Wednesday, November 01, 2017

David C Johnson at Charles Perkins Sydney Uni with Mike West

In the words of , TAXES ARE CIVILISATION. 

David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) | Twitter

https://twitter.com/davidcayj?lang=en
The latest Tweets from David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ). Founder ... On Australian ABC Q&A in Sydney in a few minutes. Runs on FBLive ... Read David Crook's smart @DCReportMedia piece for perspective ...
'Appallingly ignorant' Trump fuelled entirely by self-interest: David Cay Johnston - The World Today - ABC Radio

Sydney Ideas (@Sydney_Ideas) | Twitter
https://twitter.com/sydney_ideas?lang=en
The latest Tweets from Sydney Ideas (@Sydney_Ideas). Sydney Ideas is the @Sydney_Uni's premier public program, bringing the world's leading thinkers to the widerSydney community. The University of Sydney.

By the way, David started with the way he likes to analyse first impressions of any cirt - there are two things he must do when he invades a new city - as this is his first time in Australia, gets the taxi to take him to rough area of the city and he Czechs (sic) out advertisement. The first ad he saw was ad by the ATO about its success with fighting tax evasion relating to multinational enterprises ... David was disappointed as he thought the ad lacked context and comparison.
Rachael Bolton2h
Replying to @SydneyDemocracy @Sydney_Ideas and 2 others
Teach your kids about democracy, hold your govts to account & don't let them privilege corporations over people
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Sydney Ideas retweeted
Rachael Bolton2h
   All the tags for this fabulous talk by  on why democracy is in crisis
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Sydney Ideas2h
If you don't read novels...you don't learn about the other on education in the US
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Sydney Ideas2h
Trump is the symptom not the disease  
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Sydney Ideas retweeted
David Smith2h
In the words of , TAXES ARE CIVILISATION. .
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Sydney Ideas2h
We tax capital at a lower rate than labor  
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Sydney Ideas3h
Imagine if 1 in 1000 of us were amoral and had no interest in anything but making money. We have it now.: corporations. 
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Sydney Ideas3h
Our guest tonight   is "We have a serious attack on democracy coming from many places"
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Sydney Ideas retweeted
Sayan Mitra3h
What an amazing start!    

Johnston first met Trump as a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer in June 1988 and likened him to P. T. Barnum. He subsequently reported on Trump for almost 30 years, and wrote the book in 27 days.[1] In an interview with The New York Times Johnston said that Trump had "...seriously damaged his brand" with his presidential campaign and would "follow him for the rest of his life". Johnston also felt that Trump was "masterful at understanding the conventions of journalism" and "remarkably agile at doing as he chooses and getting away with it".[1]
The book entered the New York Timeshardcover nonfiction list in fifteenth position[1] and spent four weeks there.[2]
 “Maybe it is a purist attitude we have, but we believe that being funded by your readers is the best guarantee for independence” Neiman Labs. Thank you, readers! AndWhen a Facebook test moves news stories to a separate feed, traffic — and public discourse — are at stake Nieman Lab. Again, if your business depends on a platform, your business is already dead.




If Paul Manafort had not been such a crummy and absentee Brooklyn neighbor, he might not be in such hot water. He would not have crossed an urbane housewife-turned-blogger who doesn't consider herself a journalist but smelled something fishy around an unsightly townhouse. There's no more improbable anecdote to Manafort's indictment for laundering millions of dollars than the saga of Katia Kelly, a German-born former aspiring fashion designer who stumbled upon the curious purchase history of a Brooklyn brownstone that's now evidence in the money laundering case against Manafort.  If ever there was a tale of all politics being local — and ramifications occasionally being national — this is it."I am not really a reporter," Kelly told me Tuesday as she helped her father close up his North Carolina beach house. She grew up in Germany and France and moved with the family at age 14 to Long Island, which she hated ("so dreadfully dull"). 

Meet the blogger who helped indict Paul Manafort

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Technology Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Cycle

NBC, WSJ  Poll: “A new poll conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal shows that 48 percent of currently employed women in the United States say that they have personally experienced an unwelcome sexual advance or verbal or physical harassment at work. The results — which come after allegations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein opened a floodgate of complaints against other high-profile men in a variety of industries — show that a broad majority of Americans believe workplace sexual harassment is commonplace. And significant shares of men and women say that the recent spate of stories about misconduct have affected how they think about gender, behavior in the workplace and their willingness to speak out about mistreatment.




Technology Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Cycle. Daniel Kreiss & SHANNON C. MCGREGOR. Journal of Political Communication. Pages 1-23 | Published online: 26 Oct 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2017.1364814.
“This article offers the first analysis of the role that technology companies, specifically Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Google, play in shaping the political communication of electoral campaigns in the United States. We offer an empirical analysis of the work technology firms do around electoral politics through interviews with staffers at these firms and digital and social media directors of 2016 U.S. presidential primary and general election campaigns, in addition to field observations at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. We find that technology firms are motivated to work in the political space for marketing, advertising revenue, and relationship-building in the service of lobbying efforts. To facilitate this, these firms have developed organizational structures and staffing patterns that accord with the partisan nature of American politics. Furthermore, Facebook, Twitter, and Google go beyond promoting their services and facilitating digital advertising buys, actively shaping campaign communication through their close collaboration with political staffers. We show how representatives at these firms serve as quasi-digital consultants to campaigns, shaping digital strategy, content, and execution. Given this, we argue that political communication scholars need to consider social media firms as more active agents in political processes than previously appreciated in the literature.”



