Comment Reparations for IE (Score 1) 285
It's about time someone charged Microsoft for all the wasted time and resources spent fixing websites for Internet Explorer!
It's about time someone charged Microsoft for all the wasted time and resources spent fixing websites for Internet Explorer!
The article said each instance had 7GB of memory and 8 cores. That would translate to the High-CPU Extra Large Instance Type:
High-CPU Extra Large Instance 7 GB of memory, 20 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each), 1690 GB of local instance storage, 64-bit platform
Source: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
That instance type will run you $0.68/hour standard or $0.24/hour spot. (US-East Pricing) (Spot pricing allows you to take advantage of unused EC2 instances at a discount. Also worth noting is that spot pricing changes over time.)
30,000 cores equates to 3,750 instances across different regions. Here is the breakdown on hourly pricing for standard and spot. (Reality is it was probably a mixture of both and the pricing for different regions varies).
Standard US-East: $2,550/hour
Spot US-East: $900/hour
The exact mix of machines in each region wasn't specified but $1,279/hour sounds about right if there is a mix of standard vs spot across different regions.
Not only that, but whatever you owed was a FRACTION of your quarterly (yearly) income! So let's say you made $10,000 (gross) that quarter. At the end of it, after you paid for rent, food, utilities, HEALTH CARE, and other odds and ends, you're left with $4,000 (net = gross - 'costs'. I'm assuming going to the movies isn't included in costs). Uncle Sam then says "hey, I want 30% of the $4,000." You pay Sam $1,200 and go on with your life.
I'm sorry, but how else would it work? If you tax a corporation at 30% of gross you have many companies that won't exist. That's because many of them don't have a margin that high. In fact, the average corporate profit margin since 1947 is 6.05% (http://seekingalpha.com/article/252544-corporate-profit-margins-likely-to-fall-here-s-why). If you are eager to tax on gross, a gross tax of 3% means a 50% profit tax across the board.
The other wrinkle, is what happens if your company loses money. If you tax on gross, then you have to pay taxes after you lost money! Talk to any startup in Silicon Valley about whether or not that is sustainable. Imagine being a small business owner and losing $100,000 for the year. You are probably deep in debt already and now Uncle Sam comes calling and asks for $30,000. Talk about kicking someone when their down. The problem is only exacerbated if you are in an industry, media buying for instance, in which you have huge gross revenues but minuscule profit percentages.
The only realistic and fair way to tax corporations is based on net profit.
Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money. -- Arthur Miller
