A former intern for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was arrested Tuesday over an alleged sexual extortion scheme. In a press release, the FBI said 21-year-old Adam Savader allegedly stalked 15 different women from three states between May 2012 and this past February. The New York…
Taxation Is Theft
With a tax code that exceeds 72,000 pages in length and consumes
more than six billion person hours per year to determine taxpayers’
taxable income, with an IRS that has become a feared law unto
itself, and with a government that continues to extract more wealth
from every taxpaying American every year, is it any wonder that
April 15th is a day of dread in America? Social Security taxes and
income taxes have dogged us all since their institution during the
last century, and few politicians have been willing to address
these ploys for what they are: theft.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry caused a
firestorm among big-government types during the Republican
presidential primaries last year when he called Social Security a
Ponzi scheme. He was right. It’s been a scam from its inception,
and it’s still a scam today.
When Social Security was established in 1935, it was intended to
provide minimal financial assistance to those too old to work. It
was also intended to cause voters to become dependent on Franklin
Delano Roosevelt’s Democrats. FDR copied the idea from a system
established in Italy by Mussolini. The plan was to have certain
workers and their employers make small contributions to a fund that
would be held in trust for the workers by the government. At the
time, the average life expectancy of Americans was 61 years of age,
but Social Security didn’t kick in until age 65. Thus, the system
was geared to take money from the average American worker that he
would never see returned.
Over time, life expectancy grew and surpassed 65, the so-called
trust fund was raided and spent, and the system was paying out more
money than it was taking in — just like a Ponzi scheme. FDR called
Social Security an insurance policy. In reality, it has become
forced savings. However, the custodian of the funds — Congress –
has stolen the savings and spent it. And the value of the savings
has been diminished by inflation.
Today, the best one can hope to receive from Social Security is
dollars with the buying power of 75 cents for every dollar
contributed. That makes Social Security worse than a Ponzi scheme.
You can get out of a Ponzi investment. You can’t get out of Social
Security. Who would stay with a bank that returned only 75 percent
of one’s savings?
The Constitution doesn’t permit the feds to steal your money.
But steal, the feds do.
At one of last year’s Republican presidential debates, a young
man asked the moderator to pose the following question to the
candidates: “If I earn a dollar, how much of it am I entitled to
keep?” The question was passed to one of the candidates, who
punted, and then the moderator changed the topic. Only Congressman
Ron Paul gave a serious post-debate answer to the young man’s
question: ;”All of it.”
Every official foundational government document — from the
Declaration of Independence to the U.S. Constitution to the oaths
that everyone who works for the government takes — indicates that
the government exists to work for us. The Declaration even
proclaims that the government receives all of its powers from the
consent of the governed. If you believe all this, as I do, then
just as we don’t have the power to take our neighbor’s property and
distribute it against his will, we lack the ability to give that
power to the government. Stated differently, just as you lack the
moral and legal ability to take my property, you cannot authorize
the government to do so.
Here’s an example you’ve heard before. You’re sitting at home at
night, and there’s a knock at the door. You open the door, and a
guy with a gun pointed at you says: “Give me your money. I want to
give it away to the less fortunate.” You think he’s dangerous and
crazy, so you call the police. Then you find out he
is ;the police, there to collect your taxes.
The framers of the Constitution understood this. For 150 years,
the federal government was run by user fees and sales of government
land and assessments to the states for services rendered. It
rejected the Hamiltonian view that the feds could take whatever
they wanted, and it followed the Jeffersonian first principle that
the only moral commercial exchanges are those that are fully
voluntary.
This worked well until the progressives took over the government
in the first decade of the 20th century. They persuaded enough
Americans to cause their state legislatures to ratify the Sixteenth
Amendment, which was designed to tax the rich and redistribute
wealth. They promised the American public that the income tax would
never exceed 3 percent of income and would only apply to the top 3
percent of earners. How wrong — or deceptive — they were.
Yet, the imposition of a federal income tax is more than just
taking from those who work and earn and giving to those who don’t.
