Why should there be a corporate tax rate at all though? Why not just tax income and leave it at that?
All of the money that corporations earn (and would be taxed on this way) will always be taxed as income before it's distributed to an individual, after all, no? Corporate tax never fully made sense to me.
The point is that they would be able to earn money without being taxed money anyway. It'd mean fewer accounting tricks, or none.
Those would be shifted to individuals. You'd see an uptick in high earners trying to avoid taxes. It's just a question of whether high earners would be better or worse at hiding income than corporations.
Taxing income rather than profit would actually account for that. I'm not sure I'd want to see that change, but you can't employ clever accounting to hide income like you can hide profits.
Yes, it can. It provides a feeling of excitement or enthusiasm for whatever you're doing, and can be channeled into working hard for long periods of time. Especially if your job already brings you some satisfaction, then doing your job on amphetamine will provide more. Pilots in the airforce (and possibly other warfighters) are given amphetamine to augment their performance.
I think of it as basically stealing energy or enthusiasm from the future, though. You might feel energized and focused now, but it comes at the expense of less energy and focus when the drug wears off. The withdrawal effect is pretty mild if you take prescription doses of it though, e.g. Adderall (which is amphetamine). At normal moderate doses, taken in the morning, almost all of that energy can be recouped during sleep (though not all). I wouldn't want to take it daily for a long period of time though, otherwise you'll build up an 'energy deficit' that could lead to a crash.
P.S. I know people who have essentially destroyed their lives by becoming addicted to amphetamine or meth. It's a dangerous drug.
As someone who basically requires dextroamphetamine to function, I’ve always found the notion of becoming addicted to it crazy, nonetheless. If I don’t set alarms to take it, I will forget, for days at a time until I suddenly realize why I haven’t gotten much done and my memory has been bad this week.
I wonder if there is something about the dopamine issues of the ADHD brain that prevents an addiction to substances that aid it.
> Working with base-10 numbers is so much easier than trying to think in base-60, base-12, and base-24.
In some ways, sure. If you're doing precise mathematical things. Otherwise, if you're doing simple mental math, base-12, -24, and -60 have some advantages.
60 can be evenly divided into 1/2 (halves) or 30 min, 1/3 (thirds) or 20 min, /4 or 15 min, /5 or 12 min, /6 or 10 min, and by 12, 15, 20, 30, and 60.
24 can be divided by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and so on for 12. I always assumed this was the reason for the "imperial" unit measures and for time and length. Dividing things into thirds is a common use-case and it's nice to be able to do that evenly.
Maybe he wanted to start drawing a salary in order to resume working on Processing again, and the board said no. (That isn’t my first guess about what’s happening, based on the highly polarizing content on the foundation’s website but the thought did cross my mind.)
The part about turning off donations via Ethereum due to concerns about “environmental impact” was pretty good too.
(I mean, if a donor doesn’t have Ethereum, then they are probably not going to buy Ethereum in order to donate. If they only have Ethereum, then they need to transact it anyway to get a currency that the foundation will accept… And that’s taking it for granted that Ethereum has some problematic environmental impact, and that the impact is important enough to warrant losing donations for.)
The funding doc reads like an organization that has lost its way and is pursuing various vague social causes (“decolonizing wealth”), or social justice wars, rather than its original mission.
How do two-wheeled segway devices handle this? If you continue to lean forward and try to exceed their maximum speed, they will somehow tilt you backward and slow down anyway.
(Presumably, enough force on the front edge could cause them to over-tilt, but riding normally, it will forcefully tilt you back and slow down.)
I've listened to the voice call [1] linked in [2] and I interpret it the same way that Reddit staff apparently did -- as a veiled threat.
Here's why: Christian is saying during the call that if Reddit wants Apollo to "quiet down", then to "make it easier" on everyone, Reddit should pay Christian $10 million dollars.
I agree that there is ambiguity to the conversation, but if you listen to the exchange in context ... it sure sounds like Christian's offer is for Apollo to "go away quietly", as in he personally won't make noise about it. I'm not honestly sure that there's another sound way to interpret this.
Listen to the audio yourselves and consider: what exactly is Christian offering in exchange for $10m? It's not the cessation of API requests, because Reddit already has it own their power to make that happen unilaterally. Therefore it must be something else.
