Ooh, this is a great point: "there is reason to believe that the further the government is willing to go in its statutory definition of publicity the greater likelihood is there that it may be excused from the necessity of exercising direct administrative control." -- Henry Adams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Adams
I particularly like the idea that corporate tax returns should be public, just like the way 990 forms from nonprofits are. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
yes, power wants to act surreptitiously because that minimizes both reputational damage and potential resistance, and transparency is a natural counter to that.
i'm a strong proponent that transparency should increase superlinearly with power, which is something that our framers (in the US) had approximated, but never made particularly explicit. the average individual has a substantial right to privacy, basically having much autonomy to control information disseminated about themselves.
on the other end, the average multinational conglomerate should have basically no privacy, for the company itself, its owners, and its management, as well as its political & commercial transactions. of course you'd have to be careful of the privacy rights of customers and suppliers (who'd also have varying transparency levels for themselves), but those could be anonymized. the neat aspect of that is that only larger entities would tend to be susceptible to being deanonymized through transaction pattern analysis, which is fine, since larger entities require more transparency anyway.
in between are powerful individuals (full politicoeconomic transparency required) and small businesses (little transparency required).
Yes, exactly.
For me, right to privacy declines with impact to others. What you're doing alone in your house? Don't care. Between consenting adults? I almost don't care, except when public health matters (e.g., STDs, or COVID contact tracing). but the more we move toward public impact, the more I think there's a public right to know.
Another way to look at it is that people have a right to privacy, but not secrecy. Me lending my brother some money is reasonably seen as private. Me giving the same amount of money to a legislator as a bribe is something I might want to keep secret, but given the public impact, can't really be called private.
I donât find what happens between consenting adults to have a compelling STD-related public health reason to breach privacy. If you do, could you expand on why you think that?
>Another way to look at it is that people have a right to privacy, but not secrecy.
You seemed like were balancing things, then you ruined it by speaking out both sides of your mouth with that.
What you've effectively endorsed is "You have the right to privacy/secrecy as long as I don't care to look."
Everyone already has that. The entire point of a right to privacy/secrecy is to strictly corral what can be looked at/for/and how even when the People come looking.
You just threw out the entire point of the 4th Amendment there. No need for warrants, or to strictly define what the public interest is. Just define anything you're looking at as the public interest and have a party. Hell, you even threw out a workable implementation avenue of specifying that this carve out from the 4th only applies to legal fictions, which wouldsolve half your issues right there. Anything illegal would have to be done by a particular person or cohort of people outside the confines of legal fictions, meaning evidence lines should very clearly lead to individual parties; or at least until people stopped using corporate entities to do sketchy things plausibly like they do now.
I know it's not a popular term in the U.S. but the socialist answer would be that companies serve the public and should therefore make information freely available unless there's a good reason not to.
For the same reason companies shouldn't get to keep or distribute information on the very people they're supposed to be serving (unless there's a good reason to).
So rather than transparency increasing with power, you could also say that the lack of transparency itself is placing powers in the exact opposite place of where it should be.
that's viewed with skepticism because it presumes, or at least implies, that socialism inherently and structurally solves the transparency problem, but it still requires similar policy to augment the underlying ideology appropriately. there's no free lunch when it comes to some (usually small) proportion of people trying to leverage a system.
It has always seemed to me that corps should be taxed on the greater of 1) their tax return profits or 2) their publicly reported profits to the markets.
When major public corporations are paying zero or near-zero tax rates, one of those figures is blatantly misleading.
Allowing secret and offshore books for taxes is a farce, and damages every other taxpayer, especially the smaller businesses and startups that lack the funding or scale to take advantage of the tons of loopholes available to larger and transnational corps.
Much of the spread between 1 and 2 are either jurisdiction or time based. Time-based seems 100% reasonable to allow the current spread. If you build a business over a decade, incurring losses along the way, it seems entirely reasonable to get credit for those losses when you first start making profits.
Jurisdictional differences are more subtle or complicated. Certainly, we wouldnât expect a company to pay taxes to every jurisdiction on its entire global profits. So, we presumably must allow some kind of apportionment of profits to different jurisdictions and then the question becomes how to do so.
Of course there are distinctions between current operating profits and depreciation. There should be zero issue in making both public, e.g., [current profits=$100], [current year depreciation of past R&D=$15], [Net Profit=$85]. Report them both, pay taxes on $85, and both the govt and the stock market are happy.
The jurisdictional differences are the main thing that is being exploited here, and must be cracked.
Sure, if Acme Widgets makes 50% of their widgets in Germany and sells that whole lot in the EU, then fine. But Apple, Google, Amazon, FB, etc. setting up "R&D Offices" in Ireland, Bermuda or other tax havens and sending $$Billions in "licensing fees" to those entities to effectively hide their profits from US taxes is a flat-out farce, and it is literally stealing from you and me.
