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MACHIAVELLI WAS RIGHT: DISTRUST THE RICH

In Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 6, 2023 at 12:14 am

For President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans, the single greatest achievement of their time in office was to drastically cut taxes on the wealthy (including themselves).

It’s a view that Niccolo Machiavelli would dispute.        

In 1513, Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman who has been called the father of modern political science, published his best-known work: The Prince.

Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito.jpg

Niccolo Machiavelli

Among the issues he confronted was how to preserve liberty within a republic. And key to this was mediating the eternal struggle between the wealthy and the poor and middle class.

Machiavelli deeply distrusted the nobility because they stood above the law. He saw them as a major source of corruption because they could buy influence through patronage, favors or nepotism.

Successful political leaders must attain the support of the nobility or general populace. But since these groups have conflicting interests, the safest course is to choose the latter.  

Writes Machiavelli:

….He who becomes prince by help of the [wealthy] has greater difficulty in maintaining his power than he who is raised by the populace. He is surrounded by those who think themselves his equals, and is thus unable to direct or command as he pleases. 

But one who is raised to leadership by popular favor finds himself alone, and has no one, or very few, who   are not  ready  to  obey him. [And] it is impossible to satisfy the [wealthy] by fair dealing and without inflicting injury upon others, whereas it is very easy to satisfy the mass of the people in this way. 

Machiavelli warns that the general populace is more honest than the nobility—i.e., wealthy. The wealthy seek to oppress, while the populace wants to simply avoid oppression.

A political leader cannot protect himself against a hostile population, owing to their numbers, but he can against the hostility of the great, as they are but few.

The worst that a prince has to expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned, but from hostile nobles he has to fear not only desertion but their active opposition. And as they are more far seeing and more cunning, they are always in time to save themselves and take sides with the one who they expect will conquer. 

The prince is, moreover, obliged to live always with the same people, but he can easily do without the same nobility, being able to make and unmake them at any time, and improve their position or deprive them of it as he pleases.

Unfortunately, political leaders throughout the world—including the United States–have ignored this sage advice.

In 2012, Tax Justice Network, which campaigns to abolish tax havens, commissioned a study of their effect on the world’s economy.

The study was entitled, “The Price of Offshore Revisited: New Estimates for ‘Missing’ Global Private Wealth, Income, Inequality and Lost Taxes.”

http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisited_120722.pdf

The research was carried out by James Henry, former chief economist at consultants McKinsey & Co.  Among its findings:

  • By 2010, at least $21 to $32 trillion of the world’s private financial wealth had been invested virtually tax-­free through more than 80 offshore secrecy jurisdictions.
  • Since the 1970s, with eager (and often aggressive and illegal) assistance from the international private banking industry, private elites in 139 countries had accumulated $7.3 to $9.3 trillion of unrecorded offshore wealth by 2010.
  • This happened while many of those countries’ public sectors were borrowing themselves into bankruptcy, suffering painful adjustment and low growth, and holding fire sales of public assets.
  • The assets of these countries are held by a small number of wealthy individuals while the debts are shouldered by the ordinary people of these countries through their governments.
  • The offshore industry is protected by pivate bankers, lawyers and accountants, who get paid handsomely to hide their clients’ assets and identities.
  • Bank regulators and central banks of most countries allow the world’s top tax havens and banks to hide the origins and ownership of assets under their supervision.
  • Although multilateral institutions like the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the IMF and the World Bank are supposedly insulated from politics, they have been highly compromised by the collective interests of Wall Street.
  • These regulatory bodies have never required financial institutions to fully report their cross-­border customer liabilities, deposits, customer assets under management or under custody.
  • Less than 100,000 people, .001% of the world’s population, now control over 30% of the world’s financial wealth.
  • Assuming that global offshore financial wealth of $21 trillion earns a total return of just 3% a year, and would have been taxed an average of 30% in the home country, this unrecorded wealth might have generated tax revenues of $189 billion per year.

Summing up this situation, the report noted: “We are up against one of society’s most well-­entrenched interest groups. After all, there’s no interest group more rich and powerful than the rich and powerful.”

Fortunately, Machiavelli has supplied timeless remedies to this increasingly dangerous situation:

  • Assume evil among men—and most especially among those who possess the greatest concentration of wealth and power.
  • Carefully monitor their activities—the way the FBI now regularly monitors those of the Mafia and major terrorist groups.
  • Ruthlessly prosecute the treasonous crimes of the rich and powerful—and, upon their conviction, impose severe punishment.

FACEBOOK, WE’RE GLAD TO LEAVE YE: PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 8, 2022 at 12:08 am

And, on Facebook, the complaints just keep coming. [NOTE: The spellings are those of the complainants.]            

  • FACEBOOK BETRAYED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US ON HERE. SO MUCH SO THAT NOW WE HAVE AN IDIOT IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND IT’S YOUR FAULT YOU PUT HIM THERE. HOW DARE YOU TAKE 87 MILLION PEOPLE’S DATA, GIVE IT TO CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICS, WHO GAVE IT TO RUSSIA, WHO GAVE IT TO MANAFORT, WHICH MADE HILLARY LOSE AND TRUMP WIN. I HOPE THEY KICK YOUR ASS IN CONGRESS.
  • FACEBOOK STINKS. Despite being repeatedly told that your website is hacked all the time, you do nothing. Today, my girlfriend received a completely naked photo from a stranger, reported it, and you deemed it fine. This is not fine. It’s disgusting. You are a lousy, immoral company with no security or protection for your users. You STINK!You should have a minus ten, not one star.
  • total waste of time. I hate the way no can help you get access to your account but they will block the old account without contacting you.
  • FB News Feed now shows only posts from the same few people, about 25, and repeat the same, because Facebook has a new algorithm. Their system chooses the people to read one’s posts. However, I would like to choose for myself.
  • My husband’s account was hackef and he’s tried everything to get back into it and Absolutely NO HELP from Facebook to resolve this!! It has ALL of his family and friends blocked from his page including me!!

