From a US perspective: It’s more like more farm subsidies for big farm owning companies. More funding for pet projects that goes into the hands of business owners that own the criminals that have been in power for years.

In the US we could have so much more money as a society if we just had single payer healthcare. It’s our biggest expense from a federal budget perspective and from an individual perspective.

Healthcare here is a 4 trillion dollar industry where almost all the profits go into the hands of a select few who own all the supply companies that suck the profits out of “nonprofit” hospitals, retirement homes and all manner of healthcare related businesses. The whole thing thrives on the opaqueness of it all.

Plus I haven’t even mentioned pharma. The fact that we don’t have collective bargaining agreements for drug prices is fucking insane. The billions earned from 300 million doses of the vaccine and suddenly the prices go from $20 a dose (which was still overpriced by a factor of 10) to $120+ a dose is fucking absurd.

I usually agree, but in this case it sounds like they did. Ireland set a low tax to attract companies. So apple opened an office there and hired thousands of workers. And paid their taxes. But the EU did not think that was fair and demanded more after the fact.

They can always go and buy themselves more money…

I was having this discussion with a boss today.

The way I see it is that we say to company X. Look bro you pay your taxes in this country, none of this offshore shit.

If they say they’ll leave then let them. Are greedy capitalists really going to leave if before they were making 1B in profit and say after taxes they make 400M. Like they will take the 400M over nothing.

He sees it as a government issue, not acknowledging that the government is in bed with the CEOs.

Another one was me saying people shouldn’t earn thousand X their employees wages and have their staff using food banks.

To which I was met with well they can get another job. Like sure the dude lifting boxes at Amazon is just going to become a software developer. Hey boss why don’t you hire from Amazon. I’ll train new devs up.

I don’t know what it is with people that are older and have been successful, forgetting that for every success there are hundreds of failures. Survivorship bias.

Apple isn’t accused of wrongdoing, Ireland has been accused of unfair tax laws. Unfair for other countries in the EU not unfair for Apple or Ireland. Apple/Ireland are very happy with the tax laws.

It’s also worth noting that apple has already handed over the €14.3b - it’s just being held onto pending the conclusion of the investigation.

Personally I think it’s nuts - they’re arguing the money should go to Ireland, which is who they’re accusing of breaking the law. So Ireland will potentially get both the proceeds of the crime and be awarded damages for the crime. WTF. Money should be handed out to other countries in the EU.