Although it is not apparent on his financial disclosure form, Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven.
A spokesperson for the Romney campaign says Romney follows all tax laws and he would pay the same in taxes regardless of where the funds are based.
As the race for the Republican nomination heats up, Mitt Romney is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a shroud of secrecy around the details about his vast personal wealth, including, as ABC News has discovered, his investment in funds located offshore and his ability to pay a lower tax rate.
“His personal finances are a poster child of what’s wrong with the American tax system,” said Jack Blum, a Washington lawyer who is an authority on tax enforcement and offshore banking. On Tuesday, Romney disclosed that he has been paying a far lower percentage in taxes than most Americans, around 15 percent of his annual earnings. It has been Romney’s Republican rivals who have driven the tax issue onto center stage. For weeks, Romney has cited a desire for privacy as his reason for not sharing his tax returns — a gesture of transparency that is now expected from presidential contenders.
“I can tell you we follow the tax laws,” he said recently while on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. “And if there’s an opportunity to save taxes, we like anybody else in this country will follow that opportunity.” Romney has used a variety of techniques to help minimize the taxes on his estimated $250 million fortune. In addition to paying the lower tax rate on his investment income, Romney has as much as $8 million invested in at least 12 funds listed on a Cayman Islands registry.
This sounds a lot like the Congress Insider trading example, all perfectly legal, and completely unethical.
Capital gains tax is 15%, so it’s not surprising that Romney pays that much in tax rates when his ‘earned income’ is a small portion of his income. He paid his tax years ago before he invested the money.
you don’t understand taxes do you?
The original taxes he paid was on the money used as principal for his future investments. The new tax money he pays is on the interest/return (income) of his investments, not on the principal.
Income is income, and should be taxed at the same rate as if he actually worked at a job for it. He isn’t paying his fair share.
He’s paying exactly what Congress in its infinite wisdom said he’s supposed to pay on that kind of investment.
If you invest some money in the same kind of funds you can pay the same tax rate on that income.
Interest and dividends are taxed as normal income. Their certainty makes them normal.
Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate because they also come with the risk of a capital loss.
I bought CVX recently because analysts are sure that it will hit $142 within the next year, a capital gain of 30% from my purchase price. So far I’m down 2.5% and looking at a capital loss.
If I win the government taxes it.
If I lose the government makes the same as if I never took a shot. Zero.
The government wants me to take a shot. Hence lower capital gains rates.
Maybe if the USA was an attractive destination for investment, unencumbered by productivity-stifling taxes and regulations, people wouldn’t deposit their money elsewhere to avoid it. What a thought.
Yawn. Another idiotic libertarian. Put your money where your mouth is, pal. Go where there are no burdensome government regulation, no taxes, no regulations. In other words, no civilization. Try Somalia or one of the other failed states. Your dream come true. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Yawn. Another leftist moron who sees the world in black and white.
Put up or shut up, pal. Taxes and regulation are necessary for civilization. If you’re against them, you’re just another clueless libertarian.
It’s telling that you call taxes and regulation “leftist”. Or surprise us, and show some appreciation for taxes and regulation. Show us you can see shades of gray, as opposed to your original knee-jerk reaction. Talk about black and white.
You’re a moran.
See also: Keystone XL pipeline; illegal offshore drilling moratorium; harassment of travellers; extra-special harassment of foreign travellers; Sarbanes-Oxley; Boeing v. NLRB; etcetera.
The United States government goes out of its way to discourage businesses from doing business in the United States. But obviously you’re right and every business-friendly country is Somalia. Like Canada, which will instead build a pipeline to the west coast to ship the oil to China. What an uncivilized country. Switzerland: what a dump. Hong Kong: the next Somalia.
Yes, why don’t we let those nice Wall Street boys do whatever they want without that silly burdensome government regulation. What could go wrong? And let those nice oil companies drill wherever they want, and cut corners on safety to get more profit. What could go wrong?
If you don’t know what could go wrong, you’re not paying attention.
Yeah, guess you can expect hordes of Albertan refugees crossing the border any day now, fleeing all the nasty wealth generated by their oilfields. And that pipeline – why, the whole of British Columbia is simply bound to turn into an industrial desert wasteland. What a relief that Obama has regulated the pipeline into nonexistence, so that all that energy won’t flow into the United States, where mean capitalists might use it to make even more money for themselves.