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  • FB Gestapo must be pushing fake news and stories.Every time I drop a link showing the claims are fake as a TV Preacher,FB notifies me my post has been marked as spam and they remove it.
  • I have tried to contact FB about missing fundraiser donations and cannot get a reply.
  • Tried to contact Facebook about something on one of the group sites and they never answered my complaint, now they have blocked the like button because I have pushed it too many times and now have put one of my comments to the spam. If they do not respond to my 2nd complaint, I will Be closing my Facebook account.
  • SICK OF ADVERTISMENTS FROM FACEBOOK IN MY NEWS FEED IM NOT FUKIN INTERESTED
  • I got blocked from posting videos and facebook live because I posted a video of me singing with the music video plating in the background… I would like to know why this happened…
  • TAKE ME OFF THE BEING BANNED LIST OF POSTING I AM NOT A FREAKING TERROIST
  • Reported a dozen times, and left phone msgs regarding a convicted Pedophile, child molester, registered on Megan’s Law website. Facebook will not do anything about it
  • YOU CANT GET ANYONE TO ANSWER I AM SO FRUSTRATED I GIVE UP ITS TERRIBLE

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  • Brian Haner has been reported for being offensive. He was informed this is his second strike. He has 70000 followers and people have the right to UNLIKE if they are offended. No one has the right to get someone BANNED for expressing an “offensive” opinion. If Brian is banned because some uppity person can conplain and have their ONE opinion outweight the other 69999 opinions then I for one will leave to google+ and I will take as many people as I can with me.
  • Complained about the marketing for Kary Oberbrummer self publishing book scheme that refuses to give you the costs up front. Facebook deleted all my comments and refuses to let me make anymore comments on the post. Just trying to warn people about the downside risk. Facebook censorship ! UNBELIEVABLE !
  • My Facebook page or rather account got all screwed up. It started logging me in on my original very first Facebook account, how in the world do I delete it? I have pushed deactivate until my face is blood red and I am extremely sick because after I push deactivate then it says your session with Facebook has ran out please login again and then of course it logs me back into the old account! I would appreciate it so very much if someone would please give me an answer that works.
  • They will not answer as to why I can not post anything for sale
  • Can’t seem to find a way to contact Facebook. Probably the way they want it. I’m getting very obnoxious friends requests that I would like to stop but don;t see a way to do it. Not likely to hang around much longer but then I don’t think they care.

The 1970 epic, “Patton,” closed with the words: “All glory is fleeting.” Mark Zuckerberg and his self-satisfied honchos at Facebook should realize that social networking websites can also be fleeting.

Anyone who doubts this need only sum up a few once well-known names:

  • Myspace
  • Google+
  • Friendster
  • Posterous
  • Yahoo Meme
  • SixDegrees
  • Classmates
  • Yahoo Buzz
  • Eons
  • iTunes Ping

Mark Zuckerberg needs to quickly install some serious reforms in Facebook. Otherwise, in time, his name will be added to those CEOs of other failed social networking sites.

FACEBOOK, WE’RE GLAD TO LEAVE YE: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 7, 2022 at 12:11 am

All is not well in Facebook.

According to its profile on Wikipedia: “The subject of numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.

“Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and various controversies over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech. Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.” 

Facebook operates as virtually a law unto itself, arbitrarily deciding which posts violate its “Community Standards” and deleting them (and their posters) without warning and right to appeal.

Here is a sampling of complaints made directly to Facebook by its thoroughly enraged users. [NOTE: The spellings are those of the complainants.]

  • Stop soliciting me for boosts and adds. It is annoying spam, the kind you encourage people to block. But, of course, we can’t block it since it’s you. Trust me, if I was ever inclined in the least to give you additiobnal money for anything, you effectively killed that urge thousands of unwelcome posts and reminders ago. You make Instagram look better every day.
  • Same exact thing I went threw. 25 times they pulled my ad and 25 times I appealed it, not one time did I get a response. My ad was for dog training they said it didn’t meet Facebook policy because of animal sales, but in all 25 appeals, I explained, I’m not selling animals I’m selling a service. And I was even paying my own money to run the same ad on boost promo. They approved my ad for that and took my money, but can’t get my ad to run on a free market place.

We are serving up the #best #funny #facebook #memes via http://ohsohumorous.com !! Don't forget to #like #follow and #share yo… | Memes, Mark zuckerberg, Zuckerberg

  • I keep getting my post that I am selling fabric rejected and it won’t let me appeal it because there are no posts listed.. Says I violated a commerce policy. What does fabric violate? I got a message from FB today and all it shows it was closed. NO EXPLANATION
  • Hello, How do i reply to a message from you I have just had about a picture that I originally got off Facebook that is apparently now not allowed. I can’t delete it and if I try to answer it just buffers and is never sent.
  • I voiced my opinion on gaffneynites and just because the republicans can say what they want I was taken off that group, they said nothing to the people who were harassing me, and they could say what they wanted, I don’t think facebook is fair when it lets one side say whatever they want to and you can’t, this is discrimination in my opinion, I thought this was suppose to be America free speech

