I am now convinced that capitalism is evil

And this is the part of the documentary where the narrator says "and this is the dance they did when they worshiped capitalism and the pre-AI electronics"

context: Opening of a microsoft store is AUSTRALIA MATE!!!!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crickhowell-welsh-town-moves-offshore-to-avoid-tax-on-local-business-a6728971.html

Businesses of welsh town to use offshoring tax loopholes to remove their corporate tax burden as example to the rest of the country which they encourage to follow suit so as to force the govenment to close loopholes designed for large multi-nationals to use so that they pay no tax.

  Quote

 

When independent traders in a small Welsh town discovered the loopholes used by multinational giants to avoid paying UK tax, they didn’t just get mad. Now local businesses in Crickhowell are turning the tables on the likes of Google and Starbucks by employing the same accountancy practices used by the world’s biggest companies, to move their entire town “offshore”.

Advised by experts and followed by a BBC crew, family-run shops in the Brecon Beacons town have submitted their own DIY tax plan to HMRC, copying the offshore arrangements used by global brands which pay little or no corporation tax. The Powys tax rebellion, led by traders including the town’s salmon smokery, local coffee shop, book shop, optician and bakery, could spread nationwide.

 

Steve, a Crickhowell coffee shop owner Steve said: “I have always paid every penny of tax I owe, and I don’t object to that. What I object to is paying my full tax when my big name competitors are doing the damnedest to dodge theirs.” One of the town’s traders discovered that he paid seven times more in corporation tax than Facebook, which paid less than £5,000 in the UK last year.

Shit's worse than evil, it's an amoral, emergent process that we have no control over.

err... isn't capitalism and uh... providing economic incentives responsible for a vast and largely positive amount of innovation in technology and medicine?

gotta dangle that carrot.

  On 11/12/2015 at 11:57 PM, delet... said:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crickhowell-welsh-town-moves-offshore-to-avoid-tax-on-local-business-a6728971.html

 

Businesses of welsh town to use offshoring tax loopholes to remove their corporate tax burden as example to the rest of the country which they encourage to follow suit so as to force the govenment to close loopholes designed for large multi-nationals to use so that they pay no tax.

 

 

  Quote

 

When independent traders in a small Welsh town discovered the loopholes used by multinational giants to avoid paying UK tax, they didn’t just get mad. Now local businesses in Crickhowell are turning the tables on the likes of Google and Starbucks by employing the same accountancy practices used by the world’s biggest companies, to move their entire town “offshore”.

Advised by experts and followed by a BBC crew, family-run shops in the Brecon Beacons town have submitted their own DIY tax plan to HMRC, copying the offshore arrangements used by global brands which pay little or no corporation tax. The Powys tax rebellion, led by traders including the town’s salmon smokery, local coffee shop, book shop, optician and bakery, could spread nationwide.

 

Steve, a Crickhowell coffee shop owner Steve said: “I have always paid every penny of tax I owe, and I don’t object to that. What I object to is paying my full tax when my big name competitors are doing the damnedest to dodge theirs.” One of the town’s traders discovered that he paid seven times more in corporation tax than Facebook, which paid less than £5,000 in the UK last year.

 

corporate tax issues are issues of statute and law creation and administration, not capitalism.

There's nothing wrong with capitalism. There's nothing wrong with free enterprise.

  On 11/13/2015 at 7:14 AM, Candiru said:

I'm glad Reagan dead.

No modern country has real capitalism. Real capitalism is simply the private transfer of goods and services and nothing more. That is something that any country in the world has. The government is a central part of the market through subsidies, regulations, and and the governments of the world getting in bed with the most successful companies. Private transfer of goods and services don't involve any government intervention under a laissez-faire economy. No one has that.

Companies and governments should be prohibited from doing business with each other. Period.

  On 11/13/2015 at 7:10 AM, StephenG said:

err... isn't capitalism and uh... providing economic incentives responsible for a vast and largely positive amount of innovation in technology and medicine?

 

gotta dangle that carrot.

  On 11/12/2015 at 11:57 PM, delet... said:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crickhowell-welsh-town-moves-offshore-to-avoid-tax-on-local-business-a6728971.html

 

Businesses of welsh town to use offshoring tax loopholes to remove their corporate tax burden as example to the rest of the country which they encourage to follow suit so as to force the govenment to close loopholes designed for large multi-nationals to use so that they pay no tax.

