UPDATE
Finally had to post a seperate thread on the Rommiester!
READ THE VANITY FAIR FOR DETAILS.
“As EVIDENCE mounts against Mitt Romney, we’re learning more about Mitt Romney’s bets against America.Vanity Fair’s raising important questions about Romney’s offshore accounts in foreign tax havens, including his mysterious corporation in Bermuda, his funds in the Cayman Islands, and the Swiss bank account he opened. The question is, why? Was he avoiding paying his fair share of U.S. taxes? Was he hedging against the dollar? Until he releases his tax returns from that period, Americans will never know. This raises serious questions. If he has nothing to hide, why doesn’t he just release his tax returns?”
“It also sheds some light on who helped Romney finance Bain Capital’s first fund. He turned to several anonymous corporations, trustees, and questionable investors in countries like El Salvador, Switzerland, the Bahamas, and Panama. Why not bet on America? This raises many questions about Romney’s finances, but it confirms something we already knew: Mitt Romney’s economic philosophy has always put maximizing his profits above anything else. Even if it means refusing to bet on America and its workers.” -OFA Press Secretary Ben LaBolt-
*An EYE-OPENING LOOK AT ROMNEY*
Salon.com:“This pattern of elusiveness is hardly confined to Romney’s finances, but rather defines his public life.” http://bit.ly/KRdh3V
The Nation: “The public has a right to know about ethics and probity, not mere legality, of Romney’s personal and professional financial history. Romney has made business experience the central pitch of his candidacy, so how can he claim that how he manages his money is irrelevant?” http://bit.ly/MsXePt
Think Progress: Five Shady Financial Tactics Employed by Mitt Romney: http://bit.ly/MTkUdo
Seeing the Forrest: Why Romney Won’t Release More Tax Returns: http://bit.ly/LuVnFx
Blue Mass Group:“It’s an eye-opening look at why Mitt Romney is really, really nothing like you.” http://bit.ly/LVEWGR
Atlantic Wire: “ If the Romney campaign says there’s nothing unusual about Romney’s finances — that people of his wealth often have offshore accounts to protect them from paying taxes — that only strengthens Obama’s case.” http://bit.ly/R3u6NL
2 Political Junkies: Vanity Fair Shows Us the Money: Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Switzerland: http://bit.ly/R3u0pj
Daily Kos: “By connecting Romney’s Bain experience with the policies he is proposing as a presidential candidate and contrasting those policies with President Obama’s, the ad goes beyond a purely negativepersonal attack, instead framing the choice between Obama and Romney.” http://bit.ly/NtyAsk
All American Voters have a right to know about your jobs record and your tax dealings!
Mitt Romney and the New Gilded Age
We’ve entered a new Gilded Age, of which Mitt Romney is the perfect reflection. The original Gilded Age was a time of buoyant rich men with flashy white teeth, raging wealth and a measured disdain for anyone lacking those attributes, which was just about everyone else. Romney looks and acts the part perfectly, offhandedly challenging a GOP primary opponent to a $10,000 bet and referring to his wife’s several Cadillacs. Four years ago he paid $12 million for his fourth home, a 3,000-square-foot villa in La Jolla, California, with vaulted ceilings, five bathrooms, a pool, a Jacuzzi and unobstructed views of the Pacific. Romney has filed plans to tear it down and replace it with a home four times bigger.
We’ve had wealthy presidents before, but they have been traitors to their class—Teddy Roosevelt storming against the “malefactors of great wealth” and busting up the trusts, Franklin Roosevelt railing against the “economic royalists” and raising their taxes, John F. Kennedy appealing to the conscience of the nation to conquer poverty. Romney is the opposite: he wants to do everything he can to make the superwealthy even wealthier and the poor even poorer, and he justifies it all with a thinly veiled social Darwinism.
