|
Mark_Wallace wrote: lawful taxes
Hmmmm. I guess I wouldn't mind paying taxes if I knew gov't would spend it in lawful ways and responsible ways.
But that's off-topic, and yes, I agree the likes of Google, Apple, Microsoft, given that "we" the masses, pay taxes through our nose and other orifices, should act responsibly and pay their taxes rather than finding loopholes that only the corporate rich can take advantage of.
But personally, that's the only reason I agree, as I believe the entire system of taxation is incredibly corrupt in itself.
Marc
|
|
|
|
|
Our benevolent over-loads are tax lawyers who do this sort of thing for a living.
If they are getting caught off guard by Google it is because they're asleep at the switch.
Lawyers who do a lousy job protecting the interest of the people are attempting to make Google look like a criminal because Google is doing a better job of navigating the rules than the people who wrote them.
I say fine the lawyers.
|
|
|
|
|
Mark_Wallace wrote: They wouldn't be missed,
Yes, they would. Try searching without it. Not fun. Also, Google creates revenue for other third party companies in the area.
Anyhow, I agree that any company, should pay their fair share of taxes, etc., just like everyone else; no matter which country they are located.
You know Mark, once you accept Google as your lord and savior, your life will be much easier. 
|
|
|
|
|
Slacker007 wrote: You know Mark, once you accept Google as your lord and savior, your life will be much easier.
Ah, but how many computer-based things has that been said about?
I'm sure you'll find hundreds of lists of "computery things we thought we'd never be able to live without but are now long gone", if you google look for them
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
No, thank you.
I am perfectly fine with Google's existence. I know they are evil, and I am fine with that.
|
|
|
|
|
Quote: "Do no evil" my arse.
Been at the Rubies again Mark?
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
|
|
|
|
|
I quite honestly have no idea what that means.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
Sorry Mark, cockney rhyming slang: Ruby Murray = curry.
It's a Brit thing!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
|
|
|
|
|
PhilLenoir wrote: It's a Brit thing!
Er, yeah. So am I.
I didn't make the leap from the topic to curries, though (and rhyming slang doesn't pluralise well).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
I had assumed with a name like Mark Wallace you were!
I also tend to forget that rhyming slang is not ubiquitous back home, although I thought Ruby was in common use (like butcher's, boracic, ...).
In my excuse ar'm a lundunner, cor blimey guv,nor. We even have our own alphabet, clickety[^]
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
|
|
|
|
|
European governments could:
1: Develop a better alternative that meets their needs.
2: Sit back on their collective fat arse and tax people who produce useful products.
Option #1 would result in competition, innovation, jobs, and very possibly a finished product that is better equipped to meet the requirements of European sensibilities. The added benefit would be European gasbags becoming familiar with the technology they are trying to regulate.
Option #2 would result in a nice fat paycheck that helps stave off the inevitable collapse of the Ponzi scheme known as the European Economy. It requires no expertise, has the benefit of raping foreign companies, and there is no need to engage one's Bourbon pickled brain.
The smart money is on #2, and not because they're Europeans, but because this is the way of all the scum sucking, paper pushing, bone headed do nothing bureaucrats that are destroying our society.
|
|
|
|
|
MehGerbil wrote: European governments could:
1: Develop a better alternative that meets their needs.
You expect the government to build search engines for you?
So you like the idea of government interfering in every aspect of your life then.
MehGerbil wrote: 2: Sit back on their collective fat arse and tax people who produce useful products.
That is one of the main functions of government, yes.
Other functions include building hospitals, roads, schools, etc, using money that has rightfully been paid in taxes.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
My post was encouraging a route that fostered European tech.
Your post illustrates it really is about nothing more than the free money.
But then, I already knew that...
|
|
|
|
|
MehGerbil wrote: Your post illustrates it really is about nothing more than the free money.
Of course it is.
A search engine is reasonably simple tech, no matter how hard google and others want to make it look -- I dare say that at least 90% of the subscribers to CP could write a search engine every bit as effective as google's (especially given how many man hours it took them to build it)
This is about people not paying their taxes, and therefore leaving other people to make up the difference.
If it's just one guy not paying 30,000 a year, fair enough, but we're talking about billions per year, which normal Joes have to pay, because google/starbucks/etc think they deserve free money.
Money is being cut from education, care for the elderly, etc, because of greedy foreign ****ers who don't pay their way -- so yeah, it's all about that money.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
Mark_Wallace wrote: Money is being cut from education, care for the elderly, etc, because of greedy foreign ****ers
How so? Has google reduced the amount of taxes they used to get?
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
|
|
|
|
|
Hmm.
I'm not playing with trolls here, any more.
Well, not the same trolls, anyway.
If any new ones turn up, I reserve the right to have some fun.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
Mark_Wallace wrote: I'm not playing with trolls here, any more.
I asked you 2 questions and you can't answer them and then claim I'm the troll?
OK. Good riddance then. Perhaps troll means something else down under.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
|
|
|
|
|
I think Google should pay taxes.
I think government is necessary.
We agree on those two points.
