While the metric has some validity, it's only part of a complex picture.

Consider, for example, that USA consumes rather a lot of goods that cause pollution when being made in China. Depending on the specific issue/point you are trying to consider, you may have to attribute to the USA some pollution generated in producing those goods. The amount to be attributed would be the standard (i.e. normal) amount of pollution generated from such production, while China should take the credit or blame for being more or less efficient than the standard.

After all, it seems rather unfair to start complaining to China about all the pollution the USA is exporting there?

Of course there are other issues where the above approach isn't appropriate.

Also, I'm not quite sure what to make of the "carbon dioxide from energy use only" caveat, leaves me rather sceptical that the figures are fudged. I'm prone to giving the OECD some credit though so more suspicious that figures generated for some specific purpose are being shoe-horned into something else that they were never intended to be relevant for.

If a company floats and the share price at the end of the day remains at about the launch price, it's successful.

If they'd charged less (resulting in large gains on the day) then the company would not have raised the funds it should have and existing shareholders would not have received a fair price for their holdings. A bunch of speculators making huge returns on day one is *not* a successful IPO.

If they had charged more (resulting in falls on the day) then they may have had problems shifting stock, possible discounting (causes problems) and be stuck with shareholders already annoyed about having lost money.

They nailed it.

Ironically perhaps, in relatively-socialist (relatively) Europe the EU has to approve any significant "state aid"

The primary reasoning given is it distorts competition between companies (thus ultimately harming the consumer), but also recognised in the criteria - and what most often causes us to hear about it - is distorting competition between member states.

If a company relocates from A to B just because state aid is offered, there's a clear implication that the combined benefit gained by country B + company is less than the loss to country A. The company has to be compensated for losing some kind of natural advantage present in country A, so it must be inefficient.

That's not to say state aid is necessarily bad. If it was a new company that wouldn't otherwise exist, it's actually pretty easy to make a good case for state funding. Maybe harder in US with the lower taxes, but here in UK, say 75% of the loan was going onto payroll for new jobs, well ~25% of that rolls straight back to the government in payroll taxes so they make ~19% hidden return right off the bat. More than half the money left in employees pockets will be spent on goods attracting VAT at 20% so there's another hidden return of ~6%. Oh and they avoided paying unemployment and some benefits, lets assume that would have cost them around 10% of the company's payroll so further hidden return of ~7%. Before you even start thinking about the jobs for suppliers the government gets back something like a third of their money just through taxes. If two other state-aid projects merely make enough other money to repay the loans and nothing more, a third project can completely fail and still government breaks even. If a project not only repays it's loans but keeps going for several years, the return can be astronomical - total payroll taxes make corporation tax receipts (even when completely fair, fully paid with no dodging) look like chump change.

But of course, if it's a relocation, all those returns being generated by the new state are being lost by the old state - they're merely displaced. Also, if these "new" jobs result in a different company being unable to compete and go under, again the apparent gains are merely displacement.

This is BEFORE we start thinking about whether it's fair that companies receive taxpayers' money, or whether it's fair that one company receives this advantage whilst another does not.

No... The probability of death may be roughly one in one, but that's because such wording provides a context whereby there is no time constraint unless one is stated.

"Risk of death" on the other hand implies a context where time is not a constraint but a factor. Lower risk implies it is less likely to happen sooner.

Maybe that's just my professional background that leads me to think of the distinction, rather than a general truth, though it's also standard in personal health analysis and reporting so the context would be implied here anyway.

I'm curious, if you're outsourcing development what is it that the business actually does?

I mean fundamentally. What is it your company offers your market? What value does it add, if someone else is doing the work? Why wouldn't customers cut out you, the middleman? How does it control everything that matters - supply lines, production, IP, quality, direction, and so on?

An organisation is just that - an organisation. It doesn't fundamentally matter what's in-house and what's out, as long as it's organised i.e. controlled. However, it is dramatically more difficult when it's outsourced.

Consider say Apple. It outsources production but retains everything else internally. What it has outsourced can be very heavily controlled because it's all extremely highly specified and those specifications are of a nature well suited to contracts.