And it is more than just a spigot to fill the federal trough. At
its base, it is a terrifying presumption. It presumes that we don’t
really own our property. It accepts the Marxist notion that the
state owns all the property and the state permits us to keep and
use whatever it needs us to have so we won’t riot in the streets.
And then it steals and uses whatever it can politically get away
with. Do you believe this?
There are only three ways to acquire wealth in a free society.
The inheritance model occurs when someone gives you wealth. The
economic model occurs when you trade a skill, a talent, an asset,
knowledge, sweat, energy or creativity to a willing buyer. And the
mafia model occurs when a guy with a gun says: “Give me your money
or else.”
Which model does the government use? Why do we put up with
this? … Read More
Medvedev’s Russian offshore zone plan ‘won’t work’
The economic turmoil in Cyprus, a popular offshore haven, has led to some high-level talks in Russia, with Prime Minister Medvedev even suggesting an offshore zone in the Russian Far East could be created.Although Russia is stepping in line with the European anti-corruption clampdown on offshore havens, trying to create an offshore on its own soil may lead to another “black hole” in the country’s economy, says Ben Aris, editor in chief for Business New Europe.RT: Looks like the big story is happening. Will it really shape and change the way the Russian financial system and Russian business is working? Are they really in trouble as Cyprus lost its tax haven status?BA: I think in the short term it is going to have relatively little impact. The amount of money we’re talking about, $20 billion, is a fraction, a tiny fraction – less than a percent of total Russian deposits. And so if this money is all lost, and the estimates now are… between 60 and 80 percent of it is going to be lost, although that’s painful, it’s not actually in the grand scheme of things very much money at all.In the longer term it is going to have fairly profound implications on the way Russian business is done. I mean, Cyprus is not so much of an offshore haven, I think that’s a misunderstand of what’s going on there, because of a double taxation treaty it was far more tax efficient for Russian companies to domicile themselves in Cyprus. It’s better to think Cyprus is a sort of an offshore treasury operation for Russia, and so companies that were trying… to send money abroad and get it back again, it was much simpler for them to center the money in the financial operations in Cyprus, and send it all out from Cyprus, which was an EU country, which was connected to the European banking system, rather than send it from Moscow. It’s really a practical question, I mean, sending the money from here is actually quite difficult, because you have to have double language treaties, you have to have registered stamp, the bureaucracy in all of this is quite horrific, whereas if you do it in Cyprus you just go online, you go onto your bank’s website, you fill in your account details, press the button – and the money is gone, that’s all.All in all… about 30 percent of Russia’s foreign direct investment comes from Cyprus, but clearly that’s Russian money. So is it going to have an impact there? But then again you can see this sort of treasury operation function again in the foreign direct investment numbers. For example, last year Cyprus made about $17 billion of direct investment into Russia. However, there was exactly the same amount sent as a direct investment to Cyprus. So what Russian companies were doing is ‘investing’ their own money in Cyprus and then bringing it back, so that money is now Cypriote money and it benefits from all these tax advantages. So now Cyprus is clearly closed down. I talked to a businessman the other day and he said no one in their right mind is going to send money into Cyprus at the moment, because you can’t get it out. And as long as the capital controls stay in place, which they probably will do for the foreseeable future, everybody is forced to open new bank accounts so that they can carry on doing business and imports, exports. The bulk of this money is not ‘illegal’ or ‘dirty money,’ ‘mafia money’ – there’re simple small or medium-size enterprises who set up bank accounts there in order to pay for their import business, trade business, whatever it is. And so everyone is going to go and look for a new place to do business, to have your offshore money to deal with the rest of the world. And the list of candidates is relatively short.RT: But why is it so short?BA: Well, there’re several issues involved. And first of all, it’s the tax issue, I mean, they’re going to look for advantageous tax domiciles. And the thing with Cyprus was that you only paid 10 percent profit tax on your business, which is the lowest in the whole EU. That’s even lower than the Russian corporate