Whites for Romney

[boutons_deux]

But even though nobody is accusing Mitt Romney of anything more than being secretive, Romneyland is responding to the calls for transparency by acting as though they are under siege.

“The Obama campaign’s latest unfounded character assault on Mitt Romney is unseemly and disgusting. Mitt Romney had a successful career in the private sector, pays every dime of taxes he owes, has given generously to charitable organizations, and served numerous causes greater than himself,” said spokeswoman Andrea Saul. “Barack Obama has become what he once ran against — a typical politician willing to use false and dishonest attacks to save his job after failing to do his job. The American people expected more from this president, and he continues to let them down.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/0...=Google+Reader

[boutons_deux]

Romney Dodges Question On Why He Supports Personal Liberty For The Rich, But Not For LGBT People Or Women

it’s kind of personal and may be straying from the economic discussion here but I mean, just as I guess as an example, considering your religious affiliation and it being a minority [AUDIENCE BOOS] and I guess so my question is in terms of social equality and in terms of women’s rights or gay rights and liberty in that area, what is so wrong about exploring liberty and giving liberty to everyone in every field, not just in the economy?

Romney went on to mostly dodge the young man’s question, speaking only specifically about the issue of abortion, and not speaking to LGBT issues at all. He did say that “everyone in this country should have an opportunity to pursue their course in life as they choose.” However, he must mean only as long as you do not choose to marry a person of the same sex.


http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/0...ople-or-women/

oops, sounds like Gecko's mafia didn't vet the audience for like-minded rich, hetero whities

[boutons_deux]

My Finances

An Explanation from Mitt Romney



Dear American Person:

As many of you know, in recent days my opponent has spread the rumors that 1.) I have refused to make my tax returns public and 2.) I have hidden my money in bank accounts in Switzerland and the Caymans. These two rumors, while true, have made me look very bad. So I thought I would take this opportunity to explain my finances in terms even a poor person could understand.

Let’s say you met the love of your life, and you wrote her a series of passionate love letters. In these letters, you told her how you intended to protect her, cherish her, and always keep her safe. And then let’s say somebody went and told you that you had to make those love letters available for the world to see. If you’re even half the man I am, you’d say, “Heck no.”

Well, in my case, the love of my life is my money. (If you don’t believe me, ask Ann.) And my tax returns are like my love letters to my money, detailing the lengths to which I’ll go to keep my precious money from being taken away from me. If you think I should make those love letters public, then I’m sorry, my friend, but you don’t believe in love.

Now, let’s say you asked the love of your life to marry you, and you’re fortunate enough that she said “yes.” Should someone be able to force you to spend your honeymoon in a ratty room at some Motel 6, where God knows what crackheads and s slept before you? Or should you be allowed to take your bride to a five-star Swiss chateau, perhaps, or an exclusive beach on Grand Cayman? I think you can see where I’m going with this.

In conclusion: if refusing to release my tax returns and having foreign bank accounts is wrong, I don’t want to be right. I did it all for love. And as your President, I promise I will never, ever come between you and the thing you love. Unless you’re gay. (Laughing Out Loud.)

Vote for Me,

Mitt Romney

http://www.borowitzreport.com/

[boutons_deux]

Offshore Tax Havens Cost U.S. Government $100 Billion Per Year

On Tuesday, after Mitt Romney said he had "no idea where" his offshore investments were, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) came to his aid, saying "it's really American to avoid paying taxes, legally."

But by parking money in countries with tiny tax rates -- thus putting it beyond the reach of the American government -- wealthy businesses and individuals cost the federal government roughly $100 billion every year, according to a 2011 report from the California Public Interest Research Group. That's money that doesn't make it into the federal government's hands, even though it would probably come in useful -- again, given the trillion-dollar-plus national deficit.

As the CALPIRG report notes, many household-name corporations, including Goldman Sachs, General Electric, Exxon Mobil and Google, take advantage of offshore accounts, often saving billions in taxes in the process.

At the moment, of course, tax havens are more in the news because of people. (Although, remember: Corporations are people, my friend.) Barack Obama's campaign team has lately been giving Romney for the Republican candidate's use of offshore accounts in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, and for his refusal to disclose more than a handful of details about his finances.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...comm_ref=false

[boutons_deux]

Mitt Romney's Financial Black Hole



Paying taxes forthrightly has long been a matter of civic pride for most American politicians, a demonstration of honesty and of a willingness to share in society's burdens. Since the Watergate era, presidential candidates have released several years of tax returns, allowing voters to peer at their financial choices and discern their entanglements.