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  • Facebook must get their act together, People do have an opinion, and if you get in so called “facebook jail” for having that opinion, what is the point of having a social media site???? Come on Facebook, get with the 21st century..
  • No way to contact Facebook – times outs, no connection, all sort of excuses when you are posting a claim, or a request for contact!!Facebook is charging me for something I didn’t authorized to run, an add. Many months ago I stopped running all adds I had posted – mainly because of the difficulty (impossibility?) of reaching you managers, or whomever is responsible for billings!!! YOU JUST HIDE YOUR SELVES, AND AFTER STARTING AN ADD, one has no way of stopping it, changing it, no feed back at all!! I will never post a add on Facebook again!!
  • Tried to contact fb to try and stop all these “friends requests” from all foreign people. Could not do, after all this bad publicity you would think they would be very wary.
  • I just tried to contact Facebook concerning my account with a number provided on the Website. The service representative was very helpful until I turned down the $49.00 fee to fix my problem. When I said that was not acceptable, he hung up on me ….

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  • Contacting them is impossible. They want you gone, and you are gone. No explanation, and I have never giving them these five stars;; they made that up.
  • it is very hard to find this contact method. it is totally impersonal. it allows for no dialogue. it seems to confirm that FB is too big for its own britches.
  • is there a way to contact facebook as getting a little peeved with the service and will not pay for any more ads while i am unable to contact them.
  • Never have a direct Help Desk to call…it appears as if You all are invisible.
  • you cannot contact facebook to report a fault! what good is that?
  • I CALLED 2 TIMES AND THEY WANT $100 SAY IT IS MY COMPUTER AND IT ISNT……..I Cant share and in jail almost 24/7. i was to be out at 12;20 yesterday…last time they did this and they restriction is over but still 3 more days!!!! idiots work here!!!!! never reply back either.

FACEBOOK, WE’RE GLAD TO LEAVE YE: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 6, 2022 at 12:10 am

Facebook is in big trouble. And much of it stems from its own greed and arrogance toward its customers.

An email recently sent to Winnie Liu, director of Facebook & Instagram Research, offers several telling truths.

The recipient—a friend of mine named Dan—had just been put in “Facebook Jail” for somehow offending its “Community Standards” (i.e., censorship) department.

The actual offense, of course, was not outlined.  It never is.

15 FB JAIL& Censorship ideas | facebook jail, facebook humor, jail

When he tried to post something on Facebook, Dan got an automatic message: “You may have used Facebook in a way that our systems consider unusual, even if you didn’t mean to. You can post again in 24 hours.”

Notice the phrase: “You may have used Facebook in a way that our systems consider unusual.”

Well, did he or didn’t he commit an offense? If he didn’t, he shouldn’t have been banned from posting on Facebook. If he did, then he should have had the right to know, specifically, what it was he posted that “may have” been considered “unusual”.

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And what it is that “our systems consider unusual”? Did he defame someone? Post an obscene photo? Tell a joke that someone found offensive?

America’s criminal and civil justice systems are founded on specificity. If the police accuse you of robbing a bank, they need to have specific proof that you robbed it. Their merely saying “I think he’s a bank robber” isn’t evidence—and shouldn’t be counted as such.

Finally, if he “didn’t mean to” post something that Facebook’s “systems consider unusual,” then that should be a mitigating factor in itself.

Even in criminal law, room is made to distinguish intentional acts from unintentional ones, even when harm is caused.

So when Dan got an email from Facebook, inviting him to take part in an upcoming research survey, he decided to share his disgust with its blatant disregard for fairness:

  • “Although Facebook users like me have made its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, worth $52 billion, he’s unwilling to make it possible for those users to directly contact Facebook’s censorship department when they find themselves booted off Facebook. Or when they can’t log onto it. Or when they’re being billed for ads they never posted.
  • “Ideally, this should be done by phone. Certainly, with all the billions of advertising dollars Facebook rakes in, a comparatively small portion could be set aside to hire banks of phone operators to deal with situations like this.

Facebook Warning: You have violated a rule we haven't made up yet. Because you're a known troublemaker you're banned for 30 days Thank you for using Facebook, have a nice day. - )

  • “But if you’re not willing to do that, you could at least make it possible for frustrated users to contact Facebook via Instant Messaging.
  • “As it is, Facebook’s censorship department operates as prosecutor, jury and judge. Its decisions come out of the blue, and whoever is accused of violating your ‘Community Standards’ is automatically found guilty, with no right to appeal or even explain the situation as s/he saw it.
  • “These are the methods of a Star Chamber in a dictatorship. They are reprehensible to citizens of any free society. And Facebook should consider them equally reprehensible as affronts to free speech.
  • “There have been numerous reports that Facebook’s censorship department has been manipulated by Right-wing Trump supporters to remove posts they don’t like, even of those posts don’t actually violate Facebook’s “community standards.” I feel reasonably certain this is what happened in my case.
  • “Since Zuckerberg recently spent two days in Washington testifying before outraged Democrats, it isn’t in his—or Facebook’s—best interest that he be forced to account for such disgraceful manipulation.

Quitting Facebook Memes 15 Fun Memes About Leaving Facebook

  • “I have seen numerous complaints by Facebook members about being put in ‘Facebook Jail’ for even the most trivial ‘offenses.’ One of these is ‘liking’ too many posts.
  • “Others like myself have simply re-posted images or stories already posted on Facebook—and found themselves kicked off as a result.