tax, which is 20 percent, and the personal income tax [which] is 13 percent. So you have lots of individuals keeping their money in Cyprus because the tax rate is lower. And if you go somewhere else, like to the BVI, or Caymans or to even the UK, the tax rate is much, much higher, and of course the transaction’s much higher. So some of the places I’ve been suggested – Latvia is an obvious candidate, they have relatively low taxes, they have lots of boutique banks that specialize in dealing with Russian business, they speak Russian, and it’s not really far away – being close to your money is now more important than ever as you can go and get it if you have to in a crisis. Luxembourg is also being named.But there’s an issue on the other side: the countries like Latvia are very nervous, because they have the same problem as Cyprus in that their banking sector is already bigger that their economies. And that means that the government, should something go wrong, is incapable of rescuing its bank sector and it has to go to the European Union for the bailout. The same with Luxembourg, the banking sector there is 25 times larger than the entire economy. And although the Luxembourgian say that they only invest into Triple-A assets, if there’s devaluation in the West, if the Euro collapses, then suddenly someone like Luxembourg is in deep, deep trouble. And will the EU come to their rescue – probably not, it’s going to be very expensive.So the size of the country is an issue, you know, when one is looking for a sort of stability. And Latvia this year already has had two banks collapse, which were connected to dodgy Russian money, and Magnitsky money, that case was also implicated in one of the collapses of the Latvian bank. So looking around there’s not that many candidates. But as I say, this is driven largely by pragmatic business interest: where can I get a good tax rate, where can I deal with people who speak my language, and who’re willing to accept a large amount of Russian money, because the amount of money coming is going to swamp the country like Latvia.RT: So maybe it’s good for Russia, what do you think, or you think that’s impossible that all this money come back?BA: Oh, I think some of it will come back. The returns on ruble deposits are actually pretty good, and they’re real positive interest rates in Russia for the first time. But there’s the bureaucracy aspect of it, people don’t like that it’s hard work, particularly if you’re trading. But against that the government is working hard with its capital market reforms. So I think some of it will come back.RT: But do you think the situation will lead to even higher capital outflow from Russia, or it will bring some money back?BA: I think it will bring a bit back. Having said that, though, the capital outflow this year and the first two months was already 25, and the government was predicting 10 for the whole year. And now they’re saying on something on around 40 (billion euro), which is still less than the last year. Nevertheless, it’s still pretty high. And I think, because the issue here is not fleeing capital protected from the Russian government, it’s an operational issue, that the needs of those operations require foreign bank. And until the reforms here are finished, until the Russian banking sector works as efficiently as the EU one, then we’ll always have this situation when people would want to have foreign banks. And we’re still a long way away from getting to that point.RT: What do you think, will the alternative offshore area be Asia?BA: Well, it’s slightly inconvenient in dealing with Hong-Kong, you know, if they’re asleep while we’re awake. Nevertheless, banking services are good there, and they’ve very, very light regulation in terms of getting money in and out, it’s very simple to work there. Again, I think people look at it in terms of geography and convenience. If they have business in Asia – and Russia increasingly does have business in Asia, the turnover of trade there tops $100 billion a year – certainly they’re going to open banks in Singapore and Hong-Kong. But then, again, half of Russia’s trade remains with Europe, and therefore if you’re doing that kind of business, you want the European banks, so you can actually pick up the phone and talk to your banker in the daytime, when you’re at work. So I think the need will remain for European bank of some sort.RT: Coming back to Cyprus, don’t you think that the whole tax thing that they did can actually help Russia in its fight with corruption, illegal money flow? Maybe it’s all part of that anti-corruption campaign?BA: Certainly quite timely, wasn’t it? Ignatyev, the head of the Central Bank, came out on a speech a couple of months ago, saying that he thinks half of the flying capital belongs to one group, you know, without naming them, he was talking about officials. And at the same time Putin’s introduced