anantksundaram

linuxplatform said:

DAalseth said:

But you can only say that because Democrats and Republicans alike displayed equal ignorance, and favored their own political careers instead of doing the job they said they were there for.

And this was a surprise why? This whole this was targeted at political ads for the fall election. 

In a bigger vein why is this a subject for antitrust concerns at all. Whatever abuse these companies may have done, or at least are being accused of doing, none of them is a Monopoly. 

Which brings me back to my first point. This was all about posturing, getting clips for the fall political ads, making it look like they are doing something, and distracting from the real problems the country is facing that they are squabbling about, rather than salving.

They aren't being accused of being a traditional monopoly, no. But what they are accused of is being too big, too wealthy, too powerful and as a result exerting too much influence on the global economy, politics and culture. Case in point: Dell is #34 on the Fortunate 500 with a market capitalization of $45 billion. Apple? Market capitalization $1.1 trillion.

Then there is the outsized reach of the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, YouTube etc. As I said in another thread yesterday most of these politicians - as well as the people who write "how big is too big" articles - are really after Amazon (labor issues), Facebook (because it allows people to post ideas that they disagree with and Hillary Clinton lost) and Google (Snowden and again Hillary Clinton lost) but because Apple is so big it is impossible to go after their real targets without at least pretending to go after the company that is going to be the unchallenged #1 on the planet for the foreseeable future too.

sdbryan said:

Finally some good news about doing more than just trying to avoid Covid-19. I agree that in the short run there are not good prospects for sufficient adoption but given present leadership we sadly may have plenty of time for adoption to grow while the threat continues to be a fact of life (in the US).

As indicated by previous individuals, anyone with a cellphone is continually sharing identity and position in order for the phone to function. This protocol shares neither identity nor position. It is just about notification of possible exposure and thus is much more privacy protective than the billions of cellphones in use.

JWSC said:

geekmee said:

This goes to the heart of ‘meeting of the minds’ concept in contracts:
‘If we don’t like the deal, we may change the laws after the fact, and then retroactively make you pay for it.’ 

While it appears from the outside that the European Commission wanted retroactive tax changes, that’s not actually what they were arguing in court.

They made the argument that when the Maastricht treaty was enacted in 1992 Ireland should have updated their tax laws to comply with the treaty. Therefore, Ireland was operating outside the European Union tax law since that time and should have been receiving more money from Apple. But the court did not find substantial evidence that this was the case.

So back to square one for the Commission. Unfortunately, they are so deeply offended that Apple hasn’t paid their perceived fair share that the Commission appears to be ignoring the court findings and is hell bent on getting Apple and other big online services companies. And they don’t seem to care if they do it through democratic means or not. It’s not a promising outlook from any point of view.

JWSC said:

crowley said:

JWSC said:

GeorgeBMac said:

Apple's only crime was essentially receiving stolen goods -- where Ireland undercut EU taxation rules.

But, if nothing else, this points out the absurdity of international taxation rules -- where a company can fabricate a "headquarters" in some low taxation environment and then operate in other, better established countries and take advantage of the societal advantages there -- societal advantages reaped from infrastructure and stability from a strong central government supported by an adequate revenue stream.

This is not new:   companies have been locating fake headquarters in Caribbean tax havens for decades.  In fact, that area featured prominently in the causes of the 2008 Great Recession where bad loans were packaged into highly rated CDO's in these Caribbean shelters and sold to unsuspecting buyers.   Essentially, it is one country bypassing international rules to benefit itself -- much like any organized crime family does the same.

It is past time that international taxation conventions be modernized to insure that companies (not just Apple) pay for the benefits they receive in the countries they operate in.

I’m confused about what “international taxation rules” you are referring to. I believe each independent nation is entitled to establish their own tax laws and regulations - or did I miss something.

I must point out that Delaware has no corporate taxes and many US companies choose to place their headquarters in that state for that reason. I don’t see anyone screaming about how unfair that is.

Delaware is widely considered to be a tax haven, and there are plenty of people who are opposed to such practises.

OK. So a few are screaming about it. But Delaware violates no federal law and you’d need a constitutional amendment to change that. Similarly, the EU case is really about the limits of EU law over individual nation states within the EU.