Tech at Night: Amazon makes peace with CA Dems, Patent “reform” passes, Who’s funding the left?
Friday has come and gone at last, and in fact we’re well into Saturday now unfortunately, due to my needing to have covered so much this time.
Additionally, at long last it looks like the ongoing saga of California vs Amazon is coming to an end. Amazon had already floated the idea of compromise with the Democrats on their unconstitutional plan to try to bully Amazon with respect to California’s high sales tax rates.
But now it looks like the firm got cold feet. Having already put itself on the line with a plan to lobby for a national law on the matter, with a promise to pay the tax if now law is passed in two years, they caved and cut the “safe harbor” down to one year. As you might guess from how I said that, I disagree that Amazon was wrong to play hardball. I think Amazon was wrong to give in after playing hardball, because if things go wrong they risk victor’s justice.
Joe Mathews says Amazon has given an example of “how not to do business in California.” At this point, I don’t see why anyone should do business in California, with all the corruption and corporatist socialism going on in this one great state.
This matters if you don’t live in California, by the way, because of the next steps.
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