“Last December I wrote Mark Zuckerman about these problems—and the dangers they represent for Facebook. Naturally, I didn’t receive even the courtesy of a reply. And it’s clear to me that he has no intention of making such reforms.

“So there’s really no point in your offering test respondents $75 apiece in Amazon gift cards. Since Facebook clearly refuses to address the issue that’s most outraging so many of its users—at least the ones I know—it can expect to see its audience continue to shrink.

“When I first got a computer in 1999, AOL was the ‘big dog on the block.’ No more. When a comedian now references AOL, it’s as a joke, to mock its now antiquated status.

“It’s unfortunate that some people—like those in charge of Facebook—stubbornly refuse to learn from history.”

Dan’s experience, however, is by no means rare. Nor is his high level of disgust with Facebook.

For some unknown reason, Facebook has chosen to publish many of its users’ opinions on their “Facebook experience.”

All that’s needed to access these opinions—which are almost entirely complaints—is to type “Contact Facebook” in the white subject bar in the upper left-hand corner of the page.

Parts Three and Four of this series will focus on those expressed views—and outrage.

FACEBOOK, WE’RE GLAD TO LEAVE YE: PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on December 5, 2022 at 12:22 am

A September 30 story on the CNBC website spells bad news for Facebook: “Facebook Is Scrambling to Escape Stock’s Death Spiral as Users Flee, Sales Drop.”

Writes Jonathan Vanian:

  • “Meta [Facebook’s parent company] is trading at its lowest since early 2019, and the stock is one of the worst performers this year in the S&P 500.”
  • “The company’s problems are mounting, whether it’s the ad hit from Apple’s iOS changes or the growing threat posed by TikTok.”

In 2021, Facebook’s revenues stood at $1 trillion. But since September, 2021, Meta has lost about two-thirds of its value.

Users are fleeing and advertisers are reducing their spending. Businesses are removing Facebook’s social login button from their websites. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is obsessed with creating what he calls a Metaverse, and is pouring increasing amounts of time and money into this effort.

At present, it’s costing billions of dollars a year to build and many investors view Facebook as a sinking ship.

Meanwhile, the younger generation—those born between the early 1980s to the early 2000s—is moving away from Facebook. Only 27 percent of Millennials used Facebook in 2021, a decline from 48.6 percent in 2017.

Facebook New Logo (2015).svg

They are seeking newer alternatives, such as Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

The most popular of these is TikTok, the video-sharing website.  In September 2021, TikTok claimed it had over one billion users on its platform.

According to an industry insider: “The majority of Facebook users now are those in their 40s and 50s. Personal information leakage controversies surrounding Facebook are also a cause for declining numbers of users.”

Teens no longer see Facebook as cool. Instead, they see it as a space for the older generation to catch up with family.

By 2023, fewer than 15 percent of Facebook users will be under 25.

Its creator and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, at 38, is now worth $36 billion, according to NBC News. In September, 2001, his net worth reached a height of $142 billion, Bloomberg reported. But his net worth dropped by more than 100 billion in 2022.

The reason: Meta, Facebook’s parent company, faces investor pessimism about its future growth trajectory. On October 27, Meta shares were down by 22%, making the company worth approximately $271 billion/

Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg 

But a desire by teens to avoid a social network used by their parents and grandparents isn’t the only reason for widespread dissatisfaction with Facebook.

Facebook’s arrogant treatment of many of its users is a major reason for their disillusionment—and desertion.

To cite what should be the Bible among corporate CEOs: Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation From Stifling People and Strangling Profits, by Robert Townsend.

First published in 1970, its writing is brisk and its tone is no-nonsense. According to the dust jacket of the paperback edition:

“This is not a book about how organizations work. What should happen in organizations and what does happen are two different things and about as far apart as they can get.

“THIS BOOK IS ABOUT HOW TO GET THEM TO RUN THREE TIMES AS WELL AS THEY DO. The keys that will accomplish this are JUSTICE…FUN…EXCELLENCE.” 

One chapter in particular—“Call Yourself Up”—runs only a short paragraph. Yet it is a paragraph that Mark Zuckerberg should tape to his bathroom mirror and re-read every day:

“When you’re off on a business trip or a vacation, pretend you’re a customer. Telephone some part of your organization and ask for help. You’ll run into some real horror shows.”

If Zuckerberg were a Facebook customer, instead of its CEO, he would face “some real horror shows.”

A friend of mine named Dan recently had this experience on Facebook:

“On May 31, I was placed in what Facebook’s users commonly refer to as ‘Facebook Jail’ for 24 hours. My crime: Posting a commentary on the firing of Roseanne Barr for her racist tweet on May 29.

“Specifically: Another Facebook user had already posted a picture of a white woman using a cell phone to call police–and report that a black woman had just wiped out her favorite TV show. (This was clearly a reference to Channing Dungey, entertainment president of the American Broadcasting Company, who made the decision to dump Roseanne after Barr’s racist tweet.)

“Under that photo I had posted a picture of a Ku Klux Klan rally, with a caption to the effect: “Hey, ABC, you can’t fire Roseanne! She’s one of us!”

“Perhaps two hours later I was kicked off Facebook and sent a message that I had violated its “Community Standards.” The picture I had posted of the Klan rally was given, but not the caption I had posted with it.

“Anyone with half a brain should have realized that this was not an expression of support for the Klan but an attack on it—and on Barr for her Fascistic racism.”

Apparently, no one at Facebook had any understanding of irony. Nor could they tell the difference between a post attacking the racism of the Ku Klux Klan and celebrating it.

