To what extent is the online publishing of Kenya’s Gazette ‘democratizing’ as well as politicizing information?

Of course, one needs to subscribe to Google Books in order to view the publications. This process, in and of itself, is highly political and one need not search far to realize this discovery. This blog highly identifies with the political sociological logics dedicated to unravelling power relationships behind the scenes of what may or may not be considered ‘political’ if even at face value. Consider the following.

Google assisted the Kenya Gazette in publishing 100 years worth of material - which certainly involved tremendous effort. This publication process has its benefits as well (especially if one is concerned with deriving ‘news’ from purely Western sources).

However, of concern is the way in which Google positions its reader to access the information by providing personal information through its registration process. Furthermore, the reader has become subject to Google’s advertisement and marketing capacities.

These two capacities alone reveal thought-provoking questions regarding the power Google has employed in positioning itself, the Kenyan Gazette, as well as its audience to further its corporate initiatives.

We’re excited to announce that from today, historical copies of the Kenya Gazette (dating back to 1906) will be searchable and viewable, for free, via Google Books.

Kenya, as well as many other developing economies, have become utilized by Western interests for their development, marketing and profitability capacities. And so the story of neoliberalism continues…

(Source: google-africa.blogspot.com)

Little is said about the incredible demand for telecommunication services and Internet access in Somalia and throughout the diaspora.

A judgement reserved primarily by a private sector actor who seeks to establish itself in a hard-pressed region? Indeed, one may be hard pressed to refrain from celebrating the new-found capacity for Somalia’s unconnected inhabitants to find connectedness with the rest of the world. However, upon learning that Google has become involved in said facilitation, one may be even harder pressed to agree with the ways in which Somalia has become engaged as a profitability margin.

Google.so will also make it easier for Somali users to access search in their preferred languages - Arabic English, and Somali. Somali is an important African language: beyond its national use in Somalia and Somaliland, it is one of the 5 major languages in Ethiopia, and one of the two languages of Djibouti. It is also spoken in northern Kenya and increasingly in Nairobi.

As part of the Google Africa community translation program, the Somali language interface was translated entirely by volunteers and polished by a passionate group of native speakers, language specialists & journalists in Eastleigh estate in Nairobi, fondly referred to as ‘little Mogadishu’. We wish to congratulate them for putting their language on the map.

To what extent might Google applications’ translation into previously unengaged languages facilitate marketability? And so the story of neoliberalism continues.

(Source: google-africa.blogspot.com)

To what extent is Google promoting itself for future profitability in a relatively untouched market?

On July 20, 2011 Google’s Africa Blog published a read entailing Google’s efforts in playing a ‘crucial’ role in making the Kenyan governmental publicize information (development, demographic, statistic and expenditure data). However,
and as seen below, it is of concern that the blog cites ‘good’ things being done by when a developing nation’s infrastructural developments are perceived as coinciding with Google’s ‘values’. If Google’s proclaimed goal of ‘democratizing information’ is not loaded enough as it is, found in Google’s blog here is a puzzle that demands interrogating; one ought to be concerned with a corporation involving itself in the politics of a developing nation by promoting ‘ideals’ via its software and products.

It is extremely rewarding to see an African government adopting values that are so deeply espoused by Google and development community at large - democratizing access to information. In his speech, the President of Kenya recognized that “information is power and an informed citizenry is an empowered citizenry” and promised to continue to work towards access to information and free flow of information. We look forward to working with other countries to helping make the ideal of an informed citizenry a reality.

(Source: google-africa.blogspot.com)

And so the story of Western neoliberalism continues as Google establishes itself in developing countries, and particularly in this case, Nigeria. A cheaply observed version of this story identifies with the self-proclaimed benefits of ICT technologies to assist in the development of a young, struggling African economy. But even this particular post, found on Google’s official Africa Blog, reveals other more curious tendencies that one need not look hard to find. The backdrop of such initiatives reveals dangerous implications for private interests involved in developing regions. Nevertheless, it remains important to be informed of such initiatives if we are to ever begin to understand the various ways in which Western interests, policies and practices utilize the developing to protect lifestyles of the developed. The author of Google Africa’s blog writes:

I found it quite flattering when a student from the University of Ibadan, while commenting about his experience at G-Nigeria 2011, said: “Google definitely showed up here in a big way.” Indeed, in an emerging economy like Nigeria, which has relatively low Internet penetration, the just concluded G-Nigeria event provided yet another opportunity to underscore Google’s commitment to developing the Internet ecosystem, both in Nigeria and across the continent.