 

 

  Quote

 

When independent traders in a small Welsh town discovered the loopholes used by multinational giants to avoid paying UK tax, they didn’t just get mad. Now local businesses in Crickhowell are turning the tables on the likes of Google and Starbucks by employing the same accountancy practices used by the world’s biggest companies, to move their entire town “offshore”.

Advised by experts and followed by a BBC crew, family-run shops in the Brecon Beacons town have submitted their own DIY tax plan to HMRC, copying the offshore arrangements used by global brands which pay little or no corporation tax. The Powys tax rebellion, led by traders including the town’s salmon smokery, local coffee shop, book shop, optician and bakery, could spread nationwide.

 

Steve, a Crickhowell coffee shop owner Steve said: “I have always paid every penny of tax I owe, and I don’t object to that. What I object to is paying my full tax when my big name competitors are doing the damnedest to dodge theirs.” One of the town’s traders discovered that he paid seven times more in corporation tax than Facebook, which paid less than £5,000 in the UK last year.

 

corporate tax issues are issues of statute and law creation and administration, not capitalism.

i posted what is a very interesting story in this thread because it is the most relevant thread for this article and i didn't want to start a new thread just to post an article (unlike many of you). I certainly don't need to be told what capitalism is. Get with it lad. (in a nice way, but come on).

Capitalism can't melt steel beams though?

-sie- No for that you need oligrachy ..

Onion kills it yet again

The problem with capitalism is that there must be a bottom if there's a top. It favors consolidation of wealth and gives an unfair advantage to those with it over a long enough timeline. In order for anything to be valuable, there must be scarcity (or at least the appearance that something is valuable or scarce, ie. gold/diamonds).

If everyone started at zero every year, then it would be a fine theory. Being born in this age means the deck is highly stacked against you, especially if the system is largely unregulated.

yes, the end game of capitalism if left to run for long enough, is entrenched cartels if not monopoly and eventually an oligarchic elite who actively crushes competition or innovation and buys the political system. It happens every time.

that's why we have anti-monopoly laws.

to paraphrase, capitalism is the worst economic system we've developed, aside from all of the other ones.

And those always work in the public's favor

sure, it's a constant battle, it's still far better than one giant all encompassing monopoly though.

clearly when you get monopolies and oligarchies that trumps all laws which are even changed retroactively to avoid prosecutions now, in the case of wall street. We must accept that the US propaganda against socialism is bullshit. and that socialism should be used for the things that capitalism fails at like public infrastructure and medicine and sharing knowledge produced by academics to push societal and technological progress and then you let capitalism get on with selling coffees and building cars.

certain things are natural monopolies (rail for example), and it probably doesn't make a huge amount of sense to force a market system on them, not that governments are particularly good at running them either. not sure that applies to medicine or school though (and there are ways to get around problems preventing universal access there, some kind voucher dealie for example, this leaves you with a somewhat mixed system, implementation via the private sphere, some funding from the public - where needed).

I forgot about this topic. Wish those videos still existed. Actually strike that, fuck those stupid Cheerios commercials.

Move thread to first world problems please.

  On 11/23/2015 at 6:20 AM, goDel said:

Move thread to first world problems please.

I don't think the problems with capitalism is exclusively a fwp.

Depends on what is meant with " problems with capitalism". I think the problem of understanding what capitalism actually is, and is not, is typically a fwp. Seeing that its mostly a fw debate.

Yeah, well, in the first world we don't have to fight to survive (yet), so there is time to think about the flaws of capitalism.

Now, I am skeptical of capitalism, but I don't know what the alternative is that would be better. And anything else would be better since capitalism is a dead end and unsustainable. I lean left, but doubt full on socialism is the answer either. Although don't think that socialism has been tried yet in such an extent that capitalism has. I don't count the totalitarian regimes of the Soviet and the likes. There are models of mixed economies which are alright, I guess, but with globalisation, I don't see how a Nordic welfare state model could work in today's world.

It's hard to re-think something outside of the established constructs on how economy, labour etc should work.

Maybe I am naive or misinformed, but shouldn't the economic policies be done is such a way that it's beneficial to people and the environment and not in such a way where it's seen what the people and the environment can do for the benefit of the economy.What I am saying is that the financial sector has become an out of control beast which dictates all other policies for its benefit. No matter the cost. Just as long as the profit margins are good enough for the financiers and bankers, who just speculate on numbers on a computer screen, with very little connection to the real economy, but it's somehow super important for the well-being of everyone. At least that's what we are being told.