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FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

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Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The FedEx statement seems like a classic example of corporate deception. This coincidentally also describes the NYTs piece which was also misleading, bordering on activism.

Can you give some specific examples of things in the NYT piece that are misleading?

The portrayal of capital investment being essentially zero is claimed to be misleading in the linked article.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this even up for debate? Why would anyone think that the NYT is more useful to the economy than FedEx? Why do people continue to put ""journalism"" on such a high pedestal? Like, what actual value did the NYT article produce? At worst it could have potentially negatively affected the FedEx stock price and overall popular perception, for no good reason other than to generate clicks/ad views.

That's a rather bleak, mechanistic view of society. Journalism provides information, without which voters are unable to make decisions any better than random chance. Democracy cannot function in the absence of information. Here, specifically, the NYT is contributing to the public's knowledge of the effects of the tax cut: people were promised expanding businesses investments as an outcome of letting them keep all tho…

30 years ago this article would have never been published in the paper, or it would be a tiny article tucked deep in the financial section or whatever. But nowadays they have to do anything to get clicks/ad views/subscriptions/attention, because that's the game now. They'll write a headline like the FedEx one because they naively think they can do so without repercussion because they're stuck in the old mindset of being the unassailable trusted authoritative arbiters of truth. No, as it turns out, when a company does a thing that can potentially harm another company financially, the other company can now publicly fight back for all to see online. "Journalists," as well as many in this thread, still struggle to acclimate to the reality of this relatively newly leveled playing field. You can't just publish whatever anymore from an ivory tower of "journalism" and expect someone, individual or corporation, to not fight back online.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#183
post #81

So this response says the story is factually incorrect, but doesn't dispute a single fact. If the story is inaccurate, FedEx should describe what was wrong, in detail, and ask for a correction. That they didn't do that makes me wonder.

Corrections don’t sell papers...err get clicks. They also don’t evolve the narrative. Fedex isn’t just challenging the facts. They are challenging the underlying premise that corporations are a net negative on society. I think it would be fascinating to see an actual debate by folks that aren’t politicians, but are willing to put their public reputation on the line.

>Fedex isn’t just challenging the facts.

Actually, they didn't say anything that challenges a single specific fact from the article.

> They are challenging the underlying premise that corporations are a net negative on society.

The article never made that claim (nor even implied it).

What Fedex is doing is attempting to change the discussion from a very specific accusation to, well, anything other than what the specific accusation were. I can't believe otherwise intelligent people fall for this nonsense.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#184
From their annual filings, these are broad numbers, and adjustments should be made, but it helps with context.

  | Period Ending:             | 5/31/2019   | 5/31/2018   | 5/31/2017   | 5/31/2016   | 5/31/2015    | 5/31/2014    | 5/31/2013    | 5/31/2012    | 5/31/2011    | 5/31/2010    | 5/31/2009    | 5/31/2008    | 5/31/2007    | 5/31/2006    | 5/31/2005    | 5/31/2004    | 5/31/2003    | 5/31/2002    | 5/31/2001    | 5/31/2000    | 5/31/1999    | 5/31/1998    |

  | Income Tax                 |  115,000    |  (219,000)  |  1,582,000  |  920,000    |  577,000     |  1,334,000   |  1,622,000   |  1,109,000   |  813,000     |  710,000     |  579,000     |  891,000     |  1,199,000   |  1,093,000   |  864,000     |  481,000     |  508,000     |  435,000     |  343,202     |  449,404     |  429,731     |  401,363     |
  
  | Capital Expenditures       | (5,490,000) | (5,663,000) | (5,116,000) | (4,818,000) |  (4,347,000) |  (3,533,000) |  (3,375,000) |  (4,007,000) |  (3,434,000) |  (2,816,000) |  (2,459,000) |  (2,947,000) |  (2,882,000) |  (2,518,000) |  (2,236,000) |  (1,271,000) |  (1,511,000) |  (1,615,000) |  (1,893,384) |  (1,627,418) |  (1,769,946) |  (1,880,173) |

