In a press conference Monday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Facebook’s proposed digital currency, Libra, “could be misused by money launderers and terrorist financiers” and that it was a “national security issue.” CNBC reports: “Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin have been exploited to support billions of dollars of illicit activity like cyber crime, tax evasion, extortion, ransomware, illicit drugs and human trafficking,”…
Tag: tax
France Approves Digital Tax on American Tech Giants, Defying US Trade Threat
France’s Senate approved a tax on the revenues of tech giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook on Thursday, defying a warning from the President Donald Trump administration that it “unfairly targets American companies.” From a report: On Wednesday, Trump ordered an investigation into France’s planned “digital tax” on tech companies. The 3% tax would apply to the French revenues of roughly…
John McAfee Hides in Cuba, Touts Cryptocurrency For Evading US Government’s Sanctions
“On the run from U.S. tax authorities, tech guru John McAfee puffs a cigar aboard his towering white yacht in a Havana harbor,” reports Reuters, “and says he can help Cuba evade the U.S. government too — by launching a cryptocurrency that defeats a U.S. trade embargo.” Long-time Slashdot reader Aighearach shared their report: McAfee in an interview touted the anonymity…
International Crime Ring Suspected in 7-Eleven App Breach
On Monday, 7-Eleven launched a smartphone payment service for its 20,000 stores in Japan. By Thursday $510,000 had been stolen from the people using it — as many as 900 customers. Long-time Slashdot reader shanen shared this follow-up article, which points out that it’s also possible that email addresses and birth dates have been accessed from among the new app’s 1.5…
French Lawmakers Approve 3 Percent Tax On Online Giants
An anonymous reader quotes a report from AP News: France’s lower house of parliament approved Thursday a small, pioneering tax on internet giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook — and the French government hopes other countries will follow suit. The bill aims to stop multinationals from avoiding taxes by setting up headquarters in low-tax EU countries. Currently, the companies pay nearly…
Impossible Foods boss says we should tax meat to boost veg-based diets
Impossible Foods’ plant-based burgers will soon be cheaper than beef ones, steaks are coming, and the company will never sell out, says CEO Patrick Brown Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207981-impossible-foods-boss-says-we-should-tax-meat-to-boost-veg-based-diets/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Bernie Sanders Proposes Forgiving the Student Debt of 45 Million Americans
Sen. Bernie Sanders announced a plan on Monday to erase the country’s $1.6 trillion outstanding student loan tab, intensifying the higher education policy debate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. From a report: The Democratic presidential candidate’s legislation — dubbed “The College for All Act” — will release all 45 million Americans from their student debt and be paid for with…
Are Universal Basic Income Proponents Making the Wrong Arguments?
An assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University criticizes the argument that technology “is quickly displacing a large number of workers, and the pace will only increase as automation and other forms of artificial intelligence become more advanced,” specifically calling out Universal Basic Income proponents Elon Musk, Andrew Yang, and YCombinator Chairman Sam Altman: The problem is, there’s no indication…
Are Medical IDs ‘The Enemy of Privacy, Liberty, and Health’?
83-year-old former U.S. Senatior Ron Paul has published a new editorial on Zero Hedge: Last week, the House of Representatives voted in favor of a Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill amendment to repeal the prohibition on the use of federal funds to create a ‘unique patient identifier.’ Unless this prohibition, which I originally sponsored in 1998, is…
Imperial College and U.S. Researchers Find Better Food Policies Could Save 230,000 Lives
Cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks, strokes, hypertension, and a wide range of other illnesses affecting the heart and blood vessels, is perhaps the biggest public health challenge in the United States. It causes about 800,000 deaths and 6 million hospital admissions every year, and it is a particularly urgent priority for policymakers because it disproportionately […]
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