Facebook for under-13s?:
Katherine Stuart writes: Re. “Facebook for under-13s? Who’s kidding whom here?” (yesterday, item 14). Couldn’t agree more with Stilgherrian:
“…that Facebook’s entire business model is about you revealing as much personal information as possible, which they can turn into a product for advertisers. They try to get you to open up your privacy settings using what I consider to be unethical tricks.”
Clearly why the age limit: is this just some form of cynical legal protection? Because who are they kidding? My two stepdaughters aged 9 and 11 respectively listed themselves easily as born in 1994 and (gasp!) 1981 in order to start their own Facebook accounts (not on my watch). My partner and I have toyed with the idea of getting them to delete their accounts. But since all their underage friends and many family members (some with equally spurious birth years) are on Facebook, how could we?
So the advertising they get thrust at them really is a concern — on two counts. Given the age Facebook supposes her to be, I discovered that the 11-year old had been consulting an online clairvoyant or astrologer whose ad she had clicked on, and who, to be fair, must have at least initially thought she was dealing with a 30 year old woman (with a credit card).
Or does Facebook have a second line of attack: the “games” you can play such as It Girl (an online version of the old paper dress-up dolls game — aiming at WHAT age group??), which get them to share their personal details and provide more accurate information about just how old the target really is.
Facebook must surely be aware it’s got underage members and appears happy to use the most basic of dirty tricks — candy — to get its kid members to reveal just how old they really are. We’ve told them never to click on any ads. But how can you tell kids not to play games?
Can Rundle stick to Essex jokes?
Glen Frost writes: Re. “Rundle: the frightening automation of Planet Manchester” (yesterday, item 5). I like Guy Rundle’s jokes on Essex. I don’t think economics is his calling though.
The Economist estimated there is GBP40 billion in uncollected tax per year in the UK. Tax avoidance (and evasion) is not just a UK thing. If Rundle stood at the Belgium or German borders he’d regularly see wealthy industrialists driving their cars for a regular quick trip to Lichtenstein or Monaco. They’re not going for the sunshine if you get my drift.
Part of Europe’s and UK’s problem is, and has been, an inability to collect the taxes. This is exacerbated with service based businesses; therefore UK has a greater problem than Australia. However UK does put some effort into tax collection compared to some of those Mediterranean slackers, Greece, Portugal and Italy. Don’t get me started on the Greeks. Oh, alright then. Sadly for the Greeks, their two most famous industries easily avoid tax. Shipping has an easy way of avoiding taxation; simply float off to Panama. Tourism used to be largely cash, not so much now, but was 100% cash when I went there in the 1980s.
Second, if the UK “factory workers” need manual type jobs because they’ve had a sub standard state education leaving them ill qualified to do anything else, what are they to do? The mines shut in the 1980’s, and now it’s retail’s turn to bleed workers, what next? The UK has the solution; it’s called the Green Tech boom; thousands of worker bees are required to look after wind turbines and all the other tech that will generate the electricity to power the economy.
Rundle should stop reading Marx and start reading The Financial Times.
Rapture:
Michael R. James writes: Re. “Rundle: in the face of blinding hypocrisy, the apocalypse goes on” (Tuesday, item 3). Rapture you can believe in (unless you’re Tony Abbott): Prof. Camping simply got the dates wrong by a matter of weeks. It will be on 1st July when Steve Fielding ascends out of the Senate to some higher place, and Saint Bob takes control. Rapture, indeed.
Labor:
Niall Clugston writes: Re. “Keane: there’s no stopping Karl, competence or not” (yesterday, item 2). For the second time this week Bernard Keane describes Labor as a party “in decline”.
In terms of electoral success, he shouldn’t forget that up till three years ago the highest ranking Liberal was the Brisbane Lord Mayor. Since then, the senility of state Labor governments has coincided with the stumbles of an infantile Labor government in Canberra. And that’s all it is: a coincidence.
If, on the other hand, Keane was talking in terms of principle, he should probably stick to fiction.
Gambling:
Lucy Sussex writes: The Australian government’s dependence on gambling revenue is equivalent to them dealing in heroin. What, make the economy strong from others’ addiction and misery? Gambling destroys lives — and is perhaps the hardest addiction to kick.
“Rapture you can believe in.”
Of course I could have framed it differently: the rightards could say that with the “crazy extremist Greens” in charge, apocalypse is certain to follow. In this scenario it is a rapture that Tony Abbott can believe in.
We’ll see.
Glen
if you bothered to read the article in question properly, you’ll see that i did deal with the tax gap – and made the point that taxes can only be collected when there’s a will t pay them. yeah there’s plenty of german swedish etc tax avoiders – but it simply isnt on the scale of the uk or s.european countries. absent a collective ethic, no enforcement regime can greatly improe collection rates.
as to manufacture of green tech filling the production gap in the west, that is obviously asinine. 50% of the worlds solar panels are made in china. like anything they will be built where-ever it’s cheapest.
‘part from that, spot on…
I would add to Guy Rundle’s comment about UK tax avoidance by noting that it is partly a product of such a large fraction of the wealth coming from the finance “industry” and being so concentrated. Obviously these guys have both the motive and the means of “minimizing” tax via offshore havens like Bermuda, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Luxembourg etc. And the political connections to stop anything truly serious being done about closing these offshore tax havens (note how many of them are ex-British colonies).
Also there is an historic cause in that top tax rates in the 60s and 70s reached such absurd levels (95%) that anyone with any wealth was desperately offshoring either the money or their domiciles. This is what gave us the Stones’ Exile on Main Street (they had to get out of the UK so quickly to avoid tax implications they loaded up the vans and went across the channel!), Rod Stewart’s Atlantic Crossing, Supertramp’s Breakfast in America, etc.
But Maggie T reversed this in the 80s. And so the Scandinavians are not immune to the offshoring phenomenon because in the 80s two of top people on the UK Rich List were the Rausling brothers who were tax exiles from Sweden (and the richest Swedes except for the bloke who owns Wallenberg). They were the inventors of TetraPak cartons.
Australia does not have quite the same phenomenon (except Rupert, see below) because most of our wealth is generated by share ownership of our miners–so it automatically goes overseas with minimal tax paid here. Note the silliness of the BRW Rich List putting Glasenberg of Glencore at number two, when he retains three passports, has hardly ever lived in Australia (20y domiciled in Switzerland) and probably pays not a dollar to the ATO.
About Rupert and UK tax:
[(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch#Tax_avoidance) In 1999, The Economist reported that Newscorp Investments had made £11.4 billion ($20.1 billion) in profits over the previous 11 years but had not paid net corporation tax. It also reported that after an examination of the available accounts, Newscorp could normally have been expected to pay corporate tax of approximately $350 million. The article explained that in practice the corporation’s complex structure, international scope and use of offshore tax havens allowed News Corporation to pay minimal taxes.]