Two prominent members of the Senate Finance Committee are calling for an investigation into tax avoidance by the ultrawealthy, citing ProPublica’s Secret IRS Files series.
Last month ProPublica began publishing a series of stories about tax avoidance among the ultrawealthy, based on a vast trove of tax data concerning thousands of the wealthiest American taxpayers and covering more than 15 years. ProPublica conducted an unprecedented analysis that compared the ultrawealthy’s taxes to the growth in their fortunes, calculating that the 25 richest Americans pay a “true tax rate” of just 3.4%.
The wealthy pay so little in taxes primarily because they keep their incomes low, the article explained, often borrowing against their fortunes to fund their lifestyles. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Bloomberg L.P.’s Michael Bloomberg and other billionaires have each paid no federal income taxes in one or more recent years. The tax avoidance techniques described in “The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Taxes” are legal, and routine among the ultrawealthy.
By Richard Lawless
More than three years ago, MedLaw Publishing released my book, “Capitol Hills Criminal Underground” in which I, the book's author, describe a long-running “protection racket” being run by then-Vice President Joe Biden, as well as Attorney General Eric Holder and New York Senator, Chuck Schumer.
The three amigos effectively arranged to have all Wall Street criminal cases directed to the lefty-friendly Southern District of New York, and for the right “payments” the cases would be closed. Money would then go into PACs controlled by Schumer and distributed to all those involved. In return for those payments, there would be no investigations, no prosecutions and no regulatory action. As author, I tracked over $110,000,000 in payments to politicians.
The CIA tracked some of the money-laundering related to the theft by these Wall Street companies and was able to track back the payments to senior DOJ officials and senior politicians like Vice President Joe Biden.
I, and a senior CIA officer, offered this evidence to both FBI Director James Comey and DoJ Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz. They both declined to respond. I filed criminal complaints with the FBI and was told by field agents that senior leadership at the DOJ would not allow anyone to work the criminal complaints.
I want to encourage all Americans to read my book, "Capitol Hill's Criminal Underground" and decide for themselves.
That baleful presence of Eric Holder eyeing the coronavirus as a means to win Democrats' permanent power
By Monica Showalter
Eric Holder is back.
But instead of helping out on the coronavirus crisis as an ethical person might do, his wheels are spinning for using the crisis as a means of attaining permanent Democratic Party power.
The far left former Obama administration Attorney General got an item out on Medium, calling for the skeezy practice of universal mail-in voting, claiming the Wisconsin primary during the crisis was some kind of unspecified travesty:
New from @EricHolder: "Given that the virus is likely to return in the fall, if we do not start taking measures now to protect the franchise, our current voting procedures will put the health of all Americans -no matter their political preference -at risk" https://t.co/dvry9SLQsf
— Patrick Rodenbush (@pnrodenbush) April 14, 2020
Thanks for the concern-trolling for Republicans, Eric. We all know how sincere it is.
Calling for mail-in ballots, online registration, same-day registration, ballot-harvesting, and month-long extended voting periods, all of which are petri dishes for election fraud in that most break the chain of custody to any number of interested players, some break secret ballot, and others can be manipulated by partisan hacks based on known ongoing tallies, Holder writes:
By refusing to move the election or provide adequate alternative voting options as they dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, Republicans used their gerrymandered majorities in the Wisconsin legislature to force an impossible choice on the people they are supposed to represent: forgo your civic responsibility and stay healthy or cast a ballot and endanger yourself and your community. It remains unthinkable that health care experts would tell citizens that social distancing is a necessity to combat this virus and then politicians forced them to congregate in large groups and wait in long lines to vote. Poll workers afraid for their health did not show up.
Which is nonsense. People stand in grocery lines all the time, socially distancing by six feet. Somehow, Holder thinks voters can't master that in an election situation where lines are usually considerably shorter.
NPR of all outlets reported that Holder's travesty claims in Wisconsin were garbage, the public network reports that Wisconsin turnout in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic was steady and high.
The ballot harvesting, borrowed from Mexico's "perfect dictatorship," the 70-year ruling PRI party, famous for its corruption and socialism, goes on a lot in the U.S. these days already, the camel's nose is already under the tent. Fraud plagued California is the main example, but it also goes on in states with large Latin American-descended populations, by seamy [political operatives known as boliteros and politiqueras, who make sure to bring home the bacon for their party as such flying monkeys are commissioned to do. They are often union thugs, coming to people's houses, standing over them, (we know where you live) pressuring them to vote the way they want them to vote, even if they don't want to vote that way, even if they are illegal and don't want to get into trouble.
Or else.
All of this is part of the Democrats' plan for using the coronavirus to fundamentally transform America. California's Gov. Gavin Newsom said as much about the coronavirus couple weeks earlier.
Now Holder's grabbed the football and is running with it, making an end to normal voting a fundamental part of the Democratic Party platform. It goes with their other offensive that I described earlier today, which is encouraging a flood of illegals, with PRI (or worse, Chavista) values into the country, and then changing the secret ballot voting system from one-man one-vote to an extended harvest mechanism, extended over a long period, with zero verification of who actually cast the ballot, and a broken chain of custody, allowing for all manner of fraud that Democrats view as beneficial.
Never let a crisis go to waste, to paraphrase Democratic operative Rahm Emanuel. Holder is one baleful presence. No matter what the crisis, all he can see is new ways to extend Democratic Party power.
Image credit: AFGE, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0
Why aren’t the Wall Street criminals prosecuted?
