Blog Entries tagged 'offshore'

Why corporations may not care about the domestic economy

ronaldfink6@gmail.com — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:00:00 +0100

Paul Krugman today once again bemoans the lack of Keynesianism in what passes for economic policymaking discussions these days, and I share that complaint.

However, Krugman may be missing part of the problem here, which is that those who pooh-pooh the prospect of deflation may actually not much care if it materializes, though they would be mistaken to do so.

Yves Smith gets at this today in a post of her own in connection with a Robert Frank piece in the Wall Street Jou [...]

Strikes in China could mean lower US profits

ronaldfink6@gmail.com — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:00:00 +0100

Rising labor strife in China has potentially significant implications for US companies and financial markets. The irony is that what companies want isn't necessarily the same thing that markets do.

Yves Smith over at Naked Capitalism does a good job of explaining why.

Essentially, US and other foreign companies are producing there to take advantage of low labor costs. But with strikes and other forms of upward pressure on labor costs, the advantage for such manufacturers may n [...]

The battle heats up over transfer pricing

denise.bedell@tc-worldwide.com — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:00:00 +0100

The Obama administration’s 2011 budget includes many elements to disgruntle the average CFO or finance director, but few raise finance exec hackles at US multinationals as quickly as transfer pricing.

Budget proposals would require US corporations to pay tax immediately on returns of more than 30 percent traced to intangible assets owned by offshore subsidiaries in tax haven countries. The proposal sets an effective corporate tax rate threshol [...]

Crisis exposes idea of post-industrial society as "a fairy tale," says critic

ronaldfink6@gmail.com — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Anyone impressed by the uptick in retail sales and the small decline in jobless claims last week ought to check out this article in the January issue of Harper's Magazine.

Since the article is behind a paywall, I'll summarize it here. The piece by Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the US Business and Industry Council, offers a particularly stark picture of what's needed for a sustainable recovery by the US economy.

In a nutshell, Tonelson argues that the fi [...]

The Occidental tourists

johngoff3@gmail.com — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Scores of articles have been written of late about the PRC's desire to end the U.S. greenback's role as the de facto global reserve currency. Mostly, these stories have zeroed in on Beijing's fears of a weakening dollar.

True enough, a deteriorating dollar will make China's goods more expensive for Joe the Plumber (or Josephine the Plumber, for all you Jane Withers fans out there). To keep that from happening, the central bank of China has become the true Bank of America [...]

UBS Cries 'Uncle' on IRS Inquiry

karlcates@verizon.net — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Pretty big deal, this settlement where UBS, the biggest private bank in the world, is going to start throwing its secret-bank-accouht customers under the bus. The Swiss giant has fought the U.S. tooth-and-nail in efforts to maintain client privacy. Word comes now that the jig is up.

This from the NY Times: "Of the names on the agency's original list, prosecutors are focused on several thousand Americans with offshore accounts containing tens to hundreds of millions of doll [...]