From an Unlikely Source, a Serious Challenge to Wall Street | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone

From an Unlikely Source, a Serious Challenge to Wall Street | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone

Something very interesting is happening.
There’s been so much corruption on Wall Street in recent years, and the federal government has appeared to be so deeply complicit in many of the problems, that many people have experienced something very like despair over the question of what to do about it all.
But there’s something brewing that looks like it might be a blueprint to effectively take on the financial services industry: a plan to allow local governments to take on the problem of neighborhoods blighted by toxic home loans and foreclosures through the use of eminent domain. I can't speak for how well the program will work, but it's certaily been effective in scaring the hell out of Wall Street.
Under the proposal, towns would essentially be seizing and condemning the man-made mess resulting from the housing bubble. Cooked up by a small group of businessmen and ex-venture capitalists, the audacious idea falls under the category of "That’s so crazy, it just might work!" One of the plan’s originators described it to me as a "four-bank pool shot."
Here’s how the New York Times described it in an article from earlier this week entitled, "California County Weighs Drastic Plan to Aid Homeowners":

Desperate for a way out of a housing collapse that has crippled the region, officials in San Bernardino County … are exploring a drastic option — using eminent domain to buy up mortgages for homes that are underwater.
Then, the idea goes, the county could cut the mortgages to the current value of the homes and resell the mortgages to a private investment firm, which would allow homeowners to lower their monthly payments and hang onto their property.

I’ve been following this story for months now – I was tipped off that this was coming earlier this past spring – and in the time since I’ve become more convinced the idea might actually work, thanks mainly to the extremely lucky accident that the plan doesn’t require the permission of anyone up in the political Olympus.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/from-an-unlikely-source-a-serious-challenge-to-wall-street-20120720#ixzz21IqocfGl

Sadly, Nation Knows Exactly How Colorado Shooting's Aftermath Will Play Out | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Sadly, Nation Knows Exactly How Colorado Shooting's Aftermath Will Play Out | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

While admitting they "absolutely hate" the fact they have this knowledge, the nation's 300 million citizens told reporters they can pinpoint down to the hour when the first candlelight vigil will be held, roughly how many people will attend, how many times the county sheriff will address the media in the coming weeks, and when the town-wide memorial service will be held.

Additionally, sources nationwide took no pleasure in confirming that some sort of video recording, written material, or disturbing photographs made by the shooter will be surfacing in about an hour or two.

"I hate to say it, but we as Americans are basically experts at this kind of thing by now,” said 45-year-old market analyst Jared Gerson, adding that the number of media images of Aurora, CO citizens crying and looking shocked is “pretty much right in line with where it usually is at this point." "The calls not to politicize the tragedy should be starting in an hour, but by 1:30 p.m. tomorrow the issue will have been politicized. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if the shooter’s high school classmate is interviewed within 45 minutes."

"It's like clockwork," said Gerson, who sighed, shook his head, and walked away.

full story:http://www.theonion.com/articles/sadly-nation-knows-exactly-how-colorado-shootings,28857/

From Democracy Now: Matt Taibbi: Libor Rate-Fixing Scandal "Biggest Insider Trading You Could Ever Imagine"

Mitt Romney Avoided Major Tax Hit By Shifting Stock Of Offshoring Firm

Mitt Romney Avoided Major Tax Hit By Shifting Stock Of Offshoring Firm

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney saved himself hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes in 2010 by transferring stock in two companies from his personal account to a nonprofit entity he set up. The stock maneuver included $172,397 in shares of Sensata Technologies, a company now under fire for a high-profile effort to offshore central Illinois jobs to China.

Sensata produces sensors, switches and various mechanical controls. The Attleboro, Mass.-based company is owned by Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, and it already does most of its work in overseas plants. A remaining factory in Freeport, Ill., garnered national attention when remaining workers began pleading with Romney to exercise his influence over Bain Capital to save their jobs.

Romney had received the Sensata stock as part of a Bain payout; he listed no cost for it on his tax return. By transferring that stock to his nonprofit Tyler Charitable Foundation, he avoided roughly $25,000 in capital gains taxes he would have owed. He also shaved an additional $50,000 off his tax bill by deducting the charitable contribution from his income.

Workers laid off when the Freeport plant is shuttered will be entitled to far less than that in unemployment compensation. Freeport Mayor George Gaulrapp suggested that as long as Romney was giving that $172,397 in stock away, he could have given it back to the workers. "There's about a thousand dollars that could go to each of the workers here set to lose their jobs," he told The Huffington Post, noting the 170 people scheduled to lose their jobs in November when the plant finally closes.

Sensata employee Cheryl Randecker, who will be laid off under Bain's offshoring plan for the Freeport plant, criticized Romney in a video interview with HuffPost on Wednesday. "We continue as Americans to move our jobs overseas, thinking about the dollar ... instead of putting people first like this country was based on," Randecker said. "We actually just want Governor Romney to come and sit down and talk to us and explain why he continues to outsource jobs to the Chinese and other countries. And we need the jobs ... not the minimum-wage jobs, but the good-paying jobs that you can actually raise a family on."

Mitt Romney: Cayman Islands Accounts Used By Foreign Investors To 'Not Be Subject To' U.S. Taxes

Mitt Romney: Cayman Islands Accounts Used By Foreign Investors To 'Not Be Subject To' U.S. Taxes

WASHINGTON -- Some tax experts are alarmed by Mitt Romney's apparent admission that Bain Capital set up offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands to help wealthy investors avoid paying U.S. taxes.

During an interview with the National Review's Robert Costa, Romney said that offshore sub-companies in the Cayman Islands help foreign investors avoid paying taxes on investments in the United States. Bain Capital currently has 138 such sub-companies headquartered in the Cayman Islands.

"The so-called offshore account in the Cayman Islands, for instance, is an account established by a U.S. firm to allow foreign investors to invest in U.S. enterprises and not be subject to taxes outside of their own jurisdiction," Romney said. "So in many instances, the investments in something of that nature are brought back into the United States. The world of finance is not as simple as some would have you believe. Sometimes a foreign entity is formed to allow foreign investors to invest in the United States, which may well be the case with the entities that Democrats are describing as foreign accounts."

By taxes "outside of their own jurisdiction," Romney is referring to taxes imposed by the U.S. government.

"He's basically admitting here that the Bain funds are set up in the Cayman Islands to help people avoid tax," said Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel for federal tax policy at Citizens for Tax Justice, a nonprofit tax reform group. "If you want to cheat on your taxes, boy, they're making it really easy."
Since the Cayman Islands do not report information on their investors' accounts to other nations, however, such sub-companies don't merely help foreign investors avoid U.S. taxes, they help investors avoid paying taxes in other nations, as well. The ploy can even help American taxpayers invest in U.S. companies without accruing a tax bill with the IRS. By establishing personal offshore entities, Americans can pose as foreign investors and avoid paying U.S. taxes on investments in American firms.

From Stephanie Miller: sung to the Beatles taxman a song for Romney it's his taxes man

http://soundcloud.com/mike-in-raleigh/its-his-taxes-man

David Gergen, CNN Analyst, Reveals Extent Of Bain Capital Ties While 'Reporting' On Firm

David Gergen, CNN Analyst, Reveals Extent Of Bain Capital Ties While 'Reporting' On Firm

NEW YORK -- CNN senior political analyst David Gergen defended Mitt Romney this week against the Obama campaign's charges that the presumptive Republican nominee hasn't been honest about his tenure at Bain Capital -- a private-equity firm the former presidential adviser-turned-TV pundit knows something about.

On Monday, Gergen acknowledged having a "past relationship with the top partners at Bain that is both personal and financial" -- a disclosure that the Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan suggested is "what's wrong with the press corps" and raised questions about Gergen's role in analyzing Romney's experience at the firm.

"I have worked with them in support of nonprofit organizations such as City Year," Gergen wrote. "I have given a couple of paid speeches for Bain dinners, as I have for many other groups. I was on the board of a for-profit childcare company, Bright Horizons, that was purchased by Bain Capital. It was a transaction with financial benefits for all board members and shareholders, including me."
Gergen, while acknowledging his "bias" on Monday, wrote how he's "come to admire and like the leaders of Bain Capital" because the firm "stands out for the respect in which it is generally held and for the generous philanthropy of some of its partners."

The Romney campaign is facing a media firestorm over the candidate's ties to Bain after February 1999, when the campaign maintains he gave up involvement in management and investment decisions to run the Olympics. Reporters at The Huffington Post, among other outlets, have challenged the campaign's claims, while revealing Romney's continued ties to Bain through 2002, including signed SEC documents confirming his position as Bain's sole owner and chief executive and sworn testimony that he continued sitting on Bain-affiliated boards of companies for years after the Olympics.


But Gergen said he also looked into the matter, noting that "when the story first broke Thursday in the Boston Globe suggesting that Romney and Bain had fudged, CNN asked if I would do some reporting." And Gergen's Bain sources, speaking anonymously, backed up the campaign's claims, thus leading the CNN analyst to argue the Obama team's charges aren't supported by facts.

Full story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/david-gergen-bain-capital-cnn_n_1682257.html


LP - Everything wrong with the American media, American politics, and American business. I still remember when he was on public television the non-business channel.