Daily Wisdom: 8 Facts the Media Won’t Tell You

Our discussion about Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman made it clear that the US media doesn’t fully inform the American public. Paul Buchheit, writing at Alternet, gives eight examples of things the media just isn’t telling us, including the fact that many American companies generate most of their revenue in the U.S. and pay more taxes outside it.

Citigroup had 42% of its 2011-13 revenue in North America (almost all U.S.) and made $32 billion in profits, but received a U.S. current income tax benefit all three years.

Pfizer had 40% of its 2011-13 revenues and nearly half of its physical assets in the U.S., but declared almost $10 billion in U.S. losses to go along with nearly $50 billion in foreign profits.

In 2013 Exxon had about 43% of management, 36% of sales, 40% of long-lived assets, and 70-90% of its productive oil and gas wells in the U.S., yet only paid about 2 percent of its total income in U.S. income taxes, and most of that was something called a “theoretical” tax.