Media Dragon: Novyshoking News: Is our democracy broken?

Of course Trump knows that just like deficits, “facts don’t matter. “

AP – “Close to one in five Americans who’s 65 or older is still working, the highest percentage in more than half a century. And the one who’s still working may be better off. As more and more Americans delay retirement, it’s those with a college degree that find it easiest to keep working past 65.

Hopkins’s essay ‘Why Official Propaganda Still Works’ - an eye-opener for this

Listen to Rear Vision's episode on the reunification of Germany: A tale of two cities; East and West Berlin.

Dr Kevin Heart's interview about Dietrich Bonhoeffer is from Encounter: Saints, strangers and enemies

Here's how to separate the important from the merely urgent
TIME MANAGEMENT: Do you find yourself constantly responding to emails and attending meetings, but never quite getting around to the things you really ought to be doing?
◾ Why some find it so hard to manage their time when working from home

*Urgent! Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran & Gary Clark Jr. - Tributo a Stevie Wonder (Legendado)

Digitising social services could further exclude people on the margins
DIGITAL INCLUSION: While it’s becoming easier to engage online, the ability to speak to a front-line public servant face-to-face is diminishing. This is creating a service gap with adverse impacts on some citizens.

Is our democracy broken?
VIEWPOINT: While many Australians are still coming to terms with having five prime ministers in as many years, what does the future look like for the world’s sixth oldest continuous democracy?

The price of democracy is eternal vigilance ... To quote a Persian saying, "one should say one’s prayers but also tie one’s camel." via Ali Noroozi
Independence paramount to scrutineer

Hayne says banks have corporate watchdog in the bag

They ran it like a business. Bonuses for top staff, deals done with the banks, negotiation rather than prosecution, press releases to spin their product, "tough" regulation.

Religious freedom review enshrines right of schools to turn away gay children and teachers

New York Times op-ed: How to Make Trump-Style Wealth Pay Its Fair Share, by Lily Batchelder (NYU)

Would A Tourist Tax Help The Arts In Scotland?

Expectations have been raised that a tourist tax could help ease the burden on the public purse of the festivals – but does that put their future public funding under threat? … [Read More]

Tensions rise on the South China Sea Politico

Is reform dead in China? Trump’s trade war may be breathing life back into the cause South China Morning Post

Private Businesses Built Modern China. Now the Government Is Pushing Back. NYT

China Must Solve Urban-Rural Divide to Solve Income Inequality Asia Sentinel

Husband Shopping in Beijing LRB

The Atlantic: Elite Law Schools Turn Against Conservatism, by Reihan Salam:

There is no question that the sexual-assault allegations against Kavanaugh have had a profound impact on how he is being perceived by his peers. Across the political spectrum, some have concluded that the claims are credible and disqualifying. It is also true, however, that the elite legal left’s tolerance for the elite legal right has diminished in recent years. Faculty and students at many elite law schools made it clear, long before the allegations came to light, that they found Kavanaugh's views and arguments disqualifying—not evidence of reasoned disagreement, but rather, of an illegitimate and immoral agenda. Those on the faculty who had routinely encouraged their prize pupils to apply to serve as clerks in Kavanaugh’s chambers were attacked for the advice they’d given, leaving at least some professors with the sense that their off-the-cuff remarks would henceforth be subject to intense political scrutiny. What we are witnessing is not just a fierce confirmation battle but an ideological and cultural phase shift. The modus vivendi that has allowed conservatives like Kavanaugh to build their social and cultural capital in liberal institutions is coming undone.

Austerity is a Tory choice – the Prime Minister's empty words won't end it (5 Oct 2018)

City of London costs UK £4.5tn in lost economic growth (5 Oct 2018)

The finance curse: how the outsized power of the City of London makes Britain poorer (5 Oct 2018)

Costing the country: Britain's finance curse (5 Oct 2018)

Report - The UK’s Finance Curse? Costs and Processes (5 Oct 2018)

The UK’s Finance Curse? Costs and Processes (5 Oct 2018)

Tax Competition: Big companies will get huge UK tax cuts if there is no-deal Brexit (5 Oct 2018)

UK Chancellor's bargaining chip in threat to tax tech giants (5 Oct 2018)

Denmark Starts Formal Investigation Into Danske Bank's Auditors - (Between 2010 and 2014, it switched between Grant Thornton, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and EY) (5 Oct 2018)

