Posts by Johan Bastiaansen 523 publicly visible posts • joined 14 May 2007
Yeah, you're probably in marketing. Or a manager of some sort.
Listen genius, it's not about what you think, it's about what the customer thinks.
The customer, you might have heard from him.
He's the guy who's money we're after. Well not you of course, you're egotripping. But us, the working people who try to keep your company afloat. By making money for the company. And we still realise where that money is coming from: the customer.
Did you read the article?
From the top: "China has banned its banks from using Bitcoin after warning the cryptocurrency could be used to fund terrorism. Financial institutions in the Middle Kingdom will no longer be able to use Bitcoin, although citizens are free to spend the digital funny money."
Any government has the right ànd the duty to set rules for their banks. It's because most failed to do their job, that we're in this mess to start with.
And that bartering with livestock was all very fine, but at the end of the year, "da man" came and took 10% of your livestock. So your "without any government intervention" line, doesn't fly either.
Really? No different than cash?
Any currency is controlled by a national bank that has the monopoly on issuing coins and notes.
Who can guarantee that the market will not be flooded by counterfeit bitcoins?
Where do they originate from?
No different than cash he says? :-D
That's what this is about. Don't tax my job. Tax somebody elses job instead.
While you can not short on a house, you can short on property. There are companies who invest in property and their stock is on the market. You can short on their stock if you think the value of property is going down.
But there's another consideration. How does trading contribute to wealth? Why is it that the trader makes the big bucks, but the companies that build the houses make less, and the fools who actually do the manual labor of building the house don't make enough to buy a house?
Remember when that sweat shop collapsed in Bangladesh? It took the journaille a couple of days to figure out it was my fault. Had I paid 10.01 instead of 9.99 the company would have been able to double the pay of the workers and make a safe working environment. A lie of course, that 2 cents never would have found its way to the slaves.
But it did prove the low impact of labor cost on consumer price. The truth is between the li(n)es.
So the tax I'm paying, that's really the company that employs (employed actually), paying taxes eh?
So when the government decided to raise taxes because of the crisis, that's really the company paying more taxes.
And now everybody is looking at me, because hey, what's my contribution in the "war on crisis"?
You sound like a father who announces to his offspring "no more pocket money for you kids, daddy is putting in his 2 pence against the crisis", then asks, "and what effort will you put in?"
We know these tax evasion schemes aren't illegal. But "not illegal" doesn't make it right.
The question is: why are the tax laws like they are today? Because they were voted 50 years ago? So were traffic laws, but these were updated when needed. Why weren't the tax laws updated when needed?
Because politicians prefer rich people and rich companies over their voters. Even most left wing politicians prefer rich people and rich companies over their voters. Votes can be bought by propaganda, but the sympathy from rich people and rich companies can only be bought by loopholes in the tax laws.
The question is: how long are "the people" going to take this?
"Apple responded to the allegations in a lengthy statement. It said it had carried out 15 audits at Pegatron's facilities since 2007, looking at the working conditions of more than 130,000 staff. These inspections included surprise visits and spot checks, said the fruity firm."
Wow 15 audits in 6.5 years, that's nearly 1 audit every 5 months. Some of them surprise visits and spot checks even ! ! ! What more could they have done?
For more than 130,000 staff. I bet the workers are pointing out their mates who actually saw any of the auditors. Some of them claim they "know a guy" who shook hands with one of the auditors. No time for conversation though. Or a photograph.
"The usual situation when companies grow like this is that execs assume it is their own godlike genius that has created the situation, and begin behaving accordingly."
You hear all this talk about psychopath bosses. Were they always like this? Did the situation turn them into psychos? Is there a psycho in each of us, waiting for a chance to unleash?
if they went with the old, "let's hope everybody has a short memory" trick.
But are they desperate enough to bury the egotrippen and do some rational thinking. Are they still capable of rational thought? They need that to get out of the nice mess they've gotten themselves into.
