If American corporations are people, why aren't they taxed like people?

Reblogged from Quartz:

In the United States, it seems, corporations are people too—except when it suits them not to be. In this week's Congressional brouhaha over Apple's overseas tax-avoidance schemes, the chief solutions proffered have been either to give firms like Apple a one-time tax holiday so they can bring some of their cash back home, or else stop taxing them on their overseas earnings altogether.

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Seems pretty logical to me. The reason why this doesn't happen is of course simple -- corporations have both the ability to influence policy and to relocate themselves internationally that individuals don't. The argument is always that fixing the corporate tax code will cause a flight of intellectual capital out of the US to other, more tax friendly jurisdictions. That is of course silly. There are lots of reasons above and beyond tax law that keep companies headquartered and investing in the United States. Making our tax code fairer to everyone isn't going to stop economic activity.

Google Drive App For Android Gets Card-Style Redesign, Document Scanner With OCR And Improved Spreadsheet Editing Experience

Reblogged from TechCrunch:

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Google's Drive app for Android just got a major redesign that brings the Google Now-like card-style look the company introduced with Google Now to its mobile productivity app.

This new look, which Google says is cleaner and simpler than the previews design, will likely be the first thing users notice, but the company has also added a number of new features to the app.

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now I'm just waiting for an updated, higher resolution and faster Nexus 7 to use it on

Last July, during the Joliet strike, Oberhelman stopped by the company’s Aurora (Ill.) plant. One production worker there, who declined to give his name for fear of retaliation, says he was invited to a rare group meeting with the CEO. Afterward, he says, he approached Oberhelman and asked him when the hourly employees would get pay increases.

Oberhelman responded, the worker says, by using his own multimillion-dollar salary as an example of how competitive wages work, pointing out that he made less than the CEOs of Deere and Komatsu, both smaller companies than Caterpillar. The employee—a single father who says he hasn’t received an hourly raise in more than 10 years—was stunned. Caterpillar declined to comment on the incident.

from the article “Caterpillar’s Doug Oberhelman: Manufacturing’s Mouthpiece” by Bloomberg Businessweek

Yes, you are going to have to pay to get the best executives. That’s basic economics. However the best executives don’t argue they are underpaid to their hourly workers on the assembly line while they bring home $22 million a year. The best executives aren’t this tone deaf.

What’s the real cost to the company and to the country if this CEO made 10% or 20% less a year if the hourly workers could make a living wage? Quoting from the Bloomberg Businessweek article, “when is it appropriate to share the wealth?”

The Gap Between Executive and Hourly Pay

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Aetna's not just an insurance company, it now has a fitness app too

Reblogged from VentureBeat:

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SAN FRANCISCO -- Aetna, one of the largest health insurance providers in the world, is changing the way it thinks about itself.

Last year, chief executive Mark Bertolini said Aetna was no longer in the insurance business, it is in the information business.

Now, the company is turning into a fitness app maker too. Next month, Aetna will launch an iPhone app and website for managing your fitness, encouraging you to eat and live in a more healthy way, and monitoring your personal health information.

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Download my app, follow the instructions, lower your rates. How much are you willing to trade privacy and data against lower costs?

If (Nikola) Tesla Was Raising Venture Capital

this is so funny because it’s so accurate

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What Do Your Instagram Filter Choices Say About You?

What Do Your Instagram Filter Choices Say About You?

I’m (generally) a X-Pro II, how about you?

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Some people are calling data the oil of the 21st century.

Congratulations to Tableau and their CEO Christian Chabot on today’s successful IPO.

The Oil of the 21st Century

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The Battle for Your Office: Google vs Microsoft

Google Is Prepping A Sneak Attack On Microsoft Office (via ReadWrite)

I’ve used Google Apps for the majority of my work over the last year and it does provide enough basic features for most users. It excels at sharing and at collaboration for multiple users on the same document eliminating the need to compare and merge docs that have been emailed around a workgroup. However Google Apps and Google Drive are a poor experience on mobile devices, made only slightly better by QuickOffice.

This article makes an interesting point. So far QuickOffice on Android has been ok but not a complete Office replacement. If you blend QuickOffice and Google Apps in a powerful way, that could become a compelling response to Microsoft Office and Skydrive.

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No Southern Hospitality for Tesla?

North Carolina May Ban Tesla Sales To Prevent “Unfair Competition”

Got to love the South. A car gets 99 out of 100 from Consumer Reports, is winning award after award with glowing customer satisfaction reports and you want to keep it out of your state to “protect” competition? If the Federal government bails out GM it’s bad, but if you restrict consumer choice and new business from startups to line the pockets of your local car dealers (aka campaign donors) it’s good?

How is that all that “free trade”, “low regulation” and keeping government out of the car business stuff working out for you?

The hypocrisy of the modern politician continues to amaze me.

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The Art of Data Visualization

a short video on the importance of insuring that information is paramount in the design of data visualizations

“Every single pixel should testify to content”

“We spend most of our time getting design out of the way”

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