Speaking after a meeting with Bavaria’s state Cabinet atop the Zugspitze mountain, Germany’s highest peak, Merz said that continuing with the 15% minimum tax in Europe would put the continent’s economy at a disadvantage.
Speaking after a meeting with Bavaria’s state Cabinet atop the Zugspitze mountain, Germany’s highest peak, Merz said that continuing with the 15% minimum tax in Europe would put the continent’s economy at a disadvantage.
From a game-theory standpoint (which markets are an instance of such a game) he is not even incorrect. If we tax someone at 15%, while the US doesn’t they will take their business there (if possible). This is not a normative statement, this sucks and will lead to the world’s destruction (literally wiht global warming, and the same for arms races and war). But is is correct.
Here is my (semi) hot take: To really change anything in the world you cannot be game-theoretically naive. We cannot just by cynnical like the market-liberals, because they are willing to sacrifice the planet and humans for their goals.
We need to be post-cynical. Recognising that just claiming the morally right thing will never get us the power to change anything and just striving for the power to change will make us just as evil as them. If we want to change things for the better we have to hold them both in mind.
Not necessarily. If that were universally true, all multinational companies would have their seat in the country with the cheapest taxes, which they clearly do not. There are other factors. But yes, it’s one of them.
Anyway, what he should do is fight against the exemption for US companies, especially after Trump now wants to hit the EU with his 30% tariffs anyway, so it doesn’t even get us anything.
Alas, he was, until very recently, a Black Rock employee, which is, you may or may not know it, a US company. He is also a far right neoliberal known for favoring corporations and the rich. It’s very obvious that the US exemption plays right into his cards and dismantling the whole minimum tax, which is easily the single greatest multinational achievement since World War 2, was always on his agenda.
The global minimum tax isn’t that. It literally wouldn’t matter if the USA were in or out, because the broad global agreement means, if the Americans don’t collect the 15%, some other country can and will. Trump just threatened the G7 into granting an exception, which could have been avoided if they had spines and took a stand.