Can you seriously not discern between regulations that help maintain a stable society and “productivity-stifling taxes and regulations” that actually hold it back and decrease economic efficiency? Is it really so hard to imagine that perhaps it is possible for the government to regulate some things less without the country turning into Somalia? Really?
Read up a little more on that pipeline, pal. If it breaks and pollutes their aquifer, they’ll have to go somewhere. But that’s just one example.
We’ve deregulated a lot in the last few decades and it hasn’t turned out very well. Our current economic situation, all that oil from that spill in the gulf. You want to push for deregulation, the facts on the ground are against you.
Yeah, I guess you’re right. I mean, it’s not like you could mandate construction standards that would make it at least as safe as the myriad other pipelines that already cross the same aquifer.
No, the only possible solution is to just ban it entirely. That way, the Republican states it goes through don’t get any jobs, and Obama crony Warren Buffett’s BNSF railroad will earn economic rents from moving North Dakota’s oil.
RE: Keystone Pipeline
1) It’s function is to move crude oil to refineries in the Gulf region — no refined products there for the states it passes through.
2) The resulting refined oil products are destined for export — principally to South America, not to the US. The US is a net EXPORTER of refined products (look it up).
3) Principal beneficiaries of the pipeline are large multinational oil companies, while the risk of environmental catastrophe are borne by the states it passes through.
Kinda shines a different light on it, doesn’t it?
Yeah it does. A lot of Americans get a lot of jobs and we collect a lot of tax money even though we don’t produce the oil ourselves.
The bottom line is you hate people that make money and you hate people that create jobs and you got your way. We don’t get the money nor the jobs. If the Canadian pipe breaks the pollution is going to end up in the US anyway because we are down stream.
Now you like Obama can claim that putting people on unemployment will create more jobs than the pipeline but all that proves is that you are as insane as he is.
Proof you are a parrot.
http://freepressonline.net/node/25
Somalia was destroyed because OF a strong central government. Privatization of private property and 90% tax rates.
If Ron Paul doesn’t get elected we won’t have to move there. It will move here.
Moran.
You funny LL… if Ron Paul gets elected and abolishes EPA, SEC, OSHA, and all those other burdensome government regulatory agencies, we will be back to the days of the Robber Barons. Companies dumping their toxic waste wherever they want, providing dangerous workplaces and 80 hour work weeks, big Wall Street guys screwing the rest of us because of no oversight, and more.
Funny how libertarians define “liberty” as “slavery to big corporations”.
Libertarians are very strange people.
Wait! No argument on Somalia? Am I gonna have to do some MORE research for you to prove your parroting?
Dude, you really need to get a clue.
No need to do any more research, pal. You studiously avoid my points; you have since we started posting here, a couple years. You refuse to acknowledge the horrifying consequences of the massive deregulation that libertarianism calls for. Whether it’s an unconscious blind spot or you’re just an idiot, I don’t know.
Libertarianism has a few good ideas: ending the war on drugs, fewer foreign wars, a couple others. But overall it’s just unworkable.
But everyone’s gotta have a hobby, I suppose. Knock yourself out.
Of course I avoided the “Appeal to Fear” fallacy and the “Straw Man” fallacy and the “Moving the Target” fallacy.
You are dealing with your Jr. High buddies here.
You made a comment on Samalia being a Libertarian Paradise. I countered with some proof.
Prove that it is a Libertarian Paradise.
OK, I’m done whackin’ the tar baby. 🙂
Typical.
Instead of running, show some proof.
Your comments are not proof.
Offshore tax havens are nothing new. Corporations have been evading taxes for decades.
Offshore Corporate Tax Havens: Why Are They Still Allowed?
Excerpts:
It is estimated that companies and wealthy individuals funneling money through offshore tax havens are evading around $100 billion a year in taxes, leaving the rest of us to pick up the tab.
You want Exhibit A of two sets of rules? According to the White House, in 2004, the last year data on this was compiled, U.S. multinational corporations paid roughly $16 billion in taxes on $700 billion in foreign active earnings — putting their tax rate at around 2.3 percent. Know many middle class Americans getting off that easy at tax time?
