Maybe we should boycott Starbucks? I don't know. Seriously. I don't care."
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump, speaking to supporters in Springfield Ill., on Monday about Starbuck's "Christmas cup" controversy.
Season's greetings, Donald
"If I become president, we're all going to be saying Merry Christmas again, that I can tell you."
Donald Trump, threatening supporters in Springfield, Ill., on Monday.
U.K. town moves overseas
Brits aren't averse to paying taxes, as long as everyone else is paying them, too. That's why a number of multinationals operating in Britain have come under heavy fire for their creative accounting practices that keep them out of the reach of Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs.
Amazon and Starbucks are among the most high-profile offenders, with the online retailer paying just £11.9-million ($24.1-million) tax on domestic sales of £5.3-billion last year, according to the Independent, while the coffee chain's tax arrangements wind their way to the Netherlands, absolving them from paying taxes in Britain.
Instead of just steaming about it, a small Welsh town decided to act. Local businesses have banded together to take advantage of the same accounting tricks by moving "offshore."
In a BBC documentary slated to air in 2016, townsfolk rail against multinationals not paying their fair share. The owner of a small business discovered he paid seven times more in British corporation tax than Facebook (less than £5,000) did last year, the Independent reported.
"Until now, these complicated offshore tricks have only been open to big companies who can afford the lawyers' fees," said Jo Carthew, the owner of Crickhowell's Black Mountain Smokery. "But we've put our heads together, and worked out a way to mimic them. It's jolly clever."
007 meets Double Eleven
Double Eleven is China's massive annual online retail frenzy promoted by Alibaba known as Singles' Day – with the numbers denoting the day and month when single people celebrate and for some reason go on spending binges.
The 007 is, obviously, none other than James Bond, currently personified by Daniel Craig.
So what's the connection? Mr. Craig shared the stage with Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma Wednesday in a Beijing television extravaganza kicking off the event, which scorched last year's sales record, as The Globe's Nathan VanderKlippe reported.
Also shilling for Singles' Day was actor-director Kevin Spacey, in his role as President Frank Underwood in the Netflix series House of Cards. Mr. Spacey recorded a humorous video extolling the virtues of Singles Day and ruing the fact the he was missing out on the action.
It wasn't exactly a hard slog for Mr. Craig. He did little more than take to the stage and tell the audience "I'm honoured to be here," and adding, by the way, that Spectre has just hit theatres: "We're very proud of this movie and we can't wait for Chinese audiences to see this movie."
Mr. Ma then took the stage with him and the two posed with their arms around each other, and that was it. Nice work , if you can get it.
Meanwhile online marketplace rival, Nasdaq-listed JD.com, reportedly lodged a complaint with the government last week that Alibaba is engaged in anti-competitive practices by discouraging its suppliers from doing business with rivals, the Guardian reported on Wednesday.
NYSE-listed Alibaba swatted away the complaint, with a spokeswoman saying: "Today the chicken reported on the duck, accusing the duck of monopolizing the lake."
Something lost in translation there.
A watertight pension plan
Retirement prospects are a key theme in this week's Globe Boomer Shift series. Many boomers are likely to go on working past the traditional retirement age – never mind the "Freedom 55" dream we were being sold not too long ago. But how about Freedom 45?
That's one of the best perks about being a lifeguard in Atlantic City, N.J. A relic from the Prohibition era, as Bloomberg describes it, lifeguards who put in 20 years – the last 10 of them consecutively – qualify for a pension at age 45 equal to half their salaries.
Kevin Lavin, the emergency manager appointed by Governor Chris Christie to take on the city's bloated finances, has flagged lifeguard pensions as a possible item for "shared sacrifice" as city workers are fired and taxes raised. He is due to report his findings any day.
But if you think lifeguards are getting a cushy deal in Atlantic City, take a look at the other coast. In Newport Beach, Calif., some rake in up to $211,000, and get pensions paying 90 per cent of their salary, as Forbes reported. But unlike their Atlantic counterparts, they have to work an extra five years, to collect their pensions at age 50.
But they do get a $400 annual sunscreen allowance.
Banker's bonus bummer
Nobody hates getting short-shrifted, and so it's particularly galling when a co-worker wins a juicier bonus for doing the same work you do.
And Yves Paturel wasn't standing for it – that's why he sued former employer Deutsche Bank for £5-million.
Mr. Paturel was given the boot this past April when Deutsche Bank paid a record $2.5-billion in fines to settle U.S. and U.K. probes into Libor rate rigging.
Mr. Paturel received bonuses of £1.2-million in 2008 and £2.96-million the following year "at the height of the financial crisis," according to documents filed by the bank of Wednesday.
But former Deustche Bank trader Christian Bittar – who was also dragged into the Libor probe – received a much bigger payout. In 2008, Mr. Bittar made €500-million ($715-million) for the bank and was said to be due a bonus of more than €50-million under his contract. (He lost about €40-million in bonuses after he was fired in 2011.)
But Mr. Paturel's legal action has come to naught, he discovered Friday, when his suit was thrown out by a London judge. Life just isn't fair.