maudlin27

Reply to The Power Of Competition in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] you have a monopoly over Ford Mustangs, not all cars [/quote] You have a monopoly over all (traditional) cars if you can patent the design for a car with broad enough parameters (e.g. motorised vehicle with wheels). Yes you could still try and make a sail powered car, or a plane, but it doesn't affect the fact that that person has a monopoly on cars. You can have as narrow or as broad a patent example as you want, but whatever happens, the person with the patent has a

Reply to Things Might be worse than I thought. in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] the kind of care he is talking about would bankrupt the entire country 3 times over [/quote] 3 times over? Care to provide any figures to back up such a wild claim? At least you seem to have accepted that socialism can work which is progress I guess. I'm afraid I don't have the energy to spend much time questioning how giving handouts to people who work as much as they are humanly capable of working to ensure they can survive causes a lazy population though (unless you'

Reply to Things Might be worse than I thought. in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] it will just bankupt the country [/quote] Ah yes, because the US spends far less per person than countries with nationalised health systems like the UK at the moment right? Oh wait...

Reply to Deterring Crime in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] the certainty of being caught is much more important than the severity of the sentence [/quote] Still means increasing the punishment has a deterrance effect. It just isn't so great as increasing the level of detection. It can be cheaper though (although it depends on how cushy you want to make your prisons). It is an interesting result though, since it suggests that criminals are risk lovers, even th

Reply to Things Might be worse than I thought. in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] Littlewhips mother-in-law had to wait many, many months for a surgery in England because of how the "free" healthcare is set up there unless you are dieing you have to wait, and wait some more to be treated [/quote] You see if you were arguing that socialism isn't perfect, that would be a valid point. However since you're trying to claim it never works, that doesn't sound like "tearing my argument down". You have to have some form of queuing system to prioritise those who most

Reply to The government's "money" in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote who="chadwbaker" reply="15" id="2014140"] Most businesses are not corporations. [/quote] The same applies for a non-corporate business, since it will still be taxed on a % of it's profits, and expenses such as staff will still be allowable (hence why I referenced both in earlier posts).

Reply to Things Might be worse than I thought. in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote who="Moderateman" reply="6" id="2013139"] "Socialism does not work! Period! (pure) communism doesn't work. Socialism on the other hand can work (how well it works depends on the socialist measures in question). To give an example, taxing people to raise money for nationalised healthcare (providing services for free) can work, and would generally be seen as a socialist measure." Could you please cite some examples of countries where it works? Then I will tear your arguements d

Reply to The government's "money" in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] The taxes an employee pays to the government are matched in taxes on the employer. How do you expense that away? The answer is you don't this tax gets paid regardless if money is made or not. [/quote] If you're talking about taxes relating to the hiring of employees, that's treated as a cost of hiring those employees. As I already mentioned, I was talking about corporation tax (the tax on a company's profits). [quote] What about taxes on items the business consum

Reply to The government's "money" in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] I want you to show me the company (not employee) that makes a consistent profit month to month [/quote] From before: [quote]as I mentioned before if you want to be more realistic then reduce the no. of projects and have the revenue peak and then drop off from each one...if you want to complicate things (to make them more realistic) by say introducing borrowing, inflation, effective rates of return for the level of risk, limited number of projects which a

Reply to Things Might be worse than I thought. in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] Socialism does not work! Period! [/quote] (pure) communism doesn't work. Socialism on the other hand can work (how well it works depends on the socialist measures in question). To give an example, taxing people to raise money for nationalised healthcare (providing services for free) can work, and would generally be seen as a socialist measure.

Reply to The government's "money" in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] How about you showing us the tax code you are using? [/quote] Any tax code which allows money spent on employees to count as an expense for tax purposes (which would likely be pretty well every capitalist country). Are you really saying that the US (or any other similar country) taxes a company's revenue, rather than it's profit?! (i.e. that costs like staff wages aren't allowable). While there are differences between countries on what they deem taxable profits to be, this isn

What about privatising the government? in Politics JoeUser Forums

Although democracy is widely seen as a good form of government (compared to the alternatives) it is not without it's flaws. In theory, the politicians are elected by the people, and hence will want to maximise the benefit to those people to ensure their continued election (although they can of course look to just make 51% of people quite happy, and 49% of people extremally miserable). However this doesn't appear to be a strong enough incentive to provide efficiency with the government - you s

Reply to The government's "money" in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] It takes a year to hatch them, yet you are spending the money each month as if they were already hatched...you are not grasping the difference between cash flow and profit. Profit is dictated by law - and is calculated on an annual basis. Cash flow is dictated by Accounting standards [/quote] I'm starting to wonder if you're being deliberately obtuse here - you make money before the tax year end, invest (some or all of) it into the company by hiring staff to undert

