Avoiding Taxes, Starving Education to Feed Retirement

The Paradise Papers and America’s Elite Guest: Will Fitzgibbon, Reporter for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists One aspect of the Republican tax reform plan President Trump likes to emphasize is a provision that would encourage US companies to "bring back trillions" in foreign profits, which makes it sound like the foreign profits of US companies are being held hostage offshore somewhere. But that’s misleading. The companies could bring the money back anytime they wanted, they’d just have to pay corporate taxes on it. Instead, they stash it away in some of the world’s most beautiful escapes – Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Seychelles that offer pristine beaches and charge low – or even no – taxes.  More than 13 million documents have leaked from some of the law firms that help companies do that. They’ve been dubbed the Paradise Papers and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is coordinating reporting on them. Starving Education to Feed Retirement  Guest: Richard Vague, Managing Partner, Gabriel Investments, Author, “The Next Economic Disaster”  When you’re cutting up a pie, and you’ve got more people to serve than you expected, one solution is to make each piece a little smaller, right? But what if you already promised someone a certain-sized slice and if you try to trim it a bit you’re gonna have a ruckus at the table? Well, then you’ll probably have to make the rest of the slices even smaller.  This is the situation state and local governments across the country find themselves in. They’ve guaranteed to fund pensions for government employees and Medicaid, and as those costs grow, who gets a smaller piece of the pie? Mostly education and infrastructure. That shows in America’s deteriorating roads and bridges and the poor international ranking of our school system. Who Knew that Cougars Are Such Social Animals? Guest: Mark Elbroch, PhD, Lead Scientist, Puma Program, Panthera  BYU’s mascot, the cougar, lives throughout the West, but since they hunt at night, there’s a lot we don’t know about them. Scientists have always thought that cougars are solitary animals who don’t interact with each other unless they’re mating or fighting. But a recent study reveals that they actually don’t mind some company at dinner.  Stories from The Apple Seed Guest: Sam Payne, Host, The Apple Seed, BYUradio An interview with The Young Company, BYU's children's theater company. Lincoln Changed the Course of the American Funeral Industry   Guest: Brian Walsh, MFA, Assistant Professor of Communications, Elon University, Documentary Filmmaker  Funerals in America often involve a viewing, where mourners pay respects to a body that’s been preserved to look more or less like the person did when alive. But, around the world, embalming is not necessarily standard practice. And, it wasn’t always typical in America, either. In fact, we have President Abraham Lincoln to thank for what we’ve come to think of a traditional American funeral.  Leaders Forged in Crisis Guest: Nancy Koehn, PhD, Historian, Harvard Business School, Author, “Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times” Tense and turbulent times like the ones we now live in call for a special kind of leader, wouldn’t you agree?  Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn believes the leaders we need are really just ordinary people who’ve become capable of doing extraordinary things. Leaders are made, not born, she argues. Her new book explores the stories of five such leaders from history – polar explorer Earnest Shackleton, President Abraham Lincoln, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Nazi-resisting clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer and environmental crusader Rachel Carson.