The US used to have this for all corporations. Called a retained earnings tax. Now it just applies to C Corps. (In very simplified general terms partnerships for taxes, corps for legal purposes.)
The intent was to encourage corps to return "excess" cash to shareholders as dividends. It was dropped so that companies could build up cash reserves to do major investments without having to borrow. The main argument against it as I recall was that it encouraged the "status quo" and discouraged new big investments by companies. Think Intel and fab plants and such.
]]>It must be difficult to condemn bitcoin by comparing it to the banking system that took out trillions of dollars in off-the-books taxpayer-backed loans just to survive a few years ago. Most of our financial companies' leaders (and our financial regulators' leaders as well) might be behind bars if Teddy Roosevelt were in office today.
Still, the value of bitcoin, dollars, Krugerrands or any other currency is that you can exchange them to get something else. So far, all three of the above still have that. Until one or more of them lose that value, it is premature to call any of them play money.
]]>As far as I could tell, it wasn't set up for converting Bitcoin -> USD; there was just a bill slot, a camera (for reading the destination address as a QR code), and a touchscreen that gave the current exchange rate and an "OK, done putting in $" button. Unfortunately, it does not give receipts. That's probably going to bite them.
For me the most exciting thing was that it was the first time I had seen a QR code be useful.
]]>The whole idea of a common currency for a bunch of different national economies without any other forms of fiscal integration was a fallacy to begin with. Having Scotland join would IMO be a monumental mistake. Luckily for Scotland the chances of the EU actually accepting a bid to join in any reasonable time frame are between zero and nil.
(Pegging to the Euro is a worse idea because the ECB would be under no obligation to take into account the state of your economy when making decisions, and unpegging when necessary might seem like a good solution but requires IMHO way too much political friction to be done in any timely manner. What you need is your own, independent, central bank with the right mandate and semi-independent oversight mechanism.)
]]>The issue is that many of the gatekeepers have become moral guardians. If it doesn't fit in their worldview (a very New York/Blue/Democrat-to-socialist one if you're in the US), it's Bad Writing and shouldn't be published. Bad doggie. No biscuit. And, since they won't publish it, there clearly isn't a market, so they shouldn't publish more of it.
The cycle is a bad one, and it's one that keeps good authors out of the market. About half the authors I read (David Drake, David Weber, John Ringo, etc, etc, etc) in sci-fi probably couldn't get their first book published anywhere but Baen Books. Most of them are in a place now where half the publishing houses in NY will sacrifice first-borns for their writing. And, by American standards, Baen Books isn't that conservative.
Yes, I know there's only so many books and such that a Big Name Publisher can spend their money and time on. But, when there's some books that I can only find via Amazon.com and the self-publishing movement, there's an issue.
Perhaps what we need is something like a "training wheels" imprint for ebooks done by the bigger publishers. New authors, editors, and the like get a chance to try out their stuff and get the public distribution and advertising assets of the Big Name Publisher. Sort of like how Miramax Films worked during the early-1990's.
(1)-You haven't "lived" until you've done editing, aka "pre-reading" for My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic fanfic. In the same manner that running through a minefield is "invigorating". You want to scare off the many-angled ones that are coming in CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN? Broadcast half the slashfic archives of various fandoms at them-if the Supernatural incest yaoi porn doesn't scare them off, nothing will...
]]>Flexcoin is shutting down. On March 2nd 2014 Flexcoin was attacked and robbed of all coins in the hot wallet. The attacker made off with 896 BTC, dividing them into these two addresses: 1NDkevapt4SWYFEmquCDBSf7DLMTNVggdu 1QFcC5JitGwpFKqRDd9QNH3eGN56dCNgy6 As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately. Users who put their coins into cold storage will be contacted by Flexcoin and asked to verify their identity. Once identified, cold storage coins will be transferred out free of charge. Cold storage coins were held offline and not within reach of the attacker. All other users will be directed to Flexcoin's "Terms of service" located at "Flexcoin.com/118.html" a document which was agreed on, upon signing up with Flexcoin. Flexcoin will attempt to work with law enforcement to trace the source of the hack. Updates will be posted on twitter as soon as they become available.]]>
Turns out that is his real name, and he's a 64 year old American living in California who collects model trains.
Also a libertarian, though that will come as a surprise to no one.
]]>Plutonium, U-233 and U-235, and Np-237. Fissionables, that's the ticket.
Then no one will dare blow up their own wealth.
]]>Personally, I think one of the Uranium and Plutonium isotopes with a high spontaneous fission rate is the way to go. First of, implosion devices are somewhat more difficult to build than gun type ones, second of, criticality incidents dissuade prospective goldb^w, err, transuranbugs...
]]>Wait, wait... So the mysterious Libertarian genius evaded identification by other Libertarians and paranoid cranks by the cunning plan of...logging off the internet? After using his actual real name? And this worked for over five years?
This only raises more questions.
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