Not incidentally, social Darwinism was also the reigning philosophy of the original Gilded Age, propounded in America more than a century ago by William Graham Sumner, a professor of political and social science at Yale, who twisted Charles Darwin’s insights into a theory to justify the brazen inequality of that era: survival of the fittest. Romney uses the same logic when he accuses President Obama of creating an “entitlement society” simply because millions of desperate Americans have been forced to accept food stamps and unemployment insurance, or when he opines that government should not help distressed homeowners but instead let the market “hit the bottom,” or enthuses over a House Republican budget that would cut $3.3 trillion from low-income programs over the next decade. It’s survival of the fittest all over again. Sumner, too, warned against handouts to people he termed “negligent, shiftless, inefficient, silly, and imprudent.”
When Romney simultaneously proposes to cut the taxes of households earning over $1 million by an average of $295,874 a year (according to an analysis of his proposals by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center) because the rich are, allegedly, “job creators,” he mimics Sumner’s view that “millionaires are a product of natural selection, acting on the whole body of men to pick out those who can meet the requirement of certain work to be done.” In truth, the whole of Republican trickle-down economics is nothing but repotted social Darwinism.
http://www.thenation.com/article/168623/mitt-romney-and-new-gilded-age#
Robert Reich: Mitt Romney IS the Economic Crisis
The real issue here isn’t Bain’s betting record. It’s that Romney’s Bain is part of the same system as Jamie Dimon’s JPMorgan Chase, Jon Corzine’s MF Global and Lloyd Blankfein’s Goldman Sachs—a system that has turned much of the economy into a betting parlor that nearly imploded in 2008, destroying millions of jobs and devastating household incomes. The winners in this system are top Wall Street executives and traders, private-equity managers and hedge-fund moguls, and the losers are most of the rest of us.
* * *
The biggest players in this system have, like Romney, made their profits placing big bets with other people’s money. If the bets go well, the players make out like bandits. If they go badly, the burden lands on average workers and taxpayers.
* * *
The fortunes raked in by financial dealmakers depend on special goodies baked into the tax code such as “carried interest,” which allows Romney and other partners in private-equity firms (as well as in many venture-capital and hedge funds) to treat their incomes as capital gains taxed at a maximum of 15 percent. This is how Romney managed to pay an average of 14 percent on more than $42 million of combined income in 2010 and 2011. But the carried-interest loophole makes no economic sense. Conservatives try to justify the tax code’s generous preference for capital gains as a reward to risk-takers—but Romney and other private-equity partners risk little, if any, of their personal wealth. They mostly bet with other investors’ money, including the pension savings of average working people.
http://www.thenation.com/article/168623/mitt-romney-and-new-gilded-age#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8hME81uaAg&feature=player_embedded
WAITING!!!!
TWEET, EMAIL, FACEBOOK THE INFOGRAPH
http://www.barackobama.com/romney-tax-havens/
DESPITE MULTIPLE INQUIRIES IN THE DAYS SINCE THE CONFERENCE CALL, THE ROMNEY CAMP HAS NOT SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT ONE WAY OR ANOTHER” ON USE OF OFFSHORE TAX ENTITIES
Talking Points Memo: “The Romney Camp Has Not Set The Record Straight One Way Or Another” As To Whether Romney’s IRA Invested In Offshore Entities To Avoid The Unrelated Business Income Tax.“The briefing cleared up several questions, but left others unanswered — including one from TPM that will either exculpate Romney from allegations that he’s used investments in offshore entities to avoid U.S. taxes, or reveal that his campaign has not fully addressed those allegations. On the call, Romney’s trustee pledged get back to us with this information. But despite multiple inquiries in the days since the conference call, the Romney camp has not set the record straight one way or another. […] When first questioned about this on the call, Romney’s trustee noted, ‘Governor Romney’s IRA is not structured in the Caymans, it’s not located in the Cayman’s. It’s tax deferred just like your IRA, and my IRA.’ But in a followup, I asked if his IRA had invested in any offshore entities that would have made it subject to the UBIT if those entities were located on U.S. soil. Romney’s staff has yet to provide the answer.” [Talking Points Memo,2/1/12]
