I thought Apple already forged an agreement to pay the higher tax rate, while they continue to challenge that? Seems reasonable to me, and no grounds for a protest. The FACT is that Apple paid the LEGALLY-REQUIRED amount of taxes in Ireland. Just because the EU comes along and changes the rules doesn't mean that Apple broke any rules. They just want Apple's money, that's all.
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Apple Denied Request to Ban Tax Protestors From Its Stores in France
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I don´t agree with these protesters, but Palpatine Tim Cook is gold! It cheers me up every time I encounter that picture!
Sounded like a question about vandalism to me before, but now you changed it. And they aren't inconvenienced, its the employees of that store who don't make those types of decisions, and the customers who are just trying to get into a store.
Yes. They do. The Irish governments have been corrupted by Apple into offering it sweetheart deals on taxes, sweetheart taxes are, however, illegal in Europe.
I love how it's the right-leaning among MacRumors commenters who try to justify Apple's thievery, while Apple does exactly what right-wing enthusiasts fear : being a company so big and powerful it can bully states into becoming exempt from taxation. Next, Apple will collect its own taxes. And write the laws too. There is no justification to what Apple is doing. They are criminals in this case and they already lost against the Commission. They are appealing, of course, the rotters.
Pay no attention to these silly paid protesters. Most have no job, no idea what they are protesting, or any knowledge of history going back over 1 month. In 15 years the EU will be gone. Let them have their Baguettes in peace.
No. What will be gone however, is the far right. Forever. Those who do not agree with Europe will be kicked out. I'd love to see some states here even try. Russians will drown their sorrows in vodka, and we'll be good for another 40 years of their pesky meddling.
Do you really think this will be taken off the employees' payrolls somehow ? Is that how it works in the land of the free ? They don't intimidate, they protest, they demonstrate. There is nothing violent about it. AND not to mention, they are telling THE TRUTH.
Do you think people can rely on Apple to advertise about its own wrongdoings, robbing the people blind ? This goes out to Apple as much as it does to the EU. Maybe if countries like Ireland did not to illegal stuff like the sweetheart deals it gives big tech companies, this wouldn't happen.
Not only this, but Apple in embroiled in a scandal about planned obsolescence. Again, robbing people blind. Prices are higher in Europe too. So there's ground for discontent.
As said by me and others before in this thread, that's different, you can't compare those.
These people are easy to identify and usually ready to pay for the "damage". It's a kind of light vandalism but you people are reacting as if those were your house's windows (some absolute genius is even comparing these situations!). We're not talking about damage to an individual, we're talking about $50 damage to a corporation that is stealing hundred of millions to a country. Don't be ridiculous.
Let's be clear I disapprove this kind of protest but only because the backfire of incredibly naive people who react as if it was some guerrilla attack.
Let's be clear I disapprove this kind of protest but only because the backfire of incredibly naive people who react as if it was some guerrilla attack.
I agree with you that they have a right to protest on a public sidewalk assuming it is public and not part of a leased space. Probably public but I am not familiar with how France does things.
But then I look at the window with whatever that says written on it in shoe polish Etc. That is vandalism. Whether permenant or removable.
AFAIK Apple started paying the money, I think to an escrow account.
The EU didn't change the law.
It will take years before we will see the result of this, in my view and lots of others Apple will loose this.
Sadly, its a bit like the people that think more guns is a solution to school shootings!
The technical term in this case was 'illegal state aid'. But look at what Amazon is currently doing in the U.S. by creating a context among cities who can offer the most state aid for their second 'headquarters'. In industries that export a lot (eg, civilian aircraft) the U.S. is bound by international trade treaties in regard to how much state aid they can offer. But for things like the Amazon project, there are no national rules limiting state aid (which is a problem in many industries in the U.S., including even things like big sports teams that ask for big stadiums). In the EU, the EU Commission is a countervailing force that can overrule decisions (like such by the Irish government in regard to sweetheart deals) by individual countries.
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It's a court decision. Not a government decision.
Which probably never happened. In a world where everyone carries a video camera in their phone, Apple would have had a strong case by sharing footage of such incident. But they don't.
At least point to something truthful instead of an outright lie.
In 1991 115 were arrested.
In 1992 over 1000 were arrested.
In 1993 682 arrested and 2 were killed.
In 1996 650 were arrested.
And so on. 1997 was mostly uneventful.
For a CEO that's such a lefty and loves to preach about social justice, you would think Apple would pay their taxes.
