What gives him the idea that all of the lawyers for all of those companies would even *fit into a single courtroom?* They would need to take it to the local auditorium.

Correct. It would be much easier for a foreign government (lets say the U.S), to pressure ISPs within its borders to prevent access to the website and/or persecute those who host leaked information within their borders. That's not necessarily easy or without political repercussion, however, and would probably draw some negative press coverage. Given the sometimes inexorable spread of information, if the Pirate Party were to become elected within the Swedish Parliament, then it would ensure that most of the information on Wikileaks would be available in some form or another, even if foreign governments succeeded in the aforementioned pressure efforts - as long as they remained elected.

Not necessarily - the argument of "passing on the tax to the consumer" doesn't really hold up in a free market. If a good or manufactured product faces many competitors in the same market, and the prices are competitive, then the company will be more reluctant to raise the price, especially if there is little else differentiating it from its competitors. Companies act individually. They don't always act in concert.

Lets say, for instance, you have companies A, B, and C. All companies perform the same amount of work offshore, which translates into roughly the same amount of cost savings. Lets say that we now tax all three companies along the same lines of the first scenario which you have described above. Company A is the first to "pass" its tax to the consumer, and is quickly followed suit by Company B, which also "passes" its tax to the consumer, but only passes about half of the tax.

Company C is now in an interesting position. Assuming the goods of all three companies are the same, Company C now has the cheapest product on the market. It may be making less net profit per item sold, but there is a good chance that the sales for its product will increase, because it is now the cheapest alternative. It can now choose to hold its price instead of "passing the tax" to make the difference on the loss in profit from the tax, banking on higher sales because the competition has increased the price of their products.

Disregarding the companies themselves, as far as the government is concerned, it is probably more interested in getting citizens off unemployment and collecting off their income taxes than making money from corporate taxes incurred from offshoring, so analyzing how much the government would benefit from tax revenue pursues the wrong path of inquiry. The national and state governments make far more money off of income tax.

Lastly, a tax such as this would serve as a deterrent for future offshoring, which is a real concern. If a company notices that after construction, moving, and re-organizational costs, that it will also be subject to a tax that may easily be raised, then it will think more carefully about offshoring. We have lost a great many jobs, but we absolutely cannot afford to shed them in similar numbers in the future. Not all of it was due to offshoring, but a lot of the jobs that we have lost that will be difficult to replace were. Preventing that from happening again is a good idea.

For the ethical investor, there are two possible responses to this problem. One is divestment from all ethically challenging situations.

OK, I'll have to pull my money out of all investments because I can find an ethical problem with everything. That doesn't server me. Selfish? Tell me that when I'm older and on government aid - your tax money - because I don't have a pot to piss in.

Let's just cut to the quick here, RE: your comment title. She isn't referring to the "little people", or individual investors. By "ethical investor", she is referring to people who have control over millions of dollars of investment money - people who work in the financial sector who may not necessarily be millionaires themselves - a.k.a institutional investors, or the people who run the mutual funds which fund your retirement.

I agree that here, she uses the term "ethically challenging" in a broad way, but given the context of her testimony, I think that it's very clear that she is referring to investments which may undermine free speech, and our belief in it. There are many, many lucrative investments which do not do either.

The other is engagement and advocacy, using financial leverage to work for positive change in industry practices and even government regulation.

Nobody will listen to a nobody with only a few thousand dollars in their mutual funds. They won't even listen to someone with a few million invested. Giant multi-billion dollar multi-national corporations really don't have to listen to anyone.

That's not what she means by 'leverage'. By leverage, she means financial laws which provide incentives or deterrents for people engaging in 'free speech' and 'censored' investments, respectively.

How much business is Google really losing? China is a Third World country. Most of their population is a bunch of farmers living in poverty. Advertising to most of them is pointless. And the Chinese in the big cities? How much is that business worth. And in the process of this "protest" they're getting quite a bit of good PR.

Whoa there buddy. China isn't quite a Third World country. Parts of it may resemble one, but they've got a full fledged middle class and everything now, a pretty hefty GDP, and a few cities that are more modern than any in the United States.

In addition, lots of those 'farmers living in poverty' that you refer to are picking up shovels or pick-axes and are headed to the big city, getting jobs in construction, demolition, or in factories. There is a full-scale urban migration going on, and although some people are purposefully holding on to their rural lifestyles, few farmers in China are ignorant of the massive amount of change that is being effected in their country by foriegn investment. A friend of mine, who has spent extensive time in China, says that there are two common expressions in China: "xian dai hua" and "luo huo". The first means "Modern", and the second "Lagging behind." These statements are spoken not only in the streets of Shenzhen, but also the in the farms of Western China. Lots of farmers want to be a part of the "xian dai hua" world, and advertising to them is not pointless at all; especially in this type of transition period, where a positive mark can have an impact that will last for generations.

Finally, she has a real point in suggesting that we are too easily compromising our own ethics by bowing to the wishes of the Chinese government, when in reality, dollars coming from (mostly) Western foreign investments - from cultures that support and recognize the value of free speech - are the ones empowering said Chinese government. We should take a slight step back, because if the way in which we spend our dollars can somehow effect a better life for the Chinese citizen and net us profit along the way, we should absolutely do so.