I don’t see why software should receive special treatment when 99.99% of software engineers/developers are not in any way engaged in what might be considered genuine scientific research and development, which R&D tax advantages should be reserved for.
> Changes to R&D amortization were a rude surprise to them, as they'd never had to amortize software development before, and didn't think of the work they do as R&D.
Precisely. They didn’t think of their work as R&D because it was not R&D. Frankly, they should have seen this coming.
> These are small businesses we're talking about. Almost all of them make under $10M in annual revenue, and the vast majority are under $2M in revenue.
What about the millions of other small businesses that don’t get special tax treatment? Restaurants, bars, plumbing companies, landscaping companies, accounting firms, etc.? Software engineers are not scientists. At the end of the day, a company is supposed to be able to stand on its own two feet, not rely on government handouts. Allowing otherwise unprofitable businesses to stay in business disincentivizes innovation and efficiency, which harms productivity growth and makes us all poorer in the long run.
Why can’t seniors living in long term care simply take care of one another?
These discussions about the tax burden of seniors are about two things in the end: health care and assisted living.
Assisted living means: workers to cook meals for seniors, to help them dress, to remind them to take their pills, etc. In our advanced industrialized societies, we offload that burden to young workers in their prime. In more traditional societies like Japan, senior communities don’t need young workers because they rely on one another. Let seniors cook for one another, help one another get dressed, etc. And let young workers go start businesses or work on cancer cures or build software and help society get richer as a whole.
There’s still the health care aspect to deal with (seniors can’t do heart surgery on one another), but we could decrease the tax burden of over 65s by switching to a Japanese model.
More than merely “investigated”. The FAA should indefinitely ground all Boeing 737 Max until Boeing has fixed them - at its own expense - and the FAA has certified the fixes on each and every one of them. Financial consequences on Boeing be damned. Or kill the plane by banning the Boeing 737 Max from ever flying over the United States ever again. Let Boeing go back to the drawing table and build a plane that works. Let the executives suffer from the years long decline in Boeing’s stock price. Let them lose billions. Tens of billions. I am out of fucks to give. It’s time for the government to draw blood over this corporate malpractice.
Then you don’t have a choice and your complaints are legitimate, because you didn’t cause this situation. It’s not your fault. I’m not saying people never have good reasons to complain.
You will see arguments from both sides in this thread. “I couldn’t wait to live on my own” and “I appreciate the fact that my folks are allowing me to live with them. This enables me to cut my expenses and to save faster.” There is no right or wrong opinion. Everyone’s situation is different. Both sides are right.
That said, I have a bone to pick when people are inconsistent with themselves, using daycare as an example when people have cheaper alternatives, and then have the gall to complain.
“Why is daycare so expensive???”
“You could ask grandma to move in with you”
“Absolutely not, we enjoy our independence”
“Would you pay higher taxes to allow the government to set up a network of publicly funded childcares?”
“No”
“If you refuse all solutions, stop complaining”
Or…
“I will never be able to save for a home at this rate”
“You’re living on your own on a single income and you’re still young. You could move back with your parents, whom you get along well with, for a few years.”
“Absolutely not. I enjoy my independence.”
Unfortunately, you can’t always have your cake and eat it too. You will pay a price, one way or another. With respect to multigenerational living, that price will either be the living costs of assuming the burdens of a household as a single individual, daycare costs, or a measure of independence. If you don’t have family nearby that’s understandable. A lot of people don’t have a choice and their grievances are legitimate, but many do have reasonable alternatives they’re unwilling to take advantage of for flimsy reasons and then complain about the consequences of their actions.
Adults assume the consequences of their choices. When they have such a choice, of course.
What if every newborn received a chip implant under the skin (cryptographically unbreakable, unauthorized removal punishable by law), linked to a central government database with the chip’s unique identifier and a profile of the newborn’s DNA signature?
This comment is wrong. Countries relying on nuclear energy (United States, China, France…) certainly don’t struggle with “unplanned downtime”. Nor can a modern reactor, built to modern standards, “poison a whole country and their neighbors”. Chernobyl is the worst radiological accident in history and the only one of its kind. Modern reactors can’t explode and burn like Chernobyl. It’s impossible. And nuclear power plants are not built by the lowest bidder, because the number of corporations that can build nuclear reactors is already vanishingly small. Chernobyl isn’t a good argument against nuclear anymore than the 9/11 attacks are a good argument against skyscrapers.
The US military would be unable to defeat the cartels. The US military is designed to fight standing armies, not criminal organizations or insurgencies. Any plausible solution to the cartel issue will take a long time to implement and require some unpalatable choices. For example: indefinite suspension of legal rights and due process for all military age males; arbitrary arrests and detention; mass amnesties; legalization; curfews; invasive government surveillance.
> Changes to R&D amortization were a rude surprise to them, as they'd never had to amortize software development before, and didn't think of the work they do as R&D.
Precisely. They didn’t think of their work as R&D because it was not R&D. Frankly, they should have seen this coming.
> These are small businesses we're talking about. Almost all of them make under $10M in annual revenue, and the vast majority are under $2M in revenue.
What about the millions of other small businesses that don’t get special tax treatment? Restaurants, bars, plumbing companies, landscaping companies, accounting firms, etc.? Software engineers are not scientists. At the end of the day, a company is supposed to be able to stand on its own two feet, not rely on government handouts. Allowing otherwise unprofitable businesses to stay in business disincentivizes innovation and efficiency, which harms productivity growth and makes us all poorer in the long run.