#Corporations profiting from #ICEcontracts and lining the pockets of #politicians

#KALW

https://www.kalw.org/show/your-call/2026-06-12/corporations-profiting-from-ice-contracts-line-pockets-of-politicians

#Palantir #tech #AbolishICE #FollowTheMoney

#Facebook:
https://www.collective-evolution.com/
11June 2026
'Last month, while a judge in a Paris courtroom finished reading her verdict, police ... #arrested Bruno Lafont.... 69, the former #CEO of #Lafarge, the largest cement manufacturer in the world. He's now serving a 6 year #prison sentence, and his former second-in-command is serving 5.

'When #corporations cause real harm in pursuit of #profit, when they #poison #rivers, flood communities with deadly drugs, or fund #violence to keep a factory running, the typical outcome is a fine. The company pays out, the executives keep their jobs or retire quietly ..., and almost no one personally goes to prison. We see this massively in the pharmaceutical field.

'But this ruling may change things moving forward.

'What Lafarge actually did

'Between 2013 and 2014, as Syria collapsed into civil war, Lafarge paid roughly 6.5 million dollars to ISIS and two other groups designated as terror organizations. The payments bought safe passage through ISIS checkpoints, which meant the company's Syrian cement plant could keep running and keep generating revenue.

'Nobel laureate Nadia Murad and more than 400 other Yazidi survivors, all of them American citizens, eventually sued Lafarge directly. Their argument was that the company's payments helped finance the genocide of the Yazidi people, the mass executions, the sexual slavery, the abduction of thousands of women and children.
.....
'There is also reasonable concern about backlash. A US administration that has sanctioned a UN rapporteur for documenting corporate complicity in #Gaza, presided over a 660 million dollar verdict against #Greenpeace for opposing an oil pipeline, and dismantled large parts of the #EPA's regulatory powers is not going to quietly accept a wave of #accountability rulings.
.....
'The good news is, the judge in Paris drew a line that hasn't really been drawn in 80 years, and that line now exists. What we choose to build on top of it is the next question.'

Businesses should not be running government.
Government should not be running businesses.

I think we can all relate to the idea that those two things should be kept as far away from each other as possible, politically speaking.
#bureaucracy #corporations #corporatocracy #corruption #cronyCapitalism #cronyism #lobbying

This week's comic on the enshittification of flying

#corporations #consumers #transportation #travel #cartoon #comic #flying

The problem with #PriceFixing #Cartels - post and present - is that like in 2005 [¹] - too few #Execs face[d] #JailTime and all these #Corporations did was pay lousy #fines they could even #writeoff on their #Taxes!

And now we see the same again, with #Flash ² & #DDR4 + #DDR5 #RAM ³.

Since the #FTC under the #Trump is filled with #AIslop - #TechBros, @EUCommission should enact #PriceCaps [as of 06/2025 spot]!

¹: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVzeHTlWIDY
²: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O6FQFhNhiw
³: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hLiwNViMak

Even though #Musk isn't getting to jump the line directly into the #SP500, I still gotta look into getting my #401k #investments moved into #ESG funds rather than the typical stuff that follows the S&P or otherwise invests in large #corporations anyway. It just feels stupid to tie your future to the success of #capitalists who are actively out to exploit you.

#ethics #retirement #capitalism #Elon #SpaceX #stocks #stockmarket

Bite Size Economics No.11

'Transfer pricing is how global corporations avoid tax'

When corporations operate in two or more countries, the transfer of services & material between divisions allows profits to be moved to a lower tax country.

By overcharging, profits are transferred to the exporting division & reduced for the importing one. As 'internal' transactions they're often opaque & difficult to regulate, leading to tax 'losses' for high(er) tax states.

#BiteSizeEconomics #corporations