******Official politics thread ******

[maskedmelon]

Originally Posted by Wonkie [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

yes.

so the war on terror should be extended to all muslims?

[Throndor]

Originally Posted by Irulan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As much as I hate authoritarians.

Society needs order. Otherwise we devolve into a bunch of thugs cutting off titties in the Congo.

Beyond that, maybe corporations should just maybe not be taxed, but also shouldn't be granted power/amnesty.

If corporations are not taxed, being a publicly traded company that returns a substantial portion (over 50%) of the net profits via dividends to their shareholders should be part of the laws put in place.

Furthermore, they should not be allowed to hide their profits by being able to buy their own stocks back, this causes an artificial demand in the stock value that drives the price of their stocks up, which is the prime reason why we are seeing the stock market meltdown right now with federal interest rate hikes serving as a means to temper a corporations ability to buy its own stock back from its shareholders.

Thus, at this time, we are seeing demand for the stock decrease as a result of federal reserve policies limiting the ability for corps to buy their own stock, which is causing the prices to drop to where supply meets organic demand of actual investors.

Then again, a change like this would also incentivize employees within a corporation to be inefficient with their expensing expensable expenses back to the company because not using those profits would equate to losing those profits to their shareholders, so controls would need to be in place to counter irresponsible spending that would negatively effect the bottom line.

[Wonkie]

Originally Posted by maskedmelon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

so the war on terror should be extended to all muslims?

idk whats this got to do with taxes? i would say just the ideologies responsible but im tired of chase can we play tug?

throndor explained corporate tax pretty well. if your goal is to cripple government revenue great. otherwise you're being incredibly naive.

[JurisDictum]

The truth is, as long as you allow free instant trading where your investment is not "locked in" (i.e. you can sell your stock whenever you want), there is a problem of short termism.

All you need to worry about is maximizing your profit quarter to quarter if you can move your money around whenever you want. It does not incentivize long term investment properly. The long term health of the company is completely irrelevant to you.

Some invest the old fashion way (marry what they invest in) but there isn't a lot of compelling logic to it.

This is why games suck. It simply did not matter to Blizzard shareholders that d3 was a flopped in the long run. By then, they could have liquidated their stock and invested in a different company.

Probably a company that just tanked from a recent customer sell-out.

Oh and btw, assuming people aren't going to inside trading all day long is retarded and a fundamentally misunderstanding of how humans work. Especially since we rarely even bother jailing those we catch.

[JurisDictum]

Originally Posted by JurisDictum [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The truth is, as long as you allow free instant trading where your investment is not "locked in" (i.e. you can sell your stock whenever you want), there is a problem of short termism.

All you need to worry about is maximizing your profit quarter to quarter if you can move your money around whenever you want. It does not incentivize long term investment properly. The long term health of the company is completely irrelevant to you.

Some invest the old fashion way (marry what they invest in) but there isn't a lot of compelling logic to it.

This is why games suck. It simply did not matter to Blizzard shareholders that d3 was a flopped in the long run. By then, they could have liquidated their stock and invested in a different company.

Probably a company that just tanked from a recent customer sell-out.

Oh and btw, assuming people aren't going to inside trading all day long is retarded and a fundamental misunderstanding of how humans work. Especially since we rarely even bother jailing those we catch.

[Throndor]

Originally Posted by JurisDictum [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The truth is, as long as you allow free instant trading where your investment is not "locked in" (i.e. you can sell your stock whenever you want), there is a problem of short termism.

All you need to worry about is maximizing your profit quarter to quarter if you can move your money around whenever you want. It does not incentivize long term investment properly. The long term health of the company is completely irrelevant to you.

Some invest the old fashion way (marry what they invest in) but there isn't a lot of compelling logic to it.

This is why games suck. It simply did not matter to Blizzard shareholders that d3 was a flopped in the long run. By then, they could have liquidated their stock and invested in a different company.

Probably a company that just tanked from a recent customer sell-out.

Oh and btw, assuming people aren't going to inside trading all day long is retarded and a fundamentally misunderstanding of how humans work. Especially since we rarely even bother jailing those we catch.

True. We're looking at the need for a monumental overhaul to the nature of how corporations are structured. Furthermore, this would necessarily mandate the redefining of privately owned (often sole proprietorship) companies currently operating under the umbrella of "corporation".

Essentially, pay structure would need to be a function of total employees, heirarchy of responsibility, profitability, and shareholder obligations (dividend).

If done properly, stock price would be a function of relating dividend to profitabilty and the stability of future dividends, whilst getting rid of speculative and self fueled equity growth, but at the same time this would severely inhibit corporations operating at a net negative profit margin because they are investing in future earnings (Tesla, NIO) etc. So it makes sense for establish market-mature megacorporations but it is not conducive to innovators.....

[maskedmelon]

Originally Posted by Wonkie [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

idk whats this got to do with taxes? i would say just the ideologies responsible but im tired of chase can we play tug?

throndor explained corporate tax pretty well. if your goal is to cripple government revenue great. otherwise you're being incredibly naive.

the two are only related on the principle of group punishment ^^ i agree though that i am often extraordinarily naive. the thought of potential for increased corruption had crossed my mind and I would expect a change like this to be accompanied by mitigating regulation. just because I'd support it, doesn't mean I'd support it unconditionally.

happy to return to tugging

[Throndor]

I would be satisfied with merely making it so that corporations couldnt buy their own stock back from shareholders. This would also free the corporation up with profits they could reinvest into r&d, or payouts to shareholders via more lucrative dividend returns.

As it stands, the current system is how they fuel employee stock options programs which are disproportionately awarded to the executive staff, and used as a means to skirt "income tax" provisions by making this "pay" fall under the category of "capital gains" taxes, while simultaneously artificially increasing equity value until the bubble bursts.

If they were to undertake the abovementioned suggestion, the increased profit margin would increase ability to issue dividends which would naturally increase equity value from organic investors looking to invest long term FOR the dividend and equity stability.

Take a look at how shitty the dividends are in the tech industry megacorporations. Most of them offer zero dividends, with even the most profitable tech giants offering dividends below 1% annually. They entice investors with their potential for "growth", which is primarily fueled by continuously buying their own stock back from investors.

[maskedmelon]

anyone find it odd that trump and democrats are allied against congressional republicans who are trying to keep the government open? was this strategic genius by trump or dumb luck?

for the record I think shutting down government is bad whether it is done by republicans or democrats.

[Throndor]

Aside from clarifying my own position on the spectrum of individualism<->collectivism, i dont put much stake in the illusion of fundamental partisan politics. Both parties are marching us towards the same disaster.

In this case, i would advocate for using the dialectic method to see that which both parties seek to avoid addressing.