Mitt Romney has upended that tradition this year. He has released only one complete tax return, for 2010, along with an unfinished estimate of his 2011 taxes. What information he did release provides a fuzzy glimpse at a concerted effort to park much of his wealth in overseas tax shelters, suggesting a widespread pattern of tax avoidance unlike that of any previous candidate.

Mr. Romney has resisted all demands for more disclosure, leading to growing criticism from Democrats that he is trying to hide his fortune and his tax schemes from the public. Given the troubling su ions about his finances, he needs to release many more returns and quickly open his books to full scrutiny.

The 2010 tax return showed that the blind trust held by his wife, Ann, included a $3 million Swiss bank account that had not been properly reported on previous financial disclosure statements. (The account was closed by the trust manager in 2010 who feared it might become embarrassing for the campaign. He was right.) It also showed that Mr. Romney had used a complex offshore tax shelter, known as a blocker corporation, to shield the investments in his I.R.A. from paying an obscure business tax.

The use of that technique by wealthy taxpayers and ins utions, long been blasted by Congressional tax experts as abusive, costs the treasury $1 billion a decade.

The return showed at least 20 investments not previously listed on disclosure reports, but it did not provide enough information to evaluate their size or holdings. Neither the tax return nor other disclosures have revealed the full amounts of the Romneys' other offshore holdings over the years, including investments in Germany, Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, Australia and Ireland.

Recent articles by The Associated Press and Vanity Fair focused on a Bermuda account that Mr. Romney transferred to his wife's blind trust the day before he was inaugurated as governor of Massachusetts in 2003. The account, created in 1997, had not been properly disclosed to voters until January. Even though it had few assets in 2010, according to the return, it could have sheltered a significant amount of income last year or in previous years.

Mr. Romney also has not fully explained the nature of his separation agreement with Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he founded, which he left in 1999. Last month, his trust reported receiving a $2 million payment from Bain as part of unpaid earnings from his work there. Of the 138 Bain funds organized in the Cayman Islands, Mr. Romney has interests in 12, worth up to $30 million, according to Vanity Fair.

Though the Romney campaign has often distanced itself from Bain's recent corporate takeover work, voters have no way of knowing how much the candidate has received from Bain since he left, or how much is coming.

Firms like Bain park money in the Caymans because the islands have no taxes on capital gains, profits or income for foreigners. But just because it's legal doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

The campaign says Mr. Romney has received no tax benefits from his offshore shelters, a dubious assertion but one impossible to check without more disclosure. Mr. Romney said this week that he had no idea where the blind trust had put his money, and he dismissed the issue of the offshore investments, saying they were no more consequential than investing in a foreign car company.

A foreign investment, however, is not the same as an offshore tax shelter. A more conscientious politician would have urged his blind trusts to have nothing to do with shelters not available to the general public. And Mr. Romney is tarnishing an important political tradition - one set by his father, George Romney, who released 12 years of tax returns in 1967 - by continuing to keep the sources of his income in the shadows.


http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=...&sub=Editorial

[boutons_deux]

...

[Th'Pusher]

Here's why the 1% TAX EVADERS FOR ROMNEY love Gecko with $100Ms in campaign donations: he's one of their own


Where the Money Lives

For all Mitt Romney’s touting of his business record, when it comes to his own money the Republican nominee is remarkably shy about disclosing numbers and investments. Nicholas Shaxson delves into the murky world of offshore finance, revealing loopholes that allow the very wealthy to skirt tax laws, and investigating just how much of Romney’s fortune (with $30 million in Bain Capital funds in the Cayman Islands alone?) looks pretty strange for a presidential candidate.


Particularly jarring were the Romneys’ many offshore accounts. As Newt Gingrich put it during the primary season, “I don’t know of any American president who has had a Swiss bank account.” But Romney has, as well as other interests in such tax havens as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

To give but one example, there is a Bermuda-based en y called Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd., which has been described in securities filings as “a Bermuda corporation wholly owned by W. Mitt Romney.” It could be that Sankaty is an old vehicle with little importance, but Romney appears to have treated it rather carefully. He set it up in 1997, then transferred it to his wife’s newly created blind trust on January 1, 2003, the day before he was inaugurated as Massachusetts’s governor. The director and president of this en y is R. Bradford Malt, the trustee of the blind trust and Romney’s personal lawyer. Romney failed to list this en y on several financial disclosures, even though such a closely held en y would not qualify as an “excepted investment fund” that would not need to be on his disclosure forms. He finally included it on his 2010 tax return. Even after examining that return, we have no idea what is in this company, but it could be valuable, meaning that it is possible Romney’s wealth is even greater than previous estimates. While the Romneys’ spokespeople insist that the couple has paid all the taxes required by law, investments in tax havens such as Bermuda raise many questions, because they are in “jurisdictions where there is virtually no tax and virtually no compliance,” as one Miami-based offshore lawyer put it.