Reply to The government's "money" in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] There are many taxes you pay in business that are there no matter what [/quote] To clarify, I'm talking about taxes on profits (corporation taxes for a co, although it'd be income tax if it's run/owned by an individual). So the cost of labour will be the nominal cost of their pay check plus the taxes paid by the company for them as well - to the company, the cost is the combined amount of the two. [quote] Only if you have a steady and predictable stream

Reply to @Frogboy - This is a job for YOU! in PC Gaming GalCiv2 Forums

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="14" id="2009224"]I believe in the power of consumers. Obnoxious copy protection and DRM will die not because of the government but because gamers will simply purchase alternatives that don't treat them like criminals...People vote with their wallets and the tide is turning.[/quote] True but the problem as I see it is lack of information. A game can be sold with no mention of DRM, meaning the consumer doesn't know if it does or does

Reply to The government's "money" in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] There is no way to "expense" before taxes. [/quote] Um, it's quite simple: Month 1: Make $100k revenue, $50k costs, put $50k surpluss cash into hiring staff (who will yield you say $1,000k in 2 years time). Month 2: Make $100k revenue, $50k costs, and the $50k surpluss being invested into the staff hired in month 1, etc. Taxable year end: Company has $1,200k revenue, $1,200k costs, 20% tax = 0 tax., 40% tax = 0 tax Altern

Reply to Fun with the US constitution in Politics JoeUser Forums

Even if taking your translation, I don't see how it is explicitely saying 'love your enemies' - to me it's simply saying 'God may decide that you should love a particular enemy (with the implicit assumption that if he doesn't explicitely decide this, you should continue to hate/attack/whatever the context suggests to your enemy which is likely to be the opposite of love. As to the original issue, there is a very hard balance to strike between localised government and na

Reply to The government's "money" in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] If the money is taxed away - no invest - no expense [/quote] And if you get your timing right, you invest the money - get an expense - no tax. In other words rather than getting all of your post-tax profits for this year, and waiting until the start of the next year to invest them (meaning you then pay all the tax on those profits and likely have to wait a year to get your expenses offset aganist taxable profits) you instead incur those expenses in the current tax year

Reply to The government's "money" in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] I still don't understand how higher taxes on corporation is going to prevent you to hire people, Draginol [/quote] one explanation (may not be the case in this situation) is that prior to the tax increase undertaking an investment in the company may have yielded a high enough post-tax return to justify it against Brad's alternative of 'consuming' it, but with a tax increase it may no longer look as attractive. That is, those employees would be expected to make a profit for the

Reply to The Power Of Competition in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] And who is to stop YOU from building a DIFFERENT mouse trap? No one. That is competition. You just cant steal my idea for the mousetrap, but that does not give me a monopoly on ALL mousetraps. That is the difference [/quote] No, because there's a different between copyright law and patents; copyright law is the 'you can copy the idea, you just can't copy the specific thing'. Patents give you rights over all use of the invention. So if I happen

Reply to The Power Of Competition in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] that has nothing to do with competition, and everything to do with allowing the inventor time to recoup the cost of the invention. Monopolies, even when state run or managed (utilities) are bad. [/quote] It has nothing to do with competition?! It is a monopoly! You get sole rights to the production+distribution of x invention, and can sue anyone who attempts to compete against you (/uses the invention in their own products) for damages. To argue against ALL monopolies an

Reply to The Power Of Competition in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] What they didnt look at besides all the freebies was what the reprocussions would be [/quote] Then they get the government they deserve, and will just have to wait until the next election to put their vote to better use. It's a bit late (and slightly hypocritical) to start shouting about those repercussions if they were only just given the chance to have their direct say over the next government.

Reply to The Power Of Competition in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] having a monopoly is never good for consumers [/quote] Not so - having a monopoly can actually be better than having the 'ideal' of perfect competition, due to research. If no new technology/improvements could be developed then perfect competition would be better. However because of such things there are certain markets where a monopoly is actually the better option, and this is shown by the granting of patents by governments. Patents are in effect providing a company with a m

Reply to Why aren't all game companies like Stardock? in Everything Else GalCiv2 Forums

Why don't more companies give the after-sales support of stardock (e.g. patches, updates etc.)? Quite simple, it's not worth it. It costs a lot of money for only a small amount of gain, meaning that time would be better spent producing another game. This is assuming of course there arent any major bugs with the game that needs to be fixed, since that would likely anger the customers. However improving the g ame slightly (e.g. small balance tweaks) is of less importance and also less noticeabl

Reply to When Liberals Become Conservative in Politics JoeUser Forums

[quote] if only you were in charge back in the day. Then we'd still be working 90 hours a week and earning pennys. Buying our food from the company store and liking it damnit! [/quote] Nope. Make sure people are able to move between towns and you abolish the problem of 'the company store' - don't like working for store vouchers then move to a different town that gives you money that's usable everywhere. Meanwhile make sure you've reduced barriers to entry and you'll likely see a