EOY 2022

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Senior Labour figures accepted valuable gifts from Google

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  Senior Labour figures accepted valuable gifts from Google in the days before abandoning a plan to tax digital giants more, openDemocracy can reveal. Labour’s shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, his senior parliamentary assistant (who is his wife), and Keir Starmer’s political director all attended Glastonbury festival in June as guests of YouTube, which is owned by Google. Including accommodation and ‘hospitality’, Reynolds estimates his Glastonbury package for two was worth £3,377 – significantly more than the cost of two regular tickets, which were £335 each. The next day, reports emerged that Labour had ditched its proposal to hike tax on digital businesses like Google. The Digital Services Tax, introduced in 2020, is a 2% levy on the UK income of online companies like search engines and social media platforms. In August last year, Reynolds and his shadow chancellor colleague Rachel Reeves had called for an increase in the tax to 10%, saying the income would be used t...
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Tipping getting out of hand

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 Tipping getting out of hand In the 18th century, a tip was a gratuity given to a servant. The OED's earliest usage of tip involving waiters comes from 1825: "Sir Harry was liberal in his ‘tips’, and consequently a great favorite of Phillips (the waiter)." In this period, however, the word could also denote a bribe, as in this usage from 1819: "To take the tip is to receive a bribe in any shape."  People complaining about needless ‘back & forth credit card game’ at restaurants. Or pretend ignorance by coffee shop staff when the iPad spins around. Or the prevalence of POS software in new types of shops that  never requested tips before . “Okay, the screen is just gonna ask you a few questions.” ​ Uh-huh, right,, like we both don’t know what this is all about. That last point is the most salient. See, it used to be just a few types of businesses that expected tips. Restaurants, cab drivers, valet parking, housekeeping, etc. But now Americans are seeing prompts...
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News for Week Mon 13 Mar 2023

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  Consumer Price Index (CPI)  data is due out this Tuesday. The Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) , i.e. the Fed, announces its latest decision on interest rates on Wednesday afternoon. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB) : Over the weekend, the Treasury Department indicated that depositors will get their money back, but will let the bank itself fail. US Employment Report (for February) : The latest US employment report came out last Friday, and showed that the US economy is still strong (which is good and bad for all the obvious reasons to investors).
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