willington

joined 10 months ago
[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

Don't forget that legally we count corporations as people, and corporations can live on indefinitely.

Originally copyright provided a monopoly for 14 years, plus one optional 14 year extension.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Capitalism.

Basically entities flush with wealth do not make their decisions out of a sense of economic survival.

Capitalism is all about brutal survival for the lower classes and for the upstarts without any background.

At the same time capitalism is all about a decision making process that is leisurely, capricious, and forgiving for the aristocratic upper classes.

If the company is sufficiently large (don't know if reddit qualifies, but my past employers have, so speaking from experience here), their own upper management is robbing the company on the inside every day when they make deals with contractors by taking kickbacks as opposed to what benefits the company. Make no mistake, all the upper management that is sufficiently aristocratic are looking out for their personal interests instead of the company's. In other words the same mentality of personal gain at all costs that supposedly drives the creation of some of the companies is also their undoing. "Greed is good" capitalism eats itself. Large ultra consolidated/merged corps are every bit as bureaucratic and internally Machiavellian as any government can hope to be. Their very existence is a tax we all pay and we don't get a vote about how these corporate fiefdoms run both themselves and us.

Reddit at this point is a very important and well backed propaganda tool, the backers can afford to pay their CEO and there is no hurry to make profits, and they have plenty of time and resources for every manner of business mistake.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 months ago

Profit is theft.

Economic rent is theft.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Taxes are not theft.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (7 children)

It all depends on what you measure and what you don't.

Selective measuring of the economy will let you say whatever you want.

"More jobs!!!11!!1!1!!!1111!1!1!!!!!"

"More precarity and high turnover, high pressure, shit conditions, shit pay, shit flexibility, shit benefits, no real pension commitment, underemployment."

Even if all the measures do exist, you don't have to report them if they go against the narrative.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

I don't like the idea of calling it a non-payment when receiving compensation in the form of valuable assets in addition to money.

Receiving stocks or gold bricks or houses or blow jobs, or anything else of value, is payment, and should be taxed as such.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 months ago

Do you know why the pirates had democratic rule?

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

There's always money/wealth in the economy. If the workers don't have it, someone else does. Find where the money is, and tax it. Then redistribute.

It's not a hard concept. It's a question of the political will. We know what to do, but will we do it?

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 46 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Copyright infringement was never stealing to begin with. If I steal your pencil, you are no longer in posession of it. If I copy or download your pencil, we both have a copy, and you are not deprived of your property.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 months ago

He doesn't need to sell, no.

It's collateral for a low interest loan.

Look up "buy borrow die" on a search engine.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 months ago

PayPal Holdings Inc. will reduce its workforce by about 9% as Chief Executive Officer Alex Chriss, who took over in September, grapples with rising competition, profit pressures and a raft of analyst downgrades.

In a letter to staff on Tuesday, Chriss said the decision was made to “right-size” the company through both direct cuts and the elimination of open roles throughout the year. Affected staff will be notified by the end of the week, according to the letter, which was seen by Bloomberg News.

PayPal, which employed around 29,900 workers at the end of 2022, announced a similar round of cuts last January. The latest move will affect about 2,500 workers.

Eliminating jobs will allow the firm to “move with the speed needed to deliver for our customers and drive profitable growth,” Chriss said in the letter. “At the same time, we will continue to invest in areas of the business we believe will create and accelerate growth.”

Shares of the payments giant have plunged more than 20% over the past year as earnings faltered and the company lowered its full-year guidance for adjusted operating margin. PayPal named Chriss last year to replace Dan Schulman.

PayPal was an early disrupter in the payments industry, but rivals including Apple Inc. and Zelle have since crowded the space, leaving PayPal struggling to keep pace. At least four analysts downgraded the stock this month, citing a range of concerns from rising competition to pressure on profitability.

Chriss said on PayPal’s third-quarter earnings call that the firm’s “cost base and complex structure” had slowed progress, an issue he plans on addressing to boost the firm’s operating leverage. The San Jose, California-based company is set to report fourth-quarter results next week.

“There hasn’t been a lot to celebrate” over the past few years, Chriss told CNBC earlier this month.

Since Chriss took the helm, he’s revamped PayPal’s leadership roles and made clear

that he plans to streamline what grew into a bloated business during the pandemic.

Block Inc., which offers the Cash App and Square payments services, began cutting jobs Tuesday as part of its goal to trim the workforce to 12,000 by the end of the year. Headcount as of the end of the third quarter of last year was just over 13,000, according to the firm.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 5 months ago

We live under a two-tier "justice" system.

"There is a group the law protects but does not bind. And there is a group the law binds but does not protect."

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