In December 2008, the Government Accounting Office reported that 83 of the 100 largest publicly-traded companies in the country — including AT&T, Chevron, IBM, American Express, GE, Boeing, Dow, and AIG — had subsidiaries in tax havens — or, as the corporate class comically calls them, “financial privacy jurisdictions.”
Even more egregiously, of those 83 companies, 74 received government contracts in 2007. GM, for instance, got more than $517 million from the government — i.e. the taxpayers — that year, while shielding profits in tax-friendly places like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. And Boeing, which received over $23 billion in federal contracts that year, had 38 subsidiaries in tax havens, including six in Bermuda.
And while it’s as easy as opening up an island P.O. Box, not every big company uses the dodge. For instance, Boeing’s competitor Lockheed Martin had no offshore subsidiaries. But far too many do — another GAO study found that over 18,000 companies are registered at a single address in the Cayman Islands, a country with no corporate or capital gains taxes.
America’s big banks — including those that pocketed billions from the taxpayers in bailout dollars — seem particularly fond of the Cayman Islands. At the time of the GAO report, Morgan Stanley had 273 subsidiaries in tax havens, 158 of them in the Cayman Islands. Citigroup had 427, with 90 in the Caymans. Bank of America had 115, with 59 in the Caymans. Goldman Sachs had 29 offshore havens, including 15 in the Caymans. JPMorgan had 50, with seven in the Caymans. And Wells Fargo had 18, with nine in the Caymans.
Perhaps no company exemplifies the corporate class/middle class double standard more than KBR/Halliburton. The company got billions from U.S. taxpayers, then turned around and used a Cayman Island tax dodge to pump up its bottom line. As the Boston Globe’s Farah Stockman reported, KBR, until 2007 a unit of Halliburton, “has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.”
So… did he do anything illegal, or is this just January version of the ‘October Surprise’?
Sheesh.
Obama doesn’t need to do any opposition research – he’s got his cronies in the (totally unbiased) media to do it for him.
I did not see any mention that Romney is breaking the law.
So, what’s the big deal?
It may be legal but he’s still a giant doucheweasel.
I’m sure you feel that way about everyone who makes more than you do. Unfortunately unless someone makes more than you do you will starve.
deowll, you may enjoy paying higher taxes than billionaires. The rest of us don’t.
FYI.
He doesn’t pay higher taxes.
You do know what a percentage is, right?
LL, don’t make me speak slowly and clearly as if addressing a moron.
Billionaires like Warren Buffett pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than people like his secretary, who makes $60K. I think Buffett said he paid 17% or so while his secretary paid about %30 on her 60K.
You and deowll may enjoy paying a higher percentage of your income (clear now?) in taxes than billionaires do. I don’t think many other people do.
So, it was a typo? If it was a typo, I’ll let it go.
If Romney is not breaking the law, (and we don’t know if he is or is not) then the law needs to be changed.
Changing the law to close loopholes for douchebag millionaires that enjoy a double standard at the expense of the middle class is a worthy goal.
Awareness is the first step towards change.
It is my understanding that those particular laws were set up to encourage investment. Assuming for a moment they actually work what will be the result of repealing them; less investment which will further slow the most lethargic recovery of any depression in history.
News flash: Just because something’s legal doesn’t make it right. Big corporations with their high-priced lobbyists and multi-million-dollar campaign contributions have pushed through laws that let them get away with paying little or no taxes.
You guys are in favor of big multinational corporations paying little or no Federal taxes? Paying less taxes than you?
So I guess back in the day when slavery was legal, you’d have been ok with that, because hey, it’s not breaking the law!
::applause:: sir.
Surely you aren’t complaining about regulations all of a sudden? That’s not very consistent of you.
If you think taxes and regulations are so great, you should be satisfied with the consequence of giving politicians unregulated power to regulate and tax, which is that they will sell regulations and loopholes to their donors. If they couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be profitable to buy them off. Since you don’t want to live in Somalia, you should just put up and shut up.
Here’s where those shades of gray come in handy. Some regulations are good and some are bad. Political corruption is bad. Regulations made as a result of corruption are usually bad.
