The hot tax-dodging business trend of the summer is inversion. A U.S. company buys a company in a country with a lower corporate tax rate, relocates its headquarters there and funnels its income through the new head office. As long as it does not repatriate profits, the self-exiled company can avoid paying U.S. corporate taxes.
Amazon’s bullying of the book publisher Hachette and the uninvited bid by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox to swallow rival TimeWarner has caused some economists and commentators to ask, why are such aggressive moves not attracting the attention of the Justice Department’s trust-busters? Both moves are textbook examples of how monopoly power can abuse — or so they would have seemed not long ago.
Did anyone hear the crack of a starting pistol? Nor me. But the race to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2016 is on.
China is on the march. Or, to be precise, China has made a strong push, militarily and otherwise, into seas nearby, setting off alarms among its neighbors. Now Japan has pushed back, announcing it will “reinterpret” its pacifist constitution so it can be more militarily aggressive in responding to China’s persistent territorial expansionism.
The acquittal of Rupert Murdoch’s favorite executive, the flame-haired Rebekah Brooks, on charges of phone hacking and destroying the evidence might have marked the final act in one of the most bruising and expensive chapters in the history of News Corp.
Suddenly, it seems, the world is at war.
In Iraq, armed and angry militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are at the gates of Baghdad. In Pakistan, government forces are mounting a ferocious campaign against the Taliban in North Waziristan. In Syria, the civil war drags on. These are “hot wars” involving the clashing of troops and weapons. Having escaped such “hot” conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, these are the sort of war Americans have made it plain they are not prepared to fight.
Democracy is taking a bashing. On almost every continent, attempts to extend the right of people to choose their own government is running into deep trouble. In Iraq, Egypt, Ukraine, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and many other countries, democracy is being overwhelmed by despotism and despair.
Attorney General Eric Holder is in the middle of a prosecuting binge against some of the world’s biggest companies. Washington’s attempt to bring such large corporations to justice is long overdue.
For some, the veterans hospitals scandal is a human tragedy pure and simple. Those who loyally served their nation in uniform, putting their lives on the line, were shunned when they sought medical help.
So Karl Rove has cast doubt on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s health. He may have been off when he claimed that the presumed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate spent 30 days in the hospital — she was only kept in for three — but he has clearly drawn political blood.