this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2024
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Why are Nordic companies so successful? (www.economist.com)
submitted 1 week ago by CAVOK@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.org
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[–] federalreverse@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

those big companies pay tax, and that tax pays for things

That seems like a bad take.

  • Money is imaginary, literally just a system to bring a certain order into society.
  • Money is created by countries (with banks as the middlepersons). It's not created by tax payments.
  • Money doesn't provide food or shelter – food and houses do that; money doesn't teach people – other people do. I.e., it's people and things that create our wealth, not money. All the money in the world is absolutely no use if there are no goods or services to exchange for it.
  • Big corporations, especially profitable big corporations tend to pay the least taxes. Corporations are not particularly creative overall, except in avoiding contributions back to society.
[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Money is imaginary

I was going to stop reading after you said this, lets stay out of hypotheticals and stay in reality

You can easily search for countries that have gone broke and those that rely on IMF funding, they are poor, they live incredibly poor and terrible lifestyles, they suffer from disease, starvation and abject poverty, they would love to have big companies making them lots of "imaginary" tax money and giving their people jobs so they can pay for real life things like sanitation, education, food, medical equipment etc

Money doesn’t provide food or shelter – food and houses do that;

Food provides food?

You'll have to tell that to the billions of people who are working right now for money to pay for food and shelter, and also the people who can't find jobs who don't have food or shelter, I think this might be a bad translation or something

All the money in the world is absolutely no use if there are no goods or services to exchange for it.

Money exists in order to exchange value, a world that exists without goods or services has no need for money but this is a hypothetical so I don't care for this

Big corporations, especially profitable big corporations tend to pay the least taxes.

As a total percent of the pie sure, however if you were to ask the majority of countries on the planet if they would like to have a 3 trillion dollar company like Apple or Google, they would love it, the benefits for the country are enormous.

You can see this from Ireland who has come into just a fraction of the taxes Apple has paid and will pay:

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2024/0910/1469335-apple-analysis/

There are three potential options for using the money.

The first one is to pay off some of Ireland's €223bn national debt.

The second option is to put the money into two recently established funds set up to save the windfall gains from tax on multinationals.

They are called the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate & Nature Fund.

The third option would be to spend the money immediately on infrastructure.

Already the opposition is calling for the funds to be spent on housing and schools.

Corporations don't just pay billions and billions of euros in corporate taxes but also provide jobs and income to people... who then pay taxes.

You really think that if you were to go to Africa and offer them a trillion dollar company they would decline and say no thanks? We won't take all that extra tax income, work, productivity, stability, etcetc?

You are free to read the report on EU competitiveness: Looking ahead

https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/97e481fd-2dc3-412d-be4c-f152a8232961_en?filename=The+future+of+European+competitiveness+_+A+competitiveness+strategy+for+Europe.pdf

Or if you prefer the speech:

https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/fcbc7ada-213b-4679-83f7-69a4c2127a25_en?filename=Address+by+Mario+Draghi+at+the+Presentation+of+the+report+on+the+future+of+European+competitiveness.pdf

And these figures do not include the many young, talented Europeans who go to study in the United States and found their companies there. It is a huge loss for our economy in terms of jobs and brain drain.

[–] federalreverse@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I was going to stop reading after you said this, lets stay out of hypotheticals and stay in reality

It's not a hypothetical. The reason why money exists is that humans needed a tool/a system to allocate goods and services in society. I don't know what's supposed to be controversial about that.

I find it helpful to keep that in mind. It helps against cart-before-horse notions like money being strictly necessary for us to satisfy needs. Which you appear to espouse.(?)

You can easily search for countries that have gone broke and those that rely on IMF funding, they are poor, they live incredibly poor and terrible lifestyles, they suffer from disease, starvation and abject poverty,

So, is this strictly because of a lack of money? Or is it because of a lack of physical resources or a misallocation of physical resources? I'd be seriously surprised if you could find me a single example where it is the former.

(Not to mention the IMF being quite the neoliberal ideological shitshow.)

Food provides food?

That's a fun deflection, but I can reword to: Food provides nutrition, money doesn't. (Money can be a tool to allocate food to yourself though. But food is just as edible if it comes from something you planted yourself. Or if you got a donation.)

As a total percent of the pie sure, however if you were to ask the majority of countries on the planet if they would like to have a 3 trillion dollar company like Apple or Google, they would love it, the benefits for the country are enormous.

Given that we can watch the generative-AI boom change society for the worse and make the planet less livable in real time, I find your examples rather interesting.

Indeed, Ireland appears fairly happy hosting the EU subsidiaries of Google/Apple/Toktok/Meta/[any other company selling digital goods within the EU]. The rest of the EU tends to be unhappy that Ireland is reallocating money from them to itself that way. Especially as in effect, Ireland is only taking a small cut for allowing money to bleed from the EU to random Carribean islands as profits. And yes, given that we use money as a tool to reallocate goods and services across the world right now, that bleeding-off means something.

And as their second USP within the EU, Ireland is also fucking up on oversight of those corporates. Good job, Ireland! Thanks for lending a hand in destabilizing democracies!

You really think that if you were to go to Africa and offer them a trillion dollar company they would decline and say no thanks? We won't take all that extra tax income, work, productivity, stability, etcetc?

Ah, wafting through my nostrils is a faint odor of colon...ialism!

Also, I never said anything like that. However, the major real bit that company would bring with itself is a reallocation of physical resources. It's not strictly about the money.

Also, it's basically brainrot to expect any returns for societies from big corporates unless they're extremely well regulated.

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

As a total percent of the pie sure, however if you were to ask the majority of countries on the planet if they would like to have a 3 trillion dollar company like Apple or Google, they would love it, the benefits for the country are enormous.

Given that we can watch the generative-AI boom change society for the worse and make the planet less livable in real time, I find your examples rather interesting.

If pleasing megacorps lead to better societies, the best country to live in in the whole of the EU would be Ireland.

[–] federalreverse@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

I mean ... I do think Ireland is fairly livable (though I've never been there). It's just that in some ways the country has achieved this at the expense of other EU countries.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone -1 points 1 week ago

Also, it’s basically brainrot to expect any returns for societies from big corporates unless they’re extremely well regulated.

Then isn't that something Europe can do better than anyone?

If anything I would argue that the EU is currently over regulated at the moment and it is causing flow on effects like stagnation and loss of business to the US and China

Given that we can watch the generative-AI boom change society for the worse and make the planet less livable in real time, I find your examples rather interesting.

You'll have to extrapolate further on that, AI has been a huge improvement in my life, reasons here:

https://aussie.zone/post/16417192/13952149