Why £130 million is still not enough
The online giants in our lives, the ones we go to for the questions that are ‘going to bug me’, for the school supplies that ‘we didn’t need for this week did we?’ to update ourselves on the social lives of those surrounding us, usually seem like a benign, even reassuring presence. Like huge global older siblings who can be relied on for what you need as long as you ask nicely. However their recent exposure in the news has painted them in a more opaque, cold and threatening light.
The recent pay-out by Google in lieu of making good on their negligence to pay tax for… a number of years that most of us have lost count of, has been swiftly shown up as rather a pathetic gesture. An insult in fact, some might say, considering the independent estimations which have determined the £130 million sum at about 3% of what they legally owe. We may all rely upon Google, but I don’t think that makes it acceptable for them to rake in the profits whilst not feeding their due back into the British economy, especially in a climate of high unemployment, with fear of the NHS failing, starting up independent businesses becoming a matter of financial suicide and taxes upon the everyday man and woman ever threatening to ascend because our economy is struggling to support us.
Starbucks, a similarly tax-dodging mega- company is, too, enjoying the more lenient rules that seem to be applicable to such big international names compared to the strict tax demands which are held over the heads of smaller businesses and newer companies in Britain who struggle to widen their profit margin, or to make one at all, due to the flawed tax system of their own country; a system which it seems, instead of supporting and nourishing such British businesses which promise, one must assume, to up the GDP, would rather favour the multi-national giants who purely and simply do not.
In other news, our friends over at Apple have recently revealed their failure to increase profit from last year, giving rise to predictions that this may be the end of the company. This, a company which has been valued at over seven hundred billion dollars. A sum of money so huge it’s hard to have perspective on it, but if I may attempt to provide some, that’s more than the gross national product of Switzerland, the value of twenty national football leagues, cost of Four Apollo space programs, and interestingly, the worth of Google and Microsoft put together. In response to this apparent drop off in the company’s success, one consumer perspective voiced the view that ‘they can’t rely on their status anymore; they might have to make good products’. Now, this is a key part of the discussion on the real nature and rightful position of, as one might label them, the ‘online giants’. Is it really a matter of status? Ponder. You see the Apple logo and you know what it means, stands for (supposedly) and if we are to believe the advertising scientists, you are conditioned by the very images and slogans to give your allegiance to that company. What if a small, young, lesser known British company were to, with the innovation of new designers and engineers etc., make a product that could match or rival the best effort of someone like Apple? Would you buy it? Even at a significantly lower price? I postulate that you would not, most likely because you wouldn’t hear about them. So the issue here is a monopoly over the market. You think computers, you go to Apple or Microsoft. You think social networking, you turn to Facebook or Twitter. You need to know something… well, the verb is no longer to ‘search’ is it? It is now to ‘Google’ the answer.
Why, you ask, is this a problem? They do their jobs, we use their product, they profit. Simple and harmless. But perhaps not. Not in light of the dilapidating reputations of these conglomerates. Google, as already established, has its own monopoly over ‘knowledge’. Other sources are failing because of it. Who goes to comb through the shelves of a library when you can simply tap, type, and find out. What with Google’s very handy relationship with YouTube, sometimes you don’t even have to read for yourself. The presence of such companies across the globe is what is alarming. How many cities in the world could you visit without walking past a Starbucks, probably paces away from a billboard from which the Apple logo glows above you like a gleeful, money-magnetic star. Everywhere these giants are popular, successful. The mammoth trees of the rainforest who block the sun from the fledgling independent companies below, stifling their little leaves before they can reach high enough to be known.
I do not begrudge the money, nor the success, to the individuals who built these companies out of innovation, determination and hard work. No, they deserve their rewards. But my concern is that this kind of power is now in the hands of the sort of people who usurp a tax system to avoid paying their due for decades, then propose to make things all better again with an appeasing gift of 3%. Maybe it is those in possession of this money and this knowledge we should be watching, even worrying about, because although they live and work behind a façade of a carefully designed company image, they are not simply a company, they are human beings with human flaws including greed and corruption. Hard, I know, to believe such a threat could come in the form of things as simple as search engines, iPhones, profiles and coffee shops, but they are less simple when the immense figures upon which they survive become apparent, and less benign too, when one considers that money these days, is indisputable power.