MACHIAVELLI WAS RIGHT: DISTRUST THE RICH

In Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 31, 2022 at 12:14 am

For President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans, the single greatest achievement of their time in office was to drastically cut taxes on the wealthy (including themselves).

It’s a view that Niccolo Machiavelli would dispute.        

In 1513, Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman who has been called the father of modern political science, published his best-known work: The Prince.

Quote by Machiavelli: “Necessity is what impels men to take action ...

Niccolo Machiavelli

Among the issues he confronted was how to preserve liberty within a republic. And key to this was mediating the eternal struggle between the wealthy and the poor and middle class.

Machiavelli deeply distrusted the nobility because they stood above the law. He saw them as a major source of corruption because they could buy influence through patronage, favors or nepotism.

Successful political leaders must attain the support of the nobility or general populace. But since these groups have conflicting interests, the safest course is to choose the latter.  

Writes Machiavelli:

….He who becomes prince by help of the [wealthy] has greater difficulty in maintaining his power than he who is raised by the populace. He is surrounded by those who think themselves his equals, and is thus unable to direct or command as he pleases. 

But one who is raised to leadership by popular favor finds himself alone, and has no one, or very few, who   are not  ready  to  obey him. [And] it is impossible to satisfy the [wealthy] by fair dealing and without inflicting injury upon others, whereas it is very easy to satisfy the mass of the people in this way. 

Machiavelli warns that the general populace is more honest than the nobility—i.e., wealthy. The wealthy seek to oppress, while the populace wants to simply avoid oppression.

A political leader cannot protect himself against a hostile population, owing to their numbers, but he can against the hostility of the great, as they are but few.

The worst that a prince has to expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned, but from hostile nobles he has to fear not only desertion but their active opposition. And as they are more far seeing and more cunning, they are always in time to save themselves and take sides with the one who they expect will conquer. 

The prince is, moreover, obliged to live always with the same people, but he can easily do without the same nobility, being able to make and unmake them at any time, and improve their position or deprive them of it as he pleases.

Unfortunately, political leaders throughout the world—including the United States–have ignored this sage advice.

In 2012, Tax Justice Network, which campaigns to abolish tax havens, commissioned a study of their effect on the world’s economy.

The study was entitled, “The Price of Offshore Revisited: New Estimates for ‘Missing’ Global Private Wealth, Income, Inequality and Lost Taxes.”

http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisited_120722.pdf

The research was carried out by James Henry, former chief economist at consultants McKinsey & Co.  Among its findings:

  • By 2010, at least $21 to $32 trillion of the world’s private financial wealth had been invested virtually tax-­free through more than 80 offshore secrecy jurisdictions.
  • Since the 1970s, with eager (and often aggressive and illegal) assistance from the international private banking industry, private elites in 139 countries had accumulated $7.3 to $9.3 trillion of unrecorded offshore wealth by 2010.
  • This happened while many of those countries’ public sectors were borrowing themselves into bankruptcy, suffering painful adjustment and low growth, and holding fire sales of public assets.
  • The assets of these countries are held by a small number of wealthy individuals while the debts are shouldered by the ordinary people of these countries through their governments.
  • The offshore industry is protected by pivate bankers, lawyers and accountants, who get paid handsomely to hide their clients’ assets and identities.
  • Bank regulators and central banks of most countries allow the world’s top tax havens and banks to hide the origins and ownership of assets under their supervision.
  • Although multilateral institutions like the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the IMF and the World Bank are supposedly insulated from politics, they have been highly compromised by the collective interests of Wall Street.
  • These regulatory bodies have never required financial institutions to fully report their cross-­border customer liabilities, deposits, customer assets under management or under custody.
  • Less than 100,000 people, .001% of the world’s population, now control over 30% of the world’s financial wealth.
  • Assuming that global offshore financial wealth of $21 trillion earns a total return of just 3% a year, and would have been taxed an average of 30% in the home country, this unrecorded wealth might have generated tax revenues of $189 billion per year.

Summing up this situation, the report noted: “We are up against one of society’s most well-­entrenched interest groups. After all, there’s no interest group more rich and powerful than the rich and powerful.”

Fortunately, Machiavelli has supplied timeless remedies to this increasingly dangerous situation:

  • Assume evil among men—and most especially among those who possess the greatest concentration of wealth and power.
  • Carefully monitor their activities—the way the FBI now regularly monitors those of the Mafia and major terrorist groups.
  • Ruthlessly prosecute the treasonous crimes of the rich and powerful—and, upon their conviction, impose severe punishment.

DEALING WITH CORPORATE ARROGANCE

In Bureaucracy, History, Self-Help, Social commentary on June 3, 2021 at 12:41 am

So you’ve spent the last half-hour or more on the phone, listening to one recorded message after another (and probably a symphony of bad music).

And you’re no closer to solving the problem that caused you to phone the company/agency in the first place.

What to do?   

  • Go on the Internet and look up the company’s/agency’s website. 
  • Look for links to their Board of Directors. Often enough you’ll get not only their names but their bios, phone numbers and even email addresses.
  • Start looking at the bottom of the website page. Many companies/agencies put this information there—and usually in small print.
  • Look for the names of officials who can help you. That means the ones at the top—or at least high enough so you can be sure that whoever responds to your call/letter/email has the necessary clout to address your problem.
  • If you call, don’t ask to speak directly with Mr. Big—that’s not going to happen. Ask to speak with Mr. Big’s secretary, who is far more accessible.
  • Keep your tone civil, and try to make your call as brief as possible. Don’t go into a lot of background about all the problems you’ve been having getting through to someone.
  • Give the gist and ask for a referral to someone who can help resolve your problem.

