Russian Parliament Votes to Force US Tech Giants to Open Local Offices or Face Punitive Measures

[Synchromesh]

Even at £45,000, you paid £6,486.00 in TAX, £4,251.84 in NI, and £1,800.00 in student loans. With £2,705.18 to spend on rent, food, cars, video games, holidays.

It is an absolute fallacy that working hard will pull people out of poverty. There is no one here needing to work 3 jobs. You work one job with a living wage and you get the same benefits of society as those that pay tax. You have the same right to get an education as everyone else, and that is fantastic because we have had people come out of decades of poverty now being doctors, scientists, and engineers. America is leaving real talent on the table, untapped, and unused.

If life in Scotland is so amazingly great why do lots of people come to live from Europe (and all over) to US instead? Hell, my neighbors in San Francisco are Irish, they don't seem to want to move back at all, lol. So how come nobody wants to move to Scotland? That's because you forgot to mention all the other taxes you have to pay like VAT on other goods. Your gasoline is expensive, your cars are very expensive, your electronics isn't cheap, etc. In fact, I used to work with some Swiss engineers at my old company. They used buy clothing and electronics in the US by the suitcases and bring them back home. When I asked why, I was told that same jeans that cost $40 here cost 120 Euro in their homeland. That's the cost of socialism, sort of.

So it doesn't matter if you pay lower income tax. Your cost of living is still way higher than most of the US.

 

[2010mini]

Time for ALL western countries to pull out of Russia.

After 30 years, the one-party state is back in full force.

you know how much western debt Russia owns? Antagonizing Russia like that is not the way to go.

 

[ruka.snow]

Not to mention all the jobs those would create.

Hundreds of thousands of social services roles, teaching roles, doctors and nurses.

If life in Scotland is so amazingly great why do lots of people come to live from Europe (and all over) to US instead? Hell, my neighbors in San Francisco are Irish, they don't seem to want to move back at all, lol. So how come nobody wants to move to Scotland? That's because you forgot to mention all the other taxes you have to pay like VAT on other goods. Your gasoline is expensive, your cars are very expensive, your electronics isn't cheap, etc. In fact, I used to work with some Swiss engineers at my old company. They used buy clothing and electronics in the US by the suitcases and bring them back home. When I asked why, I was told that same jeans that cost $40 here cost 120 Euro in their homeland. That's the cost of socialism, sort of.

So it doesn't matter if you pay lower income tax. Your cost of living is still way higher than most of the US.

Clothes and electronics don’t cost anymore in Scotland than when I visited the USA. There was a time when £1 was worth nearly $2 and you could get a lot for your money by visiting the USA to go shopping. I’ll also remind you that people move to other countries for all kinds of reasons. Even I worked in Thailand for a couple years. But honestly, you want your country to remain behind just so you can buy $40 jeans while others in your country have to work three jobs then go bankrupt because they have a $1m hospital bill from getting cancer? Look past your own nose and buying stuff for yourself.

 

[IIGS User]

No one asked the USA to bring democracy and hamburgers to oil rich nations that want to blow up their neighbours.

I completely agree with this.

The US has plenty of it's own oil to pull out of the ground, and beef is getting expensive, so we should keep as much hamburger to ourselves as possible.

The time for the US to be the world police has long past. We have our own issues here, and I would much rather see all those resources put into efforts to make the US a better place, as opposed to being the protector of such entities as the EU, UK, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

The whole point being, if the above listed places want to lecture other countries about how they spend their finite resources on domestic concerns, then perhaps they should take a moment to pause and think about why they have the ability to spend their resources on things like universal health care and free university as opposed to massive standing militaries to maintain the balance between such actors as Russia and China.

I mean, I seriously doubt Russian and China re going to just sit idly by while the US decides to pull out of these places and goes home.

A position I totally support, BTW. I think it's a waste of US resources, both human and monetary to continue this charade. I couldn't care less about the Russians deciding to make a return trip to Germany (or a new trip to France, or the UK) and the Chinese decide to make a special delivery to Taiwan, or Japan, or Korea.

They aren't asking the US to "bring democracy and hamburgers to oil rich nations". But I don't see them asking the US to LEAVE either.

Or are they asking the US to leave, and I missed that. Did I miss that someplace?

 

[sirozha]

Someone attending college to get a degree in literature doesn’t benefit society?

Ever heard of Yandex, VK, etc. ? You think people around the world use Facebook and Google exclusively? There are plenty of Chinese phones that the Russians can buy and never use one American platform and still have modern digital life. So, it’s clearly more important for Apple to remain in Russia than for Russia to keep Apple. There is also Linux running on Chinese hardware so that Russians don’t ever have to use Windows or macOS.

Get over your self-righteous wrath. Russians can build their own stuff, and with the ever-intensifying American sanctions, they have been doing just that - developing their own industries that are perfectly capable of providing modern amenities. Due to the American sanctions, Russia now has become the largest exporter of wheat in the world, whereas during the Soviet years, it was the largest importer of wheat. Russia doesn’t just import fossile fuels, as you are told by the MSM. Russia builds its own agricultural machinery, military equipment, has its own agriculture, food-processing facilités, produces the whole spectrum of food items without having to depend on any food imports, makes its own spaceships, its own civilian aircraft, has its own auto industry, science, pharmaceutical industry, medicine, etc. Russia has produced four different effective COVID-19 vaccines, each with efficacy well above 90%. Even most western countries couldn’t do that.
Most European countries and Canada couldn’t produce their own vaccine. The UK and Australia tried and failed miserably. Russia now offers four affordable and effective vaccines to the rest of the world. So, all you are doing is spouting anti-Russia propaganda.

is Russia a democratic country? No. Is UAE? Most Russians want to live in a safe society that provides a social safety net. Most of them do not care who is in charge of the country as long as their lives are improving.

