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Source: (consider it) Thread: Should we boycott Google?
leo
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This MP says we should. But do we know whether yahoo pays its taxes?

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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com

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Anglican't
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There are questions marks about whether Margaret Hodge is a tax avoider herself, so I'm not inclined to take lessons from her on the subject.
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Boogie

Boogie on down!
# 13538

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Would Google notice?

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Rosa Winkel

Saint Anger round my neck
# 11424

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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
There are questions marks about whether Margaret Hodge is a tax avoider herself, so I'm not inclined to take lessons from her on the subject.

You could always take lessons from others, then.

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The Disability and Jesus "Locked out for Lent" project

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Martin60
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I'd rather Google boycott.

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Love wins

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Sioni Sais
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I can't boycott Google. If I did I wouldn't be able to check slang derivations.

(fetches cloak and slinks off back to Hell).

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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"

(Paul Sinha, BBC)

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Garasu
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# 17152

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Does seem to have come some way from "Don't be evil"...

But it's probably a good idea to look at alternatives anyway. The online experience has a worrying tendency towards narrowing without relying on a single search option...

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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.

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Anglican't
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quote:
Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
There are questions marks about whether Margaret Hodge is a tax avoider herself, so I'm not inclined to take lessons from her on the subject.

You could always take lessons from others, then.
Personally, I'd prefer to take lessons from economically literate people.
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Garasu
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Does "economically literate" mean people with whom you agree?

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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.

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Rosa Winkel

Saint Anger round my neck
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I have a cold at the moment. My tissue is like your post.

[Crosspost]

[ 13. December 2012, 19:20: Message edited by: Rosa Winkel ]

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The Disability and Jesus "Locked out for Lent" project

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mdijon
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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I can't boycott Google. If I did I wouldn't be able to check slang derivations.

Maybe I should admit that my first thought was "Obviously you could use a different search engine."

Then I thought "How would one find a different search engine? Oh, simple, I know how..."

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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon

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mdijon
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
There are questions marks about whether Margaret Hodge is a tax avoider herself.

As far as I know there's stuff in the telegraph and the mail about her owning shares in a company that avoids tax. That's hardly a question mark about whether she is a tax avoider herself.

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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon

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Anglican't
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quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
Does "economically literate" mean people with whom you agree?

Possibly, but not necessarily.

As far as I'm concerned (I'm sure others will disagree) UKUncut's very name suggests that it's in the realms of economic fantasy, not reality and for me that colours anything they have to say.

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Garasu
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
"How would one find a different search engine? Oh, simple, I know how..."

Here you go

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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.

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Hairy Biker
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Should we pay the plumber in cash if he asks us to?
Those of us who are freelance, should we pay our spouse for the admin work they do for our businesses?
Those of us who are not freelance, should we begrudge the fact that our non-working spouse's tax allowance is not transferable?
If we give up our employment rights and become contractors, should we be treated differently from employees for the purposes of taxation?

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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst

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Sioni Sais
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
There are questions marks about whether Margaret Hodge is a tax avoider herself.

As far as I know there's stuff in the telegraph and the mail about her owning shares in a company that avoids tax. That's hardly a question mark about whether she is a tax avoider herself.
Companies are supposed to avoid tax. If limited liability companies (and their equivalents elsewhere) didn't provide financial advantages we would be overrun with partnerships, cooperatives and sole traders.

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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"

(Paul Sinha, BBC)

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Garasu
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Total ignorance. Why would that be a bad thing?

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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.

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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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I use https://ixquick.com/ which unlike google is anonymous. It is technically a search engine of search engines, summarizing results from many search engines.

If you really want google search results but don't want to be tracked, you can use https://startpage.com/eng/ , which proxy searches google anonymously. In my opinion, no-one should ever just use google, but I'm a privacy nut who doesn't use any Microsoft or Apple products either.

https://duckduckgo.com/ is another one, but not as good in my experience.

Wikipedia is okay for factual information such as a list of search engines, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_search_engines

Note that I'm using https in all of these links, not http in all of these links. The "s" means secure and means more anonymous.

While I'm at it, should also reference the Google Chrome web browser. It is tracking you also. Instead of using Chrome, use Iron, which removes all the tracking stuff from Chrome and keeps you more private. It is the same web browser, but because Chrome is based on open-source code, it is fully required that it be adaptable to any purpose at all, including removing all Google bad stuff. The developers are German: http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_download.php .

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

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mdijon
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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Companies are supposed to avoid tax.

And that avoidance comes in different flavours. There's perfectly legitimate taking advantage of the laws as written (sometimes falling in line with behaviour that the law writers specifically intended). Then there's slightly dodgier practice which appears to be in the letter of the law, but has an unintended consequence, and starts to look like taking advantage and immoral when one sees a company earning millions paying next to no tax (or a comedian, for that matter). And then there's illegal avoidance that gets you in jail.

