New York Times, Tax Havens Blunt Impact of Corporate Tax Cut, Economists Say:
The
new corporate tax cuts are unlikely to stimulate the level of job
creation and wage growth that the Trump administration has promised, a
trio of prominent economists has concluded, because high tax rates were
not pushing much investment out of the United States in the first place
[Thomas Tørsløv (Copenhagen), Ludvig Wier (Copenhagen) & Gabriel
Zucman (UC-Berkeley), The Missing Profits of Nations (data and slides)].
Instead,
the researchers conclude, multinational corporations based in the
United States and other advanced economies have sheltered nearly 40
percent of their profits in tax havens like Bermuda, depriving their
domestic governments of tax revenues and enriching wealthy shareholders.
That number suggests a jarringly large amount of what appears, to
policymakers, to be investment pushed abroad by high tax rates is
instead an accounting trick — so-called paper profits — which tax cuts
will not reverse.
NSW government looks to Microsoft AI to cut $10m costs
The NSW government is looking to slash its procurement costs through a new AI program at its Data Analytics Centre, which tells it when money is being wasted." (AFR)
Union concerns over data breach impacts
Tasmanian unions are worried urgent positions will not be filled fast enough because the Government has shut down its recruitment website in response to a data breach." (ABC News)
'Australia will be one of the top three digital governments in the world'
Digital Transformation Minister Michael Keenan flags a new strategy to make Australia one of the top three nations for digital delivery of government services by 2025.
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From ghoulies and ghosties / And long-leggedy beasties / And things that go bump in the night, / Good Lord, deliver us!— Robert BurnsWhen we set a novel in New York, London or Sydney, most readers have a picture in their mind, even if they’ve not been to the city. New York, Paris, London and Sydney are so important to global culture that … Continue reading
Myshkin: … our people don’t simply become atheists, but they must believe in atheism, as in a new faith, without ever noticing that they’re believing in a zero.
… suddenly, amidst the sadness, the darkness of soul the pressure, his brain would momentarily catch fire, as it were, all his life’s forces would be strained at once in an extraordinary impulse. The sense of life, of self-awareness, increased nearly tenfold in these moments, which flashed by like lightning. His mind, his heart were lit up with an extraordinary light; all his agitation, all his doubts, all his worries were as if placated at once, resolved in a sort of sublime tranquility, filled with serene, harmonious joy, and hope, filled with reason and ultimate cause.
At that moment I was somehow able to understand the extraordinary phrase that time shall be no more.
… dullness, darkness of soul, idiocy stood before him as the clear consequence of these ‘highest’ moments.
Yes, for this moment one could give one’s whole life!
My gestures are inappropriate, I have no sense of measure; my words are wrong, they don’t correspond to my thoughts, and that is humiliating for the thoughts.
It’s all philosophy. You’re a philosopher and have come to teach us.
Such beauty has power. You can overturn the world with such beauty.
The point is in life, in life alone – in discovering it, constantly and eternally, and not at all in the discovery itself!
Why did I actually begin to live, knowing that it was no longer possible for me to begin; why did I try, knowing that it was no longer anything for me to try.
My dreams will change and perhaps become lighter.
stray lines from Dostoevsky's The Idiot
James Baldwin on the Patterson/Liston fight in 1962. I could read Baldwin all day. Every day.
Seymour Hersh’s Memoir Is Full of Useful Reporting Secrets Rolling Stone. Matt Taibbi. And an excerpt: Don’t tell Congress TLS. Seymour Hersh. Today’s must reads
The Owl Thieves of Sweden
As the country ditches cash, criminals turn to stealing owls
Considering that the unemployment rate is 2.5 percent, it’s safe to say that almost everyone who wants a job in Japan has one.
↩︎ The Washington Post
“…around 50 New York indie booksellers [are] featured in a series of portraits by Philippe Ungar and Franck Bohbot, a pair of bibliophilic Frenchmen who met and befriended each other in Brooklyn. The two, writer and photographer respectively, have taken great pleasure in travelling across the city, to neighbourhoods in every borough, to meet and photograph booksellers in their habitats. Despite their diversity, the way their distinct personalities and passions are reflected and amplified in their shops, they are all, says Ungar, “looking for the same thing – a generous vision of sharing culture”. Ungar mentions Corey Farach, owner of the scruffy, adored and longstanding feminist bookshop Bluestockings. Farach, as Ungar recounts with admiration, encourages those people who can’t afford to buy a $40 book to take a seat, make themselves comfortable, and just read it in the shop. “That is to me,” says Ungar, “the spirit of the indie booksellers.” Because, as he sees it, “a bookstore is much more than a bookstore, it’s much more than selling books. It’s a public shelter. Whoever you are, you don’t have to buy anything, they won’t ask you for your ID. You’re free – you can stay for hours and browse. There’s a generosity, an optimism. And that’s what we wanted to enhance.”
How an arcane, new accounting standard is helping reporters follow the money Columbia Journalism Review
