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I don't think it makes sense to say a company can sell overseas, but not hire any employees overseas. Who is McDonalds supposed to get to flip the burgers in India, if all their employees have to reside in North America? Will Big Macs sold in India be cooked here, and then put on a ship to cross the ocean? Do the customers have to line u…
I don't think it makes sense to say a company can sell overseas, but not hire any employees overseas. Who is McDonalds supposed to get to flip the burgers in India, if all their employees have to reside in North America? Will Big Macs sold in India be cooked here, and then put on a ship to cross the ocean? Do the customers have to line up at the dock to pick up their orders in 5-7 weeks after ordering?
A softer touch can work on environmental & worker regulations; just tarriff any goods that are produced in exploitative regions. Eliminate the financial incentive, and the tycoonerism will die down.
As for multi-national bank accounts, just implement a GAAR tax based on revenue location. That way, a company that sells its product to Canadian customers can't claim to be a Swiss/Cayman corporation for tax purposes, because it won't do them any good.
As for shareholders, it's a necessary evil in order to promote investments/risk taking. Medieval societies tried to ban lending for similar reasons (Islamic countries still do), and it massively constrained innovation and job creation. That said, judges and legislators need to be more willing to pierce the corporate veil. The precedent exists; it's just not used widely enough.
To all the other stuff, meh.
I don't *need* progress. We have progressed too fast and in continuing to go that direction, we're ruining our quality of life on this planet.
In my lifetime the human population has doubled, nay, 2.5x more.
Meanwhile, the environment, air, water, are being destroyed, because the city folk no longer have any idea how nature is supposed to work.
Metro-Boulot-Dodo. City folk are entirely disconnected from any reality, and it's killing the planet.
But when humans disappear, no problem, then the animals, what few are left of em, will do great.
I think we need progress on renewable energy, which will cost money. It's asking a bit much to expect poor people globally to make do without electricity to save some rainforests they've never seen or even heard of.
People expect a certain level of technology in their lives, which means we need to innovate our way to providing it in a non-planet killing manner.
As a biologist, working in paleontology, having been an environmentalist for over three decades, I do not believe in the promise of "renewable energy", not one iota.
Hydro electricity in Quebec was claimed to be renewable, meanwhile, the winter water circulation brought about by those northern reservoirs/dams may be the greatest contributor to the decimation of the oceanic conveyor belt. It could be that our hydroelectricity contributes just as much to warming as our other human activities.
Big tech is always the problem.
It's a form of hubris that the machinations of a few narcisistic minds can outperform millions of years of evolution. We need to downsize, and if we don't voluntarily downsize, it will eventually hit us like a tons of bricks.
Me I like hot weather, and animals couldn't care less.
But when India, Irak, the Emirates, Pakistan, and a few other high density countries become uninhabitable, Canada is where they will all come to, and Canada will no longer be green. And since Russia and Canada are the only truly green places left on Earth, well goodbye, that's the end of any quality of life.
There can be no tech answer to this. Hubris must end. Gods don't exist, but pretending we are gods is no better.
I'm talking nuclear power more than hydro (fusion ideally), but the cat is out of the bag as far as modernity goes. Nobody is going to willingly go back to ye olden times before electricity, which means the power grid has to be supplied somehow.
Fusion ain't happening, that's a pipe dream. Many poor communities are becoming nuclear waste dumps. Fun :(
And no, we can't put the cat back in the bag.
The only solution is VOLUNTARY population reduction. I had my tubes tied 25 years ago. Coupla years ago, standing at the farmer's market (bleh) I was in a chatty circle with 5 guys. They all had vasectomies.
WAY TO GO!! woohoo! The transition will be difficult to manage, downsizing is hard, but we need to downsize the numbers, not the tech. Keep it all in balance.
"Fusion ain't happening, that's a pipe dream."
That's what everyone said about aircraft until the Wright brothers came along. Until then, I'm a big fan of rocketing the fission waste into space.
Good luck getting developing countries to agree to voluntary population reduction. Even if population declines in Canada, it will keep growing globally because of Asia and Africa.
By sell abroad I mean a chair gets built, banked, taxed in one country and gets sold abroad as is.
As for McD, frankly, they only exist by the grace of the subsidised corn industry. They are a disgrace to capitalism and do not merit existence.
But to hypothetically answer:
Any McD abroad should be entirely staffed, banked, taxed, resourced, from their nation. Use of the name can incur a one time fee.
Globalisation is what makes capitalism horrifying.
Were capitalists beholden to the natural limits of their/our nation, it would be much more reasonable.
As it stands, there are TWO sets of rules:
Multinationals get to do whatever the fuck they want anywhere in the world, while the vast majority of people are stuck in countries we don't want to be living in.
So if it's no borders for corporations, then it has to be no borders for people.
I'd rather borders for both.
Just like in sex problems. All solved by applying same rules to both groups, except where necessary.
I think you mean overseas supply chains, rather than overseas sales. Yes, I take issue with that too.
But again, tarriffs can solve that and provide some much needed tax revenues. Oh, Apple wants to build iPhones in China and sell them in Vancouver? We'll allow it, but Apple has to pay an import duty that will cost more than they're saving by using sweatshops.
I'm an accountant, so this might be a biased opinion, but I believe that corporate behaviour should never be changed via law when a tax will accomplish the same objective.
I'm a biologist, so I look at Earth's carrying capacity, evolutionary trends, paleontology, climatology, mental health problems from overpopulation and over dependence on tech and pharma.
If I could call myself a small-capitalist-communist I would. But that book hasn't really been written. But I do NOT abide by any large corporations.
Mind you, historically, the monarchy was the multinational. We got away from that, successfully, partially, and then we ended up with these monster corporations replacing the monarchies, fuk.
In between the two eras, there were train moguls and steel moguls and robber barons and colonisation.
I really think we need a massive overhaul.
That's why I favour these journalists who escape the institution, to permit a widening of the discourse.
I am profoundly disturbed by our return to the 19th century "one-company-town", that is not good for humanity, only good for moguls.
As the left seeks for an N-th time to redefine itself, I think that any left that does not prioritise the quality of life of the working classes (not just the upper working class) is not left. I am still profoundly a leftist. I just disagree with all the stupid identity shenanigans and the fake leftism provided by our Libs and NDP.
Cheers.
Not sure if you're a South Park fan, but....5 minutes onward is basically where I stand on large corporations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq7ysA7agNE&ab_channel=CartoonCentral
haha!! not much of a fan, I watch on rare occasions. I live in a town of 30,000. Walmart came, got a tax break, all the small shops died (no more eyewear, no more cameras, no more shoes, no more all sorts of shit), "main st" is totally dead other than an upscale mountaineering shop and tourist shops. I used to never choose walmart, now it's the only one, it's like being convicted.
We small people simply don't matter.
That mayor wanted "growth",
belch, and she was woman :(