  • If the secretary needs more time to study the problem before referring you to someone else, be patient. Answer any questions asked—such as your name, address, phone number and/or email.
  • State—specifically—what you want the company to do to resolve your problem.  If you want a refund or repairs for your product, say so.
  • Too many consumers don’t specify what they want the company to do–they’re so caught up in their rage and frustration that this completely escapes them. 
  • Be reasonable. If you want a refund, then don’t ask for more money than you paid for the product. 
  • If you want to return a product for an exchange, don’t expect the company to give you a new one with even more bells and whistles—unless you’re willing to pay the difference in price.
  • If you want an agency to investigate your complaint, give them time to assess your information and that supplied by others.
  • Give the CEO’s secretary at least one to two days to get back to you. Resolving your problem isn’t the only task she needs to complete.
  • You can usually get one agency to sit on another—if you can make a convincing case that it’s in that secondary agency’s best interests to do so. 
  • If you’ve been roughed up by local police for no good reason, for example, you can file a complaint with that department–-and the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office (federal prosecutor) to investigate.

  • That doesn’t guarantee they will resolve your problem.  But if you can show that the cops have violated several Federal civil rights laws,  the odds are good that someone will take a serious look at your complaint.
  • If a company/agency official has acted so outrageously that the company/agency might now be sued or prosecuted, don’t be afraid to say so. 
  • But don’t threaten to sue. Just point out that the company’s/agency’s reputation for integrity/efficiency is not well-served by such behavior.
  • Whoever reads your letter/email will instantly realize the legal implications of what you’re saying—and will likely take quick action to head off a lawsuit by trying to satisfy your request. Remember: The foremost priority of every bureaucracy is to ensure its own survival..  
  • If you’re writing the CEO, make sure you use his full name and title—and that you spell both correctly. People don’t get to be CEOs without a huge sense of ego. People don’t get to be CEOs without a huge sense of ego. Nothing will turn him off faster than your failing to get his name and title exactly right.
  • As in the case with his secretary, be brief—no more than a page and a half. Outline the problem you’re having and at least some (though not necessarily all) of the steps you’re taken to get it resolved.
  • Then state what you want the company to do.  Again, be fair and reasonable.

If all of this fails, you still have the option to sue. But don’t be in a rush to go to court.  For one thing, you might not have a case that a judge would consider trying.

For another, judges and juries like to feel that you’ve behaved reasonably and done everything short of filing a lawsuit before you actually file one.

If your claim is $10,000 or less, you can file in small claims court. There you won’t need a lawyer—in fact, you’re not allowed to have one. It’s just you and the person you’re suing standing before a judge and explaining your side of the case.

For claims above $10,000, you’ll go to superior court. You aren’t required to have a lawyer, but odds are your opponent will have one. So you’d better be ready to shell out money for one—unless you can find one who’ll take your case on a contingency basis (for a portion of the fee recovered). 

THE RICH–AND THEIR EVILS–ARE WITH YOU ALWAYS

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 14, 2021 at 12:55 am

In November, 2017, President Donald Trump and a Republican-dominated House and Senate rammed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 through Congress. It became law on December 22, 2017.  

The law: 

  • Ignored the stagnation of working-class wages and exacerbated inequality;
  • Weakened revenues when the nation needed to raise more;
  • Encouraged rampant tax avoidance and gaming that will undermine the integrity of the tax code;
  • Left behind low- and moderate-income Americans—and in many ways hurt them.

For American corporations, however, the law was a godsend: 

  • Cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent;
  • Shifting toward a territorial tax system, where multinational corporations’ foreign profits go largely untaxed;
  • Benefitting overwhelmingly wealthy shareholders and highly paid executives.

In 1513, Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman who has been called the father of modern political science, published his best-known work: The Prince.

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Niccolo Machiavelli

Among the issues he confronted was how to preserve liberty within a republic. And key to this was mediating the eternal struggle between the wealthy and the poor and middle class.

Machiavelli deeply distrusted the nobility because they stood above the law. He saw them as a major source of corruption because they could buy influence through patronage, favors or nepotism.

Successful political leaders must attain the support of the nobility or general populace. But since these groups have conflicting interests, the safest course is to choose the latter.  

Writes Machiavelli:

….He who becomes prince by help of the [wealthy] has greater difficulty in maintaining his power than he who is raised by the populace. He is surrounded by those who think themselves his equals, and is thus unable to direct or command as he pleases. 

But one who is raised to leadership by popular favor finds himself alone, and has no one, or very  ew, who   are not  ready  to  obey him. [And] it is impossible to satisfy the [wealthy] by fair dealing and without inflicting injury upon others, whereas it is very easy to satisfy the mass of the people in this way. 

Machiavelli warns that the general populace is more honest than the nobility–i-.e., wealthy. The wealthy seek to oppress, while the populace wants to simply avoid oppression.

A political leader cannot protect himself against a hostile population, owing to their numbers, but he can against the hostility of the great, as they are but few.

The worst that a prince has to expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned, but from hostile nobles he has to fear not only desertion but their active opposition. And as they are more far seeing and more cunning, they are always in time to save themselves and take sides with the one who they expect will conquer. 

One…who becomes prince by favor of the populace, must maintain its friendship, which he will find easy, the people asking nothing but not to be oppressed. 

