nht

cropr said:

I own a software company and the last Macbook Pro I bought was in 2017 for my graphical designer.  The 2 machines I bought in 2018, one for a backend developer and one for a frontend developer, were both Dell XPS 13 machines running Ubuntu.  While for the backend developers the preferred machine was already an XPS, for the frontend developer this is a switch from a Mac to XPS.

The reason s simple, the Dell XPS has a superior price value ratio.  For a config with a 8th gen i7 CPU, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, the Macbook Pro is 48% more expensive.  The Dell has excellent build quality, a real escape key (very important for software development) a great screen, good battery and a superior keyboard.  The Mac has a superior SSD but a mediocre keyboard and a for a software developer useless Touchbar. Even if the price were equal, it would not be obvious that for software development the Mac is the better machine   

I will continue to buy Macs for doing graphical design because of the application stack (Adobe Creative and Sketch).  Apparently software developers are no longer belonging to the target audience of the Macbook Pro

13" laptops suck for software development if you don't dock.  And if you dock a 13" laptop you can use a any keyboard along with a large screen and mouse.  If you purchased a laptop for mobile use both Windows and Macs have better battery management even using TLP than ubuntu.   

In theory, tuning using powertop and TLP will get good results.  In practice, it's just more pennywise and pound foolish behavior.  Maybe 18.10 fixed all this but 18.04 was not nearly as good as Fedora 28. Unfortunately Fedora is still rather meh on machines with nVidia because they don't like proprietary drivers.  Plus running 18.04 LTS (or for the even more conservative 16.04 LTS) is typically preferred since it's, in theory anyway, more stable.

Also, the Touch Bar isn't useless for development as Xcode has some nice buttons and so can VSCode, Sublime, etc.  If was stuck doing development using a 13" laptop on a plane all day I'd probably spend some effort to tailor my touch bar but I don't so I haven't.

Your arguments against the Mac has been at best contrived and at worst close minded and idiotic. 

macplusplus said:

Anyway I admire your enthusiasm with technology news and I can only empathize with that. It may be true that those guys may be the most innovative these days. But there is a long way to go from innovation to business success, especially if your competitor is Apple or if you want to operate in Apple's scale. If you want to applaud something Chinese here it is: they landed on the dark side of the moon. That is innovation: not a new wifi chip...

Try not to feed the trolls.

In any case, its FAR side of the moon, not dark side.  It's a nice accomplishment but not much different from their earlier mission or all that innovative.  NASA just visited Ultima Thule which is the farthest flyby of any object (4B miles) in history.

See, here's is a good article about what's going on, unlike the DED article which, as usual, goes off the deep end.

Even without being able to see the byline it was obvious which was the DED article and which was from a writer that was competent.

radarthekat said:

There’s two ends of a spectrum when it comes to reactions to DED’s articles, and these ends of the spectrum and views generally on Apple’s prospects tend to match up well.  

On one end of the spectrum exist those who look at the immediate timeframe - what’s happening right now - and make an assessment of the company and it’s future based upon what they see.  These folks are highly reactive, swayed by emotion perhaps.  Armchair quarterbacks tossing out desperation plays in the first quarter because the Patriots are down by 17.  We know how that has often turned out; how many Super Bowl rings do Brady and Belichick share?

At the other end of the spectrum reside those with a longer view.  These are the folks, like some here in this thread, like myself and like Warren Buffett, who never advocated Apple purchase Netflix or Tesla (history will show whether we were correct or foolish, but that history is not yet written), who understand the rationale behind share repurchases and that it’s a very long game strategy, who see innovation where others seemingly cannot (to what must these folks attribute the incredible success of the iPhone over ten years if it doesn’t actually stand above the copycats?), and who can project forward to see the potential that exists for Apple in enormous markets, like health and transportation.  And we also understand, regarding disruptions like 2008 and today’s trade war, that ‘this too shall pass.’  

Sadly, like religious or political extremes, there is scant bridge connecting the two ends of this spectrum of views.  But history favors the long view.  

That's not true at all.  I think DED posts are usually very defensive and contrived and I'm very bullish on Apple. 

gatorguy said:

nht said:

gatorguy said:

nht said:

gatorguy said:

nht said:

gatorguy said:

jbdragon said:

Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.

If they raise prices then wouldn't that obligate them to even more taxes since they'll make even more profit?

Besides that how do you raise prices after the sale occurred? Corporate taxes are paid on profits, which can only be determined after a sales period has closed.  How would you know how much to add in advance? I have zero doubt that Apple has already computed the optimal prices for their products, right to the final dollar to maximize its profits. Raising them more because France wants a bit of what they are paying as a corporation to end up in French accounts for French use rather than Irish ones would be counter to that. 

If I'm off-base maybe you can explain.

EDIT: It seems after doing a bit'o reading that the claim companies simply raise prices is more a FUD-ism than fact. I guess it gets repeated so much that some folks just accept that it must be true. 
https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/who-pays-the-corporate-income-tax/

"Probably most people assume that the corporate income tax is largely paid by consumers of its products or services. That is, they assume that although the tax is nominally levied on the corporation as a whole, in fact the burden of the tax is shifted onto customers in the form of higher prices.

All economists reject that idea. They point out that prices are set by market forces and the suppliers of goods and services aren’t only C-corporations, which pay taxes on the corporate tax schedule, but also sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations that are taxed under the individual income tax. Other suppliers include foreign corporations and nonprofits."

Explain to me which "sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations" competes with Apple, Google, etc?  None.  There are also no foreign corporation that are in the same league as the targeted US companies.