This 'clarification' that Christian provides afterwards, stating that he means API utilization will "go quiet", doesn't make sense, because Reddit doesn't need to pay for that. Again, he must be referring to something else.
What is Reddit buying for $10m? The answer that "Christian will shut down the app and go quietly" is the only answer that makes sense in context.
We should also keep in mind that actual, intended threats aren't necessarily going to be communicated explicitly. If you imagine a lobbyist threatening, say, a congressperson, would they say explicitly: "Vote for our initiative or else we'll stop funding you and fund your opposition"? No, almost certainly not. They'd say something that communicates the threat but requires reading between the lines -- as is the case here.
Even without the need for threats, Christian has a reason to be unhappy with the API change, and voice his criticism of it publicly. It might be what he was planning to do anyway. So perhaps he's offering for Reddit to buy him out in exchange for ceasing his public criticism. It's not precisely a threat because regardless of the offer he might have been planning to criticize Reddit publicly. But it sure would feel like a threat to Reddit. "Buy me out or else I'm going to cause even more public fuss about this". The way that it's communicated, it lands as a threat from my perspective, because the payment will not be for anything besides his silence.
They don't need to buy Apollo for it to shut down, that's the point. Apollo gets shut down with or without the buyout, so what exactly is the $10 million payment securing
So the whole raise-api-cost was in fact intended to just shut these apps down, and isn't to recoup costs, like Reddit is saying?
That means Reddit entered in bad faith - at that point you can't fault Apollo for reacting to that bad faith in any way really, as long as it was legal. You can't be expected to act in good faith if the other party isn't.
So, I still see no blame for Apollo folk (I don't use the app or know who they are before today)
Apps cost them money they could be making in advertising, So they want big money or will cut the apps off. If apps could offer more money than reddit thinks they could make without them, then everyone would be happy, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
What do you think is fair? They dont owe Apollo anything and they dont want anything Apollo has to offer.
If we are being real, Reddit wants Apollo gone. The only definition of fair would be terms both reddit and Apollo mutually agree to, but that isnt going to happen.
Apollo had a good run while it lasted, and I hope the devs walk away with some money to show for it.
Honestly, reddit shouldn't want Apollo gone. They should want Apollo. If a large number of your potential users are going to a different platform it's because yours lacks something. Shutting down some of your competition doesn't change that fact, and those users are still going to be open to bailing for better options.
Why piss off your userbase by trying to force them back to your inferior option when you could just buy the thing they've clearly shown they prefer and give it to them yourself?
>Why piss off your userbase by trying to force them back to your inferior option when you could just buy the thing they've clearly shown they prefer and give it to them yourself?
Because Apollow doesnt bring in the revenue but Reddit's user hostile platform does.
The goal isnt to make the users happy or their preference, it is to make money.
If you run a restruant, and the restruant next door gives food away for free, of course diners will prefer it. The problem comes if the place next door is using your kitchen and supplies. Buying the restruant next door doesn't help your problem.
I don't see it that way. That was just a proposed business transaction: reddit pays a fee, and in exchange, the Apollo dev doesn't comment publicly on the API changes. What's the threat, real or implied? The alternative is he goes public, which is only a problem for reddit if they know what they're doing is wrong.
Him going public with... what? The API pricing? This was discussed in similar calls with all third party app devs. The pricing was going to be public anyways
If they had taken credit cards, and made fraudulent transactions, maybe they could have made a few purchases in retail stores, but as soon as you detected that fraud you’d call the bank and issue a chargeback - a hassle but you’re not out any money.
Also, banks are smart. If a single CC is being simultaneously used in multiple physical locations, that’s an immediate red flag for fraud. My bank also asks for OTPs when I make online payments at novel/obscure websites.
A scammer who got my full CC number couldn’t make a fake physical card since it’s chip-and-pin; or at least not use it at any mainstream retailer which would require a chip transaction. So they’d be limited to online ones. I suspect the bank might even be passed the IP or other fingerprint details when authenticating the transaction, resulting in OTP requirements when risk is detected (online transaction from foreign country when I live in my country).
