If college is part of a signaling arms race, if we conceive of education purely as a labor market good, why are we asking the laborers to stand down from that race and not the employers?
Scientists are running because they feel their class interests are being threatened. Typically, scientists are apolitical because they feel they get more benefits by maintaining the status quo (e.g. military and civil funding). In the face of a bald attack on the EPA and climate science, scientists are attempting to show class solidarity.
Unfortunately, many of the problems we have are not technical problems, but are clashes between left and right. The favored positions of both sides have long been established. Science will help implement an ideological solution, but will not replace ideology. To the extent that the scientists running are leftists compared with centrist democrats, this will be somewhat significant.
However, I suspect that many established scientists are ignorant of politics and see the current struggle as some kind of surface level fact vs fiction debate. They will be disappointed.
I agree with points 1-3, but I would be remiss not to mention, that with respect to point 4, diseases like sickle cell anemia, which is hideously painful and fatal as a double inheritance (25% homozygous offspring in a heterozygous pairing, ss), but a wonderful defense against malaria in heterozygous offspring (Ss, 50% of said pairing). The remaining 25% homozygous wild-type (SS) are healthy, except when encountering malaria.
I would think that a mendelian genetic disease like sickle cell might well be on our hit list for all the trouble it causes. Of course, it could be argued that mosquito nets and drugs (i.e. technology) are a better, less costly defense, than these inborn genetic mutations.
Mainly because it's hard to suppress laughter if you think about it at all beyond a surface level. See discussion in another thread. I don't want to repeat myself.
Ok, last one. :) You've really just made a mockery of the ideology of competition haven't you? In fact, that is what corporations do. There's an awful lot of highly concentrated market power lying around for exactly that reason.
There are a variety of alternative arrangements that have been proposed. Economic democracy is one of them (that is, the workers control the company via elections, which will influence their pay).
The workers benefit somewhat from Apple, yes, in the form of a consumer gadget. I will grant Apple some utility, it did find a way to fuse existing science and technology in an interesting way to produce a very nice pocket computer.
However, this has had many effects, some good (access to information and maps), some bad (dissolution of privacy, addictive interfaces, the creation of "apps" at the expense of the open internet). Apple then uses this commodity to vacuum up dollars from consumers in excess of what it cost to produce... and do nothing with them other than allow executives and securities holders to slake their desire to accumulate. It's an addiction in itself.
Your reference to the double Irish arrangement completely undercuts your point. You admit that they aren't paying substantial taxes in a huge market they participate in.
With respect to Japan and China, a multinational company, an effectively stateless entity (or possibly a state unto itself) can simply move to the most profitable country, thus forcing countries to compete for its tax dollars. Thus, the multinationals, unless resisted via solidarity, will cause a collapse in all nations treasuries.
You have the right idea. That's probably what they will do, but not as a dividend (those are taxed as ordinary income). Instead they will buy back stock, reducing the supply of stock and increasing the price. Long term sales of stock incur a 15% tax rate.
I'm not saying this is good, but this is what they will do.
If they don't really need that money, why not give it to the people that could really use it?
I'm suggesting that capitalism is going to encounter a crisis point sometime in the next decade or two at this rate. It will destroy itself leaving either barbarism or socialism in its wake.
Exactly right. Why would a for-profit company work to improve the lives of the population that birthed them? I'm merely making the point that we can do better than this.
Apple lobbied for and received an incredible tax break for repatriating its money. It should be paying the full 35% corporate tax rate. Apple invests in some science and technology, that is true. However, for some reason, despite its fervent dedication to the arts and sciences, it hasn't figured out how to spend 200+ billion dollars. Weird.
U6 is still high. Most of the jobs created after 2008 were more transient than old jobs. Hence, the term "gig economy". The precariousness of the working class has increased dramatically and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
They're grabbing 252.3B and spending less than a fifth of it. Let's imagine a different world. 200B, divided by 50k + 1.5x overhead (75k) could create about 2.6M decent jobs for one year (or 1.3M for two years etc).
2.6M jobs is equal to 0.8% of the total US population. The total labor force size is about 160M (~1/2 the total population) and the U6 measure of unemployment is about 8%. A healthy U6 is probably closer to 6% (from around 2000). That 2% of 160M is 3.2M jobs. Thus, in one fell swoop without even affecting operations overly much, Apple could reduce the magnitude of the economic crisis by a little over 2/3.
These are astonishing numbers that would have real impacts on people's lives. Imagine what we could do with the profits of the other large conglomerates.
Instead, they're spending a tiny amount on PR and reduced taxes that they lobbied heavily for to do what? Probably stock buy backs. The adulation of the rich and powerful continues at the expense of the working class.
EDIT: added some comparison numbers
EDIT: You guys are too much! So many questions, keep on asking, but I'll have to let others answer. I have other things to do today. Keep thinking critically about the political economy of the system. :)
It's kind of unbelievable that NPM is a for-profit company that serves the node community for free. You can't possibly expect them to make the right choices when the community isn't whom they are directly responsible to. NPM should be a nonprofit foundation, a coop, or some other organization that has its operations funded by the community and has elected positions.
Their lack of financial or other interests in the community directly explains their policies.