If French taxes are higher then these companies can and will charge French consumers more than for other consumers for these services.  Since the tax is levied against all providers then unless demand is very elastic there isn't anything to keep that from happening.

This is a tax on "digital services" AFAICT. Depending on the details this might have negligible to zero impact on companies like Samsung and Huawei or force a price increase in their handsets. Apple's ability to simply raise their iPhone prices and pass their French taxes on without also pricing themselves further away from competitors may be limited.

Wait for details to see who this actually affects but the acronym for the tax is pretty telling : GAFA, named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon 

And what competitors to GAFA would not be taxed and therefore able to take Digital Services consumers from GAFA?  None. 

So who prevents GAFA from raising prices of movies, music, etc in France to cover the tax?  Samsung and phone prices are simply you trying to muddy the waters since they aren't competing with GAFA in digital services.  So not them.

So who are the competitors in your "pricing themselves further away from competitors" statement?  

As I said, unless demand is very elastic for digital services there's not a whole lot to prevent GAFA from pushing the costs onto the French consumer.  It's just another tariff. 

What's the impact of $200B worth of tariffs against Chinese goods is pushed completely onto the American consumer?  About $60 a year.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/12/upshot/trade-war-cost-families.html

Maybe there would a few French consumers that would reduce spending but not likely very many if the French economy is stable.  

Further, some of the consumers of some of the GAFA companies are advertisers and not citizens.  Do you think they're really going to be that price sensitive and who are the competitors they will move to to reach the same demographics?

I'm not going to even attempt to argue economics when actual economists (perhaps you too are one, I'm not) have already commented on whether product prices are increased equally by the corporate tax expense incurred. As far as I can tell those professionals "trained in the art" in general say no. 

Actual economists who aren't peddling something agree that there is disagreement as to whom pays the majority of the corporate tax burden.  Economists, for the most part, agree that the majority of the burden is generally not paid by the stockholders/owners but by the workers or consumers.  Which pays most varies based on situation but as noted in the GAFA the group with the weakest bargaining position is the French consumer.

By requiring that the product price increase equally by the tax incurred is simply not arguing in good faith which is par for the course when discussing anything with you.  

This is the comment that began the discussion:
"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!! So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying."

How would you interpret that statement if not the same as I did:  Corporate taxes paid are passed thru in their entirety to consumers in the way of product price increases. 

If your takeaway of the posters meaning is the same as mine would you consider the comment accurate? Everything I've read today on the topic says owners/stockholders pay some (sometimes most) of it, workers might also be "paying" some of it (sometimes a LOT of it), and consumers might of course pay some of it. Maybe a little, maybe none at all, maybe a lot. 

Claiming that the amount of corporate taxes paid are automatically passed thru in the way of price increases for that company's products and thus directly paid by the consumer doesn't appear to be true AFAICT. Agree or disagree? Will I get silence now or will you too argue in good faith as you expect me to? As far as I can tell I was not dishonestly misconstruing what he said. 

"Corporations don't pay taxes, YOU DO!!!"  This part is true.  

"So you tax them more, they will just raise prices and YOU are the one that's actually paying.". This part is partially true.

In tax incidence analysis only individuals can carry the burden of taxes and not entities.  The classic economic theory on corporate taxes by Harberger (1962) assigned the tax burden completely on the owners of capital.  This is largely the position of the articles you cited and parrot so therefore we can assume that you agree.

However Harberger assumes (that your sources don't provide) that there is both production elasticity (ie competition) and consumer elasticity (ie demand and/substitution of products).  

In the cases of targeted taxes against a sector controlled by a small group of multinationals the first of these assumptions are untrue.  Since there are no significant non-corporate producers so the tax applies to all of the production capability.  The smaller players don't matter because they hold such a small percentage of the market share.  Even when they do exist, empirical analysis showed that the much smaller losses from differential taxation (ie between corporate and non-corporate producers) than the what the 1989 Gravelle and Kotlikoff paper suggested.

Which means the second assumption is suspect...there is no consumer elasticity from substitution since switching from Google to Amazon doesn't help you avoid the cost of the new tax.

That data further shows that the assumption of perfect competition is incorrect...an assumption loudly proclaimed by you and others against "YOU Pay!" that corporations are already maximizing profits.  In the analysis of actual results Krzyzaniak and Musgrave (1963) came to the conclusion that after tax profits rose in the short run in response to increases in the tax rate.  The impact of this finding is that competition is not perfect (ie the price is already the max the market can bear) and that corporations often over responds to this new cost stimulus by restricting output (or accepts fewer sales) and raising prices beyond the increase in cost of the tax.  Otherwise you would see a reduction in profits and not an increase.

I suggest that if you want to argue using articles you dive deeper than Huffpo and then attempt argument by authority using such questionable sources and understanding.

tl;dr:  Yes, you the consumer do usually pay the larger burden of corporate taxes when there is an imperfect market...say when there is a monopoly or oligopoly.

Which is what you have in the digital services sector and US technology multinationals.

If you want to be a pendant and claim that since not 100% of the cost is borne by the consumer (because it never will 100% anything in such a complex subject), again, you aren't arguing in good faith.  Especially when the counter-arguments you present are shown to be simplistic with the wrong assumptions and come from biased sources trying to sell you on increased corporate taxation.  You don't have to be an economist to read more substantive papers from a variety of viewpoints in order to draw your own conclusions...or at least understand the limitations of the position you feel is most likely.

I'm not for or against corporate taxes in general...corporate taxation has pluses and minuses depending on your goals.  As a progressive tax often it doesn't seem to work that well because of the ability to shift the tax burden when the relationship between corporations, workers and consumers are often vastly unequal. 

For France, it will increase federal income from taxes.  Goal met.