Tag Archives: ethics

Maybe It’s the AGs

Posted on by
Reply

…and the activists who should be subject to RICO investigations.

Emails obtained and released by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute show a number of state attorneys general and their staff received advice and guidance from environmental activists at a March 29 meeting in New York, on the same day as a major press conference.

And

Another email chain shows Srolovic and Scott Kline, a Vermont assistant attorney general, even drawing up a Common Interest Agreement, in order to protect as privileged the discussions at the meeting.

Because transparency and honesty are for the little people.

And

[A] January meeting in Manhattan…brought together several veteran environmental activists to discuss how to “establish in [the] public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm.”

Because it’s necessary to prejudice the discussion and the jury pool.  Necessary because these climatistas know they cannot make a scientific, much less even coherent, argument based on actual facts.

Hmm….

No Stone Unturned

Posted on by
Reply

And they’ll regulate how to turn the stones, too [emphasis added].

The European Union could require Internet search engines, such as Alphabet Inc’s Google, to provide more transparency about advertising systems and conditions of use as part of new rules to regulate Web platforms.

Just gotta fill that regulatory vacuum.  Just gotta.  ‘Cos the people can’t be left to their own devices; they can’t handle not being told what to do and not do.

Here’s European Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip on the matter:

We have to deal with all those problems, but separately.

Notice that.  We have to deal, not the people should be left to deal.  They’d just be no good at it.  Besides, the more…targeted…the more regulations the Regulatory State gets to write.

Anti-Competitive G-20

Posted on by
Reply

And, yes, that includes an anti-competitive Democratic Party administration representing the US in this group of twenty.

G-20 finance officials called on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to report by July countries and jurisdictions that haven’t signed up to new international standards on tax transparency and information sharing.

“Defensive measures will be considered by G-20 members against non-cooperative jurisdictions,” the officials said in their statement after two days of meetings in Washington.

Wrong answer, guys.  Your threats just expose your own dishonesty.

If you really want to rein in the so-called tax havens, out-compete them in a free market: lower your own tax rates to competitive levels, and simplify your tax rules to eliminate your cynically Byzantine structures which serve only to benefit (or, just as bad, to appear to benefit) cronies and other government-favored groups.

The best defense is a good offense, but that offense must be directed at the right target.

“There is one thing which has not gone very global and that is taxation, which is still very much a local affair associated with national sovereignty,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said.

Why must taxation be standardized globalized?  What part of national sovereignty is unclear to you, Madam?

And further cynicism:

Revenue lost to tax havens is a sore point for the G-20….

It isn’t lost to you, guys; it isn’t yours to begin with, so it cannot be “lost” to you.  Again, compete: lower tax rates, and reduce the incentives to hide in “tax havens.”

And just to be clear (although, surely I’m preaching to the choir here:

haven 2. A place of refuge or rest; a sanctuary.

Thus, tax haven is a place of refuge from abuse by tax.

A Timid Administration

Posted on by
Reply

Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

And in response, President Barack Obama (D) once again bowed to Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, who personally delivered the threat, and virtually to King Salman bin Abdulaziz.  Obama then responded to the Saudi threat, meekly.  He

has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties….

This timidity is a part of what Democratic Party Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) insist they will perpetuate, should they be elected.

Elections have consequences.

Grow Government

Posted on by
Reply

It’s what Democrats do.  Here’s another installment, this one by Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton:

I would create the first ever Office of Immigrant Affairs.  [The office] would create a dedicated place in the White House to coordinate integration policies across the federal government and with state and local government as well.

Never mind that the private economy already is in that niche, groups like

CASA de Maryland, Refugee Council USA, the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, the US Catholic Conference of Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services, and The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

Never mind that myriad Federal agencies already involved in immigration affairs could be combined and streamlined, agencies like US Citizenship and Immigration Services; Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification; Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, its visa management facility; The National Visa Center, a private company under contract to the DoS that’s in the middle of the green card issuing process.

But that would shrink government.  Can’t have that.