Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
Freedom is not free. We have to work at it. Nurture it. Protect it. Even sacrifice for it.
When you want to make an impression and you think you’ve gone far enough, go a little further. Always leave them wondering if you’re just a little bit crazy, and people will never fuck with you again.
I have written about the Tom Goldstein prosecution. Tom Goldstein--SCOTUSblog founder, Prominent Supreme Court Advocate, and High-Stakes Gambler--Indicted for Tax and Related Crimes and False Statements to Mortgage Lenders(Federal Tax Crimes Blog 1/17/25; 1/19/25), here;Two Recent Tax Crimes Cases Involving Bitcoin(Federal Tax Crimes Blog 1/19/25; 2/9/25), here;Free CourtListener Docket Sheet and Documents for Major Tax Crimes Case (Also Major White Collar Crimes Case) (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 7/3/25), here.
I offer a new article and some comments. The article is Holly Barker, Tom Goldstein’s Defense Hinges on Giving the Jury Good Guy Vibes(BloombergLaw 1/10/26), here. Key excerpts for purposes of this blog relate to the general tax crimes element of willfulness, which per Cheek is the voluntary intentional violation of a known legal duty.
Tom Goldstein—the former US Supreme Court advocate and blogger with a years-long ultra-high-stakes gambling habit—heads to trial Monday in a case that may turn on whether the jury thinks he’s “a good guy or a bad guy.”
Camilla, the luxury fashion label known for its colourful kaftans and bohemian prints, has been forced to pay millions of dollars in back taxes and penalties and restate its financial accounts after a review by Australian authorities and issues with sales duties in the United States.
Accounts filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in December, several months after they were due, show that the company paid back at least $5.4 million in taxes. The retailer, which is backed by the billionaire Forrest family’s private Tattarang investment vehicle, subsequently removed its long-time auditor PwC.
A Camilla store on Madison Ave in New York. The company has paid millions in back taxes in the US and Australia.
Tattarang, which also owns the R.M.Williams boot brand and Akubra, purchased a 25 per cent stake in Camilla for about $40 million three years ago. Camilla Franks remains creative director and owns the balance of the label she founded more than two decades ago in Bondi Beach.
One person with knowledge of the matter, who requested anonymity given the sensitive nature of the topi,c said Camilla had not paid taxes on online sales – its largest channel – in various US states for years. These issues were detected at the same time as the Australian Taxation Office was conducting its own review, which found non-compliance in local payments.
A Camilla spokeswoman said the company had identified “certain legacy tax issues” from previous financial years “across its Australian and US operations”.
Camilla’s leadership team took immediate action and voluntarily disclosed the issues with the relevant tax authorities both locally and in the US, and have been working closely and collaboratively with these authorities on all tax matters,” she said. “Since uncovering these issues, Camilla’s focus has been on full compliance and cost remediation.”
According to its filings, Camilla removed its auditor, PwC, in July and replaced the firm with KPMG. Records show PwC was paid more than $327,000 for audit and tax services in the previous year. PwC declined to comment.
The ATO declined to comment.
The accounts show Camilla’s sales reached $138 million in the year to June 29, up from $135 million the prior period, while bottom-line profits withered to just $444,522 – a fraction of the $2.7 million reported the previous year.
Camilla paid a $2.67 million dividend, in line with the prior year. That was lower than in 2023, when the company paid $24.2 million in dividends.
Camilla, which operates 32 boutiques, mostly in Australia, has repaid or accrued all outstanding tax costs with interest and non-material penalties.
The brand now has the added headache of the collapse of a major American retailing partner, Saks Fifth Avenue, whose parent filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, leaving suppliers across the globe facing unpaid invoices. More broadly, it has been a difficult year for luxury fashion, with the resurgence of tariffs leading to higher costs at the same time as consumer sentiment turns, forcing retailers to increase discounting.
A Camilla spokeswoman said the company was confident of its outlook despite the accounting issues, adding that the business had grown revenues by 15 per cent in the US over the past financial year.
“We will remain focused on growth initiatives, the appropriate governance, and fiscal discipline required to future-proof the business long-term and continue bringing our unique products and experiences to customers all over the world,” she said.
“Camilla remains committed to its global growth strategy through a disciplined and conservative approach to expansion.
