The Indelible Bonobo Experience

Renaissance Monkey: in-depth expertise in Jack-of-all-trading. I mostly comment on news of interest to me and occasionally engage in debates or troll passive-aggressively. Ask or Submit 2 mah authoritah! ;) !

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Calls to companies offering speech tutors have soared in recent years as job seekers worry their accents are holding them back and parents fret their children will miss out on places at elite private schools unless they speak “posh.” Some tutors are working with children as young as two years old, often charging up to $90 an hour for their services. (via Accent-shy Brits anxious to talk ‘posh’ - The Globe and Mail) “It is a class statement, I suppose, in many ways,” said Nathaniel McCullagh, who runs Simply Learning Tuition, which works on speaking techniques with young children in London, including many who come from wealthy immigrant families. Robin Woolridge deals with many of those people all the time in his speech practice in Birmingham. The surrounding area is home to a particular “black country” accent, a dialect that originated in the West Midlands where gritty industry thickened the air with black smoke. Mr. Wooldridge said it is among the most difficult to understand in Britain and many who have it are eager to lose it.

Calls to companies offering speech tutors have soared in recent years as job seekers worry their accents are holding them back and parents fret their children will miss out on places at elite private schools unless they speak “posh.” Some tutors are working with children as young as two years old, often charging up to $90 an hour for their services. (via Accent-shy Brits anxious to talk ‘posh’ - The Globe and Mail)

  • “It is a class statement, I suppose, in many ways,” said Nathaniel McCullagh, who runs Simply Learning Tuition, which works on speaking techniques with young children in London, including many who come from wealthy immigrant families.
  • Robin Woolridge deals with many of those people all the time in his speech practice in Birmingham. The surrounding area is home to a particular “black country” accent, a dialect that originated in the West Midlands where gritty industry thickened the air with black smoke. Mr. Wooldridge said it is among the most difficult to understand in Britain and many who have it are eager to lose it.
Posted in english england uk accent posh language speak
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Large swathes of Wales are poorer than parts of Bulgaria, Romania and Poland and four-and-a-half times less prosperous than central London, according to latest official figures. The European Union (EU) statistics also reveal the UK has Europe’s highest inequality of wealth in Europe. The figures, issued by the EU’s statistical information body Eurostat, show Gross Domestic Product (GDP) throughout the EU for 2010 and the value of goods and services produced within each country per head of population. Taking 100 as the EU average across all 27 member states, Wales as a whole had a GDP per head of 81. But while East Wales managed to hit the 100 average, West Wales and the Valleys languished at 70, the lowest figure in the UK. The highest, for Inner London, was 328. At 70, West Wales and the Valleys was poorer than parts of Bulgaria, Romania and Poland, and than the whole of the Czech Republic (80), Slovenia (84) and Slovakia (84) – all countries that were part of the East European Communist bloc that collapsed more than 20 years ago. (via Welsh Valleys ‘poorer than parts of Bulgaria, Romania and Poland’ - Wales News - News - WalesOnline)

Large swathes of Wales are poorer than parts of Bulgaria, Romania and Poland and four-and-a-half times less prosperous than central London, according to latest official figures. The European Union (EU) statistics also reveal the UK has Europe’s highest inequality of wealth in Europe. The figures, issued by the EU’s statistical information body Eurostat, show Gross Domestic Product (GDP) throughout the EU for 2010 and the value of goods and services produced within each country per head of population. Taking 100 as the EU average across all 27 member states, Wales as a whole had a GDP per head of 81. But while East Wales managed to hit the 100 average, West Wales and the Valleys languished at 70, the lowest figure in the UK. The highest, for Inner London, was 328. At 70, West Wales and the Valleys was poorer than parts of Bulgaria, Romania and Poland, and than the whole of the Czech Republic (80), Slovenia (84) and Slovakia (84) – all countries that were part of the East European Communist bloc that collapsed more than 20 years ago. (via Welsh Valleys ‘poorer than parts of Bulgaria, Romania and Poland’ - Wales News - News - WalesOnline)