But I'm not sure that Margaret Hodge is personally culpable if a company she owns shares in behaves in any of those ways.

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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon

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chris stiles
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Whilst there is a case to be made against the likes of Google etc. What seems to be happening is that MPs are trying to defuse public anger by targeting companies which are foreign owned, not particularly politically connected and prone to consumer pressure.

The original fuss that the public accounts committee was supposed to investigate was about the likes of Vodafone and various finance companies which were cutting sweetheart deals with HMRC which saw them let off hundreds of millions (at least) in tax.

Justice is supposed to be blind.

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Ender's Shadow
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Use Firefox and then add 'Adblocker Plus', an add on which blocks almost all adverts. You are therefore using Google for free...

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Test everything. Hold on to the good.

Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.

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Anglican't
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That might block out the obvious adverts but not all of them. As I understand it, your search result listings are ranked based on who has paid Google. So, for example, if you search for 'holidays', Thomas Cook will rank higher than Thomson if Thomas Cook has paid money to Google.
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balaam

Making an ass of myself
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I can't see what Google are doing wrong.

Starbucks have coffee shops which make a profit in the UK and pay tax on those profits in other countries where the tax is lower. There is a case for avoidance there.

Amazon has a website for the UK and Ireland in Ireland. However goods are warehoused in the UK, order picked, boxed and delivered in the UK, yet the tax is paid in Ireland where it is lower. There is a case for avoidance there.

Google UK and Ireland AFAIK is based in Ireland and has no physical UK presence. What are they doing wrong? Adverts are received by an Irish company which pays taxes in Ireland. That people in the UK choose to use it on the internet makes no difference in this case.

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Last ever sig ...

blog

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HughWillRidmee
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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Companies are supposed to avoid tax. If limited liability companies (and their equivalents elsewhere) didn't provide financial advantages we would be overrun with partnerships, cooperatives and sole traders.

My understanding is that companies exist to maximise profit for their owners – which clearly would include minimising tax payments (which is ridiculously easy).
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
Total ignorance. Why would that be a bad thing?

Something along the lines of businesses benefit by being bigger. Not just because they make and sell more (both product/service and profit) but because they can borrow more and therefore invest more so that they can make and sell even more. They can also benefit from economies of scale – if you employ a team of people for a year to design a product you will want to get the cost of that design process back within your sales of the product. Since the design cost is fixed the more product you produce and sell the more likely you are to get that cost back. The more machinery/operators/floorspace/salespeople etc. you have the more product you can ship, the quicker you can recoup cost and make more profit. Many costs are not proportional to income.

Usually the quickest way to grow a business is to prove you have a good business model and then sell shares to people who provide the money for the growth you want. Conferring limited liability on those money providers encourages their participation because it means that they only risk what they pay up front whilst sole traders. Partners etc. risk their entire wealth. Being quick is important because someone else may be trying to grab the same market that you’re after.

Over-simplified and only part of the answer possible but it gives you a flavour.

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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)

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Timothy the Obscure

Mostly Friendly
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quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
Use Firefox and then add 'Adblocker Plus', an add on which blocks almost all adverts. You are therefore using Google for free...

Better yet, use Duck Duck Go, a search engine that doesn't track you. You get ads, but they're very generic, and they don't keep stalking you.

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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
  - C. P. Snow

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Ricardus
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
That might block out the obvious adverts but not all of them. As I understand it, your search result listings are ranked based on who has paid Google. So, for example, if you search for 'holidays', Thomas Cook will rank higher than Thomson if Thomas Cook has paid money to Google.

No, I think the actual (non-sponsored) search results are supposed to be independent.

However the reason companies set up AdWords accounts and give money to Google is that Google has something like 90% of the search engine market in the EU (less I believe in America), so using Google, even without clicking sponsored links, is helping to promote Google to advertisers.

ETA: also Google Ads are pay per click, not pay per impression, so blocking adverts won't have any effect unless the blocking is the only thing stopping you from clicking them.

[ 14. December 2012, 07:12: Message edited by: Ricardus ]

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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)

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mdijon
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
"How would one find a different search engine? Oh, simple, I know how..."

quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
Here you go

Which rather proves my point. Searching that site is powered by Google. On the right panel the first add is for Google Chrome.

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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon

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Eigon
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A techie person I know suggested Dogpile as a search engine. I tried it last night and it worked pretty well for what I wanted.

