[comrade1234]

I understand your point but YouTube isn't a good example as it has its global development team headquartered here in Zürich.

Multinationals really confuse comparisons - when I bought a macbook here in Europe it got shipped to me directly from china. My money went to apple Switzerland. At no time in the process was the USA involved.

[pjc50]

> Multinationals really confuse comparisons

Well, yes, but in both cases of Youtube revenue and Apple, that money is eventually going to show up in the accounts of the US parent company and its share price, even if it's in a Swiss bank account.

It's very hard to say where internet economic productivity ""is""! That might cause it to be over- or under- counted.

[comrade1234]

Multinationals are disincentivized to send revenue back to the USA because they are taxed twice on it - they're taxed in the country it was earned in and they're taxed again in the USA as income because they are essentially completely different companies.

Trump had a tax holiday in his first term where companies were allowed to send revenue back to the USA without being taxed. If I remember correctly apple sentt back billions and used it for stock buybacks.

So money earned outside the USA rarely makes it back.

[b40d-48b2-979e]

Money usually stays in the community where it is paid. Even within the US, local businesses keep something like 80% of the money local in the community (spent at other local businesses or banks, city taxes, etc.), meanwhile buying from a chain store has most of the money shipped to some tax haven in Texas or Arkansas.