What part of this don’t you understand?
Yeah really, what a revelation.
The problem is that those with the money are able to bribe those making the laws in favor of the bribers.
If the government didn’t control such a large chunk of the GDP, it wouldn’t be a problem.
Yes yes LL we know… you want to go back to the days of the Robber Barons when government was small and weak and corporations did whatever they wanted, without all that burdensome government regulation. Life was so much better for the average joe back then.
Lordy.
Well, P, unless we can elect a scrupulous Congress and President, there is no solution to your dream world.
Since that can’t happen, it’s up to The People to rein them in. The only way to do that is to take away the incentive for corruption.
Bonus Question: What’s that incentive?
At times like these, I remember my Dickens…
So basically Romney’s income is “laundered” thru off shore trusts, so he doesn’t have to pay the same kind of taxes, that 99% of the citizen do. And if we all managed to pull this off, somehow. You can bet, as US President, he be signing the bill to prevent that from happening. The “It’s only Ok if you’re him and his friends” tax dodging bill.
Is the US going to go from not just having Wall Street insiders in the Presidential Cabinet, to having a Wall Street insider *AS* a US President?! We might as well kiss the remaining middle class goodbye, if we do. Because I can’t see him doing anybody else any favors, that doesn’t reek him some more financial gains. The only way the rich can be more powerful, is by making nearly everyone else much more poorer, by comparison. Which seems to be how his film BAIN, use to operate. Good choice as a company name. As in, the “bane” of free enterprise?
Shut up and get your own tax loophole.
All you need to do is make a few million bucks and hire top-flight tax attorneys to guide you through the paperwork.
All you middle class people do is complain about capitalism.
Get a friggin’ job. Stop spoiling the game for the rest of us.
Hey orchidcup… you sem well heeled… How bout making a grant to a couple of people who need it, like AC and JCD.
Hell, I’ll even volunteer for some relief myself.
I am already a Knight of the No Agenda Roundtable.
AC and JCD can’t be compensated enough for the job they do. They watch C-SPAN so I don’t have to.
Ask Romney for a grant.
Nah, I have some self respect.
I’d sooner mug old ladies than deal with Romney.
He’d probably insist on “shaking on it“.
I’ve already got too much experience with politician cooties.
I even once shook hands with Brian Mulroney.
He’d just become prime minister of Canada.
Look at what a douche bag, lying sac of shit and inept crook he turned out to be.
I don’t ever want a politician touching me again.
Just cut out the middleman, higher profits that way.
I wish I was joking.
It’s a reflection on American tax laws, not Mitt Romney.
He’s a schmuck for so many other reasons.
I got a feeling Mitt Romney is out. Very Mormon, a little boring, the Teapublicans don’t like him and now this.
He’s starting to smell pretty bad. Tomorrow is gonna be interesting. I give Noob Gingrich a 50:50 chance now.
Palin asked her sheeple to vote for Noob. Tomorrow will be interesting.
Doesn’t matter. Obama’s the moderate Republican running in the election. The official Republican will have to go off the edge to distance himself from Obama. Us liberals as usual have no one representing us. 🙁
Har! Except I disagree on the term “moderate”.
Negative on the Gingreich victory.
His appeal to rednecks, trailer trash, inbreds, and the illiterate is undeniable.
There just ain’t enough of ’em.
I dont know… Gingrich looks like he’d gag on a jar of moonshine with a Colt 45 chaser.
Not populist appeal enough with the bottom scrapings and cellar dwellers to carry him through the trailer park belt.
Santorum should play up what his name means on the innerwebs. Then he’d be a good ol’ douche.
I’m not so sure. Noob is smart and he’s taking meds to control his arrogance thus appealing to a broader audience.
I think Noob is the guy now. In fact the Teapublicans forgot to carry the one and it now seems Santorium actually won Iowa! The sheeple now feels loosy goosy about the Mormon.
This is pretty fucked up but exciting !
This didn’t save Romney any tax money. Cayman Islands accounts were for the purpose of bringing in foreign investors.
Yeah right. It is only a coincidence that the Cayman Islands do not have corporate or capital gains taxes.
What! Romney a Republican crook! Oh my, what is this world coming to.
