Where have all the jobs gone? Computer scientist, and many people say, visionary, Jaron Lanier (he supposedly coined the term "virtual reality" when he helped pioneer the field), has found the culprit: the Internet.
In his new book Who Owns the Future? Jaron explains why the Internet is destroying the middle class by killing jobs, wealth (except for the lucky few) and even - gasp - democracy itself:
“Here’s a current example of the challenge we face,” he writes in the book’s prelude: “At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 14,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created?” [...]
So Kodak has 140,000 really good middle-class employees, and Instagram has 13 employees, period. You have this intense concentration of the formal benefits, and that winner-take-all feeling is not just for the people who are on the computers but also from the people who are using them. So there’s this tiny token number of people who will get by from using YouTube or Kickstarter, and everybody else lives on hope. There’s not a middle-class hump. It’s an all-or-nothing society.
Read more in this interview with Scott Timberg of Salon: Link (Image: My Dream is to cut all ties with civilization but still be on the Internet)
By saying they, “avoid paying their share of taxes”, I’m assuming you mean companies and individuals who use legal tax breaks to lower the amount of taxes they pay. Using that definition, every business and nearly every person who pays income taxes in America would be guilty. Regardless, I’ve already stated in this thread that I think that many tax loopholes should be closed. What I wonder is how you can bemoan large corporations not paying what you consider they owe in taxes while only a couple of days ago arguing for that very idea by wishing for, “…a taxation system that penalizes offshoring jobs, and rewards companies that develop real jobs here”.
My comment was a request for you to explain your statements, not to delve into your feelings. You tend to advance a position and immediately retreat to try another tactic when I refute what you say.
While our corporate tax rate may be higher, what is actually paid is much lower. I work in a field wherein I regularly see how the wealthy and large corporations avoid paying their share of taxes.
And the reason I don't bother telling you how I feel is because you obviously have an agenda and you have no intention about listening. You don't dialogue, you monologue.
All taxes seize assets. Socialism is inextricably tied to seizing the assets from some and giving them to others. Socialism’s problem is that they eventually run out of other people’s money.
12% of Americans have saved more than $250,000, I think it’s fairly accurate to state that having saved $500,000 would qualify one as being considered wealthy. With regard to taxes, my argument isn’t that one shouldn’t pay one’s fair share, but that they already do.
In future responses, I ask that you explain why you feel a certain way rather than just making a comment and dismissing my words so that I can better understand what you mean.