I think the most important thing is for the public to keep making a fuss about tax, whether that be boycotting companies, or protesting outside them, or writing to MPs, until the government changes the tax laws to close up the loopholes and make sure that big companies are paying a fair amount of tax.
For instance, Philip Green putting everything in his wife's name in Monaco - which is why I don't go in Dorothy Perkins any more, or the other high street clothes stores he owns. Or Boots having a "Head Office" which is a postal address in Switzerland - why should the Swiss benefit from money which was made in Britain, just so the owners of Boots can boost their profits?

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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.

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AberVicar
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Let's boycott life: after all, it's unfair and doesn't always conform to the spirit of the law...

With apologies to pyx_e [Devil]

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Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.

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aumbry
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# 436

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quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
I can't see what Google are doing wrong.

Starbucks have coffee shops which make a profit in the UK and pay tax on those profits in other countries where the tax is lower. There is a case for avoidance there.

Amazon has a website for the UK and Ireland in Ireland. However goods are warehoused in the UK, order picked, boxed and delivered in the UK, yet the tax is paid in Ireland where it is lower. There is a case for avoidance there.

Google UK and Ireland AFAIK is based in Ireland and has no physical UK presence. What are they doing wrong? Adverts are received by an Irish company which pays taxes in Ireland. That people in the UK choose to use it on the internet makes no difference in this case.

Quite simple. They are trading in the UK and using Ireland as a tax shelter. Margaret Hodge is absolutely right and it is a sign of the stupidity of some Tories that they come up with this nonsense about her being a tax avoider when it is not true on the one hand and irrelevant on the other.

That big American corporations that make no contribution to the state that provides them with the environment in which they make their profits are a toxic presence is without doubt. They are killing tax-paying local businesses. But the real guilt lies with countries like Ireland and Luxembourg who are party to international tax treaties which they then subvert by facilitating this sort of avoidance. A simple solution would be for the governments who are losing considerable revenue such as Britian and Germany to simply withdraw from any treaties which contain this sort of national tax piracy.

[ 14. December 2012, 09:43: Message edited by: aumbry ]

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Matt Black

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# 2210

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...and it's not as if this sort of thing has exactly done Ireland any economic favours over the last few years...

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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)

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mdijon
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quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Margaret Hodge is absolutely right and it is a sign of the stupidity of some Tories that they come up with this nonsense about her being a tax avoider when it is not true on the one hand and irrelevant on the other.... But the real guilt lies with countries like Ireland and Luxembourg who are party to international tax treaties which they then subvert by facilitating this sort of avoidance.

Absolutely. So;

a) just checked out the window that trumpets are not sounding and bodies are not rising and b) who are you and what have you done with Aumbry?

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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon

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aumbry
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# 436

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We have in Britain a chancellor who is a history graduate with no business or economic background. This simpleton represents the national interest in negotiations. He was not responsible for the negotiations which led to the present tax avoidance nightmare - that was one of the previous simpletons. But when pressure could have been put on Ireland to stop this, after it went round the table with the begging bowl, nobody picked this up. It should have been crucial to the negotiations.

No wonder the public is giving up on the democratic government in Britain - it inflicts us with rule by amateurs and morons.

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Matt Black

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Would you prefer to be governed by an unelected technocrat like Signor Monti (I believe he needs a new job)?

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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)

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aumbry
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# 436

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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Would you prefer to be governed by an unelected technocrat like Signor Monti (I believe he needs a new job)?

I would like to see something akin to the Swiss system.
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Cedd007
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I have just Duckduckgo -ed 'Google definition'. Just because something doesn't make a convincing transitive verb it doesn't mean you can't click it! I ran into 'Duckduckgo' in an article in 'The Guardian' this morning, and it looks interesting. I'm fed up being bombarded with targetted advertising, and this would appear to be one means of avoiding it.
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Robert Armin

All licens'd fool
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Anglican't:
quote:
UKUncut's very name suggests that
it is a group of uncircumcised Brits?

(And aumbry - really impressed by your recent posts!)

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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin

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Josephine

Orthodox Belle
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My biggest complaint about Google is not privacy, or lack thereof, and it's not the taxes they pay or don't pay. Those are significant issues, to be sure. But there is also the problem that Google does not give you any way to get unfiltered results. They give you results that they think you want to see. They force you into a "filter bubble."

If you are doing a whole lot of research on, say, Identity Christianity, and use Google as your first step, Google will start filtering all of your results, results on anything and everything according to what folks with an interest in Identity Christianity want to see. It can take months to get back to a set of results that more closely mirrors what you really want to see 99% of the time (i.e., when you are not doing research).

Some folks like the filter bubble. If you are a world traveler, it can be convenient that Google knows, when you Google the name of a country, that you're far more interested in travel information than you are in history.

But I'd rather tailor my own search by adding my own keywords. Of course, Google no longer pays attention to all the keywords you enter, just the first few.

