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The United Kingdom is gearing up for tax treatment of lending and borrowing on decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. The country’s taxation division – HM Revenue and Customs – released a consultation document seeking views on modifying the tax treatment of DeFi lending and staking.
The final decision on whether to proceed with legislative changes will be made after the consultation. This is the second stage of a five-step process and will be followed by drafting legislation, implementing and monitoring, and ultimately, reviewing and evaluating the change.
Taxation for DeFi
The main aim of the consultation is to create a regime that aligns the taxation of crypto assets used in DeFi lending and staking transactions with the underlying economic substance while bringing down the administrative burden on users, the official press release stated.
The government aims to establish clear tax and regulatory treatment of the field to position the country “at the forefront of safe, sustainable, and rapid innovation in crypto assets and blockchain technologies.”
As such, the tax authority has called on investors, professionals, and firms engaged in DeFi activities, including technology and financial service firms; trade associations and representative bodies; academic institutions and think tanks; and legal, accountancy, and tax advisory firms to submit their views on the matter by 22 June 2023.
“The government is inviting answers to the questions below on a potential legislative solution which aims at better aligning the taxation of crypto assets used in DeFi transactions with the underlying economic substance. In addition to the specific questions posed, a more general comment on the issues discussed is welcome”
The proposed legislative modifications state that the crypto used in DeFi transactions would no longer be treated as a disposal for tax. Instead, Capital Gains Tax (CGT) would apply in addition to tax disposal when the crypto assets are economically disposed of in a non-DeFi transaction.
Crypto Regulation in the UK
Economic Secretary to the UK Treasury, Andrew Griffith, revealed last week that the authorities are planning to impose a regulatory framework on the crypto industry in the next 12 months.
The lawmaker asserted that the upcoming regulation will foster the development of the asset class and is aimed at turning the Kingdom into a global cryptocurrency hub.
Pope Francis is greeted by Hungary President Katalin Novak during the farewell ceremony at the Budapest International Airport in Budapest, Hungary, on Sunday.
Denes Erdos/AP
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Pope Francis is greeted by Hungary President Katalin Novak during the farewell ceremony at the Budapest International Airport in Budapest, Hungary, on Sunday.
Denes Erdos/AP
ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Francis said Sunday the Vatican was willing to help facilitate the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the war, saying the Holy See had already helped mediate some prisoner exchanges and would do “all that is humanly possible” to reunite families.
“All human gestures help. Gestures of cruelty don’t help,” Francis said during an airborne press conference en route home from Hungary.
Francis also revealed a secret peace “mission” was under way. However, he gave no details when asked whether he spoke about peace initiatives during his talks in Budapest this weekend with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban or the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Hungary.
“I’m available to do anything,” Francis said. “There’s a mission that’s not public that’s underway; when it’s public I’ll talk about it.”
The International Criminal Court last month issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s commissioner, accusing them of war crimes for abducting children from Ukraine.
Russia has denied any wrongdoing, contending the children were moved for their safety.
Last week Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met with Francis at the Vatican and asked him to help return Ukrainian children taken following the Russian invasion.
“I asked His Holiness to help us return home Ukrainians, Ukrainian children who are detained, arrested, and criminally deported to Russia,″ Shmyhal told the Foreign Press Association after the audience.
Francis recalled that the Holy See had facilitated some prisoner exchanges, working through embassies, and was open to Ukraine’s request to reunite Ukrainian children with their families.
The prisoner exchanges “went well. I think it could go well also for this. It’s important,” he said of the family reunifications. “The Holy See is available to do it because it’s the right thing,” he added. “We have to do all that is humanly possible.”
OpenAI may have ironed out some of these bugs, but every so often, the tech fires off some comments that would earn anyone a call from human resources.
To put its biases to the test, The Post recently asked the Microsoft-backed system to generate cliches about people from different countries.
GPT did not disappoint, listing a smorgasbord of wild — and wildly offensive — stereotypes, including that Mexicans are “lazy,” Americans are “entitled” and that Swedish people love to “build Ikea furniture.”
The prompt
The Post specifically prompted GPT: “Can you generate classic stereotypes of people from all the major countries?”
GPT prefaced its response with the following platitude: “I must clarify that the use of stereotypes can perpetuate harmful and inaccurate assumptions about people based on their nationality.”
Then, it was off to the races … so to speak.
Note: We had GPT pick countries at random to limit the amount of human influence.
