reducing government spending or increasing government efficiency (or both!) ever an option? Why is "taxes, taxes, TAXES!" the only solution ever proffered?
That last one was a rhetorical question but Ill field it - it's simple - by simply clamoring for "more" and "pay their fair share" (barf) you don't have to have the tough discussions like what the hell are all these taxes today being spent on and why? Do we still need to be spending all this crap? Who cares is the thought - if we just got the "rich" to pay their fair share all our problems will be solved. Give me a freaking break.
This would be an excellent way to dramatically slow down innovation and the deployment of integrated, seamless solutions that customers love.
Frankly, I hard a hard to guessing how you would "break up" Apple in any reasonable way. Is it just a matter of imposing on Apple the requirement that they support competing app stores? Is so, that's not a "break up."
Likewise, how do you break up Facebook when their main product is a single worldwide social network? Or do you just do the reasonable thing and not allow them to acquire additional social networks?
I fully expect that wiser heads will prevail and people will bring up all the other examples of feared monopolies that turned out to be temporary "winners" that were ultimately unable to prevent the rise of competitors and/or the radical evolution of their market. For example, how did that big, bad Microsoft monopoly on desktop PC OSes and core office software work out? Sure they are still the leading vendor in those spaces, but they face serious competition. How about AOL's dominant position in the ISP market?
Some proposals in the US and elsewhere suggest Apple's hardware business being separated from the services: App Store, Apple TV, Apple Music, etc would become a standalone business with separate executive management and ownership. In the US the recommendations will include a ban on certain types of mergers, such as on “future acquisitions of potential rivals and start-ups” by major platforms.
Going by this rationale that would also mean the end of “Smart TV’s” as they have software loaded onto hardware by the same manufacturer.
Just make them pay fair taxes in US. I’m thinking at least 30% just as Apple charges for the AppStore
A better idea would be to charge everyone 30% tax on net income, including religious organizations and zero refunds.
Or even better-er, charge everyone 23% on things they purchase, and not on their income. Also, have a pre-bate, where the tax load on the basics of life are paid out to everyone.
Income taxes are inherently wrong, as they implicitly state that the money isn't yours. What the government lets you keep is yours, only if you jump through hoops and are controlled by those that write the rules, so I guess the money isn't really yours.
How would you collect taxes from those whose extreme wealth lets them rent everything?
Income tax isn’t “inherently wrong”. If you want to benefit from being part of a society (infrastructure, security, and trying to build your wealth by conducting business that relies on the same), you have to contribute back to that society. The more you make from the society, the more you should contribute back to it. Tax breaks for the rich and for corporations utterly defeat the point and put all the burden on the rest of us. If your angry about taxation, go after those who are abusing the system, rather than gutting society.
**sigh*. I put the FairTax description in one sentence, and in reality, it takes about 4 sentences, rather than 73,000 pages of the US Income tax. Take “purchase” to mean “goods or Services purchased,” where a rental is considered a service. See fairtax.org for exact details. It’s a quick read, like the US Constitution.
As for “everyone HAS to pay taxes, or they’re not good people, and put the burden of $400 Toilet seats on the backs of the poor,” argument, I play the “what would I do” game. One along with me... What if I owed $1,000,000 in taxes and by investing $1,000,000 in a business, I’d get to owe $0, plus have a business worth $1,000,000 to my bottom line, or have $1,000,000 taken from my bottom line? What would you do? Actually, what do you do when you fill out your 1040? Do you just do the 1040EZ, take no deductions, even ones that are socially acceptable (house, kids, charity donations...?). The current tax system encourages people to spend money, and if you don’t, send that non-investment to US.
But hey, I don’t think I’ll convince you to see things my way, so have a good one.
Comments
It was brick and mortar stores who initially lobbied legislators for internet sales to be taxable, but in Amazon's case it backfired on them.
When retailers seemed to be getting some traction with lawmakers Amazon changed strategies. Here in Florida Amazon said fine we'll pay sales tax but in return received $10's of millions in incentives to build the local warehouses which would enable their two-day delivery and thus even more competition with traditional retailers rather than less. Advantage Amazon again.
Unintended consequences often flow from legislative action. I strongly suspect the current Congress has not spent enough time on what those might be.
Income tax isn’t “inherently wrong”. If you want to benefit from being part of a society (infrastructure, security, and trying to build your wealth by conducting business that relies on the same), you have to contribute back to that society. The more you make from the society, the more you should contribute back to it. Tax breaks for the rich and for corporations utterly defeat the point and put all the burden on the rest of us. If your angry about taxation, go after those who are abusing the system, rather than gutting society.
It’s anticompetitive for a grocery store to cut out its suppliers by creating their own store-branded copycat products, brands, etc., to make sure they control more and more of the supply chain. It’s a conflict of interest, and it hurts customers and markets.
There are so many places where I can’t find brands of products I prefer, because the store has decided to drop that brand to make space for its own (which is often not truly a 1-to-1 replacement).
But hey, conflict of interest is the norm, right? That’s how the USA is ruled. Plutocratic oligarchy. The revolving door between the lands of the corporate and the lawmaker. We live under a corporate congress, serving corporate demands. If corporations could figure out how to tax us without actually expending effort and money actually making anything for us, they would do it in a heartbeat.
So yeah, split off the services at Apple. We don’t need internal competition for resources between the actual products we need and the “optional services” that might be useful but aren’t necessary. We don’t NEED the company continuing to sabotage the products in order to push us toward those services (sabotage by leaving out functionality, driving us to the services, or just by failing to do the work because services make more profit).
Why should the products we use be constantly compromised by the focus on things we don’t need from the company, like them being a music retailer and a TV studio?
Apple software quality has taken a tumble ever since they started sucking on the “services are mostly profit” teat that Wall Street loves. Maybe valuable resources could be put back to OS and hardware development if they split off that whole “Apple car” project, and all the services (including the latest Wall Street toy, payment services), to other companies. Regain some focus. Stop the competition for resources and time between internal departments.
When the new idea you’re tossing around suddenly makes you lots of money, your other ideas get the shaft. No different for corporations. Especially when their leadership isn’t about great product... because it’s clearly image over substance, at this point; Wall Street is all that matters.
Let’s break Wall Street while we’re at it. It’s a gambling den, not an economy.
Going by this rationale that would also mean the end of “Smart TV’s” as they have software loaded onto hardware by the same manufacturer.
As for “everyone HAS to pay taxes, or they’re not good people, and put the burden of $400 Toilet seats on the backs of the poor,” argument, I play the “what would I do” game. One along with me... What if I owed $1,000,000 in taxes and by investing $1,000,000 in a business, I’d get to owe $0, plus have a business worth $1,000,000 to my bottom line, or have $1,000,000 taken from my bottom line? What would you do? Actually, what do you do when you fill out your 1040? Do you just do the 1040EZ, take no deductions, even ones that are socially acceptable (house, kids, charity donations...?). The current tax system encourages people to spend money, and if you don’t, send that non-investment to US.
But hey, I don’t think I’ll convince you to see things my way, so have a good one.