Friday, September 30, 2016

The Specter of story ideas in annual reports is no longer Haunting MEdia Dragons

My main piece of advice would be don't worry about being published - just write a really good book, but also don't be afraid to write a bad book. Give yourself permission to fail, and don't be afraid. David Levithan
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/advice.html
 
My main piece of advice would be don't worry about being published - just write a really good book, but also don't be afraid to write a bad book. Give yourself permission to fail, and don't be afraid. ~David Levithan

Nuances of crime stats lost in 2016 presidential debate The Hill

My main piece of advice would be don't worry about being published - just write a really good book, but also don't be afraid to write a bad book. Give yourself permission to fail, and don't be afraid. David Levithan
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/advice.html
The Specter of the NSW Public Accounts Committee is haunting me with this story. Patricia at all where always looking for story ideas in annual reports ;-) Where to find story ideas in annual reports
  
“Improbable as it might sound to digital natives, information is a tool but love of reading is a way of life.”

Alas, I am old enough to remember the Australian autobahn system when the drive from Sydney to Melbourne took six hours on a clear night, before the blight of speed cameras. Ian Thackeray New Town On the Road

Circa 2006: by Pam Allan Ian Thackeray and Chris Papadopoulos are getting their redundancy payments for Christmas. So I suspect they are going to have very good holidays. I will not get the opportunity to talk about Christmas 2007 because I will not be here, but I hope they have new jobs in the public sector as well. I wish retiring members continuous good health. My predecessor in the seat of Wentworthville died less than two years after he left this place. I do not intend to do that.
Epilogue: Pam is still alive in 2016 AD I am sure many, many people ennjoybreading old Handard ...

It was the moment that would change his life, as detailed by Dan Ackerman’s new book, “The Tetris Effect.” On a cold February day in the 1970s, 15-year-old Alexey Pajitnov leaped over a pile of snow in Moscow. As he landed, his leg hit the pavement with “a sickening crack.”
Soviet doctors put him in a full leg cast, requiring two to three months of in-home convalescence. To help him cope with boredom, a friend brought him books of math puzzles How Tetris broke out of the Soviet Union

Should You Panic Over the Polls? Yes, You Should New York Magazine

All the lonely people are on the rise

  Amazon of  Cold Rivers and Bestsellers in History 

The $1,000 date night: Has D.C.’s tasting-menu culture hit a tipping point? Washington Post. Kokuanani: “Best line: ‘Many people in Washington aren’t even footing the bill; they’re taking clients out to dinner and billing their companies.'” 


David John Latemore has been charged with of deceitfully gaining $149,055.04 in false GST refunds and attempting to gain another $879,457 through deceit. Brisbane District Court has ordered Mr Latemore's bank account and a Mountain Creek house in Mr Latemore's father's name be seized
Former cop accused of ripping off ATO 

John Podesta’s Ties To Russian And Saudi Money

Ted Kennedy’s Soviet Gambit. “Kennedy’s message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.”

Socialism’s left Venezuela a ‘walking dead’ nation

Eddie Obeid loses multimillion dollar lawsuit ICAC


Richard English, Does Terrorism Work? is a good, balanced historical look at what terrorists have and have not achieved.  The best chapter was on Ireland, and the book is mainly non-Muslim examples.



Ledderman (2016)Leandra Lederman (Indiana) presents To What Extent Does Enforcement Crowd Out Voluntary Tax Compliance? at Boston College today as part of its Tax Policy Workshop Serieshosted by Jim Repetti and Diane Ring:
Governments commonly use deterrence methods, such as audits and the imposition of penalties, to foster compliance with tax laws. Although this approach is consistent with economic modeling of tax compliance, some scholars caution that deterrence may backfire, “crowding out” intrinsic motivations to pay taxes and thus reducing compliance. This article analyzes the evidence to date to determine the extent of such an effect. Field studies suggest that deterrence tools, such as audits, generally are highly effective at increasing tax collections but that crowding out may occur in some contexts, with respect to certain subgroups of taxpayers. The article argues that more field studies on compliant taxpayers are needed but that the existing evidence suggests that tax collectors should be careful with the explicit and implicit messages they give taxpayers, so as not to undermine the generally positive effects on compliance of enforcement of the tax laws.
Shu-Yi Oei blogs the workshop Surly Subgroup - To What Extent Does Enforcement Crowd Out Voluntary Tax Compliance?  Leandra presented a draft paper entitled “To What Extent Does Enforcement Crowd Out Voluntary Tax Compliance?”  The draft isn’t publicly available yet, but you can email Leandra for a copy.
llederma@indiana.edu

seal-turtle-love-links
LA Police Union: Police Commission Wants Cops To Run From Armed Suspects. 

How Small Forests Can Help Save the Planet New York Times

When global villains write ‘international law’.

How the FDA Manipulates the Media: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been arm-twisting journalists into relinquishing their reportorial independence, our investigation reveals. Other institutions are following suit


Contemporary issues in crime and justice no.195, 16 September 2016.  To determine whether the fine amount, the fine detection mode and the socioeconomic status of the offender influence the willingness to pay a fine.
Willingness to pay a fine


The Weed Industry Now Has Its Own White-Collar Crime Vice 

Australia’s China contradictions go global MacroBusiness. Why Australia will inevitably become a Chinese client state. 

Chinese hunger for Australia food leaves A$1 bln tax hole



 

At Harrods, one of London’s most upmarket department stores, Chunmei Pei, a twenty-something Chinese woman dressed in Stella McCartney platform brogues, tight jeans and a black Chanel backpack, walks around the shop floor. She is glued to her iPhone, juggling half a dozen WeChat messages with her clients. Ms Pei is a professional daigou: an overseas shopper who buys luxury items like watches, jewellery, clothes and cosmetics for mainland Chinese. Today one of her buyers is considering an £860 Dior “Diorosphère” chain necklace with a gold finish, while another wants a £1,500 Céline bag.
Most luxury stores do not allow photos or videos of the products for fear of counterfeiters, so Ms Pei is constantly updating her clients on the price, colour and product details with calls and live messaging. The chatting is endless and all part of the service. She spends at least 20 minutes at Céline while they search for a different colour of the bag and the buyer dithers. Once she gives the go-ahead for the purchase, Ms Pei arranges the sales-tax exemption, buys it on her card, packages it up and posts it. She does this for a fee she will not disclose, although daigou commonly charge commission of 5 to 15 per cent.
Consultancy Bain & Co estimates that daigou like Ms Pei accounted for Rmb34bn-Rmb50bn ($5.1bn-$7.5bn) of sales last year, equivalent to 12 per cent (at the upper end) of Chinese luxury spending. But that is a fall from 20 per cent in 2014, and Bain predicts that this will drop further as profit margins are squeezed and the Chinese government tightens controls over imports, including by daigou. On the floor with the daigou, China’s overseas shoppers

  IT IS TIME TO DRIVE A STAKE INTO THE HEART OF THE AMERICAN CREDIBILITY MYTH War on the Rocks