As long as you have a couple of CCs (so you can still pay for stuff if one gets deactivated due to fraud), CC fraud will typically be detected by the bank and refunded, along with new card issuance.
My main CC company will also text me randomly asking if any of the last three charges was unauthorized, with their details. Sometimes the card is paused until I respond. This most typically happens when I’m traveling. If I text back that they’re all legitimate then the card works again immediately; if one is fraudulent then they get me on the phone to confirm the details and issue a new card.
The CC companies seem to be pretty good about not having false alarms when you travel any more (though if you’re traveling internationally, giving them a heads up helps avoid issues) - I believe it’s simultaneous use from multiple geos that trips fraud alarms.
RE chargebacks: stolen cards are often monetized these days with a scheme known as "triangle fraud". Here's how it works:
0) the scammer somehow acquires Person A's credit card info
1) the scammer sets up an online store on Amazon or similar and sells some popular item at a 20% discount (eg Nespresso pods)
2) the scammer doesn't actually have that item in stock, but when they get an order from Person B, they use the stolen card to place another order with a legitimate seller and set the destination address to Person B's address (basically drop-shipping but where the victim is paying for the cost of the goods being sold)
3) Now the scammer has received already-laundered clean money from an online transaction, and Person B got the product they wanted on-time and at a steep discount. They're happy, and certainly won't be complaining to their credit card company.
4) when Person A reports their card stolen and tries to perform a chargeback, the legitimate seller who acted as an unwitting drop-shipper ends up eating the cost.
DEFCON 27 had a talk on exactly this by Nina Kollars, which I suspect is where the Nespresso reference comes from. It's an excellent overview of the topic of triangle fraud. :)
Almost impressed at the cleverness of this all! Especially since, if it's done right, all parties see "business as usual" - and even if they DO suspect a scam, nobody has any incentive past a moral one to say anything.
Wait what? The person with the stolen credit card will report the fraudulent charge causing a chargeback for the seller - how is that “business as usual”? If the business is getting hit with chargebacks they sure as fuck have a financial motivation if not moral one to report it.
This relies on churn and hoping that a percentage of the fraudulent charges go unnoticed. But if it’s oversight then it’s not really that party “seeing” anything.
Someone noticing they are being scammed means that it's over anyways. What I'm saying is that, as the scam is happening, you are going to get at least 1 "legit" looking transaction where the cash is already in the scammer's hands. The person with the stolen credit card is often someone elderly or unable to notice major financial decisions, which makes them perfect marks for being scammed in the first place. What I'm saying is that, to all the parties involved except the scammer, there is no obvious signs that something fishy is going on.
Sadly in Europe a lot of these transactions are done on debit cards, which make redress much harder if not impossible - once the money is out of the account, it's gone for good. Banks may or may not eat the loss depending on a number of factors, size being one of them: 4+digit amounts will likely never be reimbursed.
But yeah, CC are safer, it's one of the things you pay for (typically by mean of higher prices, as merchants pass on their CC fees to customers).
> Sadly in Europe a lot of these transactions are done on debit cards, which make redress much harder if not impossible - once the money is out of the account, it's gone for good.
While this is true, it's also much harder to do a fraudulent payment. The card number itself is not enough; you actually have to go through the bank's payment system with its 2FA, and that's not something a thief can easily fake.
Can’t he borrow against his Tesla stock, and other assets including his ownership of SpaceX, and personal property, for cash to buy Twitter?
Depending on his banking relationships, and other assets that he can use as collateral for the loan, he might be able to borrow a fairly high percentage of the current value of those assets as cash (maybe 50 to 70 or 80% or more if the collateral assets are diversified or the bank simply has high confidence in his effective credit rating or ability to repay — and he may be doing other business with that bank incentivizing them to give him a favorable deal).
I’m not a billionaire but by establishing a strong relationship with a bank, have been able to establish a credit line with a limit that is a high percentage of my assets that are invested by the bank in a diversified portfolio, along with other assets, at a low interest rate (mortgage levels - a credit line at approx 2.5% interest of an amount almost equal to my total assets at the bank).
I also recently refinanced my house with this bank starting last winter and was able to achieve getting a 15 year fixed mortgage at a 2.125% interest rate - a huge reduction from my previous rate of 3.5% on a 30 year. I now pay less per month and will own my home much sooner, consequently paying considerably less in interest over the remainder of the loan, and building much more wealth in the process.