Led by the Google Nigeria team, with the support of over 30 Googlers who stormed the Civic Centre in Lagos from the London, Zurich, Mountain View, Tel Aviv, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Senegal offices, we wanted to make sure that participants went away empowered - with a deeper understanding of Google products and greater business insights and applications.

(Source: google-africa.blogspot.com)

In the mid 90s, the U.S. National Science Foundation funded research to help start Google - of which, taxpayers directly facilitated by paying for Google’s co-founder’s scholarship (Sergey Brin). Rather than paying the taxes that it ought to for operating within markets abroad, Google employs a money moving technique through various banks. Although such an initiative may represent a method to save money, it comes at a consequence to the taxpayers who are already paying for Google’s services around the world. On discussing neoliberalism, this example speaks clearly.

Google 2.4% Rate Shows How $60 Billion Lost to Tax Loopholes

By Jesse Drucker - Oct 21, 2010 6:00 AM ET

Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

Google’s income shifting — involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich” — helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.

“It’s remarkable that Google’s effective rate is that low,” said Martin A. Sullivan, a tax economist who formerly worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. “We know this company operates throughout the world mostly in high-tax countries where the average corporate rate is well over 20 percent.”

The U.S. corporate income-tax rate is 35 percent. In the U.K., Google’s second-biggest market by revenue, it’s 28 percent.

Google, the owner of the world’s most popular search engine, uses a strategy that has gained favor among such companies as Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The method takes advantage of Irish tax law to legally shuttle profits into and out of subsidiaries there, largely escaping the country’s 12.5 percent income tax. (See an interactive graphic on Google’s tax strategy here.)

The earnings wind up in island havens that levy no corporate income taxes at all. Companies that use the Double Irish arrangement avoid taxes at home and abroad as the U.S. government struggles to close a projected $1.4 trillion budget gap and European Union countries face a collective projected deficit of 868 billion euros.

Countless Companies

Google, the third-largest U.S. technology company by market capitalization, hasn’t been accused of breaking tax laws. “Google’s practices are very similar to those at countless other global companies operating across a wide range of industries,” said Jane Penner, a spokeswoman for the Mountain View, California-based company. Penner declined to address the particulars of its tax strategies.

Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, is preparing a structure similar to Google’s that will send earnings from Ireland to the Cayman Islands, according to the company’s filings in Ireland and the Caymans and to a person familiar with its plans. A spokesman for the Palo Alto, California-based company declined to comment.

Transfer Pricing

The tactics of Google and Facebook depend on “transfer pricing,” paper transactions among corporate subsidiaries that allow for allocating income to tax havens while attributing expenses to higher-tax countries. Such income shifting costs the U.S. government as much as $60 billion in annual revenue, according to Kimberly A. Clausing, an economics professor at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

U.S. Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, and other politicians say the 35 percent U.S. statutory rate is too high relative to foreign countries. International income-shifting, which helped cut Google’s overall effective tax rate to 22.2 percent last year, shows one way that loopholes undermine that top U.S. rate.

Two thousand U.S. companies paid a median effective cash rate of 28.3 percent in federal, state and foreign income taxes in a 2005 study by academics at the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina. The combined national-local statutory rate is 34.4 percent in France, 30.2 percent in Germany and 39.5 percent in Japan, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The Double Irish

As a strategy for limiting taxes, the Double Irish method is “very common at the moment, particularly with companies with intellectual property,” said Richard Murphy, director of U.K.- based Tax Research LLP. Murphy, who has worked on similar transactions, estimates that hundreds of multinationals use some version of the method.

