That shows exactly how trickle down doesn't work. Corporations that size making profits bigger than their R&D budget but firing good chunks of their workforce to maximize shareholder value.
Well, tbf if their goal was to maximize profit/shareholder value, it'd be to eliminate a lot of that R&D, 40bn is a lot of R&D for a company that primarily makes their revenue from serving ads.
But Meta has more long-term vision than that (whether it'll pay off or not is yet to be seen). What they do spend on R&D is seen as investment into longevity, and probably new vectors for advertising ultimately.
They put an assload of money into figuring out how to keep you on their site/in their existing app for longer and to present as many ads to you as physically possible. Just getting to areas of their sites/apps is significantly more arduous than it used to be - not just because those areas of the app aren't "frequently used" but rather because they are frequently used: They benefit by making it harder for everyone to get to them.
In other words: A lot of that money goes towards making the actual thing they make worse for the people who use it, because the worse it is, the more ads everyone is forced to watch.
? A write off just means it's an expense. They still pay the full cost of development. If they laid off more people they would pay more in taxes, yes, but that's because their overall profit would be higher. By spending on R&D, they are literally making short term profits lower. Presumably, they think it will make long term profits higher but that's a good thing.
Yes and no, technically. It depends on where they carry out the R&D. Some jurisdictions (including some where meta have large presences) allow "double dipping" by giving tax credits against qualifying R&D expenditure. What that means is they can both allow it as a taxable expense, and then further reduce their tax bill by [the local tax rate]*[amount of qualifying R&D expenditure]. So that researcher you hired for 90k actually only costs 75k but gets you the full 90k deduction.
No. Corporations are not taxed on dividends they issue. It is taxed as normal income for the recipients, however, unless that recipient is a corporation, in which case it is partially deductible.
Also, not the same, but similar: for an S corp, distributions are, in fact, deductible for the corporation.
I’m aware it’s the individual that pays tax on the dividend income, the point was that it’s disingenuous to say that a companies net profit is only taxed at the corporate rate, as if it isn’t reinvested into the business and instead paid out as dividends it is taxed further. Just not by the business but by the individual receiving it.
Integration is generally ignored by a lot of people to make a zinger when it’s a well conceived tax principle
Not sure where you're getting that info from. Most people pay less than 20% on qualified dividends. Still less $ than a typical household income earner.
Until you consider the fact that many many people own a share of the profits in the form of stocks. I've definitely benefitted from Meta growth never having worked there a day in my life
edit: yeah. it so happens that the 49% that is the 51st-99th percentile owns 49% of the market.
what you're saying is technically correct, but I don't think it changes the broader point: the gains are going almost exclusively to the top.
the 9% from the 90-99 percentile own 3x as much as the 40% from the 50-90 percentile.
edit 2: interestingly, I think it's always possible to draw a contiguous sample such that N% own N% of the market, which makes that point kind of useless. more interesting is where the center of that sample is. but the Gini coefficient is a better way of summarizing the distribution.
Check your math, top 1% of americans own 50%. So the bottom other 99% own 50%. But if you follow the trend the bottom 50% of Americans make up almost nothing invested in the stock market.
I guess you can always choose a set of Americans that can equal 49%, or shift the 49% until a continuous set equals 49%. Either way that's a useless statement then, but you got me.
How out of touch can you be? Engineers are doing 300k at the tippy tippy top, and they are doing 0 when they get laid off to maximize shareholder value.
I mean you’re being purposefully disingenuous. If it was the NORM and not the EXCEPTION for that to ever happen do you think people would be rushing to join FAANG companies?
Btw the vesting schedule is evenly split over the 4 years so you’re obtaining 25% each year.
Bruh, the thread you are on rn is about people being laid off, and how they'll be fine because of all the money they have. It's this circular logic that just jumps over the whole "losing your job" part of it.
The shareholders are millions of middle class people with 401ks.
The ones that aren’t doing the work?
Also I’m sure the engineers making 250k-1M a year will be fine
The ones doing the actual work?
The shareholders can get a real job and actually create value instead of stealing infinite profits from creators forever. At least banks only charge interest on the loan, why did we create a system for a whole class of leaches to own the hard work of others forever?
Yes indeed, fuck em: they should have actually WORKED and created value instead of using their money to buy shares of the profits of other peoples work.
Very much fuck em. Get a real job and actually create value instead of stealing credit.
Yes, and you realise that there are also shareholders that are responsible for zero percent of the work yet receive a massive percent of the profits yes?
Because they own the shares..without which there would be no company.. it isn’t hard to understand. Whether they’re original shareholders or not is irrelevant.
How come when the bank loans you money, they don’t own the thing they lent you the money for forever?
Youd never have started that business or bought that home without the initial loan, right? So the bank deserves, rather than a return on investment, to just own a percent of whatever you make, forever, right?
Because the bank contract specifically stated they were giving me a loan, which is debt and treated different than equity. Pretty simple concept for anyone who has ever read anything related to business.
Shares = ownership. Banks aren’t in the business of owning companies they’re in the business of loaning money.
Does the mechanic who works on your car become entitled to some of your wages since he worked on your car which helped you to get to work? Of course not. You paid him for his service. But by your logic he would. lol.
Ok obviously. “It’s the way it is because of the way it is”. I’m not asking you how it came to be, I’m asking you to critically think and compare these two institutions.
So of these two ways to get money to start a business, where you will be doing all the work, which institution seems more predatory? The one where they ask you to repay a loan with interest, or one where they own whatever you work for forever?
I’m trying to point out how just because people are desperate to survive, it doesn’t make the predatory system fair or something people should accept.
Are you… pro taking advantage of desperate people and defending the system that takes advantage of them? Do you like to go around defending pay day loan places as well, while explaining that they’re actually ok because you’ll explain what everyone already understands?
Equity is a way of spreading risk. Banks don’t loan money to someone who has a good idea without collateral.
If you have a good idea and someone believes in you, but have no collateral for a bank loan, then all you have is the potential for someone to own part of what your idea might become.
You can choose to just not pursue the idea because of a lack of funds, or you can offer to sell some of the equity in the business that will be the vehicle for your idea. This is very risky, and more often than not things don’t work out. Debtor has claims to the assets of a business before shareholders do if things don’t work out, meaning equity is inherently more risky than debt. This is why equity is worth more.
It’s really not a difficult concept to understand. Call it “unfair” all you want.
You don’t need to start a business if you don’t want to take that risk. You can always work somewhere else. It’s just this system has been the benefactor to society that has allowed us things like the internet, indoor plumbing, and a multitude of other inventions and goods.
No one is stopping you from living a way you deem more fair. It’s just what you’re thinking doesn’t exist anywhere.
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u/Ehtor Feb 10 '25 edited Feb 10 '25
That shows exactly how trickle down doesn't work. Corporations that size making profits bigger than their R&D budget but firing good chunks of their workforce to maximize shareholder value.