7 ms·

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: a

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.

burkaman 7y ago
> They aren't disputing the facts. > The New York Times published a distorted and factually incorrect story [...] this outrageous distortion of the truth [...]
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  They don't actually list the facts they dispute, they just make that generic statement and then list some unrelated facts that paint them in a flattering light and hope that you assume those were the facts the NYT got wrong.
  - scott_s 7y ago
    To be clear, I believe burkaman agrees with you. The post they responded to said that FedEx "is not disputing the facts." burkaman pointed out the part of FedEx's statement where they do just that - except, as you correctly point out, FedEx never says which facts.
slg 7y ago
>They aren't disputing the facts. I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion. The first sentence says the story is "distorted and factually incorrect" and they later call it an "outrageous distortion of the truth". This statement is screaming "fake news" and "debate me" like some Twitter troll. It is crazy to see this as an official statement from a Fortune 100 company.
- adamrezich 7y ago
  >It is crazy to see this as an official statement from a Fortune 100 company. No it's not—the era of "journalists" being de facto arbiters of truth is most definitely over.
  - wavefunction 7y ago
    There was never an era like that, it's more nonsense and outright propaganda from schemers who want to claim that their own free-style lies are just as valid as formal journalism.
    - adamrezich 7y ago
      What are you talking about? Few have ever had access to printing presses or television studios. Until everyone had a smartphone in their pocket at all times, global information dissemination was controlled by a wealthy few. Now these people have to compete for the same attention as Random Guy On YouTube #337917402. The playing field has been leveled—these behemoth "journalistic" establishments have to compete for the same attention-scraps as everyone else. "Journalists" are not special anymore, they're just the same as everyone else with a smartphone (so, everyone else), yet it seems many struggle to accept this, judging by many comments here and elsewhere.
    - zepto 7y ago
      What is this ‘formal journalism’ you are talking about, and how does it differ from for-profit publishing?
CelestialTeapot 7y ago
>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-its-tax-bill-to-0.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/business/how-fedex-cut-it... FedEx spent $10 million on lobbying in 2017, in line with previous spending, with much of it focused on tax issues, according to federal records. Its team pushed hard to shape the bill behind the scenes, meeting regularly with House and Senate committee staff who were writing the provisions. Mr. Smith met with Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in February 2017, and on May 26 he spoke on the phone with Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, according to Mr. Mnuchin’s public calendar. EDIT: correcting formatting issues.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
lstroud 7y ago
More legitimate discourse in the public square is a good thing. Maybe we’ll finally get out of the one sided shouting matches that modern journalism seems to encourage.
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
> Fedex is just following fed tax policy that it doesn't control. Perhaps not individually, but a thrust of the article is that these large corporations pay huge amounts to lobbyists to bend tax policy in their favor.
- dominotw 7y ago
  wondering why they singled out some companies though? > ese large corporations pay huge amounts to lobbyists to bend tax policy in their favor. Do we have a way to know if fedex did this?
  - sigmar 7y ago
    >Do we have a way to know if fedex did this? This is answered in the first paragraph of the nytimes article: "In the 2017 fiscal year, FedEx owed more than $1.5 billion in taxes. The next year, it owed nothing. What changed was the Trump administration’s tax cut — for which the company had lobbied hard."
    - dominotw 7y ago
      thank you
- undersuit 7y ago
  The NYT article has an anecdote about how the CEO of Fedex met with Donald Trump two weeks after his election. Were they just having a good time?

burkaman 7y ago

> They aren't disputing the facts. > The New York Times published a distorted and factually incorrect story [...] this outrageous distortion of the truth [...]

jjoonathan 7y ago
They don't actually list the facts they dispute, they just make that generic statement and then list some unrelated facts that paint them in a flattering light and hope that you assume those were the facts the NYT got wrong.
- scott_s 7y ago
  To be clear, I believe burkaman agrees with you. The post they responded to said that FedEx "is not disputing the facts." burkaman pointed out the part of FedEx's statement where they do just that - except, as you correctly point out, FedEx never says which facts.

slg 7y ago

>They aren't disputing the facts. I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion. The first sentence says the story is "distorted and factually incorrect" and they later call it an "outrageous distortion of the truth". This statement is screaming "fake news" and "debate me" like some Twitter troll. It is crazy to see this as an official statement from a Fortune 100 company.

adamrezich 7y ago
>It is crazy to see this as an official statement from a Fortune 100 company. No it's not—the era of "journalists" being de facto arbiters of truth is most definitely over.
- wavefunction 7y ago
  There was never an era like that, it's more nonsense and outright propaganda from schemers who want to claim that their own free-style lies are just as valid as formal journalism.
  - adamrezich 7y ago
    What are you talking about? Few have ever had access to printing presses or television studios. Until everyone had a smartphone in their pocket at all times, global information dissemination was controlled by a wealthy few. Now these people have to compete for the same attention as Random Guy On YouTube #337917402. The playing field has been leveled—these behemoth "journalistic" establishments have to compete for the same attention-scraps as everyone else. "Journalists" are not special anymore, they're just the same as everyone else with a smartphone (so, everyone else), yet it seems many struggle to accept this, judging by many comments here and elsewhere.
  - zepto 7y ago
    What is this ‘formal journalism’ you are talking about, and how does it differ from for-profit publishing?

CelestialTeapot 7y ago

>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-its-tax-bill-to-0.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/business/how-fedex-cut-it... FedEx spent $10 million on lobbying in 2017, in line with previous spending, with much of it focused on tax issues, according to federal records. Its team pushed hard to shape the bill behind the scenes, meeting regularly with House and Senate committee staff who were writing the provisions. Mr. Smith met with Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in February 2017, and on May 26 he spoke on the phone with Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, according to Mr. Mnuchin’s public calendar. EDIT: correcting formatting issues.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

lstroud 7y ago

More legitimate discourse in the public square is a good thing. Maybe we’ll finally get out of the one sided shouting matches that modern journalism seems to encourage.

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

> Fedex is just following fed tax policy that it doesn't control. Perhaps not individually, but a thrust of the article is that these large corporations pay huge amounts to lobbyists to bend tax policy in their favor.

dominotw 7y ago
wondering why they singled out some companies though? > ese large corporations pay huge amounts to lobbyists to bend tax policy in their favor. Do we have a way to know if fedex did this?
- sigmar 7y ago
  >Do we have a way to know if fedex did this? This is answered in the first paragraph of the nytimes article: "In the 2017 fiscal year, FedEx owed more than $1.5 billion in taxes. The next year, it owed nothing. What changed was the Trump administration’s tax cut — for which the company had lobbied hard."
  - dominotw 7y ago
    thank you
undersuit 7y ago
The NYT article has an anecdote about how the CEO of Fedex met with Donald Trump two weeks after his election. Were they just having a good time?