|
From a thread on the Althouse blog, discussing Burger King’s proposed merger with a Canadian company that would result in a tax inversion:
Old hotness: Corporations aren't people, so it's silly to think they can be religious! New hotness: Corporations should be patriotic!
0 Comments
From the Washington Post Magazine, August 22, 2014:
“At Appomattox County High School, the staff spent the summer changing its block-letter “A” logo on everything from sticky notes to uniforms after the licensing agency representing the University of Arizona sent the school a cease-and-desist letter claiming potential confusion among consumers. ‘Our lawyer said we should change it rather than litigate it,’ said Chris Dodge, the athletic director.” Is there really a likelihood of confusion between the University of Arizona and Appomattox County High School? Just asking. Via Overlawyered. Despite my enthusiasm for driverless cars, I recognize that their use will involve are trade-offs. One of the concerns is privacy.
This “Valet Mode” monitoring device sounds neato, but when you get to the part of the story that talks about “federal transportation officials…drafting the regulations for cars to start communicating with other vehicles electronically” and “[t]hat will pave the way for 100% monitoring of all vehicle activity,” think about it for a minute. Since most of us don’t have to worry too much about valets abusing our sports cars that go zero to sixty in 3.8 seconds, do we really want a technology that will allow “100% monitoring of all vehicle activity?” One of the bloggers I find most entertaining is the Antiplanner. I don’t always agree with him, but I like the way he writes. And he is, like me, a fan of driverless cars.
In a recent post, he links to a video that makes the argument that driverless vehicles will result in massive unemployment for workers currently in transportation-related occupations. He goes on to analyze make an economic analysis of that proposition. Not surprisingly, he concludes that the proposition is wrong. In the same vein as my recent post about the First Amendment making it unconstitutional to prohibit Nazi marches and Satanist meetings, Professor Volokh points out that the First Amendment also protects the right to display Nazi, or Islamic State, flags.
Actually, the Skokie march case was at least partly about the display of Nazi symbols by the marchers. That’s freedom of speech, folks. Some Satanists are planning a gathering in Oklahoma City. The Archbishop of Oklahoma City reportedly said: “Not all speech is protected if there is hate speech and it is intended to ridicule another religion.”
The Archbishop obviously doesn’t remember the case of National Socialist Party v. Skokie, the result of which was that the town of Skokie, Illinois, could not prohibit a march by the neo-Nazi National Socialist Party. The Constitutional principle was already pretty clear by then, but that case made it unmistakably plain. If a neo-Nazi demonstration is protected under the Constitution, I don’t see how a Satanist gathering cannot be equally protected. I don’t fault the Archbishop for speaking out against evil, but he’s just flat wrong on the law. Via the Volokh Conspiracy blog. APPARENTLY SOME PEOPLE THINK IT ISN’T JUST A FRINGE; “DÉCOR IS NOT A DETERMINANT FOR JURISDICTION”8/8/2014 I mentioned last month a blog post that discussed the yellow fringe that you see on some U. S. flags. That post quoted the Attorney General of the United States as saying that it’s just fringe, it doesn’t mean anything.
I was not aware that there are some people who think fringe on the flag has great significance. They think it means that the courts displaying flags with fringe on them don’t have jurisdiction over ordinary persons. To which a federal judge replied with this eminently quotable line: “décor is not a determinant for jurisdiction.” I noticed this one because it mentions John Kruk. If you have to ask who John Kruk is, you probably haven’t watched major league baseball, or ESPN, since just about when ESPN first appeared.
John Kruk was the most entertaining hitter I have ever seen. Which means that the most unforgivable sin in the lawsuit filed against him on behalf of the sleeping Yankee fan is that whoever wrote it repeatedly spelled Kruk’s name wrong. If you want to read some entertaining commentary focused on the lawyer who filed the lawsuit, read this blog post. Not only do I like that lawyer’s commentary, but I really like his resume. How many lawyers can say they played saxophone with Ray Charles, the Four Tops, and Tom Harrell? It seems as if suddenly, the whole tax inversion thing is getting a lot of attention. The TaxProf has a roundup of news here, while the Instapundit offers a characteristically pithy comment here.
Calling corporate managements unpatriotic and demanding that they take what amounts to a loyalty oath is not, as Instapundit points out, going to solve the problem. What will solve the problem? Fixing the tax code. If you do care, here’s a link to a discussion of what tax inversions are, why (in the author’s opinion) they are bad, and what to do about them, by a guy whose resume makes it sound like he should know what he’s talking about.
I don’t claim to know enough to opine on the ultimate issue of whether tax inversions are good or bad. I do think it’s pretty obvious that the whole discussion is just another example of how tax complexity is causing serious distortion and damage to the economic well being of the country. I have written about tax simplification a number of times, here and here, for example. We can only hope that someday the House and Senate will make it happen. |
AuthorThe contents of this blog, this web site, and any writings by me that are linked here, are all my personal commentary. None of it is intended to be legal advice for your situation. Archives
March 2023
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed