Mr. Michael Taft:

That is a legitimate position. On being open and transparent, I provided an example of multinational accounting practices. They involve generating tax competitiveness and their impact is such that we cannot even do the basic things other countries can do such as measuring our own productivity, input-output levels, the amount of value added per employee or the gross operating surplus per employee. We should be careful about using terms such as "transparent" and also about being so defensive. The first thing to do is engage in an honest examination.