OK, I’m not American so I don’t know your tax laws well. A couple of questions:
1. Isn’t 15% about right on investment derived income?
2. How would an offshore (e.g. Cayman Islands) limited partnership affect his tax rate? Wouldn’t that be dependent on the domicile or jurisdiction of the investors and the types of investments?
I still think he’s a wanker. I just don’t think his accountants and lawyers are necessarily wankers.
Oh Mitt just fes up
So this thing ant over yet Moe, Larry, Curly and Shemp might all advance to round 4 in Florida where a wapping 50 delegates will be up for grabs.
If he’s paying 15 percent that is all he is required to pay state side in which case it doesn’t matter if the fund is in the Cayman islands or in China like Apple.
Now let me give you an up front reason on why his money isn’t being used for state side investments.
I have a tax differed investment account of rather modest proportions with New York Life. The original amount I put in each month some decades ago was modest but as time passed they let me increase the amount added to stay even with inflation without doing any paper work. I recently got a form letter that said that due to the low interest rates they’d rethought that policy and they would only accept less than 7000 a year or double the money.
Doesn’t sound like much until you stop and think about what this means. _An American investment company is turning down money._ It simply doesn’t want more money. It can either get all the money it can find a way to make a profit from for less or it simply can’t figure out how to make money off the amounts people want to invest with it.
Either way it boils down to the fact that there is a major lack of investment opportunities state side. That being the case if you can do it without getting ripped off it looks like the smart place to put your money in order to get a sane rate of return is off shore. You certainly aren’t going to make bleep on anything you stick in a bank state side.
Yup its a good idea for Mitt and his money and its in no way illegal but people are not going to like it.
Other investors don’t want this brought to light and those who don’t have the means to invest in this way will feel its not fair.
Mitt losses on this with both the 99% and the 1%
the sooner he puts the numbers out there the sooner it becomes old news.
Like I said. Only the Republicans will keep themselves out of the white house by figuring out a way to loose the election. It’s almost too easy to beat Obama if there were just someone running who was worth a shit. Unfortunately, Romney ain’t it!
Obama and his gang cut their own political throats a long time ago with the bail outs, taxes, Obama care and nearly every foreign policy Obama’s ever been involved in. But the cut doesn’t seem to be that deep since the Obama camp is about to be given new political life. And the reason Obama will probably do two terms is because that un American self-centered asshole Romney will probably be Obama’s only real opponent.
The political season has hardly even started and you just know the Democrats are frothing at the mouth hoping Romney gets the Republican nomination. Because about the only person even easier to beat than Obama is Romney! Even Heinrich Himmler would probably have a better chance (if it just weren’t for his Nazi affiliation). The only thing that might make it even better for Obama is if a third party candidate were to enter the race. Someone like Ron Paul or even Ross Perot. (Funny how even their initials R.P. are the same.)
Don’t get me wrong. Almost anyone is better than Obama. Then again, I did say “almost” since Romney is not much of a choice. And when I see crap like this it seems almost clear that Romney must think of the American public as nothing but a bunch of idiots. But what did you expect? Romney himself is a MORmON!
The Cayman, Antigua, etc, is just a smokescreen, something that people do just for the show.
If you pressure them enough, you can get all the info you need.
The majority of the money all go to Switzerland where they **won’t** disclose how much you put in there.
Wow a news story on who is the least tax paying plutocrat.
Cursor_
The lefties seem to want the tax laws changed. But Obama has been in office for three years and I have yet to see any move towards raising taxes. I don’t what it is about lefties and money. They obviously don’t make any and they don’t want anybody else to make any unless they pay most of it in taxes. I guess so it covers all their cronies on welfare. If Romney is paying what the tax law states or using a legitimate source in the Caymans. That’s his business. I’m sure if you do some research their are plenty of Democrat’s doing the same. Its how the wealthy stay wealthy. They are all hypocritical when it comes to accusations.
Obama is now being told by Hollywood donors they will not donate unless he supports SOPA. Nancy Pelosi too.
They are really desperate for that money and fundraisers are begging them back.
Republican Tea Party site Redstate has called for primaries against any Senator that supports SOPA. This includes their favorite Marco Rubio. Has any left-wing site done the same?
Right now, the pressure is for Obama to cave and support SOPA.
Left or Right, can we all agree Mitt, “I’m out of work too”, Romeny has demonstrated he doesn’t think very well? Running for Presnedent for 8 years and never thought to get his estate/taxes in order?
Ha, ha. Whadda Dolt. Its his only appeal to Republicans: he’s just as dumb as they are.
Silly Hoomans.
Speaking of Left and Right agreeing==it hasn’t been remarked on yet that NO ONE talks about BushtheRetard except to criticize him for being a big government conservative. Some if not many even admit to an error in voting for BushthesockPuppetRetard the second time as “the handwriting was on the wall.”
Let’s connect the dots: Mitt, “I was afraid of being fired too, Romboid can ONLY be viewed as fulfilling BushthecocainCowboy’s THIRD TERM. Does anyone really think his administration would be any better?
Just look. —– LOOK at his performance already in full view!
Sad politics in America. Ground Rumbling. Super Volcano. And we all do it to ourselves.
The really sad bit is that you appear to not think that Obama has been the third Bush term.
>the accounts provide no tax advantage to American investors like Romney.
From the ABC article, in contrast to the headline of tax shelters.
Don’t worry. Mission accomplished. Newt will win South Carolina.
From the ABC article:
“The tax consequences to the Romneys are the very same whether the fund is domiciled here or another country,” a campaign official said in response to questions. “Gov. and Mrs. Romney have money invested in funds that the trustee has determined to be attractive investment opportunities, and those funds are domiciled wherever the fund sponsors happen to organize the funds.”
Translation: We don’t actually do the tax sheltering, we hire someone to do it.
Seriously, if there was absolutely no difference in the tax burden, why would they put their money in a place made famous as a shady tax shelter?
Not plausible. Try again, Mitt.
TO get foreign money into the fund. This is the downside of Sarbanes Oxley, the DEA, Patriot Act and everything else the government does to monitor people and regulate money.
A lot of it has to do with that he invests in foreign currency as well, so not only does he hide his money, he keeps it in foreign denominations because he simply doesn’t have confidence in American cash.
bailouts is one word
offshore is one word
stateside is one word
Romney looks good in a suit. That’s all Amerika wants in a presidential candidate. We don’t know who the heck he IS but that won’t matter. We’ll find out soon enough, the hard way.
He’ll be another Ronald Reagan, only magnified. Will of course pay lip service to the Evangelical agenda, which is singularly obsessed with curbing women’s reproductive rights. A zygotes’ right to life is zealously protected, but they won’t lift a finger to help an unwanted baby once it’s actually born. The biggest political influence will be long-gone Jeebus & what he approves of & doesn’t. Retro politics lives again whilst the economy swirls the bowl.
Yeah, you guys just keep on yammering about which gang of plutocrats is better than the other. That’s been working out real good so far, huh?
#67–Dumb as a Rock==its called dealing with reality. Your alternative I suppose is some write in candidate or Ron Paul?
Have you ever read anything other than a comic book?
All the people who use your rationalization as the reason for why they vote Democrat or Republican are directly responsible for the mess this country is in. Voting for the lesser of evils is still voting for evil. There is no guarantee that a third party would do better, but there is decades of corroboration that hiring Rs an Ds just makes things increasingly worse.
And so yeah, I’d rather write in someone than share the responsibility for KNOWINGLY hiring someone bad. I’ll watch why 100,000,000 million idiots continue to foul their nest (and mine).
OH P/M==that is so demonstrably idiotic as to warrant only a dismissive response: any study of the pragmatism of third party candidates shows voting for them ushers in the worst candidate the voter would have wanted in a more rational world.
Silly to order your political thinking along lines of the shortest bumper sticker.
More comic books?
When you see that your choices (in this case probably Romney vs. Obama) is basically the same, then voting for a 3rd makes complete sense.
Voting for the status quo, is to me idiotic.
I didn’t like Obama and I didn’t like McCain….we got Obama, no better than McCain, and worse than Dumbya.
If I am right about the above options, I will vote for a 3rd party. Like I did last election.
HA HA HA! The church doesn’t pay any taxes!
Romney says:”Let them eat Cake!!!”
Romney wants to be President for the 1%ers !!!
As for the rest of us, it’s like Gerald Ford’s reply to New York City: “DROP DEAD !!!”
Ron Paul is playing to win. He is outright stealing delegates from the other candidates. There’s only 2200, and his supporters are trying to get selected as those by lying about how much they support one of the other candidates.
Bleep, I didn’t understand just how eat up with jealousy people are. Rupert Murdock and Obamas rich buddy among others are doing the same thing. This isn’t a tax scam. Its the law Congress passed and Romney is paying as much tax as he would if the money was state side not that the justice of that statement is going to matter to a bunch of people being eaten up with jealousy and envy and filled with spite because of it.
I will add that I’ve been doing some checking and the city of Nashville recently had to pay to get a bank to agree to hold a few million in deposits. In other words the banks literally don’t want the money. The only way they saw to make money off the deal was to charge to store it. They can get all the money they want for next to nothing from the Fed reserve because Bird brain Bernanke is giving it out for so near nothing as not to matter.
If you want to invest and make money it looks like the most reasonable option is offshore. On shore you may have to pay someone to hold it for you.
Banks don’t like to hold real money because they get lots of free virtual money to play with courtesy of the Federal Reserve.
This is why they don’t give a hoot about the person who puts their paycheck into the bank. Its pitiful pocket change to a bank that leverages their loot 42-1.
McCullough==your position is that voting for the least evil of candidates is still voting for evil? Thats a common expression of well motivated people who cut their own throats in the political arena. You aren’t being PRAGMATIC at all==just self destructive.
In addition, you are simply being stupid, dogmatic, or disingenuous to say “there was no difference” between Obama and McCain. EVERYTHING shares SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES with EVERYTHING ELSE. Sorry–but we have to be dogmatic about that simple reality. When you say two things are exactly the same, or there is no difference==one is denying reality.
Just because all politicians are self serving, corrupt, and tools of their corporate paymasters DOES NOT MEAN they are all the same nor do they support “the same” status quo. There was a difference between Algore and BushtheRetard. NO ONE thinks Algore would have invaded Iraq. NO ONE thinks Algore would have issues a BushtheRetard Billionaires Tax Relief Program. ======NO ONE!=====There is a difference. At that time, a vote for Saint Nader GOT BushtheRetard elected over Algore.
I could go on to Obama vs McCain, or Obama/Romney although I agree its hard to nail down just what Romney would do other than push for more tax breaks and off shoring of businesses in this time of need for a rational restructuring so I will leave that for a time when the history is a bit more clear.
Deal with Reality.
Actually that’s BS. Al Gore won that election. So your 3rd party arguments sinks like a stone.
Obama has completely disqualified himself as being fit to be president by signing the NDAA (along with anyone who supported it). He should be impeached immediately. How ANYONE would think of voting for BO after that act of TREASON is beyond my comprehension. Especially any Bullshit self-proclaimed Liberal like yourself. If you vote for Obama again, it tells me that you approve of the death of our Bill of Rights.
I cannot vote for a Treasonous President, and I cannot vote for a another Wall Street insider, so that leaves me no choice.
You’re just one of those stupid Americans who think we can only have 2 parties, black and white, vanilla or chocolate. Yawn. Glad I don’t live in your reality.
You are delusional, don’t we have a President that promised to basically end the Middle East wars, close gitmo, blah blah blah, and did none of it? So what does it matter if NO ONE thinks Gore would have done that stuff? People are wrong, politicians lie. If anything Obama has proven how anyone from either major party will do what the overlords want. It doesn’t matter. You aren’t voting for a person, but literally the status quo. I couldn’t agree with McCullough more on this. And of course people aren’t exactly the same, don’t be stupid, but there are shades of difference, or tiers, and the differences of major party candidates never put them in different tiers. ObamatheRetard is case in point. GoretheRetard would have been too if he was elected. I hate myself for even writing this, it’s pointless, but you are the reason these idiots keep getting elected. Stop voting already.
Mitt Romney is no where near as rich as boot-licker Buffet, who is behind on HIS taxes.
Good Point! Mitt Romney also has eaten nowhere near as many hotdogs in 5 minutes as has Takeru Kobayashi, who is behind on HIS french fries.