Monthly Archives: August 2011

Well, it apparently has helped the bosses of American tech giants like Google, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Cisco hoard $40 BILLION in cash reserves.

Only problem is they can’t bring it back to the US without paying a 35 per cent rate in tax (or three times our rate).

So now Cisco CEO John Chambers (above) has called on the US government to allow it to bring its overseas profits back to America at a corporate tax rate of 5 percent claiming it would bring cash “flooding into the country” in quantities potentially “larger than the entire [US] federal stimulus package.”

As Gawker notes:

Cisco is hardly alone among corporations who avoid taxes. Google and Facebook do it, as do many smaller tech companies. But you have to be extraordinarily shameless to defend and call for the institutionalization of tax dodgery, on camera, in the midst of sky high unemployment and a stalled economy — while a loud number of your shareholders are demanding you bring the money home and pay regular 35 percent taxes on it. John Chambers isn’t the embodiment of what voters hate about American corporations. He’s a walking, talking toast to it.

 

He must love Ireland.

Watch Here

Concrete Circus – last night’s urban sports documentary on Channel 4 – while overly long, slightly up itself and ironically lacking in momentum (according to some crits) – had one spectacular redeeming feature. Stu Thomson’s short film of Scottish street trials rider Danny MacAskill tearing up a disused railway yard.

A thing of beauty.

Jcwexford writes:

Spotted on a Channel 4 news report last night on the Wall St sharks who are betting on the Euro’s collapse. One of the stockbrokers had a box of Barry’s Tea on his desk. Seems like one of our poor emigrants forced from the State by the collapse of the economy is plotting the future collapse of the economy. Maybe he’s lonely?

Channel 4 News: Wall Street Bets Against Euro (55 secs)