Actions, reactions, other

It seems like it was just yesterday when the raging taxaholics were hipply waxing on about the "strawman" of hyper-taxation being non-existant and not even worth noting:

"Every time there is a threat to the rich that they will be taxed a little bit more, we have no evidence that they've actually left," Murphy said. "You are in the UK economy because it's a great place to make money. It's also quite a cool place to live."

Come the FT today:

McDonald's is to leave London for Geneva, joining the growing ranks of US companies moving their European headquarters to take advantage of preferential intellectual property tax laws.

The fast-food group, which will open its head office in the Swiss city in the autumn, said the move had been almost a year in the planning.

The Swiss tax regime, particularly for intellectual property, has become increasingly attractive for foreign companies, particularly the regional European headquarters of US multinationals.

Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Google, Electronic Arts and Yahoo have switched from the UK to Switzerland in recent years, while Informa, the UK publisher, is changing its tax domicile to the country.

Eventually anecdotes become a pattern. Eventually patterns become data. Chalk up another example of reality intruding into the playpens of the economically infantile.