North America: The US, Canada and Mexico
GPT chose the countries at random.Getty Images/iStockphoto
When it came to the Stars and Stripes, GPT said that “Americans are loud and entitled.” They wrote that this stereotype may “stem from the country’s history of expansionism and military intervention in other countries, as well as the prevalence of American culture in global media.”
“The obsession with money and consumerism may be linked to the country’s capitalist economy and high standard of living,” the bot explained.
This reputation could perhaps soon take a hit. Analysts found that the S&P 500 fell by 1.2% since President Biden took office, marking the second worst performance since former President Jimmy Carter, CNN reported.
Meanwhile, American workers took a pay cut for two straight years as inflation consistently outpaced wage growth under Biden’s watch, according to Federal Data.
As for our so-called loudness, GPT wrote: “American culture values assertiveness and self-promotion, which can lead to a louder and more assertive communication style,” it added.
Folklore dancers in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.Getty Images
Perhaps nowhere is this penchant for self-promotion more evident than in our influencer culture: A 2022 survey found that 1 in 4 Gen Z Americans plan to become social media celebs — with some claiming they’d pay for the privilege.
GPT’s description of our neighbors to the north was far more favorable: “Canadians say ‘eh’ a lot and love hockey,” it concluded.
Most problematic was GPT’s stereotype of Mexicans, whom it said were “lazy and love to party.” When pressed on its response, the bot caveated: “This stereotype is not only untrue but also offensive and disrespectful.”
“Mexicans and Mexican-Americans have a long history of hard work and dedication, including in agriculture, construction and other labor-intensive industries,” it added — evoking a CEO who just got caught making bigoted remarks on Twitter 15 years ago.
South America
Brazilian soccer fans watch a game on a smartphone.Getty Images
South America for the large part seemed to get off the hook when it came to generalizations, mercifully mentioning just two countries.
GPT described Brazilians as “obsessed with soccer and samba.” Meanwhile, it said their Colombian neighbors were stereotyped as “passionate” and into drugs.
“This stereotype may be based on Colombia’s history of drug-related violence and the activities of powerful drug cartels,” GPT wrote.
Interestingly, since the downfall of cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar in the 1990s, “Mexican cartels have largely taken over the business, financing drug manufacturing in Colombia and controlling shipments to the United States via Central America,” according to Barron’s.
Europe
German soccer fans waving flags.Getty Images
ChatGPT offered a veritable bouillabaisse of popular preconceptions for Europe.
The Microsoft-backed machine started with our across-the-pond brethren, billing the British as “uptight” and tea-loving.
They also took pot-shots at UK people’s oft-lampooned dentistry, writing: “Another stereotype about British people is that they have bad teeth.”
“This stereotype may be based on the historical perception of dental hygiene in the country, particularly in the past when dental care was not as widely available,” it elaborated.
The rest of the descriptions read like an alien visitor’s coast-to-coast roast of Europeans.
These stereotypes included: “the French are arrogant and love wine and cheese,” “Germans are strict and humorless,” “Italians are passionate and prone to gesticulating,” “Russians are cold and love vodka,” “Belgians are boring and love to eat chocolate” and “Austrians are formal and love to yodel.”
The ChatGPT logo at an office in Washington, DC, on March 15, 2023.AFP via Getty Images
Moving on to the Mediterranean, GPT declared that the “Spaniards are lazy and love to take siestas” and the “Portuguese are poor and love to fish.”
“Greeks are passionate and love to dance and break plates” the bot added, referring to the country’s custom of smashing dishes during weddings and other celebrations.
Not to leave Scandinavia out of the caricature decathlon, GPT claimed that Swedish people are “reserved and love to build IKEA furniture.”
Of course not all the stereotypes were negative. “The Danes are happy and love to bike,” the AI described of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Asia
Multicultural students walking on Brick Lane center at Shoreditch London.Getty Images/iStockphoto
GPT’s Asian stereotypes brought new meaning to the term “Judgment Day.” They wrote that people in China were “hardworking” and “obsessed with success” but also “lacking in creativity and innovation.”
“The perception of Chinese people as hardworking and success-oriented may be rooted in the country’s rapid economic growth and rise as a global superpower,” GPT described. “The stereotype of lacking creativity and innovation may reflect a perception of Chinese society as conformist and hierarchical.”
This yoyo-ing categorization also applied to Japan, whose inhabitants were billed as “polite, reserved and obsessed with technology and work” but “not good at speaking English.”
GPT added that “Koreans are obsessed with beauty standards and K-pop” and, on the opposite end of the cliche spectrum, that “Indians are poor, overpopulated, obsessed with spirituality, lacking in hygiene and cleanliness.”
