The only thing being ignored here is the fact that this week SCOTUS let stand New York State's requirement that Amazon collect sales tax. This would have been the big news story about Amazon this week if not for the suspiciously well timed 60 minutes drone and pony show.
Ok. What is the significance of SCOTUS and NY State's requirement that Amazon collect sales tax?
I thought Amazon was already moving towards the reality where they are collecting sales tax in all states, and have things in the works where that won't matter as much profit-wise down the road?
It doesn't matter to Amazon one bit. Amazon is probably going to open stores in various locations anyways which would make them have to collect taxes in those states.
The difference is that now sites like Newegg, which are completely online, will have to start charging and reporting taxes to states that mandate it. It's also a big deal that an individual state can regulate interstate commerce.
"Probably going to" is not now. Amazon faces having to collect state sales tax now with no hope that the courts will intervene. I think this does matter to investor perception of amazon.
However, I'd also like to know @rafcavallaro's reasoning: what is the significance of sales tax ruling, and if it is, what is the significance of covering it up with a 60 Minutes broadcast about drone delivery? I could be wrong about what I am seeing. Or maybe @rafcavallaro's reasoning won't hold up if we actually examine it closely. Won't really know until we hear from the person.
Instead of "Supreme Court to Amazon: 'collect state sales tax,'" we got "Amazon to deliver by drone." Big players, be they commercial or political, know how work the news cycle - thus is just another example.
On the contrary - this fits right in with all the other dreadful presentations of math - it takes so long to load it appears as though the site is off line. It's almost as if the author was at pains to confirm the trope that technical people have no social skills and are hopeless at presenting information to others.
False. Read the letter carefully. They're specifically concerned with false positives and false negatives - these are both very real possibilities - one is documented up thread.
Right - PG makes the mistake of talking about what labor is actually worth, but this value is dependent on what the political system will allow - the balance of power between labor and capital. Where labor organizing risks torture and death, labor is cheap. Where labor organizing is a protected right, labor is relatively expensive.
This drives offshoring, as capital seeks production regimes where they can reduce the cost not just of wages, but of meeting environmental and safety standards. The naive capitalist then claims that the low ball cost of production in unsafe, toxic, politically repressive locations is the "true" cost of labor.
Unions declined in power in the US as the economy moved away from manufacturing, and Reagan set the tone for service unions by firing striking air traffic controllers. By declaring open season on service workers unions, the capital backed Republican right made it clear they weren't going to allow them the same sort of power industrial unions had in the mid 20th c. This political struggle continues today in efforts to raise the minimum wage both nationally and for individual large employers like Walmart and macdonalds.
By the same utility argument there should be no nuclear weapons, an all out push for zero emissions energy, and world peace, but don't hold your breath. There are existing, very powerful stakeholders such as the governments and militaries of numerous world powers who would far prefer that financial transactions not be anonymous. Tech folk sometimes forget that their bodies live in meat space, not cyberspace, and whoever controls the guys with weapons (i.e., controls police and armies) controls meat space.
The difference being of course: nobody has a clue on how to achieve no nuclear weapons, 100% zero emmission energy, world peace, etc. So you might wish it, but it just not going to happen right now.
But Bitcoin is a known solution demonstrating how to implement a decentralized digital currency. It is working. Today. So the utility it has, and the impact it is about to make on society is enormous.
The rates for east Asia (as was noted in the article) are almost certainly misleadingly low because mental health issues of any kind are so highly stigmatized in these cultures, much more so than in Europe and North Ametica.
Gates's maternal grandfather, a multimillionaire bank president, left him a million dollar trust fund; his mother was on the a United Way board with an IBM exec which is how he got the contract for DOS.
The GI Bill had little or nothing to do with Gates's success.
How much of that trust fund - which Gates never asked for and had nothing to do with - did Bill Gates invest into starting Microsoft? All I'm seeing here is Bill Gates bashing with no actual substance.
If Gates didn't have the trust fund, and didn't invest it into Microsoft, then why are you referring to it as somehow indicting his success?
In fact, the IBM exec is not how Microsoft got the contract for DOS. Microsoft was already a very successful software company by the time the deal with IBM was signed, they had millions in profit in 1980 (in 1980 dollars).
They already had the equivalent of $60 to $80 million in sales (2013 dollars) in fiscal 1980, with 40 employees. They did the equivalent of $130 million in sales in 1981 (DOS 1.0 was first released in August 1981). If you understand anything about the software market's history, you understand how already substantial that was at the time for a stand-alone software business. Fact is, Microsoft was already one of the biggest software companies before they ever signed that deal.
IBM was looking to compete with Apple and others in a very important, fast growing market for personal computing. A multi-billion dollar market opportunity at the time (1980 dollars at that).
Your claim is that IBM would have just given that opportunity to any 'kids' with a half-way connection to an IBM exec (that one of the most powerful companies on earth would rest a multi-billion dollar, critical, opportunity with somebody just over one modest connection). It's an absurd position to put it nicely.
> How much of that trust fund - which Gates never asked for and had nothing to do with - did Bill Gates invest into starting Microsoft? All I'm seeing here is Bill Gates bashing with no actual substance.
This is specious reasoning. The safety net provided by a trust fund (even if you didn't ask for it), is quite significant and allows you to take significant risks.
Let's take the analogy of FU money. The whole point of having it is that you can take risks or breaks in the future (saying F-U to any/all VCs/Investors/bosses without impact to your financial security). You don't need to invest any/all of it, since you can generate more, but if you choose paths that don't generate that wealth, you haven't squandered your financial comfort.
It's more than the money, it's elite socialization: Rich kids learn to believe that they are pre-ordained to be leaders/rulers. That outlook helps them get there.
Well, Gates' mother and father may not have gotten together at all were it not for his father making something of himself with the help of the GI bill, so it's definitely somewhat involved. It's not clear from internet searching if William Gates I was wealthy or just had a pretentious approach to naming his kids, so it could be that he'd have gone to university anyway.
That said I wasn't trying to point to it as the sole contributing factor for Bill Gates, just one of many that may play a part in the overall trend and noting that one of the most obvious has it in his family's history.