It is simple, if you are profiting off of the US economy, society, and infrastructure, you need to be contributing to it.
If you have a better solution to the time and jurisdictional problems, please state it. But it is long past the time when saying "it's complicated" and walking away is anything more than making excuses for those who game the system and steal from us every day.
Why is it reasonable?
People are investing money into a business that they hope will be worth money in the future. Upfront losses are just part of that investment.
If I decide I'm going to retrain in a better paying field, should I be able to claim my college fees as an offset against future earnings?
As an aside, I hate the expression that âSunlight is the best disinfectantâ because itâs just not true.
Throw some biological matter into the sun, and it'll be sterile before it gets there. So technicallyâŚ
Depends on the heuristic for "best". It's widely available, reasonably effective, and 100% free, which seems pretty good to me.
Iâm thinking about it differently, considering how much life lives in direct sunlight and depends on it for survival.
Thereâs a reason we donât use sunlight to sterilize surgical instruments.
Wait... Unless the sterilizer is solar powered, or used coal power, since coal is just compressed plant matter, which basically exists because of sunlight...
Wouldn't this put US registered corporations at a disadvantage by allowing foreign competitors to analyze their cost structures and finding their weaknesses?
Sure. But is that sufficiently bad? Minimum wage laws, health and safety laws, and all sorts of other regulations put US corporations at a disadvantage on the world stage. The state shouldn't just exist to make our corporations as profitable as possible.
Competition is good for consumers, that's why we want to encourage it. If your business model is undermined by people understanding it, you've got a problem anyway.
Competition is usually good for consumers. It's not a law, though. Sometimes competition results in worse outcomes.
> Competition is good for consumers
On the whole, yes, but not for all consumers.
If some people lived near a beautiful meadow and river, and everyone else lived in the desert, then competition (e.g. opening up a direct train to the meadow) would hurt the ones living in the meadow.
Yes, this does not sound like an equilibrium state. Itâs not sufficient to have transparency. There needs to be an alignment of incentives between consumers and corporations. This canât happen when not all competitors are subject to the same laws.
Previous comment was a bit too dogmatic. Itâs a matter of degrees for sure.
One of the great strengths of the US approach is our highly transparent capital markets. Plenty of non-US companies raise money here despite having to make a ton of information public. Why? Because just as much as companies want secrecy, investors want transparency.
This has the redacted document:
https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1381057389265321989
So you can see they redact "Bernanke" as in "Project Bernanke". Why? What possible trade secret is there involved in naming something after a guy that never worked for you? What kind of judge acquiesces to this bullshit?
Where is Alsup to tell these clowns to no more redactions?
Judges do not approve redactions. Parties redact things in the documents they produce, and then the other side has to challenge them in court to get the unredacted version.
...but since such challenges are costly and time consuming - typically they aren't done.
Search Bernake Helicopter Money, so it could imply that Google thinks this project is so profitable that money will be falling from the sky or maybe Google thinks it is a license to print money, like the the 'Fed and the money printers go brrrrrrrr' meme.
This is a very small niche meme, and most of the "money printers go brrr" stuff is meme-ing post March 2020, when people didn't understand why the markets didn't go down.
Certainly, it's a reference to central banking, I doubt it is to this meme.
When Bernanke made the speech in 2016 where he invented the idea of a helicopter dropping money it was pretty much instantly a meme... everyone in the finance community knew about it because of how ridicules it sounded
Several years ago, a person deep inside GOOG told me that the company had a secret knob that they could turn to increase revenues. He didn't go into details, but I concluded that it had something to do with the ad auction pricing. This could be that "dial".
Perhaps it's just a reference to Fed policy snoozery, but the helicopter connection seems like a better fit to me.
Or, it's called Bernanke because the previous system was called Greenspan. And the previous system was called Greenspan because the original system had been named Alan, because someone on the team watched the video of the prairie dog yelling "Alan!" and thought it was funny.
Because the name "Bernanke" sounds like one is thumbing their nose at the central bank. Merely not a good look!
So will there be criminal charges brought. I highly doubt it. That is typically the problem, a normal person gets the book thrown at them (even if they e.g. commit a crime accidentally), while nobody goes after the big guys because it is deemed to be too expensive or some other reason.
That's exactly it. Rich people have the resources to fight for longer than you will hold your office.
There's a really eye opening report 2 years ago from Charles Rettig, commissioner of the IRS, where he openly states that his agency focuses audits on poorer people, because they have less resources to fight and are more likely to just pay up and move on. Most of the audit resources are targeted at people claiming the earned income tax credit.
There's been a pretty protracted effort to defund the IRS and it would seem that it's achieved its intended result.
Edit: I provided actual data - facts - straight from the IRS. If you're going to downvote, I dare you to bring something to the table to counter reality (good luck).
