François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (No. 78) quoted by Vaclav Havel & John Hatton the Architects of Charter 77 & Charter 92 ...
Harry Eyres is just one jolly good thinker about the way we live our fragile lives. ‘I have experimented with using supermarkets less; and the less I use them, the better I feel’ ... In supermarkets it is not just money, as in the Roman saying, which does not smell: nothing smells; decay and corruption (not to mention the precise provenance of many goods) are kept at bay and out of sight. These are temples of a materialism which is strangely immaterial; even the earth that normally sticks to potatoes has been replaced by a synthetic substitute. Fish and loaves have gone together since at least New Testament times... While we are being biblical, we might as well move on to wine. How to defy the supermarket gods
Language fits over experience like a straight jacket:
“Amid the rubble, the fallen fruit,
Fermenting in its rich decay,
Smears [Krzysztof's] brandy on the trampling boot
And sends it sweeter on its way.”
The Public Accounts Committee said last month that the UK should look to the Australian model for tackling tax avoidance. Paul Stacey, head of tax policy at the Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia, explains how their system works.Australia Does It Better
The head of Australia's multibillion-dollar Future Fund says high-frequency traders and computer-based algorithms have made it harder for investors to judge risk Learn to live with high-tech trading, says Gonski ~
WHEN the federal government appointed Chris Jordan as tax commissioner, it won plaudits for appointing the long-time KPMG partner for his business acumen.
A hidden benefit was the fact that ASIC boss Greg Medcraft also did his time at KPMG and so knew Jordan well.
One standout from this year's ASIC forum is the closer working relationship between the Australian Taxation Office and ASIC, which in principle offers real benefits. Both sides report a better working relationship, achieved in part by breaking down the cultural barriers between the two organisations. Phoenix companies being an obvious example, given the tax office wants to widen its net, and ASIC, through its registration of auditors, presents them with that opportunity. Funke Kupper keeps raiders at bay
During the discussion panel at the ASIC Forum this week, Australian Super chief executive Ian Silk called for higher standards in the superannuation industry, and suggested that some people in the industry were taking more than their cut Corporate Greed
"But it is notorious that the memory strengthens as you lay burdens upon it, and becomes trustworthy as you trust it."
Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater