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

Post by hef19898 » Mon, Nov 18, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #198

hef19898 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They can publish whatever they want. It’s a free country. And I’m free to disbelieve them or distrust their motivations.

Post by snambi » Mon, Nov 18, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

panarky wrote: post #49

CPLX wrote: post #25

This is stupid. The NY Times, as a business, wasn't a subject of the article. It's not a competition between a media company and a shipping company. It's a piece of journalism. Either that journalism is accurate or it isn't. If it's wrong they should issue a correction, or review how it could be misleading or slanted and offer an alternate perspective. If it's correct they should stand by it. In no event does the wri…

The FedEx statement seems like a classic example of corporate deception. It seems very carefully worded, probably by a team of attorneys, to be technically true but grossly misleading. The tell is that FedEx calls the NYT article "factually incorrect" but never states exactly what assertions they dispute. It's as if they want the reader and the media to infer that FedEx actually did pay taxes on billions in profit, o…

Post by mthoms » Mon, Nov 18, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

appleiigs wrote: post #191

mthoms wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No matter where they operate, it hasn't been good. That's what the rich hand powerful want you to think. But the facts don't support it. Look at any of the other top western democracies. You know, the ones with longer lifespans, more upward mobility, happier populations, better infrastructure, better education, and so on. I'm not suggesting that those countries are perfect or that there aren't gross inefficiencies,…

Western societies have been more democratic... and more capitalist. If you take high taxes to the extreme (eg. eliminate all billionaires like Bernie Sanders recommends), you get closer to communism which hasn't done as well.

Post by morsch » Mon, Nov 18, 2019, 7:17 PM UTC

drak0n1c wrote: post #199

ceejayoz wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a claim that was made. From the NYT article: > 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 increases in the 2019 fiscal year, up from $1.6 billion in 2018, and more…

That framing is incredibly negative and obviously communicates it as "near zero" to the passing reader. Vague terminology of "less than projected" is the way they choose to frame it in the first sentence, and "spent even less in the next year" is the next sentence. NYT then chooses to completely omit the actual numerical figures of FedEx's investments, and instead highlights figures in the unrelated category of divid…

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 18, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

CelestialTeapot wrote: post #59

appleiigs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a great statement. They aren't disputing the facts. Fedex is disputing that cutting taxes is a bad thing and is saying lets talk about it. EDIT: and as you pointed out Fedex is just following fed tax policy that it doesn't control.

>as you pointed out Fedex is just following fed tax policy that it doesn't control. That is incorrect. According to the article FedEx is referencing [1], the NY Times wrote that FedEx (along with UPS) met regularly with Congressional committee staff who were writing the tax policy and pushed hard for their own agenda. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/business/how-fedex-cut-it... FedEx spent $10 million on lobbyi…