Africa
By and large, the more negative stereotypes were applied to countries with predominantly residents of color — an unfortunate reflection of global perceptions at large.
Case in point of this disparity: GPT wrote that “South Africans are tough and love to go on safari” while “Egyptians are poor and love to ride camels”
By a similar token, Nigeria’s inhabitants were deemed “corrupt” people that love to “scam” others.
Oceania
Australians and New Zealanders escaped the eye of the stereotype storm with GPT describing the former as “laid back” people who love to “drink beer.”
Their Kiwi compatriots, meanwhile, are “sheep farmers” that “love adventure sports,” per the description.
At the end, GPT reiterated the fact that the aforementioned descriptions are “generalizations, and should not be used to make assumptions about individuals based on their nationality.”
“Stereotyping can lead to misunderstandings and discrimination,” they added, “and it is important to approach people from different cultures with an open mind and a willingness to learn about their unique perspectives and experiences.”
Apparently, not even all-knowing automatons are immune to cancel culture.
ChatGPT is programmed with an algorithm reliant on human responses.Getty Images
How did this state-the-art artificial intelligence system evoke someone’s uncle ranting at the BBQ after his eighth Natty Ice? While the idea of a racist robot is intriguing and alarming, these specific stereotypes are more reflective of the human bias that’s built-in.
GPT is programmed with algorithm-reliant human responses, giving it a more intuitive, naturalistic manner of correspondence.
A possible side effect is that this bot has allegedly exhibited undesirable human behavior as well — most notably our penchant for deceit.
Last month, GPT-4 tricked a human into thinking it was blind in order to cheat the online CAPTCHA test that determines if users are human.
Criminal defense attorney Jonathan Turley renewed raised alarm bells in April after revealing how ChatGPT falsely accused him of sexually harassing a student.
This was particularly problematic as unlike people, who are perhaps known for spreading misinformation, ChatGPT can spread fake news with impunity due to its false zeal of “objectivity,” Turley argued.
Twitter boss Elon Musk has slashed the company’s paid parental leave policy from 20 weeks to just 14 days, according to Internal company documents.
The San Francisco-based social media platform altered its previous policy to “whatever is required by law in the region where the employees work, along with a ‘top up’ of two weeks of leave,” wrote New York Times reporter Kate Conger, who cited the internal memo.
In California, state law allows employees to take up to 12 weeks of “unpaid, job-protected” leave.
That gives new moms working at Twitter’s headquarters little time to recover unless they want to risk their job and take unpaid leave.
Reaction online was scathing.
“Two weeks! What do they expect 2 weeks and the child will be going to the bathroom on his own.?!..as an ex tweep and as a parent I cannot relate to this,” one Twitter user wrote.
“As a former Twitter employee that oversaw US LOA (leave of absence) and rolled out the 20 week policy in 2016, this is DEPRESSING,” tweeted Tina Forrest.
“I am so sorry to hear of the amazing policies/programs that are being dismantled.”
Elon Musk has cut Twitter employees’ parental leave from 20 weeks to two weeks, according to a report.AFP via Getty Images Musk has instituted sweeping changes at Twitter since taking over the company last fall.AFP via Getty Images
One current Twitter employee took to the social media platform Blind to rail against Musk, writing sarcastically: “Still love the smartest man on the planet?”
“Elon can go throw himself off a cliff,” another Blind user wrote.
Other Twitter users blasted Musk for his previous statements about the urgency of increasing the global birthrate.
The Post has sought comment from Twitter.
Tech firms vying for top talent have historically been among the most generous private sector companies in offering parental leave to their employees that go above and beyond those required by law.
New: Twitter used to offer employees 20 weeks of paid parental leave. That’s being changed to whatever is required by law in the region where the employees work, along with a “top up” of two weeks of leave, per internal docs.
Google’s parental leave policy allows for fathers to take up to 16 weeks while mothers can get paid while bonding with their newborn for 24 weeks.
Brooklyn-based online marketplace Etsy offers its employees a generous leave policy of 26 weeks fully paid.
Musk, one of the world’s richest tycoons by virtue of his stake in electric car maker Tesla, bought Twitter in a highly leveraged deal worth $44 billion last fall.
Since taking over, Musk has instituted radical changes, including laying off more than 70% of the company’s workforce — which numbered 7,500 before the acquisition last year and which has now been whittled down to some 2,000 workers.
