more on Why European "eVAT" tax is not unfair to U.S. firms

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Peter Bachman <peterb () cequs com>
Organization: Cequs Inc.
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 17:24:23 -0400
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: <[IP]> Why European "eVAT" tax is not unfair to U.S. firms


Dave,

I heard an interesting presentation on this in Amsterdam.

Many major software companies have offices in European cities.

There's no reason why if Europeans purchase over the net that VAT
should not apply, when the same company has an office down the street that
does
in fact particpate in that particular economy, and employs local workers.

Certain parts of the VAT are rebated determined on where they are in the EU
Internal market, so it's
not like American based software firms are at a disadvantage from price per
se.

It does in fact "level the playing field" to stimulate the innovations and
formation of European software firms, rather than us dumping on them.

Consider our movies which consume enormous and outrageous budgets, (owned by
the French or the Japanese before that) part of which is just advertising,
dominating and shutting up our U.S. independents that might be distributing
something interesting in our market, but are faced with competition from
movies that don't even make money domestically, while they count on their
revenue streams from sales abroad, and from later sales on tape and DVD.

It just ramps everything up to where it requires companies merge with other
companies just to be big enough to compete, and then what have you?

Mass media/mediocrity. No one wants to take a risk.

Seriously, look at every shopping mall here in the U.S., notice something?

They are all the same!

Of course some people like that, so I'll not
truly fault that, but give me a break, it's really major sprawl, and we are
creating this totally artificial architecture that is psychologically devoid
of relation to place. Silicon Valley is the epitome of this. Cubes!

The prices look good  but the costs show up in different places, like
energy, traffic, etc. as we super size
our way to massive cardial infarctions.

Go to Florida and visit Europe. Go to Vegas
and you can be anywhere you want. It's more than a tribute, it's something
deeper, like cyberspace
leaking into our real physical space. Not that you can't go to a good Thai
or French restaurant in
NYC, or Cuban in Philly. But when does choice shift to something else?

Of course, if this domination were not enough in enforcing mass taste and
consumption, then they
want to break into your computer to make sure you aren't stealing this IP.

In  oue global culture you can go to a manufactured Irish pub in Dublin,
Kalamazoo, or Paris. Or an Australian outback type steakhouse just about
anywhere. 

We have separated ourselves from real geogrphical places in most difficult
way, in way that begs us to answer what
is authentic, as Baudrillard puts it in his book on Simulation. People crave
authenticity, because
it is now so rare.

And it's been this way for a long time, but now even more so.

What percentage of stuff at Wal Mart is made in China?

If you go for price and not for quality of software, then there will always
be other countries that
can do it cheaper. Don't look for handouts from Europe, if they want to put
in better security,
or some other idea we don't seem to be able to do with mass bucks in a mass
market. When they
decide to put in open source for gov projects there, one hear's the same
whine. Perhaps it's
harder to buy their politicians than it is here.

Folks, think about this systematically. You are in a global economy. Few
companies are really American
anymore, and if they are, bless em. the Europeans have different values than
we do, and make people pay
for them, instead of hiding them in other places. If you don't like it go to
the mall. Otherwise we really will be like Snow Crash. Pizzas and microcode
being the only things we do well.

-pb

Peter Bachman


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