Welch-Allyn Device Company to Cut 10 Percent of Workforce to Restructure–New Device Excise Tax Part of the Reason- We Should be Taxing the Data Sellers Instead As It’s One Huge Resource & Maybe Even Bigger Than A Device Tax Would Be

When the healthcare law was created, things were different but the last couple of years have shown some big changes with the economy. I’ll say this one more time, tax the data sellers that make billions with a few algorithms and mining mostly free taxpayer data.  I think of this every time I pay an excise tax on a tire I need for my car and that money goes to support the highway infrastructure.  Who’s going to pay for the US IT infrastructure and benefits the most?  Easy, it’s corporation, banks, high frequency traders, social media and a ton of others in there.  Insurance companies make millions selling data and consumers also want to know what they sell and to who.

Part of such a tax program could also require that all state on a federal website what they sell and to who as we have no way right now of knowing and with the added influx of “flawed data” the middle class has become not much more than a bunch of “data chasers” to where we are guilty until we chase the data and fix it.  Here’s the story on Cook Medical which is a large privately owned device company with their public statements about how their money that was originally slated to build two new factories is gone now as they will be paying it in taxes instead. It makes no sense to pass the taxes along to hospitals and doctors either who are already strapped. 

Cook Medical Cancels Plans for Factory Expansions–We Need Companies That Create Tangible Products As They Create Jobs–Tax The Data Sellers/Brokers Who Make Billions With Data Mining “Killer Algorithms” And Give the Device Companies a Break

I keep repeating this for an example, but if Walgreens made just short of $800 million in 2010 with selling data only, just think of how big that pool is, especially when you bring in the banks.   I read somewhere a while back where 10 years ago the money made on returned check fees was running about $10 million a day as well.  If that is true, imagine what it is today.  Does that tell you where the money is made with algorithms that charge fees?  This is all automated by those algos. 

Algorithms don’t need benefits with retirement and health insurance and many can run without humans around.  The data mining folks are getting to be nuisance in may areas as states have to put in governor software to keep of the bots out so us citizens can still get in to servers that are busy with algorithms mining data. Nobody’s going to cry if banks and other business pay a quarterly excise tax on what they make, except the banks. 

Companies that may think about expanding don’t, when they can grab a few geeks and maybe a quant to mine and  sell data.  The Quants control a big portion of this rationale with “making numbers work” for “desired” results.  Check this documentary out and see what you think from folks who used to be in those shoes.  All the one guy wants to do now is fish and talks about the “attitude” that goes with making money by making the numbers work.  Listen to the one guy who wrote the infrastructure, a programmer who worked with the Quants.

Quants: The Alchemists of Wall Street Video Documentary - Why It Needs to Matter What Companies Do and Not Focus Only On the Price of Stock With So Called Value - Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 44

I look at it this way, if the device tax is going to be voted down, better have another source to suggest and data sellers are it.  They are so ingrained in every bit of commerce done today.  Tax it quarterly and require all to buy a license and this gives law enforcement a leg to stand on as well with ethics and potential fines.  This is where the big money is made and there have been numerous videos on the web telling us we are the product.  There’s a lot of Algo Duping going on out there. I call a lot of it the Attack of the Killer Algorithms and here’s a link to over 40 links giving you some every day examples on how this all plays out.  Have you been attacked?  Least we can do is collect some tax revenue from all of this activity for sure. 

Attack of the Killer Algorithms–Digest & Links for All Chapters–on How Math and Crafty Formulas Today Running on Servers 24/7 Make Life Impacting Decisions About You

At any rate, hopefully we will have some lawmakers wise up and find a new way to tax besides medical devices as those companies produce a tangible product and JOBS and we have way too much of the economy based on intangibles created with algorithms that financially dupe us.  This is how you increase jobs is to make it more lucrative for companies to build factories, add new facilities instead of becoming yet one more data seller with no laws, rules, etc. that get their data for nothing and the profits for free. Sure some device companies sell data but they will wrapped in there with everyone else and the amount would not be nearly as big as a burden.  BD

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With Welch-Allyn’s announcement this week it will cut 10 percent of its workforce, the company joins a group of medical device manufacturers saying they’ll be hurt by a new tax that starts in January. 

While they work to repeal the 2.3 percent tax included in the new health care law, some of the giants in the medical device industry are laying off workers, moving jobs overseas and cutting back on investments.

Industry leader Medtronics, in Minnesota, which recently announced 1,000 layoffs in the United States, said the tax will cost the company $125 million to $175 million a year. Indiana-based Cook Medical Inc. said it has killed plans to build five plants in the United States because of the tax.

“These plants cost $20 million to build,” said Dave McCarty, a spokesman for Cook, which has 10,000 employees. “If we have to give that money up for the tax we don’t have that money to invest.”

The tax will be imposed on all sales of medical devices, which includes products as diverse as surgical gloves, artificial knees and hips, pacemakers and wheelchairs. It does not include items bought by patients at retail stores, such as eyeglasses and hearing aids.

A CNN report said that in 2009 the medical products and equipment industry was the fourth-most profitable in the United States, with a 16.3 percent average profit margin. (I think this has changed)

If medical device companies try to pass on the tax to hospitals and other buyers, hospitals might use and buy fewer devices, Dennison said.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2012/09/other_us_medical_device_makers.html