Archive for vulture capitalism

Hedge Fund Billionaires Lower Taxes by Sending Cash on a Bermuda Vacation

chart vulture income disparity inequality smaller

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash at Truthout, via my pal Mark Karlin:

Bloomberg Businessweek (ironically owned by politician plutocrat and defender of the oligarchy Michael Bloomberg) just reported that “a hedge fund tax dodge uses Bermuda reinsurers” … But the Bermuda based “reinsurers” are sometimes just little more than mail drops that serve as a vehicle for tax-evasion money laundering, with little concern being expressed by the IRS. [...]

Referring to three gluttonously wealthy hedge fund managers, Bloomberg Businessweek reveals:

The companies set up by Paulson, Cohen, and Loeb are all located within a half-mile of each other in the narrow streets of Hamilton, Bermuda’s capital and the global center of the reinsurance industry. The three put a combined $1.7 billion back into the fund managers’ hands last year.

Even the Murdoch-owned tabloid The New York Post jumped on the legalized theft from the public purse of this scheme…

Billionaire hedge-fund moguls are getting comfortable with a US tax loophole to fatten their already plump bottom lines. [...]

Hedgies like John Paulson and Steve Cohen are forming reinsurance companies in tax-free havens like Bermuda or the Cayman Islands — and then transferring cash from their funds to the reinsurance companies.

The cash, classified as insurance company reserves, is then transferred back into the funds as reserves to be invested for future claims.

Thanks to an IRS loophole, profits from these insurance companies aren’t taxed — until the stake in the fund is sold, and that could be years down the line.

And here’s the kicker: The taxes, when paid, are at the lower capital-gains rate and not as ordinary income. [...]

The more the rich get richer, the more they get a free pass from legal oversight.

Please read the entire post here.

Romney’s Bain investment record: Three times the bankruptcies of fed investments

Cartoon via Lalo Alcaraz

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash at Truthout, via my pal Mark Karlin:

Jon Stewart lacerated the myth of Romney’s alleged expertise as a venture capitalist the other night. (See video here.) Quite simply, under Mitt’s leadership, Bain Capital had a worse investment record than the federal government’s backing of alternative energy companies (e.g., Solyndra).  

In fact, Romney’s record at Bain showed him picking firms that went into bankruptcy at three times the rate of the fed record.

Stewart started by quoting part of Romney’s “closing argument” to the American voters:

The government of the United States is not a very good venture capitalist …. [Obama] doesn’t just like picking winners and losers, he likes picking losers.  Half of the ones [alternative energy companies that the government has invested in under Obama] have gone bankrupt.

[...]

Whoa! So Romney’s accusation of a 50 percent bankruptcy rate as a result of Department of Energy financial support (in loans and subsidies) to alternative energy firms is at best actually 8 percent. [...]

So that’s 8% failure for government investments in alternative energy firms vs. a 22% bankruptcy record under Mitt Romney’s leadership at Bain. [...]

When Romney’s bankruptcy record, as he ironically promotes himself as a “job creator,” is just about three times the rate of Obama’s as president, it’s clear the “job creator” is really (particularly when combined with his slash and burn labor strategies) a job destroyer.  He’s also a liar, and his dissembling is meant to hide one of the greatest myths of the campaign: that private investment is more effective at stimulating the economy, when Romney’s own record as the CEO of Bain Capital shows that it isn’t.

Please read the entire post here.

VIDEO- Broken Promises: Mitt’s Mass. Record. “Romney runs government like his Bain Capital”

Learn more: http://www.RomneyEconomics.com

Mitt Romney ran for Governor of Massachusetts promising more jobs, decreased debt, and smaller government.

Here’s what Massachusetts got instead:

Jobs: 47th out of 50 states in job creation
Taxes and fees: Increased more than $750 million per year
Long-term debt: Increased more than $2.6 billion

Fact is, Romney economics didn’t work then, and won’t work now.

Via a friend of mine who worked at a company that was bought by Bain Capital:

Romney runs government like his Bain Capital.

Romney did the same thing in Massachusetts as he did for Bain: He borrowed money to pay for his expenses.

His record as governor of Massachusetts:

  • Record debt
  • Record fee increases
  • 47th in job losses
  • 5% decrease in wages

He killed business and was then forced to drop a bid for reelection because he was polling way behind his challengers.

And if you don’t know how Bain works, there’s this:

VIDEO: “Think the Bain Capital business has nothing to do with you? Do you pay taxes?” Mitt Romney left us to pick up the tab.

:

Think the Bain Capital business has nothing to do with you?

Do you pay taxes?

Point made.

VIDEO- Donald Trump: Mitt Romney would “buy companies, he’d close companies, he’d get rid of jobs, OK?”

Who’s “attacking capitalism” now?

February 2012:

“He was a fund guy. He walked away with some money from a very good company that he didn’t create. He worked there. He didn’t create it. He’d buy companies, he’d close companies, he’d get rid of jobs, okay?”

Okay!

May 2012:

“Donald Trump is a representative of the Romney campaign. Mr. Romney is raising money off of Donald Trump.”

Which just goes to show you that all the money in the world can’t buy you class.

But the best part was still Birther Trump informing everyone that Willard would “get rid of jobs.” The GOP candidate’s own fundraiser/spokesMittwit invalidated Willard nearly as effectively as he did to his very own self here.

H/t: Think Progress

Cartoons of the Day- What GOP, Romney Want For America

VIDEO: Mitt Romney, May 4th: Over 4% unemployment “no cause for celebration.” May 23rd: “We’d get unemployment rate down to 6%…”

Via The Maddow Blog

May 4, 2012:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

May 23, a mere nineteen days later:

Willard Romney wants us to trust him to be the next president, because, see, he’s such a super duper businessman that he can turn this country around… just as he turns his own words around.

Memo to Mitt: GW Bush was a businessman, too. ‘Nuff said.

Here’s the thing, being a vulture capitalist does not qualify Candidate Etch A Sketch to run a country. The United States is not a business, it’s a country filled with people who need protection from heartless looters like him who literally make people “sick.” 

And who need a president who doesn’t lie and flip and flop every 19 days. Did I say 19? I meant daily. Did I say daily? I meant hourly.

This is such a no-Bainer.