Offshore Tax Havens are now like what casinos used to be in the not so distant past, only much more comprehensive and powerful.

They are used to enable corruption so that officials can be bribed and kickbacks can be obtained without any scrutiny. They are also used as mailboxes so that profits can be screened from taxation. They are used to launder money and conceal the origins before the funds achieve their ultimate destination, just like the Mafia used Restaurants to legitimize money derived from illegal activity.

The leaked files provide facts and figures — cash transfers, incorporation dates, links between companies and individuals — that illustrate how offshore financial secrecy has spread aggressively around the globe, allowing the wealthy and the well-connected to dodge taxes and fueling corruption and economic woes in rich and poor nations alike.

The records detail the offshore holdings of people and companies in more than 170 countries and territories.

The hoard of documents represents the biggest stockpile of inside information about the offshore system ever obtained by a media organization. The total size of the files, measured in gigabytes, is more than 160 times larger than the leak of U.S. State Department documents by Wikileaks in 2010.

The extent of the scandal is incredible. So watch for the news media to be on the move to create another puffy scandal to take the scent off the real one. I sense Justin Bieber exposees coming. Or Steroid use in MLB or maybe a few small-time local politicians getting busted in a FED sting. Or maybe its an epidemic of lice that has affected the President's children. Something else will become the "official" distraction (remember Terry Shiavo). Exposing the massive and systematic international connections of global politicians being bribed by the global elite is not going to get the light of day. I hope I'm wrong.

[SOURCE: DS Wright | FireDogLake | 4 April 2013]

A slideshow from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation makes the documentation easy to access.Click here.

Hmmm. Where's the NYTimes or the Washington Post on this story?

I'm sure the headline will be something like "Documents Reveal that Wealthy Avoid Taxes in offshore bank accounts" if they have to bother with the story. If necessary, scapegoats will be found, and this will turn into individualistic morality stories with some chosen bad actors ( like Oliver North, Bernie Madoff, or Martha Stewart). They will avoid making the obvious larger connections to international finance, corporations, world politicians and government officials. The system produces it's own victims. The rhetorical virgins must be slaughtered by the high priests. The marionette strings are never revealed

However, be not confused or distracted. This is not about Tax cheats. It's about corruption larger than the scale of BCCI Banking Scandal and the Iran-Contra shenanigans during the Reagan years. Look those up.

Who would have ever thought this discussion would ever have an actual basis? This is Blade Runner technology.

The Story below from Brad Plumer at the Washington Post, gives a good view of whether driverless cars would decrease or increase energy usage.

[SOURCE: Brad Plumer | Washington Post | 30 March 2013]

From Matthew Iglesias at Slate.com

just consider that there is some level of government spending that you consider appropriate. Imagine that level of spending is achieved. Zero money is being spent on wasteful or useless programs, and no good spending is being forgone. We're doing everything we ought to be doing. Now we need to finance that spending with some mixture of taxes and borrowing. The Cooper viewpoint is that it's always the case that the optimal mix is 100 percent taxes and 0 percent borrowing. But why would that be? If the future is going to be richer than the present, there's a strong prima facie case for borrowing. You don't pay 100 percent cash for your house or your college tuition, and there's no reason you should pay 100 percent cash for your national defense or vital infrastructure either. How much should you borrow? It has a lot to do with the interest rates. Not only is borrowing at a high interest rate expensive, but government borrowing at a high interest rates crowds out private capital investment. But if interest rates are low, then you don't need to worry much about crowding out, and the economic burden of repaying the interest is likely lower than the economic burden of higher taxes.

So you borrow some money. Ronald Reagan did it. George W. Bush did it.

In other words, sometimes that which is called "government debt" is really just a decision to include borrowing as a component of getting the necessary government revenue to pay for the things that we decide government should do, or the things that government should invest. Framing the argument as one of getting government to spend exactly what is raised from revenue without bothering to "envision" what it is government should be spending or investing is as ridiculous a proposition as tying a rope of unknown length around a tree of constantly changing width. The "serious" discussions of cutting government mingles with cutting taxes when the actual decisions should be agreement on what government should be spending and investing. Worry about how to pay for it once that agreement is made.

Alas, as I say all the time, this rhetoric is not serious at all. The goalposts move all the time. Cuts are made, but then "necessary" costs are added, and taxes are always cut (if only for the upper few). The overall balance of what government spends and invests is never made, but rather occurs in a myriad of byzantine subsidies or tax credits in the name of "creating jobs" or maintaining "competitiveness". Military costs and investments have almost no oversight. The budget is thus a compilation of various different interests. There is no guiding oversight.

Dr. Roberts is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service.

So when he speaks about a 9-11 Cover up, you need to respect his point of view, and try to understand that governments and politicians form cliques and keep secrets. History is proof.

A haunting quote from the interview "If you lie to cover up incompetence, then you could also lie about complicity."