With some wealth and favorable banking relationships you can accomplish things that most ordinary people don’t know about and I myself didn’t know about until I started looking into the possibilities. I am sure a billionaire has access to even more options than I can conceive of.
Does the rule apply to all shareholders? I don't really see how a publically traded company can put an arbitrary condition on what can be done like that - any borrowing can be a totally private deal between you and a bank (or another private individual) - Tesla isn't even privvy to such deals, so how can they enforce any rules about them?
Large shareholders have different rules and restrictions. For example, you can go buy TWTR all you want, but Musk had to report when he had obtained a certain percentage.
Remember that Musk is not only a shareholder of TSLA, but also an employee.
No, Musk has an agreement with tesla that he can only borrow against a quarter of his shares. He's already borrowed against quite a few too. Musk could go to the board to get that number bumped up, but until then he can't just borrow the full $21 billion against his shares.
What’s wrong with Word? Modern businesses are turning increasingly to document formats like Google Docs and Quip in my experience: online editing solutions where documents are stored online and are as easy to share at any stage in their lifecycle as sharing a hyperlink.
Quip has extremely basic editing features, to the extent that I sometimes find it stifling. However, it does a great job at providing 95% of what most business documents need: several headings sizes, paragraphs, numbered and bulleted lists, and the ability to embed pictures - with great collaboration tools.
Quip as a medium is like Hacker News comments. You don’t have a lot of formatting options to work with so you focus on the content rather than messing about with styling.
Most business documents are written and read in a short period of time. Both of the tools show you who from your organization is reading the document for collaborative reviews and allow people to add comments on content inline. Google Documents allows people to make suggested changes that the author/editor can review and accept, incorporating the edit into the document; or the author can share the document and allow people to make changes to it directly.
For example, when my team is having planning meetings, or we are reviewing a project plan, etc. the primary author will often project/screenshare the document, while everyone else also loads it on their computer. We can each see where everyone else’s cursor is (or highlights) and all edit the document simultaneously (if the author wishes) or leave feedback/suggest edits - that we can all see.
These kinds of features matter more in a business environment in my experience more than the ability to format documents in complex ways.
Personally, I find Quip too simplistic, because it does not handle things well like having multiple paragraphs plus a code block in a numbered list item. Google Documents can also have issues with things like this, but I rarely run into something crucial that I cannot do. (But it does have missing features: for example there is no way to add line numbers to a document — but these are less important now that the convention is for everyone to review the document on their computer simultaneously, rather than printing them out).
I find Word to be the most powerful of all of these editing tools and have the easiest time getting it to do what I want. However, (at least the versions I’ve used) seems geared around writing and saving documents locally. It would be my choice of tool if I had to write a long business document and Google Docs wasn’t fitting the bill.
There’s probably a way to set up collaboration features with Word like with the other tools these days, but the “best” collaboration I’ve seen has been through SharePoint which was painful: people had to “check out” the document in order to make changes, etc. I imagine that with Office 365 Microsoft has something better now but if they do I have not had a chance to use it.
Quip and Google Docs “just work”. They are web applications so there is no difference in what is supported between OS versions like with the Word.
In my career as a software engineer & businessperson I’ve rarely needed more than these types of basic text editing tools to collaborate with and convey ideas to my colleagues. Making collaboration simple, including the ability to simultaneously edit a document, or enabling people to read a document at their leisure (asynchronously), and add comments/suggestions/edits - which always refer to the authoritative latest copy (none of this monkey business with emailing around copies of Word documents) provides far more value than advanced editing features would.
If a person can’t get their point across easily using Word’s defaults, perhaps customized a bit by choosing their preferred font, including diagrams where necessary, then I’d question whether the difficulty is the editing tool or something else.
Unless you are producing specialized documents such as academic research intended for publication, or legal documents intended for submission to a court, etc., in my experience business documents rarely need more formatting than Markdown can produce; and easy real-time collaboration is a massive value add.
All of the money that corporations earn (and would be taxed on this way) will always be taxed as income before it's distributed to an individual, after all, no? Corporate tax never fully made sense to me.