Money Laundering: Danske Bank memo shows how Russians moved money - London Shell Companies Used (5 Oct 2018)

Watchdog criticises HMRC delay in advising small firms on Brexit (5 Oct 2018)

Drugs, Dirty Money and Bankers (5 Oct 2018)

Cameco ruling shows need to outlaw tax haven use (5 Oct 2018)

The Death of the Income Tax (or, the Rise of America's Universal Wage Tax), by Edward McCaffery (USC)

In 1913, with whispers of progressive politics in the air, Americans ratified a Constitutional amendment allowing for a tax on “all incomes, from whatever source derived.” This set the stage for the individual income tax, a tax meant to fall on wealth and the wealthy. It was a small step, but it was a step. Capital and labor, wealth and wages, would each be paying the price of civilization. The corporate income and gift and estate taxes soon formed a troika of wealth taxes, though the individual income tax fell on upper-income wages as well.

*Things changed. Over a century later, the “income” tax has slowly, steadily morphed into a wage tax for the masses -- a simple tax on wages, withheld from paychecks, with little or nothing to add or subtract, heading towards a postcard or formlessness. As this script, edited by Grover Norquist and like-minded conservatives, has played out, all taxes on wealth have been falling. The corporate income tax, once a major player in federal revenues, has been slashed yet again by President Trump. The death tax is almost dead, again nearly killed for good by Trump, persisting as cover for political games affecting the wealthy. And while an Ur-Income Tax remains, ostensibly to collect some revenue from wealth not wages, its commitment to truly taxing wealth remains as porous as ever -- none of the original income tax’s Achilles heels, Buy/Borrow/Die, have been addressed. Meantime, the payroll tax has continued its steady growth, the small exceptional hiccup of President Obama’s payroll tax holiday only proving the rule of America’s inexorable march towards wage taxation . . .

What could go wrong as Australia privatises visa processing
VIEWPOINT: On the basis of the limited information provided to the public to date, the business and risk case for privatising visa processing appears highly questionable, writes former Immigration deputy secretary Abul Rizvi.

The new frontier: Agile automation at scale
McKinsey, October 2018. Research suggests that across industries, there is already the potential to automate more than 30% of the tasks that make up 60% of today’s jobs. In finance and insurance, for example, workers spend more than half their time collecting and processing data, tasks that are eminently suitable for automation using techniques that are already available today.

Instagram is testing the ability to share your precise location history with Facebook The Verge
Undercover cops break Facebook rules to track protesters, ensnare criminals NBC
Does Your Motherboard Have a Secret Chinese Spy Chip? PC Magazine
Bloomberg’s Spy Chip Story Reveals the Murky World of National Security Reporting TechCrunch
California Bans Default Passwords on Any Internet-Connected Device engadget

Government failed women at risk by evicting them, Ombudsman finds
"The Queensland Ombudsman intervenes to help a female domestic violence victim who was evicted from public housing, and says the housing department prioritised rental recovery over the woman's safety." (ABC)

Unique community policing sees crime rates plunge in Bourke
"Maranguka project credited with cutting major offences by 18% and domestic violence and drug offences by 40%." (The Guardian)

There is such a thing as a career hot streak
"Many think that our best work comes in our 30s and 40s. But this turns out to be an incomplete reading of the data." (Quartz)

Finance Curse: Who are UK banks lending to? (8 Oct 2018)

Finance Curse: How City of London finance is making us poorer (8 Oct 2018)

BVI hires $400,000 lawyer to avoid EU's blacklist (8 Oct 2018)

Tesco chief calls for 'Amazon tax' on goods sold online (8 Oct 2018)

EU bank watchdog examining Danish handling of Danske (8 Oct 2018)

PayPal tax bill jumps by £3.1m after review by HMRC (8 Oct 2018)

Revolving Doors: Tory MPs back Cayman Islands tax haven after £18000 trip (8 Oct 2018)

Revealed: how McDonald's and Airbnb slash UK tax bills (8 Oct 2018)

PwC faces Guernsey probe over audit of failed claims funder (8 Oct 2018)

Facebook's UK tax bill jumps as profits rise (8 Oct 2018)

Facebook's UK tax bill rises to £15.8m – but it is still just 1% of sales (8 Oct 2018)

UK Treasury weighs up tax break for landlords who sell to generation rent