Speaking after a meeting with Bavaria’s state Cabinet atop the Zugspitze mountain, Germany’s highest peak, Merz said that continuing with the 15% minimum tax in Europe would put the continent’s economy at a disadvantage.
From a game-theory standpoint (which markets are an instance of such a game) he is not even incorrect. If we tax someone at 15%, while the US doesn’t they will take their business there (if possible). This is not a normative statement, this sucks and will lead to the world’s destruction (literally wiht global warming, and the same for arms races and war). But is is correct.
Here is my (semi) hot take: To really change anything in the world you cannot be game-theoretically naive. We cannot just by cynnical like the market-liberals, because they are willing to sacrifice the planet and humans for their goals.
We need to be post-cynical. Recognising that just claiming the morally right thing will never get us the power to change anything and just striving for the power to change will make us just as evil as them. If we want to change things for the better we have to hold them both in mind.
If we tax someone at 15%, while the US doesn’t they will take their business there (if possible).
Not necessarily. If that were universally true, all multinational companies would have their seat in the country with the cheapest taxes, which they clearly do not. There are other factors. But yes, it’s one of them.
Anyway, what he should do is fight against the exemption for US companies, especially after Trump now wants to hit the EU with his 30% tariffs anyway, so it doesn’t even get us anything.
Alas, he was, until very recently, a Black Rock employee, which is, you may or may not know it, a US company. He is also a far right neoliberal known for favoring corporations and the rich. It’s very obvious that the US exemption plays right into his cards and dismantling the whole minimum tax, which is easily the single greatest multinational achievement since World War 2, was always on his agenda.
To really change anything in the world you cannot be game-theoretically naive.
The global minimum tax isn’t that. It literally wouldn’t matter if the USA were in or out, because the broad global agreement means, if the Americans don’t collect the 15%, some other country can and will. Trump just threatened the G7 into granting an exception, which could have been avoided if they had spines and took a stand.
Fick dich Friedrich
Fock dich *Fotzenfritz
Gottverdammte Scheiße, Fritz. Trump says jump and you jump. What happened to Europe becoming more independent from the US?
Enlighten me, fellow community members: This appears to be just some kind of recently created repost-bot that automatically and immediately links articles - is this considered spam around here and should be reported or is this desired behavior?
Op was on lemm.ee before moving, his contributions aren’t a recent thing. If he would be what you call a repost-bot the links would likely be from more random low-quality sources and also wouldn’t be neatly posted to the most relevant community.
Op was on lemm.ee before moving, his contributions aren’t a recent thing.
Ah, I see - do you just happen to know them or is there a way to check for this kind of thing?
If he would be what you call a repost-bot the links would likely be from more random low-quality sources and also wouldn’t be neatly posted to the most relevant community.
I might be wrong about the nature of the account, that’s why I’m asking after all, but I wouldn’t agree with that definition at all.
What I see here is an account with 264 Posts (8 per day!) and a mere 3 Comments and that just doesn’t look like a person interested in engaging with other persons but like an automatism to deliberately pump content into communities - which in turn rings my alarm bells.do you just happen to know them
I recognise the name, because of all the posts.
is there a way to check for this kind of thing?
Not sure how but since he posted on other instances i guess those posts are still up.
I might be wrong about the nature of the account, that’s why I’m asking after all
Glad you do, might be the only way to find out what others think
doesn’t look like a person interested in engaging with other persons
I agree it doesnt seem he is interested in engaging with other persons. Which means he could be an automated bot, and i’m not saying he couldn’t be. I am saying i dont think he is, because of the quality of his posts. Both the content is good and it’s placed well. But i can’t give you a definite answer unfortunately.
Yes, of course.
Soon we’ll have to ignore these stories coming out of the alternative universes our leaders seem to operate in and start making our own narratives. There’s just no way to engage with their world anymore.
Yes there is. 👨🚒👩🚒
