[B5JMS] attn. JMS: On Length of Copyright

[b5jms at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: kurtullman at yahoo.com (Kurt Ullman)
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 2003 13:09:26 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 47

In article <20030704182659.08895.00000100 at mb-m20.aol.com>, jmsatb5 at aol.com 
(Jms at B5) wrote:

>Republicans dismissed it out of hand, not one person went for it.  Kind of
>tells you where their proirities are, doesn't it?  This ain't about helping
>poor farmers keep their farms.  And whenever they've used that line, btw, it's
>been shown afterward that not one farmer could be produced who lost his farm
>due to estate taxes.)  

   Yep. Shows they don't think anybody should have to pay not just the few 
that the Dems feel are unwashed enough. Go figger. 
        My favorite hypocrite on this remains Warren Buffett who said 
zillionaires should not have to pay estate taxes. Of course, what he failed to 
mention is that he has said for years that the kids are not going to get much 
when he dies and that the vast majority of his money goes to into a 
foundation, tax free of course. Oh BTW: he also forgot to mention that the 
Foundation will hold controlling interest in Berkshire and that the Foundation 
will most likely pay the kids a stipend for running it? 
     
>
>Corporations earning billions of dollars incorporate overseas and pay zero
>taxes...you and the rest of society are picking up the check on that one. 
  Of course you are anyway since corp are legal entities and any taxes they 
pay don't just spring up from nowhere. They are taken from us in higher 
prices, from the shareholder's equity (and with very few exceptions the vast 
majority of the stock is held outside of the Inherently Evil board of 
directors) or wages. 
    If you want to tax them for extra rev., go ahead and do it. Don't try to 
sell it like you are stopping the robber barons because all you are doing is 
taking money from one of these three pots. 

>One sidelight to this thing...most writers working at a certain level these
>days incorporate, and all their works are owned/copyrighted by the corporation,
>not the individual.  So all Harlan's works are (c) the Kiliminjaro Corporation,
>and mine are (c) Synthetic Worlds, Ltd.  Which means that the works are
>copyrighted for *the life of the corporation*, not my life.  
>
   Away from politics.. Is this life of corp plus a certain amount or just a 
certain amount of time?. Not being terribly concerned about corp. copyright, I 
was under the impression that corp. copyright was time specific and for some 
reason 100 years stuck in my mind. 

---------------------
	Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
would scarcely get your feet wet.
                     -Deteriorata, Nat'l Lampoon


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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 09:16:37 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 44

>>Corporations earning billions of dollars incorporate overseas and pay zero
>>taxes...you and the rest of society are picking up the check on that one. 
>  Of course you are anyway since corp are legal entities and any taxes they 
>pay don't just spring up from nowhere. They are taken from us in higher 
>prices, from the shareholder's equity (and with very few exceptions the vast 
>majority of the stock is held outside of the Inherently Evil board of 
>directors) or wages. 
>    If you want to tax them for extra rev., go ahead and do it. Don't try to 
>sell it like you are stopping the robber barons because all you are doing is 
>taking money from one of these three pots. 

First, what you have to understand is that what doesn't get paid in taxes ends
up in huge dividends to members of the BoD and to the CEO...millions of dollars
in bonuses that might otherwise have been paid in taxes.

Second, you have to look at the long term trend in taxation of the last fifty
years.  At one point, about fifty years ago, corporations made up about 70% of
the tax burden, while individual taxpayers, consumers, made up about 30%.  Over
the decades, that has shifted until it's nearly inverted...with corporations
paying about 30% of the overall tax burden, and consumers paying the remaining
70%.  Specifically because the corporations have received so much in tax
breaks, corporate welfare, and other writeoffs that billions of dollars simply
go untaxed.

You're right, if it doesn't come out of one pot, it comes out of the
other...only in this case, that pot is your wallet.

As for higher prices...there's a limit which people will generally accept for
some items, and in truth, you're getting gigged for higher prices anyway.  When
Michael Eisner took over Disney, he raised the ticket price at Disneyland so
that it brought in millions more that year in revenue.  And as it turns out,
his bonus that year...was exactly equal to what had come in through the jacked
up ticket prices.

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2003 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
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