> where he openly states that his agency focuses audits on poorer people
As incomes rise, audit % rates rise. The IRS does not focus a large share of its energy on poorer people. The people earning under $50,000 per year have a very low audit rate, and that's straight from the IRS data. Once your income climbs over $200,000 your audit rate begins to skyrocket.
In terms of volume, 60% of all filers are at $50,000 or lower, so obviously even at a low % of audits they're still going to have a lot of audits. The IRS does audit people filing as having no income at a relatively high rate, because that category frequently attempts to use incorrect deductions to try to hide income. The rate of fraud is very high in that category.
Here:
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/2017ntf-irsauditstriggers.pd...
"The majority of audited returns are for taxpayers who earn $500,000 a year or more, and most of them had incomes of over $1 million. These are the only income ranges that were subject to more than a 1% chance of an audit in 2018. " -- [note: the $500k+ group is the majority of audited returns despite the fact that they're a tiny share of all returns, which tells you how low the audit rate is for the poorer categories.]
"According to IRS statistics, youâre safest if you report income in the neighborhood of $25,000 to $200,000. These taxpayers were audited the least in 2016."
https://www.thebalance.com/top-audit-triggers-that-catch-irs...
Here's what the OP was referring to.
> On the one hand, the IRS said, auditing poor taxpayers is a lot easier: The agency uses relatively low-level employees to audit returns for low-income taxpayers who claim the earned income tax credit. The audits â of which there were about 380,000 last year, accounting for 39% of the total the IRS conducted â are done by mail and donât take too much staff time, either. They are âthe most efficient use of available IRS examination resources,â Rettigâs report says.
https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-ea...
A better characterization, from memory, was that they don't bother with the ultra-rich because it's difficult to win. 200k-1M is probably the danger zone.
Not sure if others but I found your comment is an unfair characterization of what Rettig said, the from him is...
' the most efficient use of available IRS examination resources'
The IRS has less resources so, it is not directly targeting those with less resources like you are attributing to Rettig. The IRS is targeting the most fraudulent schemes where it can effectively recover, based in its staffing and budget level.
Here is the report from the IRS on this...
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6430680-Document-201...
> The IRS does not focus a large share of its energy on poorer people.
This is just untrue. In 2021, almost all of the IRS' enforcement energy is focused on poor people. This is continuing a trend that has gone on for 30+ years now of steadily reducing enforcement on the rich and holding it steady or increasing it on the poor, particularly aiming at anyone who claims the Earned Income Tax Credit.
The IRS audits half as many people as it did just five years ago. It audits 1/5th as many people as it did in the 1970s. And these cuts have applied mainly to the top end of the income spectrum. Somehow it passed without much public notice that Trump's budgets massively slashed an already severely underfunded IRS.
In fact, the IRS has now ceased reporting its audit rates of the rich and large corporations, because they're so low, so we no longer even know how low they are.
(Any links or direct quotes?that sounds more like interpretation than a report but I'd be curious to see! Thx)
(not op). It's an essentially direct quote from the current head of the IRS.
https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-ea...
Sadly Congress isn't going to fix this because it requires a much simpler tax system instead of one that is filled from end to end with special carve outs and rules.
When our current President subscribes to using tax law shenanigans to avoid paying taxes you can damn well bet much of the rest of Congress and high ranking state leaders will be found doing the same. One of the larger avenues of abuse is through S Corporations which let individuals shunt off income thereby avoiding certain types of taxes. It is also used by leadership of various charitable organizations to redirect money for purposes many would think fraudulent; like using them to buy homes for use by organization leadership or cover business jet ownership
Those who know the rules of a game and can play it well are often best suited to make good changes as long as incentives align.
Itâs sad, even the place that is supposed to be fair isnât due to money. Money rules too many of Americaâs systems. But I have a feeling that money will always find a way to be influential.
Money is just a proxy for power. Power is synonymous with influence.
There are plenty of influential broke people. Just look at YouTube.
> even the place that is supposed to be fair isnât due to money
What place is that?
The legal system (The court room)
And if someone gets charged it's the company which ends up paying a relatively small fine, since companies are people but we cannot send them to prison.
> but we cannot send them to prison.
I think this belief is the problem. At the very least, a company has representatives; if it was to go to jail for a crime, then the C-suite or board could go in its place. A reasonable risk and form of accountability for the high rewards they already get.
But I think it's fair to take it a step further: imprison the company. That is, apply any effects you would apply to a prisoner to that corporation. Lack of communication or direct control of assets and funds for the equivalent period of time for a start.
Would that be existential, if not company ruining for any large length of time? Sure, just as it is for the average citizen. They'll lose many of the things they own, their jobs and livelihood and sometimes much more with any large prison sentence. Their loved ones and dependants' and acquaintances' lives are dramatically affected. So too can it be made the same for a company.
