1,352 karma · joined November 1, 2013
The enslaved the people and killed many, when they did not cooperate.
When the VOC is seen as basic example of corporations, it is a real gruesome heritage!
And I don't agree: The tax incentives are also made by the government and the taxes are of course based on the official (forged) numbers. Also when you argue the fuel tax will make it right: No, I don't agree, because the consumers can not decide -- they are also lied at with the wrong numbers!
As others already posted, this scandal is about the NOX numbers, what is a different thing, but I am pretty sure that the CO2 numbers (which correlate with the fuel usage, as much I know) are forged too (see my other posting).
In Germany there are rumors going around, that not alone VW did cheat at those emission tests and not only at those tests. And the rumors are around for a long time now.
It is a well known fact, that in the EU, the emission tests used in the EU are absolute ridiculous (not only the NOX-tests -- all of them). They are totally artificial, so that they have nothing to do with normal car usage. But they are still used. The reason is, that particularly the German government are blocking all initiatives to change them. This does suggest, that they know about the cheating or at least where influenced from the big car industry. The German car industry is very influential in Germany.
Also it is a well known fact, that the gap between the official fuel usage figures and the fuel usage experienced in real world situation is growing and growing for many (maybe most) car brands. I would say, this is the same thing, because those numbers are determined by tests operated by the manufacturers -- and they are also artificial test situations like the emission tests. Officially, the fuel usage of new cars was reduced very much, but some say, that the real numbers have maybe even growing instead.
All this is known for years, if not decades.
Because of the the German government, the EU still takes a blind eye on this.
I do not have an Android phone or a password manager, but I still do not get the point here. The device is locked, so how do I access the password manager?
Today's tanks have to take air attacks into account -- with much better top armor but also better armor at the other sides too.
Your calculation is right, I guess, but still 120mm has just overwhelmingly more hitting power than 30mm rounds.
A-10: 30mm Gatling
M1 Abrams (and other comparable tanks): 120mm (Russland's newest tank has a 140mm gun as much I remember)
That is a huge difference! The only advantage of the Gatling is the high firing rate -- but it is definitively no match for the armor of a modern main battle tank. I also never implied that. When the A-10 was designed, tank armor was less advanced and today the A-10 is mostly fighting against light to medium armored targets. Many countries even in their regular army have still very old tanks in service.
When they activate paste, I guess copy is active to ... (but I don't own such a phone)
But when you do not look at the penetrating power alone, but the blowing effect, than a bigger round can hold more explosives (of course, I don't know, if the A-10 Gatling cannon can also take explosive rounds instead of the armor breaking rounds).
But of course the parallel poster is right: there are several things to penetrate -- particularly when partisans are heavily covered.
If not, humanity as a whole will fail. What will be left of humanity: Some trillionaires hiding behind barb wire finding out, that living without the rest of the people is even worse than having only millions.
Of course, deactivating copy&paste would not be a valid solution for this, but the paste feature also could potentially leak user data to unauthorized persons. The copy feature could by accident reveal the password at places where they do not belong.
Yea. My impression is (too), that the regulations in Germany are much more harmful to smaller companies than to big corporations. As big corporation, you basically can do very, very much, without being penalized much. In Germany, you always can say, that health costs are covered by the public health insurance. So, it is common, that compensations are small fractures of that which is paid in the US or even no compensations are made.
My feeling is, that German judges are much more reluctant to rule against corporations, as long as their fault can not be proven 110% -- for common people on the other hand, 80% prove are enough most of the time (I remember, that not long ago a young girl was convicted for computer fraud, just because Siemens said, that the 4 digit PIN-system for EC cards was 100% secure -- something we soon later found out, was never true!).
They just throw the objectives (made by the management) over the wall to the developers, those have to give an estimation and the managements is free of any further responsibility.
So the developers will in practice exploit themselves. This already was profitable in the automotive industry, where instead of the management, the fellow workers pressured the coworkers. The peer-pressure can be even more pressing than any management mechanics.
This finally of course is the opposite of agile development as it meant to be -- but that is nothing, that anybody in management would care about. The label "agile" is good enough and even most employees don't see how they where betrayed. They think (at least for some time), they where "empowered", but the real empowerment is, that they are now free to enslave themselves for the boss.
One fiscal year can be very short in the IT sector. In some cases, you need halve a year to get to know the complete topic.
According to the link I have given, at least in Germany the situation is now such, that even when you have more than one customer in a year, you can be accused to be "Scheinselbstaendig". The offices just search for evidence that you might be, but not for evidence that you are not. One such evidence for "Scheinselbstaendigkeit" can be for example small investment needs ... something you typically have in the IT sector as freelancer ...
It seems that the new law in preparation shall codify this practice.
But of course, when the situation is better e.g. in the Netherlands, it could be worthwhile to work there. But (since I already thought about that possibility) would it also be possible to do so without moving there and still earn the benefits?
