An American Tragedy

The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.

More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.

This is from a Reuters article entitled -

Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes

All over the United States, cities, counties and entire States are sinking into bankruptcy. A working America beset by ten percent unemployment has little tax paying ability left to pay for roads, schools, police and fire. But the other beneficiaries, corporations and banks are doing well. On  the whole, large corporations are having a great year. The upper class, those over a quarter of a million dollars a year are doing very well indeed. In fact, statistically, they are not experiencing a recession.

Why aren’t these organizations paying taxes?

Can you tell me?

The upper half of the nation is booming. Profits are great. Banks are paying out enormous bonuses.

Why can’t we tax them?

Look, if you haven’t noticed, a middle class that has had an 8% increase in real income over the last thirty years cannot be squeezed for more taxes.

If you are going to tax go where the money is.

It would be wrong to ask banks and other corporations to pay taxes if they didn’t get any benefits. That’s not a problem. The roads, bridges, the educational system, the sacrifices of soldiers, the day to day protective work of firemen and police, not to mention the constant payments made by millions of Americans, make bank and corporate profits possible.

They owe this nation and they owe it big.

I don’t want to be relieved of my tax burden. I want the people and organization who are not paying taxes to pay their fair share.

James Pilant

CSR statements are easy; sustainable procurement is harder (via Fair For All)

I have written before about my doubts as to China’s coming status as the number one economic power. These kinds of articles and posting tend to reinforce my beliefs.

My great thanks to “Fair For All.”

As Dell and HP have discovered this month, it’s a lot easier to write a CSR policy than it is to ensure that it is carried through. Their plight is not uncommon and is the unfortunate result of treating CSR as a public relations function, focused on appearance and not on substance. To be credible, CSR needs to be built into the operations of a business, which r … Read More

via Fair For All

Map of Foreclosures Nationwide (via ReReno’s Blog, Reno/Sparks Real Estate)

Here is an interactive map of the foreclosure crisis in the United States. If a picture says a thousands words …

James Pilant

Would you like to see what’s happening in foreclosures in your area? NPR has an interactive map showing foreclosures on a county by county basis. Click on the image to view the interactive map. … Read More

via ReReno’s Blog, Reno/Sparks Real Estate

Why Has Google Been Collecting Kids’ Social Security Numbers Under the Guise of an Art Contest (via Huffington Post)

Bob Bowdon has an interesting essay at the Huffington Post.

(from zdnet)

Here’s the opening -

It turns out that the company sporting the motto “don’t be evil” has been asking parents nationwide to disclose their children’s personal information, including Social Security Numbers, and recruiting schools to help them do it — all under the guise of an art contest. It’s called, “Doodle-4-Google,” a rather catchy, kid-friendly name if I do say so myself. The company is even offering prize money to schools to enlist their help with the promotion. Doesn’t it sound like fun?  Don’t you want your kid to enter too?

What could be wrong with filling out a few entry forms?

What’s wrong turns out to be Google wants the last four digits of the child’s Social Security number. It also wants to know the child’s birthplace. With those two pieces of information, working out the whole Social Security number can be done in many cases. Google’s form also contains a waiver that the data can be used as Google sees fit.

Is this ethical?

No. I cannot figure out how having the last four digits of a social security number and a child’s birthplace serves any purpose in a contest. I believe that you can identify with great precision competitors in a contest based on their names, schools and addresses.

Is the purpose here, commercial use of Social Security numbers? I don’t know.

From Bob Bowdon -

In fairness, we have no evidence that Google will use or sell this information for marketing purposes. For that matter, it’s possible they could throw the data away. (Care to guess the odds?) But to be absolutely clear, there’s no evidence Google has done anything with this information at all, nefarious or otherwise.

Exactly. We don’t know. It is possible that this just made sense to the person drawing up the contest. Still, it is a lot of information to ask for and I would’ve thought this thing would have gone through legal before they put it up.

Here’s Bowdon’s closing comments -

So in closing, three simple ideas for you, gentle reader, to take away.  (1) City of birth, when coupled with year of birth, can be correlated to social security numbers, so don’t give it out just because a box appears on a form. (2) No public contest should ask for any part of a social security number, especially involving kids. (3) For internet searches, have you tried Yahoo! or Bing lately? You just might find what you’re looking for.