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/camp-romney-silent-on-key-outstanding-tax-avoidance-question.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
DID NOT RETURN REQUESTS FOR COMMENT” ON USE OF OFFSHORE TAX SHELTERS
New York Times: “Romney Campaign Officials Did Not Return Requests For Comment.” “Romney campaign officials did not return requests for comment. ‘I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more,’Mr. Romney said during a debate shortly after releasing his tax returns. ‘I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.’“ [New York Times,2/8/12]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/us/politics/romneys-returns-revive-scrutiny-of-offshore-tax-shelters.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print
DECLINED TO RELEASE” BLIND TRUST AGREEMENTS
Romney Campaign Declined To Release Blind Trust Agreements For The Romney Trusts As A Way To Verify What Information Was Shielded From Romney.“The Romney campaign declined to release the agreements for the Romney trusts, as a way to verify what information is shielded from Romney.” [Boston Globe,1/27/12]
http://bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2012/01/27/mitt-romney-trustee-says-candidate-fannie-mae-investment-done-through-blind-trust/WHozAwcyRFAgNR7z3BSt3N/story.html
Declined to provide specific information” on cayman islands holdings
Boston Globe: “Romney Campaign Declined To Provide Specific Information On His Cayman Holdings, Such As The Number Of Funds Registered There Or The Total Value Of Those Holdings.” “‘The Romneys’ investments in funds established in the Cayman Islands are taxed in the very same way they would be if those funds were established in the United States,’’ said Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul. However, the Romney campaign declined to provide specific information on his Cayman holdings, such as the number of funds registered there or the total value of those holdings. His most recent financial disclosure forms, from August, list only broad ranges for his individual assets and do not make clear whether the holdings are a US or Cayman version of Bain funds with similar names.”[Boston Globe, 1/20/12]
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2012/01/20/mitts_not_alone_investment_funds_often_have_second_home_in_cayman_islands
Would not directly explain” why Romney Wouldn’t TRANSITION TO FEDERAL BLIND TRUST
The Romney Campaign Would Not Directly Explain Why Romney Would Not Transition To A Federal Blind Trust Before Being Elected To The Presidency.“The Romney campaign says the governor has never claimed to have investments in a federal blind trust and that the existing arrangement is free from conflicts of interest. They do not, however, directly explain why Romney would not transition to a federal blind trust now, or before taking office.” [ABC News, 6/7/12]
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/obama-camp-raises-romney-blind-trust-questions
A brief history of Mitt Romney’s failure to answer key questions about his personal finances and offshore investments:
“no immediate explanation” on failure to disclose swiss bank account.
Romney Campaign Had “No Immediate Explanation” For Why The Romneys’ Swiss Bank Account Was Not Disclosed On Romney’s 2011 Personal Financial Disclosure.“The campaign had no immediate explanation for why the $1,783 in interest income from the UBS account had not been included in the 2011 financial disclosure, an omission noted by political rivals.” [NBC News,1/26/12]
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/26/10244809-romney-revising-disclosures-for-overseas-accounts
Today, when challenged on a Vanity Fair story that called into question Mitt Romney’s foreign investments, the legality of various tax avoidance schemes he has employed, and the “unsavory” investors from Romney’s early years at Bain, Romney’s campaign offered an evasive answer that didn’t address a single charge in the story. Non-answers have become par for the course for Romney’s campaign, especially as it relates to his extremely opaque—and controversial—personal finances, including his use of offshore tax havens. All of which begs the question: just what is Mitt Romney hiding?
OBAMA CAMP SUPERPAC GO THERE ON TAX EVASION
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/07/obama-camp-super-pac-go-there-on-tax-evasion-127972.html
Mitt’s song to Ann
Can’t be posted enough