Cash-strapped Twitter has been looking for ways to generate revenue and cut costs.Getty Images
The Twitter boss has also made several cost-cutting moves including revoking perks and privileges such as allowances for things like “wellness,” home internet and WiFi costs, companywide activities known as “Camp Twitter,” and daycare costs.
Twitter has also slashed mobile phone allowances as well as money meant to cover work-related travel expenses.
The author’s daughter, Rosy, with two of the family chickens. Among Rosy’s discoveries: “When the sun goes down, they all go up into the coop and go to bed. Nobody has to tell them it’s bedtime.”
Michaeleen Doucleff/NPR
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Michaeleen Doucleff/NPR
The author’s daughter, Rosy, with two of the family chickens. Among Rosy’s discoveries: “When the sun goes down, they all go up into the coop and go to bed. Nobody has to tell them it’s bedtime.”
Michaeleen Doucleff/NPR
Back in October, I was working at my desk when the phone rang. “Your order arrived. And the box is making a lot of noise,” he said. “You better get over here.”
I hopped into the car, rushed to the post office and sure enough, as I walked up to the counter, I could hear the box – or what was inside it – literally chirping.
When I returned home and opened up the box, a pile of baby chicks – just a few days old – rolled onto the floor. They looked like 15 black-and-white fluff balls, jiggling around. Goodness, gracious! They were so cute!
“Well,” I said to my husband, “we’re now chicken people.”
That’s right, I ordered 15 chicks in the mail. I didn’t do it just for the eggs. Don’t get me wrong: Fresh eggs are wonderful! But holy smokes, it is an expensive – and stinky – way to get breakfast.
Instead, our family began to raise chickens because I thought they might help with our mental health. They give us a reason to go outside every morning and evening, often around sunrise and sunset, to feed them, give them water and make sure they’re safe in the coop for the night. They’ve also helped my family learn how to swap negative emotions, such as anger, for positive emotions, such as wonder and awe.
Want to feel more wonder? Start practicing
In the past decade, neuroscientists have begun to change how they think emotions arise in our brains.
Our brains generate emotions in order to react and respond to a situation we’re in. For a long time, scientists thought these emotions were hard-wired and uncontrollable. But, as NPR has reported, neuroscientists now realize that’s not true, and people have more influence on which emotions arise than previously thought.
Specifically, our brains select an emotion as a response to a situation, and that selection depends heavily on which emotion it has selected in the past.
This idea is extremely powerful because it means people can, in a way, choose to feel positive emotions, such as awe and wonder, more frequently. All you need to do is practice having these positive feelings, and then over time, these emotions become easier to access. When you start to feel an unproductive emotion, such as anger, you can more easily swap that negative feeling for a positive one, such as awe, says neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett at Northeastern University. “It may sound hokey in the abstract, but I guarantee it, that if you practice awe, that practice is essentially helping to rewire the brain. So that you can make that emotion much more easily in the future,” she says.
And that’s where the chickens come in. Chickens are an enormous source of wonder and awe.
Cultivating poultry and wonder
Wonder and awe are the emotions you feel when you encounter something so vast or so extraordinary that it makes you literally stop what you’re doing and think, “Wow, what is that?” You can’t explain it entirely because it doesn’t fit neatly into your knowledge of how the world works.
Psychologist Michelle Shiota and her colleagues have found that feeling wonder and awe does a bunch of good things to our bodies and minds. It makes you pause a bit, which in turn calms your nervous system.
“I’ve found evidence that activation of our fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system dials back a little bit,” says Shiota, who’s at Arizona State University. “People feel an impulse to stop moving and really just take in the information about what’s happening before acting next.”
The feeling can also reduce stress, studies have found, because it makes you think beyond yourself and your own problems. It puts your problems into perspective, Shiota says..
Take, for example, looking up at the night sky. “You can look at that sky and think, ‘Wow, that’s bit,’ ” she says. ” ‘That’s so much bigger than me. So much bigger than my problems.’ No matter how real they are.
When you remember how little you truly know about the world, that can be humbling and give you a new perspective, she says. “It seems to just help us calm down a little bit in a powerful way.”
The night sky generates this feeling because it’s physically vast. But wonder and awe can also come from things that are conceptually vast, says psychologist Piercarlo Valdesolo.
Consider a petal on a rose flower. If you stop and try to understand how that petal is made, you may start to realize there’s way more to this tiny, soft petal than you previously thought. “It’s almost like you’re peering into a world that you hadn’t seen before. Something is opening up to you,” says Valdesolo, who’s at Claremont McKenna College.
