Just to further explain this, since most people tend to laugh at this pet peeve of mine:
 
I may be biased, but honestly, how would you like it if I sat directly behind you at a movie, and snapped my fingers or clapped my hands every few seconds during the entire film? Popcorn makes more noise than finger snapping, and nearly as much as hand clapping (of course depending on the eater). Sure, most people are able to ignore it since it's acceptable in our society, but in my opinion that doesn't justify it. Movie theaters are set up to give the highest quality of sound and image. Why is it acceptable to drown out the sound with your eating? Why is chomping on popcorn acceptable while snapping my fingers is not?
 
(And don't even get me started on this fad of gum snapping. That drives me crazy. And people don't even realize they're doing it (movie theatres, testing centers, classrooms, work--and it's *louder* than hand clapping)).

The *only* reason that I hate movie theatres is that there are always dozens of people around me who do not know how to eat quietly. Close your mouth before you start chewing (that includes the first chomp). Learn how to grab popcorn without ruffling your hand around for 2 minutes (better yet, lose the popcorn all together! Let's find a quieter food to associate with movies!)

Do you think Google doesn't know that? How can you read the summary and think that that's Google's official reason for closing the thread? That was commentary in the slashdot summary. The point was not to silence the dissent, but to say "we made a decision. And it's final, so don't try to convince us to change our minds." Have you ever looked in the Chrome options/preferences menus? They are so simple. The decision was probably made to keep them simple. Having another option would also add bloat to a very streamlined browser.

I'm sure apple is just the first to do this,
 
RDF. Apple is not the first, nor even close to it. Did Apple also invent the cell phone in your world?

Just repeatedly asserting that corporations pay taxes on money they use (to raise the value of their stock price) has been repeatedly pointed out as wrong
 
Hahaha. You realize you're wrong, so you have a fit and say you're leaving. You just changed your argument entirely. Money reinvested is not the same as money used. In your previous post you tried to claim that companies like Apple, that do not give dividends, do not pay income tax, which is clear proof that *you* have no idea how corporate income tax works. Do you know *why* money *used* (we'll go with your changed argument now) raises the value of a company? It's because companies use money to make more money! If a company decided to invest a billion dollars in something that investors saw no value in, it would *not* raise the stock price!

I knew I shouldn't have kept reading...
 
  You can perhaps sit there and argue with a straight face that taxing me because I sell stock to you is somehow taxing the corporations that the stock is in. The corporation, and other sane people, will disagree, as they appear to have the same money at the start and end and don't even know I sold the stock, but perhaps you can argue that this 'second tax' happens. But it's kinda moot when the first tax only happened in your imagination.
 
I never said anything like this. It is taxing the individual. Both the first and second tax happened, and especially in this case, since this is where you believe is the only place the first tax happens.
 
  All this because you thought objecting to someone explaining dividends was clever. (When, in reality, an argument can be made that dividends are double-taxed, which is what the non-stupid people in this argument assumed you were talking about before you started insisting this had nothing to do with dividends.)
 
Yes, dividends are also double-taxed. There is a reason capital gains and dividends taxes are so similar--it's because they are so closely tied to the profit of the corporation. The increase in value you get from a dividend is equal to the increase in value you can get with capital gains. Look at the entire life of a company. People invest in the IPO. They are able to sell their shares at some point because that company has a value, and will one day either give a dividend, or be sold. Think about it. Imagine a world where companies do not give dividends, and are never sold. There would be no possible incentive to buy stock. There is no other reason for someone to buy stocks. This is *all* *directly* valued by current and expected future profits.

I read the first two paragraphs and stopped, because you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Go look at Apple's P&L. Look at how much they pay in corporate income taxes. When is the last time they gave out a dividend? *All* of their money has been "reinvested" since 1995.

But this is nonsense. Money that is 'in' your company is the assets the company holds. Money that is 'in' your stock is simply how much people are willing to purchase it from you for. The later value might be based on the former, but that doesn't make it the same money.
 
It being the same money has *nothing* to do with your gain. Your gain came when the company made a profit, or because people believe it will make a profit. You are only taxed when you "cash out" for simplicity's sake. The change your are given at the grocery store is not considered to have exchanged hands, even though it's "different money."

Educate yourself. Try google. You will apparently not listen to anything I say. Someone smarter than both of us wrote this: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/CapitalGainsTaxes.html . Ctrl + f "double taxation."

The transformers example is even dumber than the pizza example. The money changed hands multiple times.

DavidTC: missed your comment. I appreciate the mature name calling. We have been talking about capital gains, which are taxed almost identically to dividends, since they amount to the same benefit to shareholders. Money that does not get paid as dividends, that is "reinvested in the company" is money that (since we are talking about this money in this way in the first place) originated as corporate profit. The fact that it's reinvested isn't the reason that it's profit, but the fact that it was considered to be paid as a dividend means that it WAS corporate profit (at least in financially sound corporations). Keeping it in the company means it now has extra money to use.
 
  you pay taxes on a transaction with a completely unrelated third party
 
Wrong. You are paying taxes on the money you earned, which was not from the sale of your shares, but on their increased value. I used this example earlier: When you catch a home run baseball... let's say Barry Bonds' 800th home run... you just gained a lot of wealth, and you are expected to pay taxes on that wealth, whether or not you sell the ball. We are taxed when we sell stocks for simplicity's sake (who knows if this stock will go down in value next year), but this does NOT mean we are paying taxes on the transaction. We are paying taxes on the increased value of our stock.
 
khasim: Again, you are wrong. For an example of how wrong you are, look at LinkedIn's IPO. The people who invest in LinkedIn based their valuation of the company *entirely* on what they believe the company will make in profits. Read my previous example about the baseball. You are taxed on what someone estimates that ball will sell for.

No, dividends to not lower the stock price by the exact amount of the dividend,
 
Yes, they do! Have you ever owned stock?

gstrickler: Do you like baseball? When someone catches a big milestone home run ball, and decide to keep it, a value is assigned to that ball (based on an EXPECTED sale price), and that individual is then expected to pay taxes on that value. So naturally many of these people choose to sell the baseballs. The value was not gained when he sold the ball, but rather when he caught it. It's the same for capital gains. The value is not gained when you sell your shares, but rather when their expected worth goes up.

Wow. Again... Wow.
 
  stock sales the whole time (which have NOTHING to do with corporate profits as you would know if you understood this)
 
Do you mean that stock sales do not go into the corporate pool of money? After an IPO, you are correct. If you meant the other way around (I sincerely hope not), corporate profits have *everything* to do with stock price.
 
And what did you think we were talking about? Stock prices, dividends, capital gains, they are all related! (ever wonder why the capital gains tax and dividend tax brackets are so similar? Hint: it's because while they are different types of transactions, their values come from the same place--corporate income. Dividends come directly from that pool of money. Stock prices are valued according to that pool of money, and the future of that pool of money). Stock prices go down by exactly the amount of a dividend. Did you know that? Funny how they can be so closely correlated.

There's nothing there about dividends, except that they can choose to issue dividends instead of keeping *their* money invested in the company. If you get the owners of 51% of the stock to ask for a dividend, guess what you'll probably get (assuming the board members want to keep their seats!). If you want one, but no one else does, you'll have no problem selling some of your shares (your company just made a profit, people want in!). The point I'm making is that even if you want a dividend while the (shareholder-elected) board doesn't, you can still choose to get effectively the same thing.