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Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by dekken_ on Saturday December 10, 2022 @09:08AM (#33932731)
It's a general comment about governments and bureaucracy.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by arrrg on Saturday December 10, 2022 @09:21AM (#33932825)
General comments tend to paint the world in a stereotypical too broad way that doesn’t reflect reality. They are often misleading and wrong.

Clarifying the reason for something is the antidote to that. And you don’t get to weasel out of that by saying you were making a more general point with your specific statement.

In this case: presidents in typical European parliaments are responsible for parliamentary proceedings. Who speaks when, what the rules of the debate are, how to resolve conflicts, etc. Mostly boring stuff, but stuff that is vitally important for functioning parliaments. They also actually chair the debate, so they are the ones who do the timekeeping and remind MEPs of that and they are the ones handing out sanctions if, I don’t know, someone makes antisemitic remarks about another MEP or something.

Since they set the rules for debate it is also typical that all political factions are in some way represented since this is a function where everyone should be represented. Bonus: since they chair the actual debates one person can‘t shoulder that.

So nothing to do with bureaucracy and everything to do with basic democratic principles.

Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by jessaustin on Sunday December 11, 2022 @11:40AM (#33944693)
General comments tend to paint the world in a stereotypical too broad way that doesn’t reflect reality. They are often misleading and wrong.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by saghm on Saturday December 10, 2022 @09:18AM (#33932804)
Is it? I think it's far more common for private companies to have a large number of people titled "Vice President" than governments. As far as governments go, the EU Parliament seems like a bit of an outlier here.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by dekken_ on Saturday December 10, 2022 @09:58AM (#33933141)
One pays taxes, the other is paid by taxes. I'm not disagreeing with your statement, I just think they're currently/contextually dissimilar.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by ceejayoz on Saturday December 10, 2022 @11:16AM (#33933811)
> One pays taxes, the other is paid by taxes.

Well, sometimes.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-20/amazon-eu...

"Amazon.com Inc.’s main European retail business reported 1.16 billion euros ($1.26 billion) of losses in 2021, which allowed the company to pay no income tax and receive 1 billion euros in tax credits, corporate filings seen by Bloomberg show."

Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by dekken_ on Saturday December 10, 2022 @11:38AM (#33933998)
Maybe so, but individuals who are salaried, will pay taxes.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by trasz2 on Saturday December 10, 2022 @12:18PM (#33934415)
Individuals are just company’s resource, like hardware, or IP. They are not the company itself.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by dekken_ on Saturday December 10, 2022 @12:32PM (#33934541)
Not exactly relevant. However, a company does not exist without people.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by trasz2 on Saturday December 10, 2022 @12:36PM (#33934591)
It doesn’t exist without other resources either. What I’m trying to say is, “companies are people” is not true - decisions made by companies are not the decisions it’s employees would normally make if they were not selected - or forced by circumstances - to be aligned with company goals instead of human goals.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by dekken_ on Saturday December 10, 2022 @12:49PM (#33934756)
> “companies are people” is not true

`Citizens United` was a mistake yes.

Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by trasz2 on Sunday December 11, 2022 @11:09AM (#33944379)
Citizens United doesn't matter. What matters is that companies are vastly privileged compared to humans, eg they don't bear criminal responsibility for anything.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by dekken_ on Sunday December 11, 2022 @11:35AM (#33944633)
They could, it's just more of a DIY situation.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by ceejayoz on Saturday December 10, 2022 @12:47PM (#33934726)
That’ll include parliamentary VPs.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by dekken_ on Saturday December 10, 2022 @12:50PM (#33934772)
Yes, but they are also paid by taxes, and they hardly are going to pay the entirety of their salary in taxes.
Re:European parliament VP taken into custody by saghm on Saturday December 10, 2022 @08:19PM (#33938959)
I'm pretty sure government officials still have to pay taxes too