I think Google's filter bubbles exacerbate political and social divisions. Google shows people results they already agree with, so of course your view of reality becomes ever more skewed, ever harder to reconcile with what other people think or believe. They are a bar to mutual understanding. They are, I think, a Very Bad Thing Indeed.

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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!

Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged
Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292

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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Anglican't:
quote:
UKUncut's very name suggests that
it is a group of uncircumcised Brits?

The vast majority of British men are, so I'm not sure whether they merit their own pressure group.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009  |  IP: Logged
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

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I'm not in a position to boycott Google here. Its not just the search engine, we're using it for email. I've set up about 20,000 Google mail accounts. Wrote my own software to do it and all...

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
aumbry
Shipmate
# 436

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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
I'm not in a position to boycott Google here. Its not just the search engine, we're using it for email. I've set up about 20,000 Google mail accounts. Wrote my own software to do it and all...

Yankee capitalist running dog.
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

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The bosses made us do it to save money!

--------------------
Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
Chapelhead

I am
# 21

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quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Companies are supposed to avoid tax. If limited liability companies (and their equivalents elsewhere) didn't provide financial advantages we would be overrun with partnerships, cooperatives and sole traders.

My understanding is that companies exist to maximise profit for their owners – which clearly would include minimising tax payments (which is ridiculously easy).
If you are looking at why this 'thing' called a limited company was brought into existence, then it wasn't to reduce tax or to make more money than could be done otherwise; it was to protect the owners from losses.

Up to the nineteenth century (and even into the twentieth) the poor hated and feared the prospect of being forced by circumstances into the workhouse. However, there was little they could do to protect themselves from this possibility.

In a somewhat similar way, the middle classes, running their own businesses, feared the debtors prison, which could be the consequence of business failure. But they could and did do something about it. What legislation (in England in the mid nineteenth century) did was to make it relatively easy to form the 'limited company'. The name is slightly misleading, because the liability of the company remain potentially unlimited. However, the liability of the shareholders is limited to the amount of the share capital they invest. The shareholders thus have the potential to benefit from the profits that the company makes, while being protect from losses that might be incurred.

As Mr Micawber might have said - "Result, happiness".

<Aside> Tying in with another thread we had recently, similar thinking led to Christmas overtaking Easter as the great festival. Christmas is a bit like limited liability religion - you get the potential advantage of God incarnate and salvation, without the downside of crucifixion and death. </Aside>

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At times like this I find myself thinking, what would the Amish do?

Posts: 9123 | From: Near where I was before. | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520

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quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Yankee capitalist running dog.

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
The bosses made us do it to save money!

Now I know I just missed the trumpet call the first time. The world is upside down.

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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon

Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765

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quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
If you are doing a whole lot of research on, say, Identity Christianity, and use Google as your first step, Google will start filtering all of your results, results on anything and everything according to what folks with an interest in Identity Christianity want to see. It can take months to get back to a set of results that more closely mirrors what you really want to see 99% of the time (i.e., when you are not doing research).

You might be able to get around this by using something like "InPrivate" (IE9) or "incognito" (Chrome) browsing - see this post on doing non-personalized searches. It sounds as though a search performed under these conditions will be unaffected by your previous history, and also won't affect the results of future searches.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29

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This is something that every multinational corporation in the world does. We'd have to boycott them all if we were to boycott one.
Only way it'll stop is if the WTO or another international governing body is empowered to crack down on it.

--------------------
Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!

Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641

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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Anglican't:
quote:
UKUncut's very name suggests that
it is a group of uncircumcised Brits?

(And aumbry - really impressed by your recent posts!)

Seems to me more indicative of his love for capitalism only being exceeded by his love for borders.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007  |  IP: Logged
HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614

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quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Companies are supposed to avoid tax. If limited liability companies (and their equivalents elsewhere) didn't provide financial advantages we would be overrun with partnerships, cooperatives and sole traders.

My understanding is that companies exist to maximise profit for their owners – which clearly would include minimising tax payments (which is ridiculously easy).
If you are looking at why this 'thing' called a limited company was brought into existence, then it wasn't to reduce tax or to make more money than could be done otherwise; it was to protect the owners from losses.


There are only seven ways to increase profit - simply

1 - Sell more
2 - Sell for more
3 - Cut cost
4 - 7 combinations of 1, 2 and 3.

Avoiding losses comes under 3.

In my experience venture capitalism knows this and goes for the "All of the above" option without realising that that has consequences which have the potential to kill the business.

On re-read - Actually there's another way - Persuade investors to put money in to the business - many a company reports a profit by obtaining sufficient investment to cover their trading losses - Pension Funds are often involved.

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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)

Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010  |  IP: Logged


 
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