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#185
post #93
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They claim the story is factually incorrect, but provide no corrections. There were two claims in the NY Times story: 1) FedEx paid $0 in tax 2) FedEx "has not made good on its promised investment surge" In response, FedEx wrote in their statement: 1) our billions of dollars of tax payments whereby they dispute paying $0 in taxes 2) $6 billion of capital that FedEx invested in the U.S. economy This directly contradic…

It doesn't directly contradict what the NYTimes wrote, at all: 1. Fedex is bundling total tax expenditures (state taxes, employment taxes, who knows what, probably the whole kit) versus their federal income tax liability which is what NYTimes is discussing 2. Fedex has been in the 5-6B annual Capex range since FY 2015. Further, someone could "spin" that 401k treatment, but this is an article about how Fedex rallied h…

It’s interesting that when Mitt Romney said 47% of Americans don’t pay income taxes, the Times pointed out this was misleading because many of those people do pay payroll and other taxes. It seems they are guilty of the same sort of deceptive rhetoric here.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#186
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you feel about the difference in income tax rates from the mid twentieth century to now for the upper wealth brackets?

A step in the right direction. The lower the better in my opinion, the federal government is long past its prime

Is that because you think that the federal government doesn't properly utilize the tax dollars that it receives?

If the federal government is past its prime, what do you think that the future of the United States should look like?

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#187
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets look at the facts as reported by the NYT: 1. Fedex owed 1.5 Billion in taxes in 2017. 2. They owe 0 in taxes after the bill. 3. As for capital investments, the company spent less in the 2018 fiscal year than it had projected in December 2017, before the tax law passed. It spent even less in 2019. Much of its savings have gone to reward shareholders: FedEx spent more than $2 billion on stock buybacks and dividend…

More of the "but what about them" logic, or "they did it too so it's fine". NYT should put out an article criticizing themselves AND FedEx, maybe they're both shitty but doesn't excuse one or the other.

If the NYT made the same B.S. arguments in favor of the tax cut then sure. But they did no such thing.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#188
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the NYT is a business primarily focused on seeking profit, no different from FedEx That is incorrect, albeit precisely what FedEx (and many other subjects of investigative journalism) would like us to believe. When "all news is fake news" becomes widespread public perception, that public is doomed to authoritarian rule, most likely by leaders backed by the business elite.

Run this experiment: 1) Subscribe to NYT 2) Notice they are still serving you ads 3) Try to cancel your subscription

I'll save people the effort:

They create an "obstacle" to cancelling your subscription. The "obstacle" is you have to make phone call and talk to one of their agents who will try to keep you as a subscriber by offering a discount on the subscription.

It's a good way to extend your introductory payment plan (or close to it).

You can still cancel, of course, just be firm and say so. Not a big deal.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is it isn't journalism, it's activism. People say corporate media is biased, but I think that falls short. It's not simply biased, it has an agenda. "Company follows tax laws" is not news. Whatever any individual company pays in taxes is not news unless there's criminal fraud of some sort. So it's completely fair to call them out in this way.

> The problem is it isn't journalism, it's activism. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Journalists have an ethical responsibility to be honest, but outside of that there's nothing to say that a journalist cannot have a set of beliefs that shape their worldview. In this case you aren't really accusing the NYT of being dishonest, you're saying that their honest opinion isn't ok because you have a different opinion (or…

Journalism aspires to minimize bias, and that's why people trust journalism as an institution (and why, lately, that trust is rapidly eroding). Using "journalism" to give your biases/agenda the air of objectivity is misleading, immoral, and unethical. If a journalist or editor wants to push their personal agenda, they can use the opinion section like everyone else. That's why it exists.

Re: FedEx responds to The New York Times article from Nov. 17, 2019

#190
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the NYT is a business primarily focused on seeking profit, no different from FedEx That is incorrect, albeit precisely what FedEx (and many other subjects of investigative journalism) would like us to believe. When "all news is fake news" becomes widespread public perception, that public is doomed to authoritarian rule, most likely by leaders backed by the business elite.

How is incorrect that the NYT is a business primarily focused on seeking profit?

But that's a strawman argument. By artificially setting the bar that high for entities like the NYT to be allowed to publish stories like that you make it impossible to publish any journalistic piece at all. And that higj bar allows everybody else to just past everything underneath it. A slippery slope if you ask me.
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