Kip Austin Hinton

I have taught many Chinese students who are honest, hard-working, and creative (unlike profs in this story, I did not reduce the number of presentations to "help" them). I also taught a few who plagiarized in class, and probably plagiarized their UCLA admissions essays. Supply and demand at work: ... Zinch China was contacted by the provost of a large American university who wanted to recruit 250 Chinese students, stat. When asked why, the provost replied that his institution faced a yawning budget deficit. To fill it, he told Mr. Melcher, the university needed additional students who could pay their own way... The company concluded that 90 percent of Chinese applicants submit false recommendations, 70 percent have other people write their personal essays, 50 percent have forged high-school transcripts... "If a student isn't placed, we've got screaming, yelling parents in the lobby," says Kathryn Ohehir, who works in [Aoji Education Group], in ...

Thursday, Nov 3, 2011 America’s corporate tax obscenity A new report about companies' finances won't just enrage you -- it'll make you run to the nearest protest By Andrew Leonard (Credit: Reuters/Jose Luis Magaua) In 2010, Verizon reported an annual profit of nearly $12 billion. The statutory federal corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, so theoretically, Verizon should have owed the IRS around $4.2 billlion. Instead, according to figures compiled by the Center for Tax Justice, the company actually boasted a negative tax liability of $703 million. Verizon ended up making even more money after it calculated its taxes. Verizon is hardly alone, and isn’t even close to being the worst offender. Perhaps most famously, General Electric raked in $10.5 billion in pr...

to slow computer speculation, decrease volatility, and raise revenue. support the transaction tax! "The Benefits of a Financial Transactions Tax" http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/financial-transactions-tax-2008-12.pdf "Taxation generally leads to economic distortions, with the possible exception of cases where the activity being taxed is itself harmful, such as smoking or drinking alcohol. While there are undoubtedly distortions associated with financial transactions taxes (it will have some impact on the cost of capital), much of the economic activity that will be lost as a result of the tax has the character of gambling. It will have very little effect on the effectiveness of capital markets. "In this sense, a financial transactions tax can actually increase the efficiency of financial markets. If the sector can just as effectively fill its function as an intermediary while employing fewer workers and requiring less capital, then the tax will have increa...