Apple Plans $1 Billion iDataCenter 260
1sockchuck writes "Apple is planning a major East Coast data center to boost the capacity of its online operations, and may invest more than $1 billion in building and operating the huge server farm. That's nearly twice what Google and Microsoft typically invest in their massive cloud computing centers. The scope of the project raises interesting questions about Apple's plans, and has politicians in North Carolina jumping through hoops to pass incentives to win the project. The proposed NC incentives build on a package for Google that later proved controversial."
Re:The states don't win on these deals.... (Score:3, Informative)
Dunno about telecoms, but I think it's safe to call that the Walmart model.
Re:Tax breaks for the rich? (Score:2, Informative)
"You can complain all you want, but if you look at the numbers you'll find the top 1% of earners pay 40% (or more) of income taxes."
I have no more source than you but my guess is that they end up paying less of a percentage of their total income in taxes than the average anyway. They just have so much of it it's not even funny.
Re:Tax breaks for the rich? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Tax breaks for the rich? (Score:4, Informative)
Business taxes should be the first to go, because businesses don't pay taxes. Their customers do. The only thing governments accomplish when they tax businesses is they raise the cost of goods and services.
A) Why not abolish personal income taxes first?
B) What makes you think that corporations won't just keep prices the same and use the difference to pad their profit margin?
Re:Tax breaks for the rich? (Score:4, Informative)
You can complain all you want, but if you look at the numbers you'll find the top 1% of earners pay 40% (or more) of income taxes.
And to put things in perspective, the top 1% nationally earn *440 times more than the avg person in the bottom 50%.
Not to mention that Maryland has some of the richest counties in the country.
*in 2007, I'm not sure what the 2008 number is
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:let me guess (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tax breaks for the rich? (Score:3, Informative)
"but consume relatively little"
hum ... that what they want you to believe.
Public investment, private profit, read up on it. It cost a lot to all of us to make them rich, the money comes from somewhere. And when the money does not come from somewhere but is "created" by the rich, we pay when it suddenly disappear, with our real money (see financial crisis).
Re:Tax breaks for the rich? (Score:2, Informative)
that doesn't make any sense (Score:4, Informative)
If taxes were on revenue, and prices followed the idealistic supply/demand curve model, that would be true, because taxes would in effect be costs.
However, corporate taxes are generally on profits, i.e. on instances where the idealized model fails to hold, because the market price set by demand is significantly above the cost of production, but for one reason or another this has failed to stimulate an increase in supply to offset it, as classical theory would predict it should. In such markets, you already have a significant deviation from classical price theory, which assumes prices in a competitive market should approach the cost of production. Instead, prices are primarily being set from the demand side without much impact from the cost side. In those cases, which are the only ones in which profit taxes apply, a tax is unlikely to significantly change prices.
Re:Tax breaks for the rich? (Score:1, Informative)
Actually, the person was referencing this Op-ed article in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124329282377252471.html
And here is the (relevant) portion of that article:
""""
Maryland couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O'Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were "willing and able to pay their fair share." The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would "grin and bear it."
One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates.
No doubt the majority of that loss in millionaire filings results from the recession. However, this is one reason that depending on the rich to finance government is so ill-advised: Progressive tax rates create mountains of cash during good times that vanish during recessions. For evidence, consult California, New York and New Jersey (see here).
"""""
However, you're rant against the person is ALSO unfounded. You, along with the WSJ author, are assuming that 30%, THIRTY PERCENT, of those people fell out of THAT tax bracket during the recession. I find it unlikely...
But, so as not to leave you hanging, here's the finale of the WSJ article:
"""""
The Maryland state revenue office says it's "way too early" to tell how many millionaires moved out of the state when the tax rates rose. But no one disputes that some rich filers did leave. It's easier than the redistributionists think. Christopher Summers, president of the Maryland Public Policy Institute, notes: "Marylanders with high incomes typically own second homes in tax friendlier states like Florida, Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia. So it's easy for them to change their residency."
All of this means that the burden of paying for bloated government in Annapolis will fall on the middle class. Thanks to the futility of soaking the rich, these working families will now pay Mr. O'Malley's "fair share."
"""""
Easier than you think. (Score:1, Informative)
Wrong. If you're in the market for a "$1B" datacenter, you don't have just one; your data and applications are replicated across multiple datacenters. You're also probably leasing almost all of your hardware rather than purchasing it outright. When the lease is up the racks go on the truck back to the vendor. Turn out the lights and move on to the next sweetheart deal.
Posting Anon because unlike you, I do know what I'm talking about - I've worked on just this sort of buildout and datacenter migration before and will again.
Re:Tax breaks for the rich? (Score:3, Informative)
I think the 'woosh' is perhaps for you.
No one is talking about sales taxes here. Those taxes are designed to be passed to the customer. We're talking about all the various taxes that businesses are required to pay. Taxes on profit, medicare taxes, social security taxes. I don't personally go along with the whole 'businesses shouldn't pay taxes' mindset, but I see where people are coming from. Is that computer that costs $500 going to cost less if the company doesn't have to pay tax on the profit they're making at the end of the year? That's the question. And personally, I don't think so. As that is too abstract for most people to see right away...
If a business is required to pay some tax--any tax, they will make darned sure they are selling their products at enough of a markup that the tax is covered. In this situation though, I believe it would take longer for the cost of goods to come down when the tax is lessened/dropped. Businesses would take a while to recalculate everything, and then figure out how much they could shave off the price to try and beat the competition.