first the Duma deputies had to declare their income, and that was broadened to state civil servant functionaries. Most recently last week it’s now including all the state executive, and they’ve all been given three months to close down their foreign bank accounts, or else. And it’s certainly getting serious, they’ve also brought the tax authorities and got the bank involved as well, so not only are they turning people to do this, but they start looking at people’s accounts and see where the money is going. And then you have Cyprus on top of that. And then just this morning the Guardian and the international journalist association released this 2 million emails, that’s bigger than WikiLeaks they’re saying, about offshore banking and haven in British Virgin Islands, where lots of people have money, and [First Deputy Prime Minister] Shuvalov’s wife has been implicated, the president of Azerbaijan – his daughters have some $4 billion there.And so this whole thing about the offshore havens is certainly in the air, and Cyprus will only add to… clampdown on this and make everyone be a bit more transparent about where they keep their money. Which is a good thing, I mean, Russian officials who have secret offshore accounts is no good for business, it’s going to just engender the corruption. And now there’s a risk to doing it for the people – in France too, I mean, Hollande’s aide was just caught having a Swiss bank account, which he had for 20 years and didn’t declare, and it’s caused a huge scandal. So it’s becoming more and more unacceptable. And in that sense Russia is keeping pace with the rest of Europe against these offshore havens – if you’re going to be corrupt you have to park your money in some place, and it used to be Switzerland, but Switzerland now is becoming increasingly more transparent, so everyone went to the BVI, to the Caymans, to Latvia, to Cyprus, to Macedonia – and one by one these havens are being closed or made to be more transparent. For a country it’s dangerous to grow your banking sectors so large and be dependent on just one industry for your welfare – the Cypriote economy is being destroyed now, they’re going to be in a depression for a long time, because they’ve got nothing left, banking was the island’s entire economy.RT: People are being skeptical about Medvedev’s initiatives to set up offshore zones here in Russia, like in the Far East. Do you take it seriously?BA: No, not at all. They’re talking about special economic zones with tax advantages, but if you’re talking about an offshore banking sector within Russia, say, in Siberia, it won’t work, you’d have to set up a second Central Bank and you’d need to have second set of legislation that are more attractive. And it was tried in Yeltsin’s era when they set up these special tax zones to attract money for local investment, and it just turned into a huge black hole for tax avoidance, and it just engendered corruption. I mean, they’ve experience of it, and it’s not a good idea, and it doesn’t work.RT: What is happening now, do you think it will decrease the level of corruption, or will it just make the people more ‘inventive’, and new schemes will appear?BA: I think it’s probably a good thing. The first result will be, countries like Luxembourg, which have these massive banking sectors in proportion to their economies, will have to go back and review everything. Clearly it’s unstable, and should there be an event like the collapse in the Eurozone, then they’ll go to the wall. And so they need to think about how they’re going to deal with that and reduce that size. And you have countries of Latvia who’re expected to receive a lot of Russian money – I think the due diligence is to who this money belongs to, where it comes from, what’s the source of the money. It’s going to be scrutinized a lot more closely, which is a good thing, because part of this money is illegal money from drugs, prostitution, arms trade – all those things, and black money. And that money is going to take a lot harder to find a home now.And so that’s a step forward. And I think it’s also going to continue the process of Russian integration, it’s going to go the government in having its own banking sector. The people will want to bring money home, make it easier to bank here, if you’re doing international business. And it also fits into a general drive against corruption, with state officials who’ll find it hard to hide money abroad, if they do take bribes. You know, the risk of taking that money has gone up and the chances of being caught are higher. And eventually it will stop, bringing corruption down – it hasn’t [been] done yet. … Read More
Lawmakers arrested for attempting to rig NYC mayoral election