Olivia Foskett, Year 13
The recent pay-out by Google in lieu of making good on their negligence to pay tax for… a number of years that most of us have lost count of, has been swiftly shown up as rather a pathetic gesture. An insult in fact, some might say, considering the independent estimations which have determined the £130 million sum at about 3% of what they legally owe. We may all rely upon Google, but I don’t think that makes it acceptable for them to rake in the profits whilst not feeding their due back into the British economy, especially in a climate of high unemployment, with fear of the NHS failing, starting up independent businesses becoming a matter of financial suicide and taxes upon the everyday man and woman ever threatening to ascend because our economy is struggling to support us.
Starbucks, a similarly tax-dodging mega- company is, too, enjoying the more lenient rules that seem to be applicable to such big international names compared to the strict tax demands which are held over the heads of smaller businesses and newer companies in Britain who struggle to widen their profit margin, or to make one at all, due to the flawed tax system of their own country; a system which it seems, instead of supporting and nourishing such British businesses which promise, one must assume, to up the GDP, would rather favour the multi-national giants who purely and simply do not.
In other news, our friends over at Apple have recently revealed their failure to increase profit from last year, giving rise to predictions that this may be the end of the company. This, a company which has been valued at over seven hundred billion dollars. A sum of money so huge it’s hard to have perspective on it, but if I may attempt to provide some, that’s more than the gross national product of Switzerland, the value of twenty national football leagues, cost of Four Apollo space programs, and interestingly, the worth of Google and Microsoft put together. In response to this apparent drop off in the company’s success, one consumer perspective voiced the view that ‘they can’t rely on their status anymore; they might have to make good products’. Now, this is a key part of the discussion on the real nature and rightful position of, as one might label them, the ‘online giants’. Is it really a matter of status? Ponder. You see the Apple logo and you know what it means, stands for (supposedly) and if we are to believe the advertising scientists, you are conditioned by the very images and slogans to give your allegiance to that company. What if a small, young, lesser known British company were to, with the innovation of new designers and engineers etc., make a product that could match or rival the best effort of someone like Apple? Would you buy it? Even at a significantly lower price? I postulate that you would not, most likely because you wouldn’t hear about them. So the issue here is a monopoly over the market. You think computers, you go to Apple or Microsoft. You think social networking, you turn to Facebook or Twitter. You need to know something… well, the verb is no longer to ‘search’ is it? It is now to ‘Google’ the answer.
Why, you ask, is this a problem? They do their jobs, we use their product, they profit. Simple and harmless. But perhaps not. Not in light of the dilapidating reputations of these conglomerates. Google, as already established, has its own monopoly over ‘knowledge’. Other sources are failing because of it. Who goes to comb through the shelves of a library when you can simply tap, type, and find out. What with Google’s very handy relationship with YouTube, sometimes you don’t even have to read for yourself. The presence of such companies across the globe is what is alarming. How many cities in the world could you visit without walking past a Starbucks, probably paces away from a billboard from which the Apple logo glows above you like a gleeful, money-magnetic star. Everywhere these giants are popular, successful. The mammoth trees of the rainforest who block the sun from the fledgling independent companies below, stifling their little leaves before they can reach high enough to be known.
I do not begrudge the money, nor the success, to the individuals who built these companies out of innovation, determination and hard work. No, they deserve their rewards. But my concern is that this kind of power is now in the hands of the sort of people who usurp a tax system to avoid paying their due for decades, then propose to make things all better again with an appeasing gift of 3%. Maybe it is those in possession of this money and this knowledge we should be watching, even worrying about, because although they live and work behind a façade of a carefully designed company image, they are not simply a company, they are human beings with human flaws including greed and corruption. Hard, I know, to believe such a threat could come in the form of things as simple as search engines, iPhones, profiles and coffee shops, but they are less simple when the immense figures upon which they survive become apparent, and less benign too, when one considers that money these days, is indisputable power.
Olivia Foskett, Year 13