The high corporate tax rate in the U.S. motivates companies to move activities and related income to lower-tax countries, said Irving H. Plotkin, a senior managing director at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s national tax practice in Boston. He delivered a presentation in Washington, D.C. this year titled “Transfer Pricing is Not a Four Letter Word.”

“A company’s obligation to its shareholders is to try to minimize its taxes and all costs, but to do so legally,” Plotkin said in an interview.

Boosting Earnings

Google’s transfer pricing contributed to international tax benefits that boosted its earnings by 26 percent last year, company filings show. Based on a rough analysis, if the company paid taxes at the 35 percent rate on all its earnings, its share price might be reduced by about $100, said Clayton Moran, an analyst at Benchmark Co. in Boca Raton, Florida. He recommends buying Google stock, which closed yesterday at $607.98.

The company, which tells employees “don’t be evil” in its code of conduct, has cut its effective tax rate abroad more than its peers in the technology sector: Apple Inc., the maker of the iPhone; Microsoft, the largest software company; International Business Machines Corp., the biggest computer-services provider; and Oracle Corp., the second-biggest software company. Those companies reported rates that ranged between 4.5 percent and 25.8 percent for 2007 through 2009.

Google is “flying a banner of doing no evil, and then they’re perpetrating evil under our noses,” said Abraham J. Briloff, a professor emeritus of accounting at Baruch College in New York who has examined Google’s tax disclosures.

“Who is it that paid for the underlying concept on which they built these billions of dollars of revenues?” Briloff said. “It was paid for by the United States citizenry.”

Taxpayer Funding

The U.S. National Science Foundation funded the mid-1990s research at Stanford University that helped lead to Google’s creation. Taxpayers also paid for a scholarship for the company’s cofounder, Sergey Brin, while he worked on that research. Google now has a stock market value of $194.2 billion.

Google’s annual reports from 2007 to 2009 ascribe a cumulative $3.1 billion tax savings to the “foreign rate differential.” Such entries typically describe how much tax U.S. companies save from profits earned overseas.

In February, the Obama administration proposed measures to curb shifting profits offshore, part of a package intended to raise $12 billion a year over the coming decade. While the key proposals largely haven’t advanced in Congress, the IRS said in April it would devote additional agents and lawyers to focus on five large transfer pricing arrangements.

Arm’s Length

Income shifting commonly begins when companies like Google sell or license the foreign rights to intellectual property developed in the U.S. to a subsidiary in a low-tax country. That means foreign profits based on the technology get attributed to the offshore unit, not the parent. Under U.S. tax rules, subsidiaries must pay “arm’s length” prices for the rights — or the amount an unrelated company would.

Because the payments contribute to taxable income, the parent company has an incentive to set them as low as possible. Cutting the foreign subsidiary’s expenses effectively shifts profits overseas.

After three years of negotiations, Google received approval from the IRS in 2006 for its transfer pricing arrangement, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The IRS gave its consent in a secret pact known as an advanced pricing agreement. Google wouldn’t discuss the price set under the arrangement, which licensed the rights to its search and advertising technology and other intangible property for Europe, the Middle East and Africa to a unit called Google Ireland Holdings, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Dublin Office

That licensee in turn owns Google Ireland Limited, which employs almost 2,000 people in a silvery glass office building in central Dublin, a block from the city’s Grand Canal. The Dublin subsidiary sells advertising globally and was credited by Google with 88 percent of its $12.5 billion in non-U.S. sales in 2009.

Allocating the revenue to Ireland helps Google avoid income taxes in the U.S., where most of its technology was developed. The arrangement also reduces the company’s liabilities in relatively high-tax European countries where many of its customers are located.

The profits don’t stay with the Dublin subsidiary, which reported pretax income of less than 1 percent of sales in 2008, according to Irish records. That’s largely because it paid $5.4 billion in royalties to Google Ireland Holdings, which has its “effective centre of management” in Bermuda, according to company filings.

