Interesting Links for 01-03-2013

[andrewducker]

• Police pressuring rape victims to drop charges in order to keep their stats high.
  (tags: police rape )
• Court orders UK ISPs to block more piracy sites (Because that worked so well before)
  (tags: law uk copyright piracy internet )
• Teenage girl's father launches court challenge to make Facebook block her.
  (tags: facebook )
• British terror suspects

Comments

[gonzo21]

Presumably Denmark defends itself because they pay an extremely high rate of income tax, so the government has quite a lot of money to spend on stuff?

I have a feeling there might be trouble in Scotland if they tried to introduce Denmark levels of taxation.

[gonzo21]

Also, very amused at the governments pursuit of Torrent sites. Does anybody even really still use them?

Okay, admittedly I used one the other day for some comics I couldn't find anywhere else. But I doubt many people use them for movies and music anymore.

[andrewducker]

Most people I know who download their TV get it through torrent sites.

How do your friend get it, if not through them?

[gonzo21]

Almost all of the downloading I and the people I know now do is from file hosting sites, of which there are a plethora after Megaupload shut down.

There's a couple of very busy communities here on LJ actually, where people post tv shows (and movies) to file sharing sites. Mediafire is very popular. It was the big one that stepped into the void left by Megaupload.

[fanf]

For more funny pictures along those lines, see http://devopsreactions.tumblr.com and http://securityreactions.tumblr.com

[andrewducker]

I'm not a security person, but the Devops one rang very true!

[xenophanean]

The de-citizen-ising Brits, then getting drones to murder them is one of those things which is so badly wrong, it's rather hard to process.

[andrewducker]

Yes. And at the whim of a government minister, without a court case in which the person gets to defend themselves!

[xenophanean]

...from being summarily murdered by the American military.

[cartesiandaemon]

Yeah, my brain just keeps refusing to process it. Stripping someone of their citizenship without a trial and having them executed is an archetypal dystopian action. But someone the government reckons it looks normal if it's all done abroad.

[danieldwilliam]

I prefer to think of the EU Caps Bankers’ Bonuses story as

EU Decides to Increase Bankers’ Pay.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. And I'm fine with that. High pay just means more tax!

[danieldwilliam]

I think it’s tax neutral to be honest. For us at least I don’t think NI distinguishes between bonuses and salary below £150k.

[steer]

Totally depends on the form of the bonus. Share options for example come under capital gains tax not income tax so you get a separate allowance as I understand it and then a lower tax rate. If it's a wodge of cash as a bonus then yes it is treated exactly as if it were your salary for tax purposes.

[a_pawson]

Much as this may seem to be an unpopular opinion at the moment, I do not like the idea of governments limiting the bonuses companies can pay out to individuals. If a bank wants to pay traders huge bonuses, then that is up to the board and their shareholders.

It strikes me that much of the public mood on this stems from jealousy. If people are jealous of the huge sums of money being paid out by large corporations to executives then they should go and become a CEO of a large corporation or become a trader rather than get the EU or another government to ban it.

[andrewducker]

When it comes to regulated industries, where the collapse of a corporation can occur due to them doing stupid things, and certain kinds of pay can increase the likelihood of them doing those stupid things, I can understand wanting to limit those kinds of pay.

It will, of course, lead to their basic pay going up, and I'm fine with that. And I'm also fine with large corporations providing a total reward as high as they like. And then we tax it, and do something socially useful with it - it's all good.

[cartesiandaemon]

Hm. I think the idea of regulating bonuses has sprung mostly from people's emotions, not a systematic policy plan to achieve something specific. But conversely, there can definitely be good reasons to do so -- there are plenty of actions which may be undesirable for the shareholders but impractical for them to police, so there are regulations preventing them instead.

[andrewducker]

The move to restrict bonuses (and allow their clawing-back) was brought in by the FSA, because a bonus-led culture was seen as encouraging risky actions by employees.