“We continue to expand our retail footprint in the US in key locations, with the next store opening in Hawaii later this year. We also launched a successful resort pop-up format in The Atlantis Royal, Dubai, in October 2025 and are exploring other locations for this format.
“In Australia, we continue to roll out our new boutique format, with Chadstone opening later this year.”
Carrie LaFrenz is a senior journalist covering retail/consumer goods. She previously covered healthcare/biotech. Carrie has won multiple awards for her journalism including financial journalist of the year from The National Press Club. Connect with Carrie on Twitter. Email Carrie at carrie.lafrenz@afr.com
Until recently, I resisted using the F-word to describe President Trump. For one thing, there were too many elements of classical fascism that didn’t seem to fit. For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action. For yet another, the term is hazily defined, even by its adherents. From the beginning, fascism has been an incoherent doctrine, and even today scholars can’t agree on its definition. Italy’s original version differed from Germany’s, which differed from Spain’s, which differed from Japan’s.
I accepted President Biden’s characterization of the MAGA movement as “semi-fascist” because some parallels were glaringly apparent. Trump was definitely an authoritarian, and unquestionably a patrimonialist. Beyond that, though, the best description seemed to be a psychological one propounded by John Bolton, Trump’s first-term national security adviser: “He listens to Putin, he listens to Xi, he listens to how they talk about governing unburdened by uncooperative legislatures, unconcerned with what the judiciary may do, and he thinks to himself, Why can’t I do that? This doesn’t amount to being a fascist, in my view, [or] having a theory of how you want to govern. It’s just Why can’t I have the same fun they have?”
Writing a year ago, I argued that Trump’s governing regime is a version of patrimonialism, in which the state is treated as the personal property and family business of the leader. That is still true. But, as I also noted then, patrimonialism is a style of governing, not a formal ideology or system. It can be layered atop all kinds of organizational structures, including not just national governments but also urban political machines such as Tammany Hall, criminal gangs such as the Mafia, and even religious cults. Because its only firm principle is personal loyalty to the boss, it has no specific agenda. Fascism, in contrast, is ideological, aggressive, and, at least in its early stages, revolutionary. It seeks to dominate politics, to crush resistance, and to rewrite the social contract.
Over Trump’s past year, what originally looked like an effort to make the government his personal plaything has drifted distinctly toward doctrinal and operational fascism. Trump’s appetite for lebensraum, his claim of unlimited power, his support for the global far right, his politicization of the justice system, his deployment of performative brutality, his ostentatious violation of rights, his creation of a national paramilitary police—all of those developments bespeak something more purposeful and sinister than run-of-the-mill greed or gangsterism.
When the facts change, I change my mind. Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus. Fascistbest describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse. That is not because of any one or two things he and his administration have done but because of the totality. Fascism is not a territory with clearly marked boundaries but a constellation of characteristics. When you view the stars together, the constellation plainly appears.
Demolition of norms. From the beginning of his first presidential run in 2015, Trump deliberately crashed through every boundary of civility; he mocked Senator John McCain’s war heroism, mocked fellow candidate Carly Fiorina’s face, seemingly mockedthe Fox News host Megyn Kelly’s menstruation, slurred immigrants, and much more. Today he still does it, recently making an obscene gesture to a factory worker and calling a journalist “piggy.” This is a feature of the fascist governing style, not a bug. Fascists know that what the American Founders called the “republican virtues” impede their political agenda, and so they gleefully trash liberal pieties such as reason and reasonableness, civility and civic spirit, toleration and forbearance. By mocking decency and saying the unsayable, they open the way for what William Galston has called the “dark passions” of fear, resentment, and especially domination—the kind of politics that shifts the public discourse to ground on which liberals cannot compete…
Carney Doctrine for Middle Powers - Next century There will be more twists and turns, highs and lows, but I’m afraid it’s time to recognize a sad reality: It’s over.
This week, two things happened that, taken together, send a clear signal to the United States and the world:
Experts say it is rare for southern lights to be visible from so many regions of Australia at the same time
How Will the Miracle Happen Today?“Kindness is like a breath. It can be squeezed out, or drawn in. You can wait for it, or you can summon it. To solicit a gift from a stranger takes a certain state of openness.”
There are basically three reasons people auction off their prized possessions: death, divorce and debt.