Law Firm Directors

This Bermuda-managed entity is owned by a pair of Google subsidiaries that list as their directors two attorneys and a manager at Conyers Dill & Pearman, a Hamilton, Bermuda law firm.

Tax planners call such an arrangement a Double Irish because it relies on two Irish companies. One pays royalties to use intellectual property, generating expenses that reduce Irish taxable income. The second collects the royalties in a tax haven like Bermuda, avoiding Irish taxes.

To steer clear of an Irish withholding tax, payments from Google’s Dublin unit don’t go directly to Bermuda. A brief detour to the Netherlands avoids that liability, because Irish tax law exempts certain royalties to companies in other EU- member nations. The fees first go to a Dutch unit, Google Netherlands Holdings B.V., which pays out about 99.8 percent of what it collects to the Bermuda entity, company filings show. The Amsterdam-based subsidiary lists no employees.

The Dutch Sandwich

Inserting the Netherlands stopover between two other units gives rise to the “Dutch Sandwich” nickname.

“The sandwich leaves no tax behind to taste,” said Murphy of Tax Research LLP.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, has also used a Double Irish structure, according to company filings overseas. Forest Laboratories Inc., maker of the antidepressant Lexapro, does as well, Bloomberg News reported in May. The New York-based drug manufacturer claims that most of its profits are earned overseas even though its sales are almost entirely in the U.S. Forest later disclosed that its transfer pricing was being audited by the IRS.

Since the 1960s, Ireland has pursued a strategy of offering tax incentives to attract multinationals. A lesser-appreciated aspect of Ireland’s appeal is that it allows companies to shift income out of the country with minimal tax consequences, said Jim Stewart, a senior lecturer in finance at Trinity College’s school of business in Dublin.

Getting Profits Out

“You accumulate profits within Ireland, but then you get them out of the country relatively easily,” Stewart said. “And you do it by using Bermuda.”

Eoin Dorgan, a spokesman for the Irish Department of Finance, declined to comment on Google’s strategies specifically. “Ireland always seeks to ensure that the profits charged in Ireland fully reflect the functions, assets and risks located here by multinational groups,” he said.

Once Google’s non-U.S. profits hit Bermuda, they become difficult to track. The subsidiary managed there changed its legal form of organization in 2006 to become a so-called unlimited liability company. Under Irish rules, that means it’s not required to disclose such financial information as income statements or balance sheets.

“Sticking an unlimited company in the group structure has become more common in Ireland, largely to prevent disclosure,” Stewart said.

Deferred Indefinitely

Technically, multinationals that shift profits overseas are deferring U.S. income taxes, not avoiding them permanently. The deferral lasts until companies decide to bring the earnings back to the U.S. In practice, they rarely repatriate significant portions, thus avoiding the taxes indefinitely, said Michelle Hanlon, an accounting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

U.S. policy makers, meanwhile, have taken halting steps to address concerns about transfer pricing. In 2009, the Treasury Department proposed levying taxes on certain payments between U.S. companies’ foreign subsidiaries.

Treasury officials, who estimated the policy change would raise $86.5 billion in new revenue over the next decade, dropped it after Congress and Treasury were lobbied by companies, including manufacturing and media conglomerate General Electric Co., health-product maker Johnson & Johnson and coffee giant Starbucks Corp., according to federal disclosures compiled by the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics.

Administration Concerned

While the administration “remains concerned” about potential abuses, officials decided “to defer consideration of how to reform those rules until they can be studied more broadly,” said Sandra Salstrom, a Treasury spokeswoman. The White House still proposes to tax excessive profits of offshore subsidiaries as a curb on income shifting, she said.

The rules for transfer pricing should be replaced with a system that allocates profits among countries the way most U.S. states with a corporate income tax do — based on such aspects as sales or number of employees in each jurisdiction, said Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, director of the international tax program at the University of Michigan Law School.

“The system is broken and I think it needs to be scrapped,” said Avi-Yonah, also a special counsel at law firm Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Washington D.C. “Companies are getting away with murder.”