Buying listed shares isn't about fast growth for the majority of investors (which are institutional investors such as pensions and insurance).

Investing into listed shares is about the portfolio, not individual shareholdings. The objective for the portfolio is the specified combination of risk & return. People tend to say it's about maximising return for a given level of risk, but that's not really true because what they tend to actually be looking for is, say, coming out 10 years later with something approximating an 8% annual return - which is a lot more like minimising risk for a given level of return.

What a large part of it turns into, it isn't about the risk & reward associated with a specific shareholding. It's about what happens when you combine it into the entire portfolio. Exposure in a specific sector, and then betas. FB has some attraction even if it's just to hedge against your big Google holding.

If you're looking to sink a significant chunk into few companies for a big return, main markets generally aren't the way to go. You're going against players with vast amounts of money and resources. Consider instead looking at alternative investment markets where fledgling companies first go for some public cash. Much higher risk but also much more reward, and it helps that there's fewer other buyers - partly because the really big boys, the pensions etc, are often forbidden from investing.

The only thing surprising about these numbers is he's proved what I'll describe as a decent offer to it's target market.

It's right to note the savings that can be made if you buy in cash from Amazon, but he is wrong to use it for the direct comparison and the fact that there is a price difference between Amazon and retail proves it. There is a reason some people are willing to pay more to buy from a physical store, maybe it's comfort with the warranty, maybe they don't like the mail man, but I doubt there's anybody in the US who is not familiar with Amazon yet still some people pay more to buy retail, ergo there is value there.

Using his figures, the pay-now price is $419.97 so with $99 deposit it's a loan of $320.97 repaid over 2 years so the APR is 11.25%*. I wouldn't go for that but then I'm not the target market for this deal. Compare to alternative finance options available so easily and for such small amounts, that's a decent rate. A comparison-site lookup shows a really good credit card rate being 12.9% (UK here, YMMV), unless you have a stellar credit rating. Even then, the more realistic comparison given the nature of this is to store credit, where you start talking about 29.9% being a good rate (oh boy does it get worse).

The termination fees aren't punitive either, at a quick glance they appear to effect a full repayment of the principal and interest to-date. This equates with the most favourable of the other finance options, generally it's either that or also pay the interest due for the remainder of the period plus an "administration" fee.

That's not to suggest I encourage taking credit for non-essentials, but the salient point is that this deal appears to be at least as good as the alternatives for those who are going to do something similar anyway.

* Strictly-speaking it's probably slightly higher since the second-year Gold subscription would be purchased a year after initial purchase, so that part is only a one-year loan.

You highlight my point. Tax is charged on profit, not sales.

The same applies to you. You might not notice it since employers generally pay all an employee's business expenses. However if you were required to (say) purchase a laptop for work use out of your own funds, that'd be a tax deduction.

If parents want to restrict access to pornography, well that's their choice and I'm not going to argue against own-choice even if I'm tempted to suggest it may be misguided.

So I'd support an opt-in model, albeit wary about the implementation - specifically control and monitoring over what is blocked - but in principle, sure. If parents are the ones wanting something, they can tick the box when signing up or accessing the account. A solution made available for anyone with the problem.

So why an opt-out model? Are they insinuating that parents who want to block pornography are too stupid or lazy to tick the box?

Nope. Parents may be on side for this but mostly the opt in vs. out isn't important to them. The reason the opt-out is being pushed is because the "Christian" Tories' problem is about other people accessing pornography.

As an accountant, it's clear to me that people generally, but especially technology websites, do not understand any tax system. In the case of the latter I'm fairly sure it's wilful ignorance since there's a habit of neatly avoiding very obvious things that require mere common-sense to trigger realisation that they're spouting bullshit.

It's equivalent to those media articles on hacking, with the picture of some hooded terrorist stealingz your megahurtz. There is activity to be concerned about, but anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge -- or simply combining common-sense and critical thought -- can just glance at it and find themselves shaking their head as they hold it in their hands, unable and frankly unwilling to decide on which is worse: that the media is so intentionally misleading or genuinely so incompetent.