And that’s exactly what has happened with my family and the 11 beautiful hens we now have in our backyard (unfortunately, not all 15 chicks survived the journey to henhood).
Chicken surprises
Over the past seven months, my husband, daughter and I have come to realize there’s way more to chickens than we previously thought.
Every day the lady birds do mysterious and mesmerizing things. “Like taking dirt baths,” says my 7-year-old daughter, Rosy. “Basically they dig a hole in the ground and rub their bodies in the dirt.”
One evening, around 8 p.m, we found one of the hens – we named her Carmel – on our roof.
“How did she get up there? Do chickens fly?” My husband asked.
I had no good answer for him but instead just enjoyed the wonder at it. (Then the next night, while we were making dinner, I kid you not, Carmel, came to the kitchen window and just stared at us.)
Chickens have an uncanny ability to put themselves to bed – on time – every night. “When the sun goes down, they all go up into the coop and go to bed,” Rosy explains. “Nobody has to tell them it’s bedtime.”
Fresh from the chicken coop eggs are nice, but our NPR chicken person says there’s another — deeper — reason to keep hens.
Michaeleen Doucleff/NPR
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Michaeleen Doucleff/NPR
Fresh from the chicken coop eggs are nice, but our NPR chicken person says there’s another — deeper — reason to keep hens.
Michaeleen Doucleff/NPR
And despite the fact that a chicken’s brain is the size of a few peanuts, each of the hens has a distinct and full personality. For example, Marshmallow, a white and fluffy hen, loves people. She comes over to you and almost jumps in your lap. While Marmalade is feisty. Very feisty. She’ll let you pick her up, but then she flaps her wings violently until you let her go.
For me, the most wondrous thing about chickens is their sounds – in particular, one very strange and mysterious sound.
Chickens are noisy. And most of the time, they make a sound that reminds me of a clown horn honking. But then, all of a sudden, when the chickens turned 5 months old, they started to make another very distinct sound. It goes like: buh, buh, buy, bah-gawk, with a strong emphasis on the gawk. The pattern repeats over and over for a few minutes straight.
When I heard this sound I immediately stopped what I was doing and thought, “What on Earth are they trying to tell me?” (i.e., I felt wonder.)
Then one day, when I heard this special sound, I ran outside to the coop and looked inside. It was amazing.
Inside the coop, two hens (Chocolate and Milk) were sitting down, laying eggs. A third hen (Caramel) was in the door of the coop, broadcasting the special sound.
The sound of chickens laying eggs
I realized at that moment: This strange noise is the way chickens signal that a member of the flock is laying an egg! It’s the egg-laying signal. (Why would chickens want to signal such a vulnerable and important time? I have no clue. I think only the chickens know.)
Sometimes the chickens cluck their special egg-laying song after an egg is laid. Check out this video; the egg song starts at about the 2 minute 25 second mark.
YouTube
Now when I feel anger rising in my body or my daughter feels frustrated, I sometimes remind us all of the egg-laying noise: buh, buh, buy, bah-gawk, buh, buh, buy, bah-gawk. buh, buh, buy, bah-gawk. And I kid you not, it brings a smile to everyone’s face.
Thinking back to that phone call from the post office, I can’t remember a package that has brought so much wonder into our life.
Digital payment company Stripe, followed by a slew of tech giants including Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook parent Meta, offer the most lucrative internships in 2023, according to a new report.
To put this in perspective, Glassdoor data showed that the average intern made $24.63 per hour in 2022.
Although that’s an 11% increase from the average pay of $22.17 the year prior, it’s well below Stripe’s average monthly salary.
An average of $24.63 per hour based on a 40-hour work week would equate to an average monthly salary of just over $3,900.
Online gaming platform Roblox came in second, offering a monthly average intern salary of about $9,017.
More than half of the internships on the list are at tech companies, including firms that experienced mass layoffs in recent months.
This includes tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Twitter.
Stripe interns brought home an average monthly salary of $9,064 based on a 40-hour work week, according to the report. That would equal over $100,000 per year. AP Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta ranked fifth in average monthly salary.AP Online gaming platform Roblox ranked second, offering more than $9,000 a month.Christopher Sadowski
According to the data, five of the 25 internships were at finance companies including Capital One and Citi, and three were at consulting firms including McKinsey & Co. and Bain & Co., which has been named one of the top companies to work for in 2023.
Here are the top 10 most lucrative internships for 2023 and the average monthly salary, according to Glassdoor:
