Media Dragon: You are only interested in a reverse mortgage if you are about to die

It's gotten to the point where people think if it's not in MEdia Dragon, it doesn't exist or it does not matter … MD just needs an Antipodean version of the post-Smiley LeCarré to do these stories properly…

“Whatever you choose to do – remember the distinction between who you are – and what you do. If there is a material gap between who you are and what you are being asked to do, be prepared to resign – or to be sacked,” he told the audience.

“Take risks, make mistakes, make decisions, gain experiences. If you are honest, your mistakes will be honest. If you are accountable to your errors, you will learn and adapt and people will trust you, respect you and want to work for, with or around you.

“Jobs, roles and titles are transitory but your name is permanent. If you act professionally and with integrity, you’ll always have people’s confidence and be regarded for professional diligence and fairness.”

Former KPMG Partner Professor Brendan Lyon details a harrowing experience where he was “segregated” “separated” & “ultimately excluded from the firm”

Tax conflicts

Leaders of the Tax Practitioners Board will be back in Canberra on Thursday when they front another public hearing into the audit, assurance and consulting industries, otherwise known as the PwC industrial vortex.

Not that any of this is fresh territory for TPB chair Peter McCure and his CEO Michael O’Neill, who’ve quested back and forth to the nation’s capital repeatedly over the past year. And yet even with all that travel there remain unresolved questions, especially with the conduct of the TPB’s investigation into PwC, which is live and mid-probe into several Australian partners.

We raise this now because Margin Call has seen a legal letter to the TPB’s O’Neill dated January 19, 2023, outlining a range of concerns with the TPB investigation, particularly the involvement of O’Neill himself. This alone was previously raised with the board but was never “actioned”, the letter says.

The crux of the issue, as the lawyers at Ashurst try to put it, is that O’Neill worked for the ATO and was a member of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Tax Advisory Group, of which Peter Collins, the alleged supervillain in the PwC exercise, was also a part, and who would go on to form the absolute centre of the TPB investigation into PwC’s breaches of confidentiality.

This, the lawyers say, was a matter of “considerable concern”, because O’Neill was on the BEPS committee with Collins and involved “in the very process that was the subject of the investigation”.

“In such circumstances, his involvement inevitably raised questions as to independence and conflicts,” the letter said. “It is unclear to us why his involvement was allowed to continue, but whatever the reason the apparent independence of the board was undermined by this.”

A matter, perhaps, for ALP senator Deborah O’Neill, chair of the joint committee, which will be hearing from De Cure and O’Neill on Thursday?

The Internet Archive Provides a Model of Free Knowledge for All Jacobin

Wealthier, urban Americans have access to more local news Nieman Labs

People, ideas, machines VII: ‘The Wizard War’ – lessons on technology, intelligence & organisation from World War II Dominic Cummings substack.

Some of the readers will recall that just over a year ago, Palantir’s Chairman, Peter Thiel, told the University of Oxford Union:

“Highways create traffic jams, welfare creates poverty, schools make people dumb and the NHS makes people sick.”

UK Government Sued Over NHS’s Heavily Redacted Contract With US Spytech Firm Palantir

Even critical paragraphs on how NHS patients’ personal data will be handled have been blacked out.

Why Are There Suddenly So Many Car Washes? Bloomberg. A private equity infestation.

US millennial women are now more likely to die in their late 20s and early 30s than any generation since the World War II era: reportBusiness Insider

Three men charged over alleged SMS phishing scam

Egypt has agreed to a $35bn deal with the United Arab Emirates to develop the town of Ras el-Hekma town on its northwestern coast, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced on Friday after weeks of speculations.
Madbouly said at a news conference, which was attended by Egyptian and Emirati officials, that Egypt will receive an advance amount of $15bn in the coming week, and another $20bn within two months.
The deal is the largest foreign direct investment in an urban development project in the country’s modern history, the prime minister said. It is a partnership between the Egyptian government and an Emirati consortium led by ADQ, he said.

You are only interested in a reverse mortgage if you are about to die.

Why don’t nations buy and sell territory more?, Nuuk here we come…

IThe Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech The Verge