CLICK THE SOURCE BELOW.

[SOURCE: PaulCraigRoberts | The Corbett Report | ]

A brief list of histories great conspiracies:

1. Vietnam advisors began during the Eisenhower administration
2. Augustin Pinochet topples Salvadore Allende's Chilean government with US aid and planning assistance on September 11th ... in 1973
3. The manhattan project during World War II
4. The invasion of DDay -- the Germans thought it would come in Calais, 100 - 150 miles further North
5. The USS Maine explosion in 1898 .. Admiral Dewey just so happened to have the US fleet off the coast of Manila in the Phillipines
6. The Germans send (smuggle?) Lenin to Russia on a train, to precipitate Russian withdrawal from World War One and the beginnings of the Russian Revolution occur as an ancillary result
7. Zachary Taylor had the American Army and Cavalry on the border of the Rio Grande, in what Mexico considered Mexican Territory and refused to leave ... under orders from President Polk who wanted to add Mexican Territory to the United States.
8. Hawaii was turned into an American "protectorate" on January 17, 1893, in which anti-monarchial insurgents within the Kingdom of Hawaii, composed largely of American citizens, engineered the overthrow of its native monarch ... because the safety of the monarchy was in "danger" of being taken by the European "Imperialists"
9. Julius Caesar stabbed by every Senator, called to the Senate under a ruse of national emergency -- "Et Tu Brutus" and the "Aides of March" are now legacies

1. The Boston Red Sox will have a better record than the Yankees
2. The Kansas City Royals win more than 90 games and have a top pitching staff
3. The Milwaukee Brewers will make it to the world series as Carlos Gomez has a 30-30 season and the pitching staff surprises everyone with a top 3 ranking
4. Houston will win more than 60 games. Maybe 62.
5. Seattle will challenge Oakland for the Western Division as both Texas and Anaheim fall apart

   Bonus prediction: the world series will be Detroit or Kansas City vs. Milwaukee

This blows me away. A NY Times reporter is asked by Tesla Motors to test drive it's newest model electric car, and the reporter does everything possible to make the car malfunction and then writes a negative article about the car.

Then Tesla motors easily proves this happened by producing data from the car logs.

[SOURCE: Elon Musk | Tesla Motors | 13 February 2013]

This shit is helluh funny.

Click here for the Booblespeak.

Every Sunday, the self-appointed decision-makers and Washington conventional-wisdom acolytes all gather around a video conference room and create what is called "Meet The Press." Really, it's just a forum for politicians and elites to pursue their latest attempts at public relations.

Moonshine patriot put together this blog to satirically make this point. Each Monday or Sunday evening, Moonshine "translates" the dialogue on the Sunday "News" show "Meet The Press".

Here's a small snippet from yesterday (3 February 2013)

Meet The Press – February 3, 2012
Host: Chuck Todd

Guests:

Leon Panetta (Secretary of Defense)
Gen. Martin Dempsey (Chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff)

**********************************

Todd: omg the very liberal Republican Chuck Hagel faced tough questioning from the guy who lost to Barack Obama!

Todd: Leon does Chuck Hagel hate Israel?

Panetta: Israel? Dammit we're still fighting two wars!

Todd: Israel was mentioned 130 times which proves what is really important

Dempsey: cripes I got boys dying in Afghanistan right now

Todd: do you support Chuck Hagel?

Dempsey: he seems smarter than Graham or McCain

Todd: that's not saying much

Dempsey: I know that

Todd: we can't vote for a new Secretary of Defense until we have another hearing on Benghazi

Panetta: I love how insane these Republicans are

Todd: but Benghazi is the most important event since Gettysburg

Panetta: Chucky I heard you were a moron

Dempsey: we've learned a lot since Benghazi

Todd: what is that?

Dempsey: next time after an attack invade Grenada and no one will notice

Ronald Reagan "invaded" a small island in the Carribean called Grenada not long after the bombing of the Beirut embassy that killed 200 something marines. The event took the press off the criticism of the United States gradual escalation of involvement in Lebanon and covert assistance with Israel. The corporate media willingly followed the ball tossed to them.

Students going to college nowadays are paying a whole lot of money for the promised ticket to a high paying job or satisfactory career. Going to Law School and Medical School after a 4 year college adds to the already large cost. And the percentages of interest per year is more than 7 percent, which means .07 times total debt divided by 12 is the minimum payment just to not increase the debt owed. After 4 years at undergraduate college, a typical student owes $30,000. Law and Medical school can add another $200,000.

In the lower end case, .07 times 30,000 is 2100, which is $175 a month minimum to make the interest payments. Paying 7 percent interest over 20 years results in an effective multiple of 128.982. Divide this into the money owed (30,000) and you get the necessary monthly payment for 20 years : $232.59. However, most student loans are set at 10 years. This is an effective multiple of 86.126 for 7 percent. Divide this into the money owed (30,000) and you get $348.33.

