~Christine and the Queens
“We live today in a laboratory of human suffering as vast and terrible as that in which Dickens and Dostoyevsky wrote.” The America of Nelson Algren’s imagination Suffering in 21st Century
Tax Movies - TaxProf Blog - TypePad
American Oversight – Trump’s Tax Returns: “According to the Treasury Department, Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s refusal to comply with a House committee’s request for the president’s tax returns is based on a Justice Department legal analysis — even though theIRS issued a memorandum concluding that such documents must be produced unless there is a claim of executive privilege. We’ve asked the Justice and Treasury Departments for records of and communications about that legal analysis for the IRS memo…”
AP – Justice backs Mnuchin’s refusal to turn over Trump’s taxes: “…The 33-page opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel argues that the committee’s chairman, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., wanted to make the president’s tax returns public and because of that plan, the request was not to carry out a legitimate legislative function. But Neal has said the law is clear the information must be released to Congress, the documents were sought to aid a committee investigation into whether the IRS is doing its job properly to audit a sitting president, and obtaining them would be a “necessary piece” of the committee’s work…”
PERHAPS NOT THE SANEST RESPONSE, BUT I SYMPATHIZE. SAY IT WITH ME: SENDING YOUR CHILD TO PUBLIC SCHOOL IS CHILD ABUSE! Jamie Rathburn Became a Bully to Fight Bullies
If you are reading the archives of MEdia Dragon in 3019, MMXIX AD: Married off by family, forced into prostitution, Pakistani women fight back
Investigators in Pakistan are trying to unravel trafficking networks that convince impoverished Pakistanis to marry off their daughters to Chinese men, who then allegedly force them into prostitution.
Labor in turmoil as leadership battle between McKay and Minns set to come to a head
The current turmoil is being fuelled by the fact that this contest is unlike any other in the state party’s history.
JOHN MENADUE. The communist threat curbed capitalist greed, but no longer
Five years ago in this blog I warned about growing inequality.With the communist threat gone we have seen again greed coming back into full play around the world. We have seen it here in the greed and anti social behaviour of our banks and massive tax avoidance by large multinational companies in co-operation with our major audit and accounting firms.Paying tax has become optional for many powerful people and companies.Our largely American owned print media is promoting this dangerous lurch to the right. Conservative political parties have turned a blind eye to this more aggressive attack on fellow citizens and the consequent inequality.
And the greed for economic growth at any cost is endangering our planet.
RAMESH THAKUR. Press freedoms: ‘No one is above the law’ is a slogan, not a policy
On the one hand, Australia lacks media protections of the type found in the US and Europe that enshrine free speech in human rights charters. On the other hand, we may well have more national-security and anti-terror laws than any other Western democracy, with around 70 passed or amended since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The resulting repressive legal regime gives the executive wide-ranging powers to hide any damaging or embarrassing information by classifying it as secret, and simultaneously to criminalise investigative journalism.
STEPHANIE DOWRICK. What should we do?
In the few days since Election 2019, each time I have walked down the main street of my Sydney suburb I have been stopped by people asking me, “What should we do?” I wish I could give one simple answer. I cannot. But two things about the question bring hope. First is the use of “we”: a recognition that positive social change comes when people place at least as much value on their collective interests as their (deceptively) personal/individual concerns. Second is the recognition that this is a time for skilful, thoughtful action, not cynicism or passivity. And certainly not for despair.
Bank chief risk officers are now considered the third
most important banking role, with qualified risk professionals in high
demand. The role has expanded from just
financial risks to non-financial issues such as operational, cyber, climate,
conduct, compliance, regulatory, reputational, human resources, business
disruption, projects, security and financial crime. The demand for is high.
Behavioural
Scientist Some consumers are starting to become nudge resistant. ..
ERNST WILLHEIM. Cover up of Illegal government activities continue with the AFP raids. They follow the Witness K and Bernard Collaery travesty.
This is a talk (on 27 February 2019 at Manning ClarkHouse, ANU )about some shameful events in Australia’s recent history.And I very much fear the shameful saga is about to continue.It is about Australian commercial espionage, bugging of the cabinet office of a friendly neighbour by an Australian intelligence agency, a raid by another Australian intelligence agency and fears of a secret trial.It is also about Australia’s failure to abide by a rules based-order, the rule of law.
MUNGO MacCALLUM. Israel Folau and the problem with fundamentalist religion.
The Israel Folau saga is finally moving to the tribunals – first to the Fair Work Commission, and if that does not produce a result, on the Federal Court and perhaps beyond. Continue reading
Wake me when the War of the Worlds gets going. I mean to take nothing away from Mr. H.G. Wells but come on, the speed of travel hastened, cities got bigger, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer. Surely Herbert George was not the only man of his day to foresee these happenings. Still, if you've gotta sell books I suppose it can't hurt to call these forecasts remarkable:
About 80 percent of the dozens of predictions in Wells’s 1901 book, Anticipations, were at least partly right and 60 percent were “extremely accurate,” writes Paul Crabtree, a retired federal analyst. Wells foresaw dramatic increases in the speed of travel, with most people transported in independent road vehicles and only heavy freight moving by rail. He recognized the future of the airplane, but relegated it to a footnote. He expected the size of cities to expand exponentially until the New York metropolitan area encompassed 40 million people—it has 19 million residents today. He thought the “irresponsible” wealthy class would grow, as would a poor, uneducable underclass whom technology would render unemployable. He predicted the decline of marriage and an increase in childless unions. Machines and technology would become the primary means of waging war, he wrote; military victories would be won “in the schools and colleges and universities.” He foresaw English—“but perhaps French”—becoming the dominant world language. He recognized the globalization that is a hallmark of the world economy a century hence.
Recession fears spell end for revered book shop
A deeply disturbing deep-dive into the murky, subversive world of propaganda and disinformation; an unconventional romance, even by the most unconventional standards; a mysterious story set in an ancient Catskills hotel; and a rule-bending treatise on the notorious and controversial... semicolon.
This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality by Peter Pomerantsev
Way back in 2014, Peter Pomerantsev’sNothing Is True and Everything Is Possiblewent through the looking glass into the "Surreal Heart of the New Russia," a place where Vlad Putin co-opted reality TV tactics to warp perception on a mission to reshape a post-Soviet state into his own personal Soviet-like state, for the benefit of himself and a select cohort of oligarchs. It was amazing. This Is Not Propaganda (August 6) expands his investigation, examining information warfare tactics used world-wide, from Mexican drug cartels to national news networks to the good old KGB, who forced his family from their Russian home. —Jon Foro
A Sydney book store institution is closing its doors, citing a 'diabolical' post-election sales slump and looming recessionary conditions.
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TRACEY WEST. 3 lessons from behavioural economics Bill Shorten’s Labor Party forgot about (The Conversation)
The Australian Labor Party’s 2019 election campaign showed a depth and breadth of economic policies rare for an opposition party to present. Its policy agenda was boldly extensive. But in developing these policies over the past five years, it seems Labor’s economic minds overlooked some fundamental principles of behavioural economics.Continue reading
Denise Lee Yohn, via
Harvard Business Review
Independently, customer
experience and employee experience each lead to valuable relationships, but
when CX and EX are managed together, they create a unique, sustainable
competitive advantage.