The limit of limited liability should change with scale.
Donât worry... She will be pulled over, peppered sprayed and held 3 months without a hearing.
(2010)
"...during the five minutes it took to draft and send the email, Googleâs Gmail email system automatically saved eight âsnapshotsâ of the email and put the copies into the authorâs draft email folder. No action was required by the author. It was all done by the auto-save.
When Google learned that it had inadvertently produced draft versions of the email to Oracle, it requested that Oracle return all copies. Oracle complied, but filed a motion to compel production of the draft and final versions of the email. Oracle successfully convinced the district court that the email was not protected by any privilege, and the court ordered the production of all versions of the email. Google sought a writ of mandamus to have the district courtâs ruling overturned, but the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied the writ."
https://www.millercanfield.com/media/article/200378_MCNewsle...
Discussed 12 hours ago with 40+ comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26767088
The auction part of this sounds like what people say rock bands and Nvidia should do: raise prices to make supply match demand and cut scalpers out of the loop.
BTW, the OP is a copyright-dodging paywall-bypassing rehash of a WSJ article https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-secret-project-bernanke...
From WSJ:
âGoogle acknowledged in its responses that it had agreed to make âcommercially reasonable effortsâ to ensure that Facebook was able to identify 80% of mobile users and 60% of desktop users, excluding users of Appleâs Safari web browser, in ad auctions.â
A comment in the article by Sam Iam says:
"Think how weird it would be if the cosmetologists trade org suddenly started requiring people to get a BA in whatever, as the ABA does, before they could go to a barber training program and had all 50 states make that the law in order to get a license"
Well actually they go to schools of cosmetology, but note this California training requirement:
"According to the state of California, students must complete at least 1600 hours of training in an accredited program to start their journey of becoming a licensed cosmetologist."
https://www.tspasanjose.com/how-to-become-a-cosmetologist-in...
Conversely how much traning do you think is required to become an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) in California?
"California EMT programs are at least 160 hours and include at least 136 hours of didactic training and at least 24 hours of clinical training. The individual must have 10 patient contacts."
https://www.healthcarepathway.com/become-an-emt/california-e...
Yes, it takes 10 times as much training to become a cosmetologist as it does to become an EMT in California. Anyone else think this is totally crazy?
I'm unsure but it does make me wonder.
Perhaps there are fewer EMTs signing up than cosmotologists?
Or perhaps the number of practice hours to e.g. create the perfect braid is lower than the number of practice hours to e.g. apply narcan?
Or perhaps the effectiveness of the school education for one profession is more closely related to what you will experience in the real world, thereby requiring fewer hours of on-the-job training?
So can someone with some knowledge about Googleâs and Facebookâs past give an idea on how legally and morally good/bad this is compared to previous things they did?
It seems really bad, to the point that Black Mirror-esque things are simply a decade away.
With that said, I donât know enough to draw that conclusion.
Seems like Googleâs internal units were bidding up ad prices. Since no one can see that but Google, ad buyers didnât know they were paying higher prices.
It could just be stupidity. Or bad policy. Or it could be systematic to maximize their as sales. Googleâs not stupid, so them allowing it means they were aware and will able to easily explain why itâs not that big of a deal.
Itâs like if eBay sellers had their subsidiaries bidding up prices on their items. And not disclosing. Maybe thereâs a good reason, probably just sneaky greed.
Shill bidding is illegal in auctions. They've represented these ad markets as auctions, but it seems like they aren't. You're bidding against some machine designed to make you pay more.
Can anyone offer a legit explanation.
One possibility: Google creates a fully independent subsidiary that bids on AdSense auctions with a goal of turning a profit by reselling the slots they buy. This might make sense if Google sees large inefficiencies in the ad market that are being taken advantage of by third party resellers, at the expense of their customers. Itâs not a great look, but it could be done in a way that is aboveboard from a legal standpoint.
If ebay did that, they might end up buying a whole lotta crap. This technique is not a money pit when information is available. I'm not clear on the information available to publishers, but I don't think its as clear as ebay. The legality is more subtle
Not if they used their proprietary data to bid up but never win auctions. Especially since they know other bidders max price willing. So bidding for max-1 would result in no wins, but lots of extra money.
This would make me not use eBay. But thereâs really not an alternative for ad markets controlled by Google.
eBay sellers don't control their marketplace nor do they have access to all the internal data that can influence purchasing decisions. Google controls its ad market fully.
Reminds of wallstreet sell side firms front running their own clients.
I think it's the same category as inflating conversions from the point of the advertiser (both are nasty, here it is more easy to prove criminal intent): if you are an ad buyer, make sure that you are adapting your bids and measure everything yourself.
Get a daily email with the the top stories from Hacker News. No spam, unsubscribe at any time.