   

200 dead in tunnel accident at North Korea nuclear test site: report




“The National Archives today released 2,891 records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that are subject to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Actof 1992 (JFK Act). These records are available for download online. The President has also ordered that all remaining records governed by section 5 of the JFK Act be released, and thus additional records will be released subject to redactions recommended by the executive offices and agencies.  NARA will process these records for release as soon as possible on a rolling basis. Based on requests from executive offices and agencies the President has allowed the temporary withholding of certain information that would harm national security, law enforcement, or foreign affairs.  The President also ordered agencies to re-review their proposed redactions and only redact information in the rarest of circumstances where its withholding “is made necessary by an identifiable harm to military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations; and the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”  These instructions will allow the National Archives to release as much information as possible by the end of the temporary certification period on April 26, 2018. The National Archives previously released 3,810 related records on July 24, 2017, including 441 records previously withheld in their entirety and 3,369 records previously withheld in part. More information about this release is available online. In addition, the National Archives is also releasing to the public the unclassified electronic records of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), including 52,387 emails and 16,627 files from the ARRB drives. The National Archives established the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection in November 1992, and it consists of approximately five million pages of records. The vast majority of the collection has been publicly available without any restrictions since the late 1990s.”



Robert Mueller is just getting started.
Legal experts said the court filings indicate Mueller is running a serious, deliberative, and far-sighted inquiry. “I would say this is High-Level Special Counsel Investigation 101,” said Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the Watergate special-prosecutor task force. (The Atlantic)





If You Look Behind Neoliberal Economists, You’ll Discover the Rich: How Economic Theories Serve Big Business

The road to serfdom – sponsored by big business


How Michael Clayton Presaged 2017


Ten years after the film’s release, the world has caught up to its bleak vision.



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All Saints: The work ethic remains underrated: When Ice Was a Hot Gift

Almanac: Nero Wolfe on time
“Come, sir, is time really so precious? Mine isn’t. If yours is, all the more tempting to steal a little.” Rex Stout, A Time to Die ... read more



Happy October and Happy Halloween! Did you know that Halloween originated in Vrbov and Ireland? Thinking of black cats, I found this fun, quick read on Halloween superstitions - remember to sleep facing south!
Vrbov cemetery: All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day

Memories of Tato, Mamka, Aga, Vlado, Tomas, Ondrej, Milan  ...

“Such a negative, jealous, maybe not jealous, but mean-spirited attitude toward this generality of people from Hollywood!” Streisand complains about Wieseltier, who nevertheless has become her friend and adviser, sending her books on 
Judaica and even giving her pointers on spinning the Hanukkah dreidel.



"For all that we read about the murderers and thieves and bullies, the vast majority of us aren't bad people. We go to work and earn our money and pay our taxes. We buy Legacy badges and take our shift amid the smoke and spitting fat of the junior footy club's barbecue. We drive on the correct side of the road and allow other cars to merge without fuss. We generally try to pick the lesser political evil when we have to vote. Collectively, we help our neighbours after flood and fire and feel sorry for the kid next door when the dog dies. We somewhat instinctively know that unrestrained selfishness is not the best policy."
We don't recline. We keep The Bingham Code. We're not Donald Trumps.


 Dated November 1, 2017 this report is clearly watermarked on every page with the word DRAFT, but the White House announced today that this is the commission’s final report: “The President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis has submitted its final report, recommending how the Federal Government can address the drug addiction and opioid crisis. We are grateful for the Commission’s extensive work since March, and look forward to reviewing these recommendations as the entire Administration continues to work to lessen drug demand and the opioid crisis.”



 Michael Pascoe: The 11 rules frequent flyers     Via BC 

 Government missed out on about 250 million frequent flyer points in one year

Fun and profit trading NSW public housing – just ask Smokin' Joe Tripodi

  

How secure are the decisions of a disqualified minister?
Professor Anne Twomey explains which decisions are safe, and why some cabinet decisions aren't really cabinet decisions

Drug Traffickers For Jesus Financial Times
Aiming for the top in business? The boss of BHP says work less, not more.
 "According to BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie, "the more senior I've become, the more important it is that I work fewer hours". (ABC) 



“I’m a social and cultural conservative, and I think Trump is a disaster,” says Dreher, 50. Asked why, he spits back, “Because of his incompetence, his recklessness and his malice. Plus, he is destroying conservatism as a credible public philosophy. The conservative movement needed serious reform, but this is annihilation.”




