jeffythequick

"When looking for a place to stay, I thought, 'how can we make this sing to the soul?'
We sat down and looked at current hotels, and saw they were lacking the thing that we miss most about home:
Laundry Rooms
Bathrooms we have to clean ourselves
Sheets and beds that aren't made when we get back from where we were.
We created an experience that mimics the home experience, even to the one outlet that doesn't work, and the light switch that is out of place, and a television that is mounted on the wrong wall.
And we bring it to you, along with a deposit that you can't justify getting back.
Airbnb.

Like home, only more expensive.
"

The whole EarPods/adapter thing left me a bit disappointed.  It would have been nice to have an Apple Gift Card for $38 in there ($19/ea for EarPods/adapter) to buy what you wanted.  Cost to Apple:  not much; the box could have been the same size, and offer to shred the card when done.  Then, they could have used that to up sell to AirPods, or whatever...

I know its not a big deal, but the virtue signaling said to me:
”You’re losing $38 of value while we save the planet.  Any complaints, and you’re a planet killing pig.  Now, on with the show!”

dysamoria said:

jeffythequick said:

mac_dog said:

johnbear said:

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.

Since this is a government idea, let's come up with the worst possible way to break things up:

Facebook:
Have the post monitor software developers housed on Pennsylvania Avenue
Have the company broken into 4 entities:
  Facebook Text posts
  Facebook Picture posts
  Facebook Infrastructure
  Facebook Web Interface
Facebook Infrastructure pays for the use of Facebook Picture Posts and Facebook Text posts and sells each post to Facebook Web Interface

Amazon:
Break it up into 58 companies:
  Amazon Audible Books and Originals
  Amazon Alexa Skills
  Amazon Devices
  Amazon Appliances
  ...  (the whole list from the Amazon site)
  Amazon Video Games
  Amazon Whole Foods Markets
  Amazon Web Services
  Amazon Delivery Service
  Amazon Warehouses
  Amazon Inter-Warehouse Delivery
  None of which can talk to each other without a Federal Magistrate Approval, for each instance of communication

Apple:
Break it into 8 companies, and put one company on each of the continents, and no two continents can have more than one of these new companies, and they must be located on US Soil.
  Apple Ideas
  Apple Wonderful Implementations
  Apple World Betterment
  Apple Stock Improvement
  Apple Calamity Avoidance
  Apple Patent Lawyers
  Apple Acquisitions 
  Apple iMac
Each of these companies can co-develop with each other, share secrets, and co-locate within each other's offices, and have employees report across company lines.  These companies can share a common HR system, resources, and management.

Netflix:
Break it into 3 companies:
  Netflix Kids Programming, where all content will be available
  Netflix Adult Programming.  No, not that kind of "adult", but content geared towards older audiences.  TV-M and above
  Netflix Damage Control - Where the company defends the other two companies from stupid decisions, and telling the public that they're stupid for calling Netflix' decisions stupid.

Google:
Break it up into 5.6 billion companies per day, one for each search done on the site.
Each company must set up health insurance, have a staff to ensure that search was successful, and is not allowed to communicate with any of the other 5.5999999999 billion companies, nor can they contract out their staffing

Well, there's my attempt to put this back on topic...