But one who against the people’s wishes becomes prince by favor of the nobles, should above all endeavor to gain the favor of the people.  This will be easy for him if he protects them.  

In 2020, Tax Justice Network, which campaigns to abolish tax havens, commissioned a study of their effect on the world’s economy.

The study was entitled, “The State of Tax Justice 2020.” 

May be an image of 6 people and text that says 'SO YOU WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO "STOP GIVING POOR PEOPLE FREE STUFF"? FUNNY HOW YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT THE $70 BILLION A YEAR WE SPEND ON SUBSIDIZING WALL ST BANKS, THE $38 BILLION IN SUBSIDIES GIVEN TO OIL COMPANIES, THE $2.1 TRILLION THAT FORTUNE 500 CORPORATIONS ARE STASHING ABROAD TO AVOID PAYING U.S. TAXES, AND THE $153 BILLION A YEAR WE SPEND TO SUBSIDIZE MCDONALD'S & WALMART'S OW-WAGE WORKERS? OCCUPY DEMOCRATS'

The research was carried out by James Henry, former chief economist at consultants McKinsey & Co.  Among its findings: 

  • Countries lose over $427 billion in tax each year to international corporate tax abuse and private tax evasion.
  • More tax is lost to tax havens ever year due to corporate tax abuse by multinational corporations than by individuals.
  • Multinational corporations short-change countries out of $245 billion in tax every year.
  • People who move their wealth offshore short-change their governments out of $182 billion in taxes every year.
  • Almost all responsibility for global tax losses falls on higher income countries.
  • Higher income countries were responsible for 98 per cent of all the tax loss countries around the world lost.

The report recommended: 

  • Governments should introduce an excess profit tax on large multinational corporations which have profited during the pandemic while local businesses were forced into lockdown.
  • Digital tech giants claim to have our best interests at heart but have been short-changing us out of billions in tax for years.
  • Governments should introduce a wealth tax to reign in the billions in tax lost to tax havens every year.
  • Establish a UN tax convention that makes sure robust international tax standards are set in a transparent and democratic way.

Fortunately, Machiavelli has supplied timeless remedies to this increasingly dangerous situation:

  • Assume evil among men—and most especially among those who possess the greatest concentration of wealth and power.
  • Carefully monitor their activities—the way the FBI now regularly monitors those of the Mafia and major terrorist groups.
  • This means using bugs, wiretaps and informants—and, above all, assuming that powerful men dedicated to their own greed will inevitably become criminals.
  • Ruthlessly prosecute the treasonous crimes of the rich and powerful—and, upon their conviction, impose severe punishment.

WHEN A COMPANY/AGENCY IGNORES YOUR PROBLEM

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Self-Help, Social commentary on December 25, 2020 at 12:06 am

How many times have you called a government agency or company and instantly found yourself put on hold?

To add insult to injury, you usually wind up serenaded by recorded music that would be totally forgettable if it weren’t so unforgivably irritating.

And every 30 seconds or so a recorded voice comes on to assure you: “Your call is very important to us.”

Have you ever wondered:If my call is so important to you, why aren’t you answering it?” 

The truth is that most companies and government agencies don’t want their employees speaking with the customers who make their existence a reality.

Having your questions answered by another human being requires the company/agency to assign—and pay—people to do just that.

Most hiring managers don’t want to hire any more people than they absolutely have to. They want to siphon off as much of the company’s profits for themselves as possible.

And assigning people to answer customers’ calls means that many of those calls will take time to answer, because some problems can’t be solved in a matter of seconds. 

Even government agencies like police departments don’t want to spend any more time than necessary taking the calls of those who need to reach them.

Even calls to 911 can leave you talking to no one, with only a recorded message telling you to wait until someone deigns to speak with you.

And you’re no closer to solving the problem that caused you to phone the company/agency in the first place.

What to do? 

For starters, don’t lose heart. There are usually a great many things you can do to obtain the help you need.

  • Go on the Internet and look up the company’s/agency’s website. 
  • Look for links to their Board of Directors. Often enough you’ll get not only their names but their bios, phone numbers and even email addresses.
  • Look at the bottom of the website page. Many companies/agencies put this information there–and usually in small print.
  • Look for the names of officials who can help you—those at the top, or at least high enough so that whoever responds to your call/letter/email has the necessary clout to address your problem.
  • If you call, don’t ask to speak directly with Mr. Big. Ask to speak with Mr. Big’s secretary, who is far more accessible.
  • Keep your tone civil, and try to make your call as brief as possible. Don’t go into a lot of background about the problems you had getting through.
  • Give the gist and ask for a referral to someone who can help resolve your problem.
  • If the secretary needs more time to study the problem before referring you to someone else, be patient.
  • Answer any questions asked—such as your name, address, phone number and/or email.
  • State—specifically—what you want the company to do to resolve your problem.  If you want a refund or repairs for your product, say so.