A student with a law school or medical school debt might have 200,000 in debt or more. Divide this by the 10 year effective multiple, and you get $2322 per month.

Yikes. Now consider this

About 48 percent of employed U.S. college graduates are in jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggests requires less than a four-year college education. Eleven percent of employed college graduates are in occupations requiring more than a high-school diploma but less than a bachelor’s, and 37 percent are in occupations requiring no more than a high-school diploma

That means you get a first job that pays maybe 30,000 BEFORE TAXES -- and there are plenty of waitresses, bartenders, and cafe baristas that don't get that first job. Make the right career moves, go to nursing school, become an electrician or mechanic, be in the right place at the right time -- or have the right connections -- and you might move up above 50,000 and higher.

The overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $24,062 ($32,140 for those age 25 or above) in the year 2005, and more than half of the population goes to college. 48% of college graduates are these jobs. You try paying $2322 a month on a salary less than 2 thousand dollars AFTER TAXES. Even $350 a month is tough on a $1200 a month budget.

Now I paid off all my student loans, but this is a national shame. And I would have owed FIVE times the $21,000 dollars in debt I had when I became matriculated at Tulane University after a 5 year education. The entire cost of my 5 years now doesn't even pay for a full year, but the median wage hasn't changed in 40 years.

We should have a national student loan commission that centralizes all student loans and sets the interest at 2 percent. Instead we have all sorts of private financing groups and big banks getting the interest on the loans at 6, 7, 8, 9 percent with the government guaranteeing the principal.

Why have private middlemen get an easy profit when they perform no valuable social service deserving of the high interest fees. What are these banks and financial syndicates doing with the interest they get on these loans other than making money to fuel further aspects of their business (or pay their upper level executives bigger bonuses.) The government already provides the principle. Why not make investments in our youth by providing a central location for low-interest loans. Not only would it be less expensive, but also easier to manage and run efficiently.

That same effective multiple for a 10 year loan would at 2 percent be 108.679, much better than 86.126, a 21% reduction in what the student pays overall. The government could also lengthen the payment options, and defer payments without applying the interest for a period of time due to hardship. Right now students that defer loan payments are still accruing interest.

[SOURCE: Paul Campos | Salon.com | 4 February 2013]
[SOURCE:  | Center For College Affordability | January/February 2013]
[SOURCE: US Census Bureau | Wikipedia | November 2006]

The entire pdf report can be located [-- here --]

Here Josh Barro takes aim at the conservative Thinker Ramesh Ponnuru. Josh politely slowly takes apart each part of the ideas Mr. Ponnuru has about Health insurance and Child Tax credits for Families. Mr. Ponnuru touts these ideas as new and fresh applications of vibrant conservative ideas.

Nope. They are the same failed ideas in new clothing. Josh does an incredible job making this obvious to all but the most willful. You have to read the piece.

Click here

[SOURCE: Josh Barro | Bloomberg News | 29 January 2013]

These ideas are merely smokescreens for the agenda of the large corporatists and elite financial kingpins who run Washington and rule the entire Republican party. But wary, they always take with one hand more than they offer with the other. They depend upon funds to work, but (like the leave-no-child-behind act and the Welfare reform) they always delay and defund and the promised money never happens. They expect people to have long-term priorities, when history painfully reminds us that people actually short-term considerations often to their own demise, and yet justify the mantra of self-regulation that never works out except by increasing monopolization. They preach "competition" but the actual creation of their "ideas" into the words of legislation furthers instead oligopoly and limited consumer protections. They like tax cuts and tax credits but they don't want to raise taxes to pay for them because they want to get rid of government in the long run, and in the short term distribute the functions of government to toddy and stooges who get hired for million dollar salaries when they leave government.

They want to take out the trash and have clean streets but they don't want to pay for the workers to do the job. They then get mad when the place stinks after a year because some citizens will have short-term priorities because of either low income or lethargy. Then they have to pay three times the cost of getting rid of the garbage then it would have cost if they had just taxed themselves and spread the burden over more people. The job would be guaranteed to be done and there wouldn't be any problems with trash accumulation. Good jobs would also be created. It's a win, win, win, win.

This ideology is bunk. It has been proven bunk time and time again. The ideology was always the banner underneath which ulterior motives resided, and that is why the ideology persists. Bad ideas will have their followers, especially when there are such individuals and institutions that benefit. It's easier to cling to bad ideas when their is no alternative but the subterfuge of the bad ideas is still very strong. They persist being stupid because the money is very very real. They get paid to distract the people with psuedo-battles over false principles because they don't want to people to realize the hollowness of their paradigm.

Not that Democrats are free of this corruption. The only difference is that most Democrats also believe in a government that works and want to actually do the work of good government more than they want to (or have to) participate in the handiwork of their paymasters and overlords. Almost all Republicans are obstructionist hypocrites. The very few who are different are suffering pains of conscience right now.