[kwlug-disc] AI and social justice

[John Van Ostrand]

On Thu, May 28, 2026 at 4:23 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> wrote:

>
> I think that a fair number of decisions are based on tax issues.  For
> example, share buy-backs vs. dividends.  A number of transactions are
> designed to be "tax efficient".
>

The primary objective of any public company is to deliver profits to the
shareholder. Increasing profits is the primary way, because profits are
always greater than taxes, it's always a net win. After profits the
secondary job is to deal with profits, which can include tax savings
measures, but also (re)investment.

An employee will always take a raise in salary because it's always more
take-home pay. They look for tax breaks at the end of the year. like
contributing to RRSPS in Feb.


> Big tech companies were often structured to make all their profits in
> Ireland, for example.  There has been some cracking down on this.
>

This is a race to the bottom that I don't know how to deal with. One way is
transfer pricing, which is already in place, where a company has to defend
why profits are associated with a country. You can't design,
manufacture, support,
debug, a device in the US  and send all the profits to a file folder in an
Irish lawyer's cabinet.

>
> Formally, that's true.  It looks as if many corporations are run for the
> advantage of top management -- apparently shareholder interest is too
> diffuse.
>

Are you thinking of the Golden Parachute? Boards may not make great
decisions hiring C levels, but one reason for golden parachutes is a CEO
who has a 10 year plan to turn a company around. S/He needs 10 years and s/he
wants to make sure that future boards don't get cold feet and fire them
before it's acheived. So they ask for significant severance if fired early.
Or perhaps you're thinking of the primary investor as CEO, like Musk.
That's a different class of CEO who wields wide power, either over public
perception or other industry greats. I


>
> Big multinationals are hard for a small country to reign-in.  US, EU,
> and PRC seem to be the only nations with sufficient heft.  And the
> monopolist's host country often defends the monopolists from attacks
> by other countries.
>

And when we try, like our Bill C18 forcing social media companies to pay to
use Canadian news media, they can foment public outrage.


>
> The US anti-trust rules were hobbled by a Supreme Court ruling that only
> horizontal integration mattered (clearly false) and earlier rulings say
> that only financial harm to consumers mattered (also clearly false).
>

Right now the US is really messed up.


-- 
John Van Ostrand
At large on sabbatical
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