What I find disturbing is that when it comes to American companies it seems to always be a matter of billions in fines. It seems to me that the technology has been around a very long time - perhaps attentive officials should be crafting tax law that addresses the issue long before it becomes this big of an issue.
How is it that Google gets around the rules (the law) when it is the government that can change the rules at any time? How inefficient and inept do politicians have to be in order to get beat at their own game? What? It is taking them two decades to figure out how search engines work? Sheesh.
I should think that if the European people are getting cheated out of good schools because Google is gaming the system then they should burn down the houses of their government ministers for being horribly incompetent boobs. The guys who make the rules are getting burned at their own game? Sound like a bunch of retards to me.
|
|
|
|
|
MehGerbil wrote: What I find disturbing is that when it comes to American companies it seems to always be a matter of billions in fines.
You're reading it wrong.
It's billions in back taxes.
MehGerbil wrote: perhaps attentive officials should be crafting tax law that addresses the issue long before it becomes this big of an issue.
The people who make the rules for taxes are paid decent salaries.
The shysters who look for ways of avoiding taxes are paid an absolute fruggin' fortune.
It's pretty obvious who the good guys and the bad guys are.
Don't fall into the trap of blaming the wrong people.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
Here is the problem as I see it (at least in the USA):
1: Politicians are mostly professional lawyers and if they're incapable of crafting equitable tax law then they are failing at their job. If you let me design the rules to the game then I'm going to win every time. In my thinking, there is no way the politicians escape blame for this issue.
2: Part of the reason large companies can mis-use tax law is because the politicians make the tax law unnecessarily complex. The loop holes are created by politicians as pay back to supporters - mostly as grift in the system. If they'd craft honest, straight-forward tax law there would be a lot less opportunity for abuse.
3: I don't think it is clear Google actually broke law here - I think the claim is that Google broke the law but the only damning evidence I've seen is that Google has billions of dollars and having money seems to be the only evidence required to bust someone for tax evasion. I don't think making money is a crime.
It really has little impact on me - in the long run this whole thing is one group of powerful millionaires fighting with other powerful millionaires over a great deal of money.
|
|
|
|
|
For point 1: That is certainly not true in the UK. We've had greengrocers, chemists, accountants, etc -- but one of our recent PMs was married to a lawyer. There's no accounting for taste.
For point 2: Nor is that. Tax laws are complex because of the aforementioned overpaid shysters who are always looking for ways to take companies' tax money and put it in their own pockets. The complications in the laws are the fixes, preventing this.
Foe point 3: There's no law against making money, true, but have you looked at how they go about avoiding taxes? That is certainly illegal, but difficult and slow to deal with because it deals with the laws of several countries. By the time the reasonably-salaried people trying to charge the taxes get around one of the obstacles, the grossly-overpaid shysters have found five more obstacles to put in the way.
It has a lot of impact on you:
- It puts money into the hands of people whose only interests are their own, rather than the needs and infrastructure of society -- when was the last time you heard of fat-f*** shysters or search-engine providers paying to build roads or schools (unless the roads led to their own houses or were exclusive for their own children)?
- Why do your children need to get into massive debt to pay for higher education, and how many brilliant minds don't get that education because of the debts it incurs?
- It makes you live in a society that is far more based on criminality than I believe you would prefer.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
You make some solid points; however, I'm still going to side with Google.
I went ahead and gave you a +5.
I'm of the opinion I am because in the USA we're running at somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 trillion dollars of debt - a debt that is likely to continue to grow until people finally realize the US dollar is worthless and we all end up in a new great depression.
That debt isn't because Google is criminally mismanaged.
So I get a little bit angry when the innovators in our society - the people who bring me excellent goods and services - get raped by the elected criminal class who do nothing but increase the public debt while generating services of the quality of our public schools.
Do you think if Google were in charge of the public schools they'd be what they are today?
If Google did put out a product that bad we'd go to Microsoft schools - but the fascists that run our government would dare allow for their services to be challenged by competition.
Regarding the net worth of the elected criminal class here is a list of recent Prime Ministers:
David Cameron Net Worth: 50 million
Gordon Brown Net Worth: 15 million
Tony Blair Net Worth: 60 million
John Major: 240+ million
Our Presidents here in the states are much of the same order.
Yes, companies can and do attempt to cheat the system and yes there is a role for good government; however, from where I'm sitting it is just one group of pirates raiding the coffers of another group of pirates. They money they get from Google isn't going to build you a school - it is going to buy whores and booze and they'll borrow money to build you a school and add it to your tax bill.
modified 21-Dec-14 7:55am.
|
|
|
|
|
No mate. It isn't 'old' C++ or any kind of C++.
Printf is C.
|
|
|
|
|
Personally I prefer its use to the C++ streams, I find it much easier than all the "<<" crap. This and the fact that I rarely appreciate operator overloading (unless where it makes sense and often it is slightly limited) make me prefer plain old stable known and reliable printf's.
Geek code v 3.12
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- r++>+++ y+++*
Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
|
|
|
|
|
Printf? Never heard of it, printf however...
modified 15-Dec-14 4:36am.
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