By -- Dan:
 

When Ice Was a Hot Gift

Walk into just about any grocery store in America and you can buy a huge, 10-pound bag of ice for about $3. Most people have freezers and many have ice makers on their refrigerators, but if you’re having a party, it may be a good idea to invest in a big bag of ice, especially given the price. It’s a product of convenience, nothing more.
 Unless it came from Greenland.

The big bags of ice you’ll buy for your 4th of July barbeque are typically made from regularly-accessible water and probably come from a local source. While a long time ago -- in the days before ubiquitous refrigeration and freezing -- there was a robust ice trade, one which involved capturing icebergs and chopping them up, those days were long past by the mid-1980s. And yet, for a brief moment in 1984, imported Greenland glacial was all the rage.
 The idea to do such a thing came a year earlier when a television executive named William F. Baker traveled to the North Pole. An adventurer by nature -- he had previously visited the South Pole -- Baker wanted to share his experience with some people back home. So he brought back with him about 120 pounds of glacial ice, had it chipped up, and gave it with a bunch of people who would be impressed by chipped bags of imported glacial ice.

It was a hit, and some of his friends wanted to get in on the action. One thing led to another and by the spring of 1984, a new product, known as “Glazonice,” was exclusively available at Bloomingdale's, the iconic Manhattan department store.

Glazonice was ice, but not any ice --  it was formed perhaps as long ago as 100,000 years earlier and therefore, Bloomingdale’s claimed, was as pure (whatever that means) and clean as any ice you can get. Some believed that the ice melted slower and therefore didn’t dilute your drink as much, although there weren't any meaningful scientific experiments to back up that belief. But the novelty was the major selling point anyway. The marketing team came up with a pretty good selling point for Glazonice, asking “'What's more perfect for celebrating the birth of a child or a wedding than 12-year-old Scotch with 100,000-year-old ice?'' At $7 for 35 ounces -- that’s about $32 for ten pounds -- it wasn’t unaffordable, either. (But that’s pretty pricey for ice.)

The product, perhaps surprisingly, proved popular. Some wanted to test the special ice for themselves; others thought it'd be a good gift; still, others just wanted to be part of the moment. Buyers came in from a few hours away to purchase the product -- spending more on gas and tolls (or train tickets) than one would normally spend on ice -- and it seemed that Bloomie's had a winner on its hands.The AP reported (via Untapped Cities) that Bloomingdale’s sold sixty bags of luxury ice in the product’s first two days alone.

But the fad didn’t last -- the product wasn’t offered during the 1985 spring shopping season. Since then, new parents and newlyweds everywhere have had to resort to regular old ice for their Scotch.














Bonus fact: Perhaps the only thing weirder than selling 100,000-year-old ice from Greenland is having to figure out the import tax on importing 100,000-year-old ice from Greenland. The New York Times reported that, when Baker brought back his first 120 pounds of ice, there was a debate over the levy:  “At Kennedy International Airport the customs agents gave a cold shoulder [ha ha] to the suggestion that since the ice was more than 100 years old it should be regarded as antique and therefore allowed in duty free. It was, customs declared, food and thus subject to duty. Finally, however, they decided it was merely ice and duty-free at that.”

From the Archives: The Ice King Cometh: The man who made a fortune importing ice. 



Do bureaucrats care? A take on talent in the public sector.
Talent, expertise and deep understanding can be found at the coal face of service delivery but is still undervalued by those who develop policy, argues Martin Stewart-Weeks. They can hear voices from the front line, but are they listening?
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Study: GOP tax plan would cost $2.4 trillion

The Hill – GOP tax plan will explode deficit: “The Republican tax plan expected to be released this week will explode the deficit, according to a study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School released Monday. The study, which relies on the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), found that the deficit would increase by $1 trillion to $3.5 trillion over the course of the first decade, based on differing estimates of how the final plan will look. By 2040, the plans would cost between $2 trillion and $10.6 trillion. House Republicans are set to reveal their tax plan Wednesday, adding details to the framework that calls for lowering corporate taxes, paring down the number of tax brackets and eliminating a variety of loopholes.
Key Points
  • The “Big 6” recently released a ‘Unified Framework’ for addressing tax reform.
  • The details of many key pieces remain unspecified.
  • How the details are filled in has differential impacts on the federal budget and economy.”
See also via Wharton – the Options for the Unified Framework Tax Plan – CLICK HERE FOR INTERACTIVE SIMULATION – OVERVIEW OF THE UNIFIED FRAMEWORK – The Unified Framework for tax reform released on September 27, 2017 proposes changes to the current tax code. The plan offers changes to individual, corporate and international taxes. The proposed changes are presented in Table 1. The broad goals include tax relief for middle-class families, simplification and tax relief for businesses. The plan also aims to provide greater fairness by eliminating certain tax breaks. The expectation is that the changes will also remove the incentive for businesses to move jobs and capital overseas.”
And – “The Tax Policy Center’s initial September analysis of the plan drew fire from some conservatives for not including the effects of economic growth on revenues.”
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