Taxes on overseas profits are easy to avoid, don't bring the profits home to the United States. Only then is it taxable.

Taxes are only a small cost component anyway. Private health insurance spending in the United States is 5.63% of GDP according to the link I’ve provided. That’s a cost that is being borne in the US largely by employers and looks to be a good deal larger cost component than corporate taxes, which are measured as 1.3% of GDP. Healthcare over all is more than 17% of GDP. This is why healthcare reform was so big.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/low_tax.html

Taxes are kinda irrelevant to the health of a company anyway, at least for public companies, because the most important measure of company health isn’t net income, it’s usually a combination of revenue growth/loss and EBITDA. Net only happens after the accountants play all their (hopefully legal) games and therefore is usually not a good measure of corporate worth and health.

The exchange rate is huge factor with the decision to move jobs. The QE1 and 2 plans that pissed off China so much are doing just what was intended, they made imports to the US more expensive and exports cheaper while making investment capital in the US more available. That’s why we are seeing a new trend of companies coming back to the US.

I wonder how much we have hurt Europe, but they have a larger systematic problems with individual countries having control over fiscal policy but not monetary policy. They are fighting the recession with one hand tied behind their backs. Kind of the exact opposite of what a balanced budget amendment would do here in tying our hands on fiscal policy leaving only monetary policy to fight downturns. Southern Europe also has a huge issue with their culture of tax cheating.

So, then, since you are now changing the subject, may I presume you now agree that the Meme regarding tax cuts given to companies for moving overseas is false?

So, then, since you are now changing the subject, may I presume you now agree that the Meme regarding tax cuts given to companies for moving overseas is false?

I won’t say that they don’t exist, but I have never seen any real evidence of them but I haven’t really looked into it. I didn’t really post about tax cuts sending jobs overseas anyway, I just posted about a cost a competitive disadvantage that we have vs much of the world.

The US has a healthcare model where employers bear the brunt of the cost whereas most other counties have some form of nationalized healthcare. I have long thought that two main reasons for single payer healthcare is to constrain costs by setting fees and levels of service and also take the direct cost of healthcare away from employers. It makes the relative cost of our workforce even more expensive. If we were to limit healthcare costs to say the 10-11% range of GDP that most of the wealthiest countries in Europe spend while moving that cost from private business to government it could make our private workforce much more competitive. We spend almost twice as much as any other country on healthcare as a percentage of GDP. If we restrained and reshuffled the cost of healthcare that would allow our advantage in productivity to be a bigger factor in companies locating more work like the work at AA in the United States.

http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/OECD042111.cfm

What do questions 1-7 have to do with AMR?

They have to do with your assertion that others don't "get it", when the real issue is that you have no idea when others "get it" or not because you don't understand economics.

I won’t say that they don’t exist, but I have never seen any real evidence of them but I haven’t really looked into it. I didn’t really post about tax cuts sending jobs overseas anyway


Oh, but you did . . . when you jumped in to support the theory with your false example of subsidized health care being an example of tax breaks given to companies who move overseas.

I should have been more clear, that it was a "cost" break that companies get by moving jobs.

So why when companies in the US shift more of that cost to the employees they are said to be 'evil'?

So why when companies in the US shift more of that cost to the employees they are said to be 'evil'?

Please give a specific example.

I should have been more clear, that it was a "cost" break that companies get by moving jobs.

Yes, you should have been more clear. But now that you've told us that other countries' corporate taxes are higher than America's it would seem that the health care cost break is probably substantially, if not entirely, taken up by the higher taxes.

Yes, you should have been more clear. But now that you've told us that other countries' corporate taxes are higher than America's it would seem that the health care cost break is probably substantially, if not entirely, taken up by the higher taxes.

That is highly likely, but personal taxes are usually higher as well, it’s probably a combination depending on the individual nation. Don’t forget that they also spend about half what we do on healthcare. Much of US healthcare is already nationalized anyway. I would have to look it up, but something like 40% of US healthcare is in Medicaid and Medicare, but these are usually not working people. Healthcare for working American is largely an operating cost to US businesses. Europe usually taxes businesses via a VAT which is not a technical charge to business at all.