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  • If you want a refund, don’t ask for more money than you paid for the product. 
  • If you want to return a product for an exchange, don’t expect the company to give you a new one with even more bells and whistles—unless you’re willing to pay the difference in price.
  • If you want an agency to investigate your complaint, don’t expect them to do so instantly.  Give them time to assess your information and that supplied by others.
  • It’s usually possible to get one agency to sit on another—if you can make a convincing case that it’s in that secondary agency’s best interests to do so.  
  • That doesn’t guarantee they will resolve your problem. But if you can show that the agency will gain by it—such as getting good publicity.
  • If a company/agency official has acted so outrageously that the company/agency might be held liable for his actions, don’t be afraid to say so. But don’t threaten to sue.
  • Just point out that the employee has acted in such a way as to jeopardize the company’s/agency’s reputation for integrity/efficiency and that the organization is not well-served by such behavior.
  • Whoever reads your letter/email will instantly realize the legal implications of what you’re saying—and, in most cases, will take quick action to head off a lawsuit by trying to satisfy your request. 
  • Give the CEO’s secretary at least one to two days to get back to you. Remember: Resolving your problem isn’t the only task she needs to complete.
  • If you’re writing the CEO, make sure you use his full name and title–and that you spell both correctly. People don’t get to be CEOs without a huge sense of ego. Nothing will turn him off faster than your failing to get his name and title exactly right.
  • As in the case with his secretary, be brief—no more than a page and a half. Outline the problem you’re having and at least some (though not necessarily all) of the steps you’re taken to get it resolved.
  • Then state what you want the company to do.  Again, be fair and reasonable.

CORPORATE DATA BREACHES? BLAME CEOs: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 2, 2019 at 12:43 am

On July 15, 2015, Ashley Madison joined the list of companies that failed to safeguard their customers’ most sensitive information—such as their credit card numbers, addresses, emails and phone numbers.

And Ashley Madison had more reason than most to do this—as the notorious website for cheating wives and husbands.

After all, its database is a blackmailer’s dream-come-true. Yet apparently its owners didn’t care enough about the privacy of their customers to provide adequate security.

Like so many other companies hit by hackers, Ashley Madison sought to reassure its dangerously compromised customers:

“At this time, we have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorized access points. We are working with law enforcement agencies, which are investigating this criminal act.”

This statement gave new meaning to the phrase, “Closing the barn door after the cow has gotten out.”

Avid Life Media assured its customers that it had hired “one of the world’s top IT security teams” to work on the breach.

Adultery-dating website Ashley Madison hacked

So why wasn’t this “top IT security team” hired at the outset?

On August 18, 2015, the hackers began releasing their pirated information. 

Ashley Madison’s customers chose to put their private information on its computer system.

Those of Equifax, didn’t. Equifax collected this from credit card companies.

From Mid-May through July, 2017, Equifax was hacked. The breach was discovered on July 29. 

But the company didn’t announce it until September 7, 2017.

As a result, the private data of nearly 150 million people was compromised.

On July 22, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Equifax, one of the nation’s largest credit-reporting companies, would pay up to $700 million to settle with the FTC and consumers.

If approved by the federal district court Northern District of Georgia, the settlement will provide up to $425 million in monetary relief to consumers and a $100 million civil money penalty.

According to Karl A. Racine, attorney general for Washington, D.C., it’s the largest settlement ever for a data breach. 

“Equifax failed to protect consumers’ information and failed to enact reasonable security measures under California’s data security laws,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a news conference.

“That left very important personal information exposed and allowed hackers to steal consumers’ names, Social Security numbers, their birth dates, their addresses and in some instances their driver’s license number and even credit related information.”

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And for those who believe the private sector is inherently more efficient than the public one: On the week that Equifax agreed to pay $700 million for its massive 2017 data breach, Richard Smith, its disgraced former CEO, got some wonderful news: 

  • He was slated to receive as much as $19.6 million in stock bonuses since leaving the company.
  • That’s roughly 1,000 times the $20,000 maximum payout that any financially damaged consumer can collect from Equifax.
  • In addition, Equifax agreed to cover Smith’s medical bills for life, a benefit the company estimates is worth another $103,500.
  • Equifax decided he deserved a $24 million pension.
  • Smith got $50,000 in tax and financial planning services.
  • His stock bonuses cover a period that includes the former executive’s performance in 2017. 

When CBS News contacted Equifax on this development, the company refused to comment. Neither could Smith be reached.

There is a reason why these security breaches keep happening.

An October 22, 2014 “commentary” published in Forbes magazine raised the highly disturbing question: “Cybersecurity: Does Corporate America Really Care?”

And the answer is clearly: No.

Its author was John Hering, co-founder and executive director of Lookout, which bills itself as “the world leader in mobile security for consumers and enterprises alike.”

Click here: Cybersecurity: Does corporate America really care?

“One thing is clear,” wrote Hering. “CEOs need to put security on their strategic agendas alongside revenue growth and other issues given priority in boardrooms.”

Hering warned that “CEOs don’t seem to be making security a priority.” And he offered several reasons for this:

  • The sheer number of data compromises.
  • Relatively little consumer outcry.
  • Almost no impact on the companies’ standing on Wall Street.
  • Executives may consider such breaches part of the cost of doing business.

“There’s a short-term mindset and denial of convenience in board rooms,” wrote Hering.

“Top executives don’t realize their systems are vulnerable and don’t understand the risks. Sales figures and new products are top of mind; shoring up IT systems aren’t.”

There are three ways corporations can be forced to start behaving responsibly on this issue.

  1. Smart attorneys need to start filing class-action lawsuits against companies that refuse to take steps to protect their customers’ private information. There is a name for such behavior: Criminal negligence. And there are laws carrying serious penalties for it.
  2. There must be Federal legislation to ensure that multi-million-dollar fines are levied against such companies—and especially their CEOs—when such data breaches occur.
  3. The Justice Department should vigorously prosecute CEOs whose companies’ criminal negligence leads to such massive data breaches. They should be considered as accessories to crime, and, if convicted, sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Only then will the CEO mindset of “We don’t care, we don’t have to” be replaced with: “We care, because we’ll lose our money and/or freedom if we don’t.”

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