665 Search Results for lead

Apr 29

2012

Is Apple rotten to the core?

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The New York Times on Sunday published yet another damning investigation on the business practices of Apple. Among the key findings: Apple has exploited the tax code, both here and aboard. According to The Times: Apple’s headquarters are in Cupertino, Calif. By putting an office in Reno, just 200 miles away, to collect and invest the company’s profits, Apple sidesteps state income taxes on some of those gains. California’s corporate tax rate is 8.84 percent. Nevada’s? Zero. Setting up an office in Reno is just one of many legal methods Apple uses to reduce its worldwide tax bill by billions[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Apr 23

2012

Bribery and coverup at Walmart

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Walmart’s history is punctuated with repeated allegations of predatory and anti-labor business practices. Add corruption to the list. An investigation published Sunday by The New York Times reports the retail giant engaged in systemic bribery to gain a foothold in Mexico and that corporate executives covered up the corruption when it was brought to their attention. After being informed of the corruption by a former company executive, The Times reported: Wal-Mart dispatched investigators to Mexico City, and within days they unearthed evidence of widespread bribery. They found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million.[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Apr 20

2012

Agent provocateur for our times

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Julian Assange resurfaces The WikiLeaks founder, still under house arrest despite not being charged with a crime, has launched a television interview program called The World Tomorrow.  That prompted The New York Times to take another shot at Assange, while Salon’s Glenn Greenwald rose to his defense. Judge for yourself. Here is the first show, featuring an interview with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who has not spoken on camera since 2006.  Good reads Fast Company takes a look at Steve Jobs during his “wilderness years.” Jobs matured as a manager and a boss; learned how to make the most of[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Apr 19

2012

IDA deals trigger backlash

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The Erie County Industrial Development Agency has put a moratorium on granting tax breaks to hotels. The Lancaster IDA is having second thoughts about proposed tax breaks for a pizzeria. Labor unions are challenging the hiring practices at a Niagara Falls company that received property  in tax breaks in 2010. After years of “full steam ahead,” local IDAs are starting to have second thoughts about business as usual. That’s not to say they’ve necessarily changed their ways – questionable projects continue to get the green light more often than not – but there’s been an unmistakenable swing in momentum. “IDAs[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Apr 17

2012

Online journalism coming of age

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The Pulitzer Prize is the measure by which excellence in journalism is measured. Until recently, newspapers won by default. There was no alternative (with apologies to the Emmy Awards). But in recent years, entrepreneurs have established online-only news publications. There are for profits, including Politico, Talking Points Memo and, of course, Huffington Post. There are even more non-profit investigative reporting centers, lead by ProPublica, the Center for Investigative Reporting and its affiliated California Watch, and regional centers including Voice of San Diego and MinnPost, headed by former Courier-Express editor Joel Kramer. These young pups are proving capable of going toe-to-toe[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Apr 11

2012

Disclosure dysfunction

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Common Council Majority Leader Demone A. Smith, whose wife pleaded guilty to fraud charges last week, has legal problems of his own. Smith’s campaign committee has not paid $1,842 in judgments filed by the state Board of Elections for its failure to file disclosure reports in a timely fashion. In addition, another campaign committee that lists Smith as its treasurer hasn’t paid $1,121 in judgments involving late and missing disclosure reports. Smith’s campaign committee has had problems meeting disclosure requirements since he first ran for public office in 2005. Investigative Post has determined that while the Committee to Elect Demone[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Apr 6

2012

Weekend News Cafe: Hydrofracking, muckraking & rock ‘n’ roll

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A muckraking columnist Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times is both thoughtful and provocative. Consider two recent columns. First, his take on a couple of studies of all the chemical junk fed to the animals that are the source of our meat. My topic today is a pair of new scientific studies suggesting that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine, active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and even arsenic …  To me, this underscores the pitfalls of industrial farming. When I was growing up on our hopelessly inefficient family farm, we didn’t routinely drug animals.[...]

Posted 12 years ago

Apr 5

2012

Lessons for Buffalo from a boomtown

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Buffalo is not Austin, Texas, and never will be. They bake. We freeze. They have Lance Armstrong. We had OJ. They don’t pay state income taxes. We do. Oh boy, do we. But I’ve come away from two visits to Austin since last summer thinking there are lessons to be learned. The Texas capital is booming. Austin proper added some 160,000 residents between 2001 and 2010, up 20 percent. Only one major metro area grew at a faster pace. The region also added jobs at a faster rate than any major metro area in the nation over the past eight[...]

Posted 12 years ago