Dude, you're so incredibly full of a certain substance that I don't even know where to start. Now, before you start screaming how I'm an American hater - I was born in Russia and lived there long enough to know what's what.

Now, with that out of the way let's see. The only way Soviet Union was able to sustain itself after the 1960s was to export huge amounts of oil. When oil prices went down in the 80s the whole economy collapsed. As much as I personally love Ladas the entire Soviet Union was unable to produce any car in the last 40-50 years that wasn't copied off some Western counterpart one way or another. To this day Lada doesn't produce its own designs but only French ones. That's because of the planned economy, btw.

The only reason SU was able to produce military equipment, machinery and so on was because they oriented all of their economy towards the military and the basic consumer received very little. Because the big bosses couldn't care less, they were busy trying to outrun the US in a military race. Russia by itself isn't doing much better and I read about many of your so called "technologies". Most of them are either a blatant copy of the Western stuff or something so silly that nobody cares about it. I'm yet to see anything original to come out of Russia in the last 10-20 year when it comes to IT or High Tech. What's more, your damn government pays basically nothing to the retirees, steals from your own people constantly and murders any sort of political opposition in the most horrific ways stifling any chance of fair elections. So please spare me about your industries, most of them are a major joke or owned by oligarchs.

As for the vaccines, most people in the US who wanted to get vaccinated have already done so. Is that the case in Russia? Not from what I hear.

P.S. I've heard of Yandex and VK because I have to communicate with other Russians. Nobody heard of them in the US because nobody cares. Not to mention that Yandex is basically a localized copy of Google and VK is nearly carbon copy of Facebook. And I rest my case.

You don’t have a case to rest. You spout propaganda your hear from CNN.

 

[Tech198]

If Apple want to get more rich then they will comply with Russia's demands.

If they have a wide market in Russia, then they got a tough decision to make... Personally,if privacy is your main concern, then that should be your priority..

I'd still favor VPN's who chose to pull their end points out because Russian law requires data retention to be kept.

That's true privacy.. putting it first. But it will be interesting which way Apple bounces.

 

[avz]

You have to love a good dictatorship! Power to the people, sorry, Putin!

Your naivety is very cute.

This is actually a rare moment where Putin and Biden achieved agreement and feel that both will benefit from this. Ask yourself why digital corporations came under fire at the same time in US and Russia?

 

[09872738]

Same for the Western Pacific. Let Japan, Korea, and Taiwan take care of their own problems (China). Let the EU deal with Russia on their own as well.

You would need a second trip to university just to learn Cyrillic. Putin would have no trouble at all steamrolling his way to, and crossing the English Channel quickly enough to make the Third Reich look like they were doing a crab walk across the continent if the US decided to let NATO and the EU go it alone.

Hillarious this is. Don‘t worry, Europe does not need you. Spend all you money on weapons if you like, but don‘t expect Europe to make the same mistake.
We get along with the russian military ourselves, thank you

 

[beanbaguk]

Hillarious this is. Don‘t worry, Europe does not need you. Spend all you money on weapons if you like, but don‘t expect Europe to make the same mistake.
We get along with the russian military ourselves, thank you

Oh really?! Having lived in Vienna for 6 years, I can tell you that is not the impression I get from many of my Austrian friends!

 

[beanbaguk]

Your naivety is very cute.

This is actually a rare moment where Putin and Biden achieved agreement and feel that both will benefit from this. Ask yourself why digital corporations came under fire at the same time in US and Russia?

Coincidence perhaps? But these terms benefit nobody but the government.

You can cook up whatever conspiracy theory you like, but the fact is Putin is a dictator, a crook and most likely a murderer of his own people.

He cares for nothing more than his personal gain, but historically, that is what is expected of any dictator.

 

[09872738]

Oh really?! Having lived in Vienna for 6 years, I can tell you that is not the impression I get from many of my Austrian friends!

Yeah. Austrian Army is not the strongest force there is, that is very true. However, Europe is more than Austria. What‘s more, russian forces may be strong enough to threaten single states like Ukraine, but they are not nearly strong enough to challenge all of Europe or NATO

 

[avz]

Coincidence perhaps? But these terms benefit nobody but the government.

You can cook up whatever conspiracy theory you like, but the fact is Putin is a dictator, a crook and most likely a murderer of his own people.

He cares for nothing more than his personal gain, but historically, that is what is expected of any dictator.

Somehow I have no doubt that your life is run by a series of coincidences.

It was Biden's idea to meet with Putin. This is a fact. Putin did him a favor and kept the door of communication open despite the fact that it's the US who openly declared Russia as the enemy. Dictators don't do this.

If western companies are not happy to do business with Russia, they can leave(and take their crooked central bank with them). Russia is long overdue to start internal investitions in their own economy.

 

[tubular]

you know how much western debt Russia owns?

If you're talking U.S. Treasury bills, it's less than a tenth of Apple's cash stockpile.

If you're talking private debt, that's two particular and matched parts of Donald Trump's anatomy.

Apple should change the name of the iPhone they sell in Russia to the iPhone Alexei Navalny Gulag Edition.

 

[avz]

If you're talking U.S. Treasury bills, it's less than a tenth of Apple's cash stockpile.

Apple should change the name of the iPhone they sell in Russia to the iPhone Alexei Navalny Gulag Edition.

Edward Snowden SE iPhone will be a better representation of Apple’s view on privacy and freedom of expression.

 

[Macbookprodude]

I must say, though Russia is my enemy, I have to agree with them about this one - fully 300 percent support this by Russia.