That’s not the only money Romney has in tax havens. Because of his retirement deal with Bain Capital, his finances are still deeply entangled with the private-equity firm that he founded and spun off from Bain and Co. in 1984. Though he left the firm in 1999, Romney has continued to receive large payments from it—in early June he revealed more than $2 million in new Bain income. The firm today has at least 138 funds organized in the Cayman Islands, and Romney himself has personal interests in at least 12, worth as much as $30 million, hidden behind controversial confidentiality disclaimers. Again, the Romney campaign insists he saves no tax by using them, but there is no way to check this.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2...shore-accounts

How much of that money Romney has in tax shelters is going to create jobs and trickle down to the average American? Seems this reality kind of flies in the face of the whole trickle down theory. Isn't giving additional tax cuts to the 'job creators' supposed to expand the American economy by creating jobs? I don't see how that's happening when tied up in offshore tax havens.

The debate should not be about whether this is legal, but whether or not it is good for the American economy. Republicans have been jamming trickle down economics down our throats and I think this makes it very clear that a good portion of that money simply get's stashed off into off-shore tax havens.

[boutons_deux]

"whole trickle down theory"

the trickle down theory is and always has been a huge ing lie.

the 1% don't, can't possibly in many case, actually spend their $100Ms so it would appear in into the Real Economy of the 99%. It stays mostly in investments, stocks, bonds, the Wall St casino, and hidden away in tax-evasion money bunkers.

[Th'Pusher]

"whole trickle down theory"

the trickle down theory is and always has been a huge ing lie.

the 1% don't, can't possibly in many case, actually spend their $100Ms so it would appear in into the Real Economy of the 99%. It stays mostly in investments, stocks, bonds, the Wall St casino, and hidden away in tax-evasion money bunkers.

While most intelligent people understand this, I think the Obama campagin should jump on this as a talking point to drive home the fact that additional tax cuts on the rich (which is clearly what the Ryan budget proposes and which has been endorsed by Romney) are ing ludicrous. Obama saying we've tried this before and it did not work is all well and good, but this is a specific example of how the bull theory is nothing but a scam to continue to enrich the people who need it the least.

[boutons_deux]

Can It Be We've Overlooked This?

I read from many sources that Mitt Romney, who wishes to become our next president, is all for what they call judicial extremism. We're all aware that the current Supreme Court, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, could be the most extremely conservative court ever. So clearly, in Chief Justice Roberts, the candidate had everything he could have wished for. Yet some days after Justice Roberts cast one vote he disapproved of -- the vote that saved the Affordable Care Act -- Mr. Romney declared that Justice Roberts is no longer conservative enough.

"No longer conservative enough" says Mitt about the man who led the court to strike down hard-won clean election laws; made it more difficult for women to sue for equal pay; squashed a number of class action suits, and consistently favored large corporations over the individual citizen.

Now, the polls show that the issue on which President Obama has the clearest lead --11 points -- is the makeup of the Supreme Court. That seems so clear it makes me wonder how smart is Mitt Romney coming out against the Chief Justice?

Then again, it could be said that taking this seemingly unpopular position is a measure of how committed Mitt is to his philosophic convictions. WHAT?? If there is anything we've learned about this man over the endless months of his candidacy it is that he changes his convictions as often as his shirt. Okay, so we've let him get away with that to this date. But, when he is already polling so low on the issue, to change his mind about the man who was for so long his idea of what a Chief Justice should be -- I mean, how un-savvy, how dumb is that?

Every day we seem to see growing evidence that the man isn't at all savvy. Could it be the man is dumb? That would be so sad in a president.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman...comm_ref=false

[TeyshaBlue]

Cool story, bro.

[possessed]

Women are also another matter. They only have 17% of the legislature and 51% of the population.

[boutons_deux]

Romney Suggests Releasing Additional Tax Returns Could Be Politically Damaging

ROMNEY: The Obama people keep on wanting more and more and more. More things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to try make a mountain out of and to distort and to be dishonest about. We’re going to put out two years of tax returns.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...ally-damaging/

[boutons_deux]

Romney: Teresa Heinz Kerry Didn’t Release Tax Returns, Either!