Google, the World Bank, UNOSAT, RCMRD and the Satellite Sentinel Project have begun the South Sudan Community Mapping event, intended to assist South Sudanese in mapping landscapes, proclaimed as a critical component to facilitating independence. With this many private, Western interests involved it will be crucial to maintain vigilant in critically observing to what extent South Sudan will prove to be an opportunity for marketing and promotion.

South Sudanese sing and map their way to independence.

Friday, July 8, 2011 | 12:28 PM

En Français

On July 9, South Sudan will officially be independent, becoming Africa’s 54th state.

In anticipation of this significant development, the World Bank, UNOSAT, RCMRD, Satellite Sentinel Project and Google organized a South Sudan Community Mapping event in Nairobi on June 30. This was the second in a series of mapping events intended to encourage local people to create accurate and detailed maps of South Sudan, to help them navigate their path to independence. There were over 100 attendees in the room, mostly Sudanese — university students, humanitarian workers, journalists, developers, donors, citizens — coming from Nairobi and its surroundings, but also as far as Juba, the capital of South Sudan.

The lives of the South Sudanese are anchored to their history and land. The event started with the sharing of prayers, stories and songs, allowing each of us to visualize the rivers, sheep, roads, and people. Drawn from these songs, the mapping of South Sudan with Google Map Maker began. I was excited to see schools, roads, rivers, historical monuments, and cemeteries being mapped over cities such as Aweil, Boma, Bor, Malakal, Rumbek, Tonga, Torit, and more.

Community Mapping Event in Nairobi on June 30, 2011 The openness and enthusiasm of Sudanese attendees to map their new country was inspiring. Many were interested in health resource mapping which can dramatically impact the lives of their new countrymen. Every year in South Sudan about one in every seven children dies before the age of five; the maternity mortality rate is one of the highest in the world, and only 30% of the population has access to health care. For Charles Mona, Director GIS, Remote Sensing & Cartography of the South Sudan Government, quality health resource maps would be great tools for improved health care planning, resource allocation, advocacy, and also increased access to health services for the local population. This is only one example of how accurate maps can help various organizations provide better services to the the South Sudanese.
Happy independence day to the South Sudanese! Together, let’s continue mapping, and stay connected via our Sudan-specific email discussions. The next Community Mapping event will be in Juba, so stay tuned for more details.

Posted by France Lamy, Program Manager for Google.org

When Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion USD, one could only imagine the possibilities for promoting particular political agendas. Google has positioned itself by promoting the ‘good work’ of the US State Department via YouTube - the particulars below. Given the less than stellar perception of United States’ foreign policy abroad, especially within the last decade, one can reasonably assert that the backing of Google in the US State Department’s ‘good work’ comes without surprise. Although it may appear obvious to the reader that a private interest would want to back government initiatives, it remains important to identify the extent to which a private interest is becoming increasingly more interested in pursuing revenue streams abroad. By positioning itself to support the US State Department’s initiatives, Google garners political support for the promoting of unregulated policies domestically and internationally vis-a-vis the government. In light of recent calls for censorship in China, and recent inquiries by the FTC, neoliberalism is welcomed by Google.

Explore America’s diplomatic efforts around the world

Friday, July 8, 2011 at 10:15 AM ET

Posted by Will Houghteling, YouTube News and Politics

Throughout the past year American embassies, consulates, and ambassadors around the world have uploaded hundreds of videos to YouTube across a wide array of topics. Some are informative, like U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos updating American citizens following the devastating tsunami; some are inspirational, like First Lady Michelle Obama’s message to a school in Santiago; and others are instructional, like this video on what to expect at a visa interview at the US Consulate in Juarez, Mexico.

In an effort to continue offering easy access to this information, we’ve launched the YouTube State Hub, a place to find all of the U.S. Department of State’s various YouTube channels in one place.

This site follows the model of two similar YouTube channels, the House Hub and Senate Hub, which also help users easily find videos posted by government officials. Just click on the pin in each country, and you can find content from that embassy.

Throughout the coming year we’ll showcase some of the most creative videos from embassies, consulates and ambassadors around the globe on our CitizenTube blog and via our twitter account, @CitizenTube.