The last of these was the reason Francis Ford Coppola was speaking on Friday morning over Zoom.
“I need to get some money to keep the ship afloat,” he said from Rome, while describing the seven timepieces he would be offering for sale on Dec. 6 through Phillips, a leading auction site in the worlds of art, antiques and, especially, watches.
Losing great gobs of money can almost be seen as a Coppola family sport.
In 1982, Mr. Coppola, best known for directing “The Godfather” trilogy, made a costly whopper of a movie musical called “One From the Heart.”
As with many of his passion projects, he put up much of the financing for it himself.
Over the next decade, its failure led to a string of bankruptcies. In 1992, he described himself in a Chapter 11 filing as owing $98 million to his creditors and as having assets of around $53 million.
He re-emerged, kept making movies and became something of a collector. In addition to buying a small trove of Patek Philippes and Audemars Piguets — coveted among watch connoisseurs — he plunked his name on fancy resorts and became the prototype for A-list Hollywood talent in the liquor business by amassing Northern California wineries and bottling the booze.
Timely News and Features About Watches
Titanic Passenger’s Pocket Watch: The watch, which sold at an auction in England for $2.3 million, belonged to Isidor Straus, a co-owner of Macy’s who was traveling first class on the Titanic with his wife when it sank in April 1912. It was a record for a piece of Titanic memorabilia, according to Henry Aldridge & Son, the auction house that organized the sale.
Mr. Coppola has not given up on the idea that it will eventually make money. “Many of my films earn out over time,” he said on Friday, citing, for example, his masterpiece “Apocalypse Now,” which also drove him into debt, but managed to sell $150 million worth of tickets at the box office over the course of several decades.
How “Megalopolis” will do the same in today’s less theater-centric world is anyone’s guess.
So far, Mr. Coppola has resisted bringing it to streaming platforms, because he believes it needs to be screened in a theater to be truly understood. And within months of the film’s release, he was openly telling people he was broke.
“I don’t have any money because I invested all the money, that I borrowed, to make ‘Megalopolis,’” he said in Marchduring the “Tetragrammaton” podcast, speaking with the music producer Rick Rubin. “It’s basically gone.”
At the center of Mr. Coppola’s sale with Phillips is a timepiece that he designed himself in 2014 in collaboration with F.P. Journe, a Swiss watch company whose horological marvels are expensive enough to make Rolex look like Swatch.
Called the FFC, it has an openwork design, which is watch speak for timepieces that instead of having conventional dials put the guts on display. (They’re also sometimes referred to as skeleton dials.)
In the center of the face is a gloved hand. The fingers disappear and reappear in various configurations depending on the hour.
It was released commercially in 2021, and retails for around $1 million.
Just a handful have been made and, in 2021, a prototype sold for close to $5 million at Only Watch, a biennial charity auction that is held in Geneva and is sponsored by Prince Albert II of Monaco.
Another of the FFCs is owned by the man behind its initials.
“I only wore it a handful of times,” he said, explaining that it was simply too expensive to insure.
Paul Boutros, the deputy chairman and head of Phillips Watches for North America, professed to have little idea what Mr. Coppola’s might fetch later this fall. But, according to Mr. Boutros, starting bid will be around (or above) $1 million, which is less than one percent of what Mr. Coppola’s film cost to make.
The other watches he is selling are two Patek Philippes (a Calatrava with a sales estimate of $6,000 to $12,000 and a World Time with an estimate of $15,000 to $30,000), a Blancpain Minute Repeater (estimated price: $15,000 to $30,000), an IWC Chronograph ($3,000 to $6,000), a different F.P. Journe ($120,000 to $240,000) and a Breguet Classique ($4,000 to $6,000).
Mr. Coppola is keeping his Audemars Piguet Perpetual Calendar. (“I’m going to give that to my great grandson,” he said.) His only Rolex is already gone. (“I think I gave it to my neighbor, who was a hero in Afghanistan,” he said.) And he is back to wearing something “much more plebeian.”
By which he meant the Apple Watch on his wrist.
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François-Paul Journe and Francis Ford Coppola in Rome in 2025.Credit...Courtesy Phillips
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The “FFC” has an openwork design, which is watch speak for timepieces that puts its guts on display.Credit...Courtesy Phillips“I only wore it a handful of times,” he said, explaining that it was simply too expensive to insure.
