Massive Leak Reveals Criminality, Paranoia, Among Corporate Titans. LONDON - February 26 - WikiLeaks begins to publish today over five million e-mails obtained by Anonymous from "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails, which reveal everything from sinister spy tactics to an insider trading scheme with Goldman Sachs (see below), also include several discussions of the Yes Men and Bhopal activists. (Bhopal activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India, that led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.) Many of the Bhopal-related emails, addressed from Stratfor to Dow and Union Carbide public relations directors, reveal concern that, in the lead-up to the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, the Bhopal issue might be expanded into an effective systemic critique of corporate rule, and speculate at length about why this hasn't yet happened—providing a fascinating window onto what at least some corporate types fear most from activists.
Tax. Studies. Banks. Greece on the breadline: cashless currency takes off | World news. In recent weeks, Theodoros Mavridis has bought fresh eggs, tsipourou (the local brandy: beware), fruit, olives, olive oil, jam, and soap. He has also had some legal advice, and enjoyed the services of an accountant to help fill in his tax return. None of it has cost him a euro, because he had previously done a spot of electrical work – repairing a TV, sorting out a dodgy light – for some of the 800-odd members of a fast-growing exchange network in the port town of Volos, midway between Athens and Thessaloniki. In return for his expert labour, Mavridis received a number of Local Alternative Units (known as tems in Greek) in his online network account. In return for the eggs, olive oil, tax advice and the rest, he transferred tems into other people's accounts. "It's an easier, more direct way of exchanging goods and services," said Bernhardt Koppold, a German-born homeopathist and acupuncturist in Volos who is an active member of the network.
"They're quite joyous occasions," she said. The Truth Behind Why Japanese Automakers are “Better” at Clever Dude Personal Finance and Money. Posted by Clever Dude | December 12, 2008 . Welcome to Clever Dude! If you like what you see, subscribe to our RSS feed & stay in the loop. I keep hearing over and over that “The U.S. automakers deserve to die off because they make crappy cars and bad decisions“. People think that’s why they can’t make a buck and are at risk of bankruptcy. But I have another side of the story that not many people are aware of: For the Japanese automakers like Toyota and Honda, the single biggest lesson they learned from the American automakers was this: Don’t be too generous with employee retirement benefits.
The biggest problem right now with GM, Ford and Chrysler are their payrolls and pensions. But the Japanese makers don’t have that problem, but not simply because they had the foresight to avoid union contract deals like bloated salaries and the infamous “jobs bank” that paid workers 95% of their salary to do nothing until work is available. But I’m not making an excuse for the domestic automakers. Do Japanese autoworkers make more than American autoworkers? Crony Capitalism Comes Homes.
A New Wall Street Investigation: Is the Hammer Finally Coming Down? | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy. IdentityProtector::Main. Double Irish Arrangement. The double Irish arrangement is a tax avoidance strategy that multinational corporations use to lower their corporate tax liability. The strategy uses payments between related entities in a corporate structure to shift income from a higher-tax country to a lower-tax country. It relies on the fact that Irish tax law does not include US transfer pricing rules.[1] Specifically, Ireland uses territorial taxation, and hence does not levy taxes on income booked at subsidiaries of Irish companies that are outside of the state.
In the late 1980s, Apple Inc. was among the pioneers in creating this tax structure.[2] Overview[edit] Typically, the company arranges for the rights to exploit intellectual property outside the United States to be owned by an offshore company. This is achieved by entering into a cost sharing agreement between the US parent and the off-shore company, in the terms of US transfer pricing rules. Dutch sandwich[edit] Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich – example 1.