“John Kerry ran for president,” Mitt Romney said Monday morning on “Fox & Friends.” “You know, his wife, who has hundreds of millions of dollars, she never released her tax returns. Somehow, this wasn’t an issue.”

Heinz Kerry, an heiress to the Heinz food fortune, was pressured during Kerry’s presidential run to release tax returns, which she files separately from her husband. She ultimately released a portion of her 2003 returns in October 2004, after an initial estimate in May of the same year.

The claim about Kerry was debunked three months ago. “Months ago, the Romney team began making this false and convoluted excuse — the media investigated it and promptly reminded them that as a presidential candidate John Kerry had released 20 years of tax returns,” Kerry spokesperson Jodi Seth told TPM in a statement. “Still, months later they’re falling back on this same disproven excuse. In fact, if the Romney standard was the same as the Kerry standard for disclosure, the media would have the chance to review 20 years of Romney tax returns. Ed Gillespie should know better.”

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/20...ref=fpnewsfeed

goddam, this little rich boy wimp-ass mofo is a true bag of hammers, and so are his handlers.

[boutons_deux]

Top Romney Spokesperson Urged Kerry’s Presidential Campaign To Release More Tax Returns In 2004

Gillespie, who served as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2004 presidential election, must know that “Kerry had put a total of 20 years of tax returns into the public domain by the time he ran for president.”

“Throughout history, presidential candidates have disclosed income tax information prior to Election Day. We believe Americans value disclosure and transparency in campaigns.

During the 2003 filing year, Sen. Kerry made a $6 million loan to his campaign based on the value of a home jointly owned with his wife.

“Were it not for that infusion of cash John Kerry might not be on the campaign trail today. Because of her financial interest in the presidential campaign of her husband, Teresa Heinz Kerry pledged to disclose her tax information on October 15. Tomorrow is October 15 and Americans will find out if they plan to keep that promise.”

http://thinkprogress.org/election/20...turns-in-2004/

[boutons_deux]

The Secret Behind Romney’s Magical IRA

The most mysterious of the unexplained mysteries about Mitt Romney’s considerable wealth is how he was able to amass between $21 million and $102 million in his individual retirement account during the 15 years he was at Bain Capital LLC.

How did he do it, given the relatively small amounts that the law permits to be contributed to such a plan on an annual basis? Romney has not explained this conundrum, and seeing as he wants to become president, he would be wise to start talking -- if for no other reason than there might be many Americans who would like to emulate what he did.

During Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital -- from 1984 to 1999, although a recent Boston Globe article uncovered Romney having a role at Bain until 2002 -- the firm used a so-called SEP-IRA, which is like a 401(k) retirement plan but is funded entirely by the employer and has a much higher maximum contribution: about $30,000 annually during the period Romney was at Bain. Assuming Romney maxed out these tax-deferred contributions, he would have invested roughly $450,000 in his SEP-IRA during his years at Bain.

The only limit is the skill, or luck, of the IRA’s owner. If you are the Warren Buffett of IRA investors, it is conceivable that you could turn $450,000 into as much as $102 million -- an increase of 227 times -- but not very likely, especially as in the last decade or so, the stock market has been a roller coaster. Mere investing mortals would be lucky to still have $450,000 in the account.

(read the rest to see how Gecko's IRA grew to $100M+)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...gical-ira.html

[boutons_deux]

But BROWNS for Barry:

Obama's lead over Romney among Latinos widening

support for Obama rising to 70% of registered Latino voters, compared with 22% for Romney.

http://mobile.chicagotribune.com/p.p...%3D0%26DPL%3D3

And Gecko loses women (due to the Repug war on wimmen), gays, youth (if they aren't denied by Repugs from voting in their college states), etc, etc.

And Gecko's hiding his anti-American financial records is turning off tons of people who assume he's has something VERY DAMAGING TO HIDE.

[boutons_deux]

The Pain in Bain

Why Romney’s so afraid of talking about what he did at Bain.

Leveraged buyouts, which are what private equity firms do, load companies with debt, extract value for middlemen, and displace workers. Heads-I-win, tails-you-lose practices in the financial sector, regulatory loopholes, and tax advantages produce runaway winners like Romney while middle-class workers lose ground. As the gap between economic victims and executioners grows, the resulting society becomes more unequal and unfair.