Back in June 2008, Google unveiled the Google Africa Blog. Although Google believes in the internet as a transformational tool for societies - for which it could very well be - it is problematic to assume that a private interest as large as Google can do so without necessarily positioning itself for market access and economic gain. Although the tale of private interests perpetuating neoliberalism is anything but new, it is important to remain vigilant in interrogating private sector initiatives, especially ones as bold as the following. One needs to ask, what are Google’s priorities: ‘democratizing information’ in Sub-Saharan Africa, or establishing market access to increase revenue streams?

Covering all things Google in Sub-Saharan Africa

Thursday, July 3, 2008 | 3:30 PM

En Français

Today, we’re pleased to launch our official blog for Sub-Saharan* Africa.

We believe that the Internet is a transformational force for societies. And it’s making us all much more powerful as individuals, regardless of whether one is in New York, Stockholm, Bujumbura, Ouagadougou, or Cape Town. Regardless of background, education, social status, gender, age or economic situation, online access to information enables people to create opportunities for themselves. Seeing a student in a cybercafe doing his research using a search engine, a businessman chatting with a colleague abroad with instant messaging, or a young woman posting her photos to a social networking site - it’s clear the extent to which academic, business and social life is fundamentally changing all over Africa.

Google’s aim is to democratize access to the world’s information. But clearly we (along with other companies) face significant challenges in Africa in making the Internet available to as many people as possible. How do we help the hundreds of millions of people who are illiterate? How do we make the world’s information available in African languages (about 2000 languages are spoken on this continent)? How do we support online access for people who live in rural environments without electricity? How do we make African content more widely available - not only in Africa, but around the world? How can we get more people connected, and make access faster and cheaper? These are some of the questions we’ve been asking ourselves.

Over the past few months, we have significantly ramped up our work in Sub-Saharan Africa: we now have offices in Nairobi and Johannesburg, and are looking to hire many more people all over the continent just as fast as we can find them (see our job openings). We have an iGoogle gadget competition going with computer science students in East Africa; we’ve launched Google Maps data for Kenya. And then there is the work that individual Googlers - some African, some from elsewhere - are doing on the ground in conjunction with technology entrepreneurs, software developers, universities, and the ICT and NGO communities.

In addition to this blog, we are also announcing the Google Africa community discussion forum, on topics related to our products and activities in Africa and the Internet in Africa in general. We will be regularly reading the postings on this list and product managers and engineers may participate in the discussions as appropriate, making it an excellent way to discuss a broad range of topics. This forum is open for all, and we encourage anyone interested to join it.

*The region includes these countries and territories: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo-Brazzaville, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Dem. Rep. of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Reunion, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Posted by Joe Mucheru, Office Lead-East Africa, and Divon Lan, Product Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa

Google’s Investment in Politics Starts to Pay Dividends

by Capitol Confidential

Google’s growing influence with government is beginning to pay dividends for the company while leaving consumers and taxpayers on the short end of the stick.

Since donating over $1 million to the president’s campaign and building its online presence and fundraising base, the company has reaped continued returns on their investment, so much so, that Google’s former CEO is rumored to be on the shortlist to be the nation’s new Secretary of Commerce.

In order to pad its bottom line, Google made a conscious effort to grow its influence in Washington by hiring insiders and placing Google executives in the Administration. In a short period of time, Google has been rewarded with over 25 contracts with government agencies including the NASA, the Pentagon and the National Security Agency.

Worse yet, Google’s influence is seen on a growing number of policy issues including efforts to regulate the Internet through “Net Neutrality” while ongoing evidence suggests Google may be systematically blocking competition with such tactics as walling off websites from competitors. None of this is a concern within the Administration who just gave Google a green light for more influence and power with its lightning fast approval of the company’s acquisition of travel software company ITA.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is calling for a closer examination of Google’s relationship with government – and he is right. Something smells fishy here. Republicans should not ignore the company’s efforts to use the US Treasury as a piggy bank.