At least Trump is honest about it. Timmy preaches income inequality and other lefty buzzwords and uses every law under the sun to avoid taxes. Hypocrite.
At least Trump is honest about it. Timmy preaches income inequality and other lefty buzzwords and uses every law under the sun to avoid taxes. Hypocrite.
If you actually read the decision, it states that Apple did not specify which damage they incurred and did not provide enough evidence. Apple provided as evidence only photos taken from Internet without providing information about their date and localisation: apparently this makes the photos unsuitable as legal evidence.
https://france.attac.org/IMG/pdf/delibere.pdf
Is that why cake makers who don't believe in participating in the LGBTQ lifestyle being sued because they are "viewpoint discriminating" for their own beliefs and refusing to make Gay wedding cakes? These people and their businesses are being destroyed for "viewpoint discrimination". Don't you know you are only allowed to "viewpoint discriminate" if you are on the Liberal side of things.
Stop with the fake news, please.
1) The European Commission (which isn't a government) DID go after Apple. By suing Ireland to force it to collect overdue taxes. It's done. Ireland lost, so Apple lost.
2) Apple WASN'T paying its taxes according to Irish law, that's why Ireland was sued and lost.
3) No, Apple is not following Irish law, Apple is acting like it is above the law, so the problem isn't the tax law, it's Apple and the Irish state pretending to be above Irish law.
You were misinformed.
Yup. You linked to an example of gratuitous hate speech and ignored what the lawmaker from the Green Party had to say about Kristallnacht in the WP article. Perhaps you think that hate speech is the same as free speech?
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Skulls full of mush. If they are not happy with the amount of taxes Apple pays, then they should be protesting their elected officials. At least that is what anyone with any intelligence at all would do.
How is it different. It is painting someone else's property without permission.
You say that they can't be compared, but why?
Let's be intellectually honest about this. Most of those topics were not emergencies and would have been accomplished without physical disruption. Let's focus on the two big ones, suffrage. For racial suffrage I'll assume you're referring to the voting rights act of 1965 (and generally the period from Brown v BoE to its enactment) and not the reconstruction amendments as it would be ludicrous to compare the civil war with Apple protestors.
There were certainly disruptive forms of peaceful protest that were employed in that time period (e.g. sit ins). Sit ins or that era were very much different from the form of protest we're talking about today in several key ways. The protests were in direct response to the affront (sitting in because what they wanted to see changed was the policy of not seating African Americans in those establishments), the protestors went to great lengths to not disrupt beyond the specific goal of peacefully disobeying an unjust policy (i.e. they did not try to block access or otherwise affect the business, they just wanted to raise awareness in hopes of political pressure for those organizations to change, in fact they went to lengths to assimilate with the other clientele by "dressing white" and being extremely polite), and there was no vandalism. The effective disruption from these protests was from other customers being upset at their presence and acting out in obscene ways against the protesters. That was a different time but also an issue of much more import yet the protesters were highly effective with a much more dignified approach - in fact I would posit that their dignity increased their effectiveness.
Distilling the civil rights era of the mid 50s to late 60s into just one of sit ins is also vastly simplistic. The powerful speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had an enormous effect. Marches (in public spaces without vandalism) provided great visibility. There were other direct actions such Rosa Parks' fateful act but again performed in the same manner as the sit ins. Direct action was not only vastly muted (on the protesters part) as compared to today but also just one small component in that struggle. Using that period of American history support the actions of this group is disingenuous.
I'm less familiar with the history of women's suffrage but I seem to recall it being focused in a way that counters your argument. Namely, it was mostly about working within systems to speak and convince people of the validity of the stance. There were supporters who marched in parades and worked tirelessly to speak at various conventions but Susan B. Anthony wasn't blocking the entrance to Sears Roebuck or painting their windows. Its path led through the western territories' newly adopted state constitutions and ultimately of course to the 19th amendment but didn't involve disruptive direct action of any significant amount.
I didn't say it was impossible. Just as the thought of moving on to other planets has theoretical possibility. What I said was that they are both very niche and extreme positions. I think if you took an honest appraisal of the historical cases you'd also be hard pressed to find any examples of large scale without significant inequality or a massive decrease in quality of life for most participants as compared to modern US standards of living. A big part of that is just the march of time and technological advancement but you've got to give large credit to capitalism and the marketplace for that as well.
OK, enough wall of text. Time to be productive and earn more capital