The FBI arrested Sen. Malcolm Smith of Queens Tuesday morning for, as investigators claim, putting together a plot to bribe himself into position of New York City mayor. Even though Smith is registered as a Democrat, he tried to convince Republican lawmakers into buying him a spot on the GOP ballot. The FBI also arrested City Councilman Dan Halloran, who was charged for acting as a liaison in arranging the payoffs.The agency is also rounding up four other politicians involved in the scheme, two of which have already been charged.US Attorney Preet Bharara told AP that the scheme is “an unappetizing smorgasbord of graft and greed involving six officials who together built a corridor of corruption stretching from Queens and the Bronx to Rockland County and all the way up to Albany itself.”By asking an undercover FBI agent, who was posing as a wealthy real estate mogul, to pay off two of the Republican leaders, Smith got himself busted in the large-scale corruption scheme. Smith told the undercover agent that in exchange for the payments, he would use his power as senator to obtain state funds for a road project in Spring Valley, NY. The undercover agent recorded hours of conversations between November and last week and is acting as a witness against Smith and Halloran.In order to be placed on the mayoral ballot without changing his party affiliation, Smith needed the support of at least three Republican-led boroughs. Halloran was promised $20,500 for helping Smith arrange the payouts, while Bronx Republican Chairman Jay Savino and Queens GOP vice chairman Vincent Tabone each received $40,000, with the promise of $40,000 more, the 28-page legal complaint states.Throughout multiple dinner conversations with the undercover agent, Smith and Halloran spoke openly about bribing council leaders and using council money inappropriately.“That’s politics. It’s all about how much,” Halloran said, according to the complaint. “That’s our politicians in New York. They’re all like that, all like that. And they get like that because of the drives that the money does for everything else. You can’t do anything without the f—— money.”After Halloran was paid $7,500 in cash during one of the meetings with the FBI agent, he allegedly responded by saying, “money is what greases the wheels”.But despite months of recorded conversations that will serve as proof in the case against the men, Smith denies he did anything illegal.Gerald L. Shargel, the attorney representing Smith, told the New York Times that his client is innocent.“Malcolm Smith is a dedicated and highly respected public servant and he steadfastly denies these chases,” Shargel told the paper, while also admitting that he still hasn’t had an opportunity to study the charges.The race to replace current New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is still in its beginning stages, but Tuesday morning’s FBI showdown is likely to shed a new light on some of the schemes that can always occur backstage as lawmakers fight for a shot at Gracie Mansion. … Read More
Baylen Linnekin on Farm Regulations, Government Theft, and the Supreme Court
Earlier this week the U.S. Supreme Court heard
oral arguments in the case of Horne v. USDA. At issue is a
New Deal-era regulatory scheme that allows the USDA to require
raisin handlers to give a portion of their crop to the
government–often without compensation. After attending the oral
arguments, Baylen Linnekin weighs in on the likely future of this
act of government theft. View this article.
… Read More
Why Is The World Economy Doomed? The Global Financial Pyramid Scheme By The Numbers
In the United States today, there is approximately 56 trillion dollars of total debt in our financial system, but there is only about 9 trillion dollars in our bank accounts. So you could take every single penny out of the banks, multiply it by six, and you still would not have enough money to pay off all of our debts. … Read More
Anne Hathaway: Hollywood’s most polarizing star
Anne Hathaway has it all: The movie star jumps between lucrative studio pictures like “The Dark Knight Rises” and and passion projects like “Rachel Getting Married.” She recently wed boyfriend Adam Shulman in a Valentino gown. And her occasional missteps haven’t hurt her one bit — potential career-enders like “One Day” and “Get Smart” give way to bigger and better movies. Her former boyfriend’s imprisonment for running a Ponzi scheme was brushed aside. She flopped as an Oscar host in 2011, but came back to win the best supporting actress trophy for “Les Misérables” at this year’s ceremony.And her public finds it all so infuriating.Hathaway is the subject of more vituperative, angry scrutiny than perhaps any actress working today. “Shut up. Shut up, Anne Hathaway. I honestly don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m jealous, but I don’t feel jealousy. I watch her in outtakes, and I feel like she’s not a real person,” wrote a blogger for women’s-interest site Crushable. ”I don’t find her perfection charming. I find it annoying.”Continue Reading… … Read More