Posted in welsh europe romania bulgaria eastern europe uk england inequality wealth poverty development | 2 notes
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On December 8th UK Uncut, a group which campaigns against government austerity and corporate tax avoidance, staged protests at dozens of British Starbucks stores. Campaigners point out that since first opening its doors in Britain in 1998 Starbucks has paid only £8.6m in corporate income taxes there. In testimony last month before a parliamentary committee, Starbucks had said this was because it had made a profit in only one year in Britain, though it also admitted that its British business had made large payments for coffee to a profitable Starbucks subsidiary in Switzerland and large royalty payments to another profitable subsidiary in the Netherlands for use of the brand and intellectual property. (via Corporate taxation: Wake up and smell the coffee | The Economist) Starbucks is not thought to be using the “Dutch Sandwich” and “Double Irish”, even if these sound like items on its menu. They are legal tax-avoidance techniques believed to have been used by, among others, Google, which was also called to testify before Parliament. Most of Google’s revenues in Europe are booked in Dublin, then shifted via royalty payments to a Dutch subsidiary, before whatever is left is recognised as profits by a subsidiary in Bermuda, which levies no income tax. Another online giant, Amazon, told parliamentarians that its low British corporate-tax bill—£1.8m in 2011—was due to its British operations merely providing back-office services to its main Europe-wide business, which is based in low-tax Luxembourg. Although Starbucks denies using tax havens, it admits to having negotiated a secret low rate of tax with the Dutch taxman for its subsidiary in Amsterdam. Worldwide, it says it pays out over 30% of its profits in tax. Many other firms are making extensive use of havens. A study published last year by ActionAid, an activist charity, said 98 of the firms in the FTSE 100 index have at least one subsidiary in a haven. An increasingly popular strategy is to transfer ownership of the multinational’s main intellectual property to a subsidiary in a tax haven, then charge other subsidiaries in higher-tax countries for use of it. Data compiled by the OECD, a rich-country think-tank, highlight how many patents are owned by outfits in such unlikely innovation hubs as Barbados, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. the more things change, the more they stay the same..

On December 8th UK Uncut, a group which campaigns against government austerity and corporate tax avoidance, staged protests at dozens of British Starbucks stores. Campaigners point out that since first opening its doors in Britain in 1998 Starbucks has paid only £8.6m in corporate income taxes there. In testimony last month before a parliamentary committee, Starbucks had said this was because it had made a profit in only one year in Britain, though it also admitted that its British business had made large payments for coffee to a profitable Starbucks subsidiary in Switzerland and large royalty payments to another profitable subsidiary in the Netherlands for use of the brand and intellectual property. (via Corporate taxation: Wake up and smell the coffee | The Economist)

  • Starbucks is not thought to be using the “Dutch Sandwich” and “Double Irish”, even if these sound like items on its menu. They are legal tax-avoidance techniques believed to have been used by, among others, Google, which was also called to testify before Parliament. Most of Google’s revenues in Europe are booked in Dublin, then shifted via royalty payments to a Dutch subsidiary, before whatever is left is recognised as profits by a subsidiary in Bermuda, which levies no income tax. Another online giant, Amazon, told parliamentarians that its low British corporate-tax bill—£1.8m in 2011—was due to its British operations merely providing back-office services to its main Europe-wide business, which is based in low-tax Luxembourg.
  • Although Starbucks denies using tax havens, it admits to having negotiated a secret low rate of tax with the Dutch taxman for its subsidiary in Amsterdam. Worldwide, it says it pays out over 30% of its profits in tax. Many other firms are making extensive use of havens. A study published last year by ActionAid, an activist charity, said 98 of the firms in the FTSE 100 index have at least one subsidiary in a haven. An increasingly popular strategy is to transfer ownership of the multinational’s main intellectual property to a subsidiary in a tax haven, then charge other subsidiaries in higher-tax countries for use of it. Data compiled by the OECD, a rich-country think-tank, highlight how many patents are owned by outfits in such unlikely innovation hubs as Barbados, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

the more things change, the more they stay the same..

Posted in starbucks tax taxation corporate tax uk england britain swiss switzerland