You’d think that if private equity made businesses more efficient and valuable overall, there’d be clear evidence to support it, but there isn’t. Private equity firms earn most of their money through financial engineering. A big share of their returns comes from “tax arbitrage”—figuring out how to exploit loopholes to pay less to the government. Because interest is a deductible business expense, debt financing means they often pay little or no corporate tax. Private equity’s reliance on leverage can also magnify short-term earnings without leaving the companies they manage more valuable overall. One legal but dubious practice that private equity firms engage in is paying large “special dividends” out of borrowed money. As Jim Surowiecki of the New Yorker has written, “These dividends created no economic value—they just redistributed money from the company to the private-equity investors.” There’s some anecdotal evidence that the well-regarded Bain has been a better owner than most. But there’s no real way to evaluate that either.

3. Bain shows how Wall Street is rigged in favor of the rich. Private equity firms, like hedge funds, earn their money through a 2-and-20 structure, which means investors pay a 2 percent annual management fee, and give away one-fifth of their profits. According to one study, firms like Bain get two-thirds of of their earnings from fees charged to investors, rather than from the share of profits. According to another study, private equity firms managed to keep 70 percent of all investment profits for themselves, rather than paying them out. They’ve figured out how to be hugely profitable even if they aren’t successful, and even where firms they own go bankrupt. And because their gains come in the form of “carried interest,” private equity owners are taxed at 15 percent, rather than the top rate of 35 percent.

4. Romney’s Bain career is a story about rising inequality. It’s telling that George Romney, Mitt’s father, made around $200,000 through most of the years he ran American Motors Corporation. Doing work that clearly created jobs, the elder Romney paid an effective tax rate that averaged 37 percent. His son made vastly more running a corporate chop shop in an industry that does not appear to create jobs overall. In 2010, Mitt Romney paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent on $21.7 million in investment income—around 14 times as much as his father in inflation-adjusted terms. This difference encapsulates the change from corporate ans who lived in the same world as the people who worked for them, in an America with real social mobility, to a financial overclass that makes its own separate rules and has choked off social mobility. The elder Romney wasn’t embarrassed to explain what he’d done as a businessman or to release his tax returns.

5. Bain reminds everybody how rich Romney is, how different that makes him from ordinary people, and how this kind of advantage perpetuates itself. Five years ago, according to disclosure statements, he was already worth between $190 and $250 million, not counting another $70-100 million in trusts for his children and grandchildren, and not counting real estate worth tens of millions more. It’s not clear how he turned a maximum contribution of $450,000 over 15 years at Bain into an IRA worth between $21 and $102 million (where it grows tax free). Here’s some informed speculation. Once again, the details are mysterious even if his massive exploitation of a tax break meant to encourage middle class people to save more is not.


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a..._at_bain_.html

[boutons_deux]

Is Romney Camp In Unhinged Meltdown Mode Already?

there's one thing in particular sticking in their craws:

Romney's aides remain particularly livid about Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter's suggestion last week that Romney committed a crime by filing apparently conflicting do ents to the FEC and SEC.

"[Obama's] policies have been such utter failures, the only thing he can do is to try to destroy a decent man and his wife," the adviser said. "So he gets some hack political adviser from Chicago who has nothing to point to in her own life, and tells her to call him a felon... When did our politics get to that point? I mean, it's Nixonian."

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews...dy/#paragraph3

=========

Nixonian?

Insulting Obama's side by calling them a ... Repug?

[cheguevara]

poor romney

and I thought Hermann Cain got a mauling

[Clipper Nation]

Willard is the most thin-skinned crybaby candidate I've ever seen tbh....

They're destroying a decent person like me by exposing my lies, hypocrisy, and cagey behavior about the subject of my finances!

Team Red can demand Obama's "real" birth certificate but it's not fair for Team Blue to ask for my tax returns!

But... but... Kerry's wife!

[boutons_deux]

Obama isn't running on his college transcripts.

Gecko is running EXCLUSIVELY on his BAIN experience, which is why he has so much wealth he thinks he has to avoid/evade the IRS.

Barry has released his tax returns.

Gecko is committing political suicide by not releasing his tax returns (because he knows he wil be committing political suicide if he does release them )

[boutons_deux]

...

[boutons_deux]

“What is Mitt Romney hiding?” asked a new Obama ad.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/10403...in-tax-returns

Obama's Picadors plunging their lances in deeply.

Gecko will next fall on his own sword!

[Wild Cobra]

Obsessions... obsessions...

Jealous of those who achieve....