According to the New York Times, a new study indicates how taxes might be used to curb consumption of sugary drinks and suggests that applying a tax based on the amount of calories contained in a serving rather than its size would be more effective. Questions: 1. What are the relationships that the study mentioned… Read more »
Posts Tagged: risk
IBM Guards Age Data
For approximately a decade, IBM has been giving fired employees information detailing a severance package that asks them to waive age-discrimination claims. This package also included a page listing the job titles and ages of workers being let go, until recently. Now IBM is withholding the information and instead offering the workers with the option… Read more »
Billing Outlier or Fraud?
According to the Washington Post, Medicare spent $152 per member in the Huntsville, Ala., medical marketplace — 38 times the national average — for “unclassified” drug injections, including a type of injection used rarely around the country but used thousands of times a year at the Alabama Pain Clinic in Huntsville. Questions: 1. Why is… Read more »
Is the Federal Government a Risk to Turbo Tax: Read the Filings with the SEC?
Free filing of taxes with the Federal government is a concept that has been endorsed by Presidents Obama and Reagan and is already a reality in some parts of Europe. But why isn’t it a reality? Liz Day’s article provides some evidence that the organization, Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) has launched aggressive efforts… Read more »
Brave New World: The Interpretation of Liking a Product on Facebook
In an April 16 New York Times article, Stephanie Strom reported that ” General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download… Read more »
Will your digital brain let you slow down?
What are the consequences of reading with the interactivity of the Internet? Researchers warn that people seem to be developing digital brains with new circuits for skimming through the torrent of information online and this is actually competing with our traditional deep reading circuitry. Questions: 1. How do you think that this could impact auditors… Read more »
Antitrust Hiring Suit Settlement by Technology Companies
Approximately 64,000 engineers won a victory over their technology companies, but did not win much money. At issue, a class action suit claimed, was an agreement by the four technology giants – Google, Intel, Adobe and Apple – not to poach each others’ employees. The engineers argued that this private old boy’s network agreement caused… Read more »
Here’s a Warning for Dog Lovers!
Over approximately the last seven years (or 2,643 days), at least 600 dogs have died and thousands of others have been sickened by jerky treats. However, while the FDA has warned against this apparent link, the culprit has remained largely a mystery. Questions: 1. Have the illnesses only affected dogs? Why is the FDA limited… Read more »
When will paper records be a thing of the past at Iron Mountain?
There are 600 employees of the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management processing retirement papers of the government’s own workers deep down in a limestone mine in Boyer, PA. No, this is not a joke or prank. The operative word here is “paper.” The old mine’s tunnels have room for more than 28,000 file cabinets… Read more »
Oh, to get a hole-in-one!
Matt Ramsey’s joy of winning the $10,000 prize for sinking a hole in one was not dashed by his own skills, but the scamming of Kevin Kolenda. Like other hole-in-one winners around the country, Matt learned that he was the victim of a scam whereby Kolenda sold insurance without a license in several states to… Read more »