"The point is that you have to define "where" the profit was made. In an international environment that's pretty close to insensible"
Not in the case of a bricks n' mortar business like Starbucks it ain't!
"And I still think that morally there isn't a categorical difference between minimising tax by spending money and minimising tax by ... spending money."
And I don't see what 'by spending money' has to do with anything.
> Taking this money and spending it on things doesn't increase anybody's quality of life.
This would seem a general argument against the entire economy, or at least the concept of taxation. Why is spending this cash any different from spending any other cash? Why can't we spend this money creating a ton of new jobs, that will then create new goods?
We have tons of spare stuff just sitting in warehouses right now. There is plenty of slack in the system. Investing cash in to more jobs means pulling some of that stuff out of warehouses and temporarily reducing our slack, yes, but that also motivates people to go do whatever productive thing you're paying them to do - such as creating even more stuff to sit in warehouses.
Spending is the purpose of money. It's a means of transaction. It isn't an asset, and there is no need to hoard it. How is that productive?
>IRS may as well starve to death waiting for me to spend them.
Well, if everyone thinks like that, that's a terrible monetary system. If I want to trade my car for Bitcoin, where do they come from? I have to keep bidding them up until I find someone to sell them to me? The advantage of cash is that it's abundant.
> isn’t honestly adding much value...makes millions a year doing exactly this
if you are making money, you are adding value. You are putting products in front of people who want them at an attractive price for them. If you make the products from scratch and do that, or if you drag them the full length of the silk road, or if you buy a pack of cigarettes and stand outside and sell them as loosies, if people are buying from you, you're putting in your effort and making money which is the measure of value-add. Convenience stores can make money right next to lower priced supermarkets because walking accross the parking lot and to the back of the supermarket to get a quart of milk can feel like the silk road.
edit: downvoted for explaining how actual economics works? If you haven't studied economics, you shouldn't be making your feelings known, it's not a matter of opinion or preference, it's a field of study.
how is value-added tax calculated? on your feelings, or simply on how much money you make? QED
> Your inability to conceive of a useful purpose for such a quantity of money does not justify prohibiting its existence.
What inability and where was it demonstrated? Are you referring to a useful purpose if it was taxed or a useful purpose for individuals to have such wealth? If the latter, then I propose that an individual containing such wealth is less useful than it being returned.
Those things and countries you mentioned have nothing to do with this discussion.
> Reducing expenses is not direct financial benefit.
You've created a seven word sentence which contradicts itself in every conceivable way. Expenses are financial. Reducing them is beneficial. Please find a better hobby than trolling on HN.
> "In my coffee analogy, the promotion of the fair-trade alternative would be based on the fair-trade mechanism for ensuring the lower levels of the production chain receive a fairer share of the income. Whether or not the author pays less or more at the store is irrelevant to the argument."
But for there to be any form of income trickling down production chains, someone has to be willing to pay something for the services they consume. Is this controversial in any way?
> If it makes economic sense for you to pay me $100k, making that conditional on where I live is just a jerk move.
If you can buy a product for $50 from one site and that's worth it to you but you can buy it for $35 from another site...
What was written is literally an argument for not trying to minimize expenditures. But it makes economic sense to minimize expenditures, that's business 101.
"Objective value" doesn't exist. Not only is it hard to determine because information is generally far from perfect, but the only thing that matters to actual people in the actual world is relative value (aka, incremental value).
That is to say: All decisions in life are about choosing your best option. Hiring is no different.
> It's arguing against the people saying "Your daily coffee habit is costing you a million dollars!" It's saying that is nonsense.
Hopefully nobody is saying that. A $5 daily habit costs $20-30k per decade, after you factor in reasonably anticipated investment gains. No more no less. Viewpoints about what an ideal world would look like, or one's right to make such purchases, or whatever else, have zero impact on the cost. It is what it is. Each person has to make their own judgment about whether that cost makes sense for them.
Not in the case of a bricks n' mortar business like Starbucks it ain't!
"And I still think that morally there isn't a categorical difference between minimising tax by spending money and minimising tax by ... spending money."
And I don't see what 'by spending money' has to do with anything.
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