Here a link from a German organization of self-employed people that informs about the current situation and what is planned (it is planned to worsen the situation): (sorry, only in German)
http://www.vgsd.de/kampagne-scheinselbststaendigkeit/
The big corporations, of course, which really use different models to betray the social system and their employed people, they have the lawyers and the tricks to come away with it. And again, they are the reason for this hunt ... because they are searching for ways to cut costs -- the state tries to close the holes that make such things possible -- but currently the only people they hurt, are those that are innocent, because the big corporations are always ahead of the game. And additionally I am not sure, if the politicians are really willing to hurt the real big players, because those have so much power -- so they merely show "actionism" and make laws that are ineffective or even hurt innocent people.
At the end (if by intention or just stupidity), they hurt the country ... but we Germans still vote for those people!
I see that, because at least in Germany (where it is very chic in the political class to talk how to aid smaller businesses and startups ...!) the tax rules are in favor of the big corporations (they have been changed in the last decades, so the corporations got better and better conditions) ... but of course this relieves for the big ones must be compensated somehow -- so the smaller companies have to pay even more taxes.
The current VATMOSS legislation is also a good example: It was announced to be a means to counter the fact that bigger corporations like Amazon avoid VAT by having subsidiaries in Luxembourg. But the biggest problems with the new rulings have now the smaller companies, that never had the chance to open subsidiaries in Luxembourg. For Amazon it is a small drawback and they may have to raise some prices -- but the troubles of other companies are tremendous.
So: The politicians are talking much about smaller companies -- but are only thinking about the bigger ones. And in Germany, many laws are even written by people from the bigger corporations.
>I guess they think typical business is like Google or Amazon or something.
I guess, that is all they want -- and it very likely could be, that this is all they will get, when they are not stopping this. The EU is about to kill inventions in the online business. With this kind of regulations, the EU will become a dessert with the Amazon's and Googles ruling over it.
But I think, many big systems tend to go in this direction: The dinosaur corporations are going to win, because after the day, they can change the rules to their favor and the small businesses are going downhill, because they are to small to be recognized -- but those are those that innovate. And remember: Google and Amazon once also started small, but those where the days, where the focus of the big players where mostly elsewhere.
Gog makes many of such "Good old Games" available again. That is great!
But I wanted to make the point that the new VAT rules in the EU regarding non-physical goods that are sold over the internet (for example downloadable products or also any internet-services) are even more destroying, particularly for very small companies and startups.
So, without a good reason, they just destroy those companies, that are the future and whose counterparts in the US are so successful.
With such stupid regulations, they just kill innovation!
VAT is bad, but the new EU VAT rules are pure insanity.
(btw. did you know, that those rules also apply for US companies that want to sell in Europe? -- just with the difference, that US companies have a big enough market themselves -- something that EU companies don't, because the EU is destroying this market with over-regulation and stupidity)
The US has so much talent, but when such things will continue to manifest, the terrorists already have won!
One current big example are the new VAT rules in the EU for non-physical products. They just do the opposite, what a free market should be. There are already companies that say on their website, that they will sell to their own countries people and happily even to people outside of the EU, but not to people living in other EU countries. The total opposite what the EU once should be. The new VAT rules also should limit the possibilities of big companies like Amazon to circumvent VAT. In reality it become a big stumble block for smaller companies.
The EU is a big market, with many, many rules. To many rules and to few thoughts on the effects particularly for smaller companies. (instead, the big corporations are effectively writing the rules)
When smaller companies do not get the chance to come up (what is happening) than the chances for Unicorns are also greatly limited. Instead the same big players are winning again and again and are doing the same dinosaur stuff again and again.
Once it was said, that patent law was introduced to support small inventors and the disclosure of inventions. Today's implementation of the patent system fails in both respects!
Small inventors are not supported, but hindered by the current patent system. And no essential inventions are disclosed anymore by the patent system. Most patents are about things that are so trivial that the patent disclosure brings no additional knowledge to the world. Even the other patents most often do not hold enough knowledge, that would be a real "disclosure" -- patent lawyers are trained today to "disclose" with out real disclosure. The real information is hidden -- just enough information is given, to block competitors.
As we can see, additionally the patent system is misused by big corporations today more and more to protect their monopolies. Essentially, patent law is used by the big players to damage the interests of consumers. Today we could also speak of a concealed "patent-tax" that all of us are paying when we buy a smart-phone or other high-tech products. With any product, we pay also for patent-fights, for a host of patent-lawyers many companies need today and for the situation, that cheaper products are blocked by patent-holders.
The problem is, that there are to many interests pro-patent. So a real reform will never be undergone by today's politicians.
Education is (or should be) one of the major duties of the state. When this is more and more committed to charity, than we are about to loose one of the main pillars of modern society. Already, education of the masses is getting weaker and weaker in many countries, so that the better of people send their children to private schools ... and that is a growing trend.
But of course, when taxes have to go down and down (this is a political manifesto today in some countries), schools and people will loose.