In May 2012, only days after JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon revealed that his bank had lost billions of dollars in speculative bets, President Barack Obama publicly defended the multi-millionaire CEO, calling him “one of the smartest bankers we’ve got.” What Obama did not mention is that Dimon is a criminal.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-arent-wall-street-criminals.html
JPMorgan is not the exception; it is the rule. Virtually every major bank that operates on Wall Street has settled charges of fraud and criminality on a staggering scale. In 2011, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a 630-page report on the financial crash of 2008 documenting what the committee chairman called “a financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest and wrongdoing.”
These multiple crimes by serial lawbreakers have had very real and very destructive consequences. The entire world has been plunged into an economic slump that has already lasted more than five years and shows no signs of abating. Tens of millions of families have lost their homes as a result of predatory mortgages pushed by JPMorgan and other Wall Street banks.
Biden Bashes Influence of Billionaires While Relying on their Money
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP/Getty Images.
HARIS ALIC
Former Vice President Joe Biden is bashing the outsize influence billionaires are having on the race for the 2020 Democrat nomination, despite his own campaign relying heavily upon their money.
In a fundraising email sent to supporters on Thursday, Biden’s campaign excoriated two of his Democrat rivals for using their personal fortunes to underwrite their presidential ambitions. The email, titled “the billionaires are coming,” took direct aim at Tom Steyer and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for spending heavily to “saturate your airwaves and news feeds.”
In particular, Biden’s campaign lambasted Steyer for using his fortune to gain access to the Democrat debates, while attacking Bloomberg for skipping early primaries and spending $100 million in delegate-heavy Super Tuesday states.
“One billionaire is buying his way onto the Democrat debate stage, and one is buying his way out of it,” Biden’s campaign wrote, before proceeding to argue both billionaires were undermining “how democracy is supposed to work.”
The former vice president’s attack on the influence Steyer and Bloomberg are having is surprising given the fact his own campaign has relied heavily on billionaires to underwrite his White House hopes.
A recent report by Forbes indicates Biden has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the billionaire donor class since launching his candidacy. In the last fundraising quarter alone, the former vice president pulled in contributions from 44 billionaires—the most of any 2020 Democrat. Many of those contributing opted to max out, giving the largest sum possible for a primary campaign under federal law.
The money rolled in from Silicon Valley titans, Wall Street elites, and some of the country’s largest real estate tycoons.
Among the donors was Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google who stirred controversy in January 2017 when claiming President Donald Trump would do “evil things” in office. Schmidt donated $2,800 to Biden’s campaign in May, less than a week after the former vice president entered the race. In the past the former Google executive has heavily backed Democrat candidates up and down the ballot, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Employees from Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., have donated more than $37,000 to Biden’s campaign to date, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The hefty contributions have ensured Alphabet is one of the former vice president’s top 20 contributors. Joining a list that includes another Silicon Valley giant, Microsoft Corp.
Biden’s support in Silicon Valley has not been confined to traditional Democrats. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, a one time Republican nominee for governor of California, donated $2,800 in September. In 2016, Whitman broke ranks by endorsing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over Trump. Since that time, the former eBay executive has become a consistent ‘Never Trumper.’
On America’s other coast, the former vice president has elicited prime backing from Wall Street and the real estate industry.
Topping the list of Biden’s Wall Street backers is Judy Dimon, the wife of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Although her husband, himself, has not donated, Dimon maxed out to Biden in mid-September.
The contribution comes with its own controversial history. In 2008, then-Sen. Joe Biden supported the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which granted large financial institutions bailouts to survive the recession. JPMorgan was one such institution, taking more than $25 billion in taxpayer money—one of largest bailouts granted to any company under the program.
The bailout came even though JPMorgan’s mortgage lending practices helped create the housing bubble that, when it burst, ultimately led the to the recession. In 2013, the bank agreed to pay a civil fine of $13 billion for its unscrupulous lending practices.
Apart from Dimon, Biden received maxed out contributions from private equity executives, like Blackstone President Jonathan Gray. Blackstone recently made a $250 million investment in a startup that helps outsource American jobs overseas.
In total, the former vice president has filled a significant portion of his campaign account from Wall Street donors, including nearly a million dollars from the securities and investment sector.
Wall Street’s contributions, however, paled in comparison to the amount of money real estate tycoons have donated to Biden. In between April and the end of September, the former vice president garnered more than one million from real estate interests.
The funds poured in from longtime allies like Neil Bluhm, a casino and real estate magnate, and George Marcus, the leader of America’s largest commercial property brokerage firms. Although Bluhm and Marcus have only donated $2,800 each, both men have hosted lavish fundraisers on Biden’s behalf that have raised unknown amounts.
Biden’s reliance on such billionaires is one of the reasons his campaign has struggled to compete financially with the likes of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
Although Biden started the race with a strong funding advantage, thanks to support from high-dollar donors, he ended the most recent fundraising period well behind his competitors. In between July and the end of September, Biden only raised $15.2 million. The sum was dwarfed by that raised by Sanders ($25.3 million), Warren ($24.6 million), and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg ($19.1 million).
The former vice president’s fundraising troubles stem from an inability to make in-roads with small-dollar donors. Unlike Warren or Sanders, more than 2,900 donors have already maxed out to Biden’s campaign.
In fact, top-dollar donors make up a far higher percentage of Biden’s campaign coffers than those of his competitors. In comparison, only 38 percent of the campaign’s funds to date have come from individuals donating less than $200. Such a ratio poses a long term issue, especially when top contributors are prohibited by law from donating again until after the primary.
The disparate support between billionaires and small donors was seen as a primary motivator for Biden’s decision to jettison opposing outside help from Super PACs. Since such groups can raise and spend unlimited funds, the former vice president’s billionaire donors are no longer subject to contribution limits when supporting his campaign.
Biden, though, did not mention any of this in his email to supporters on Thursday. Instead, the former vice president kept his fire aimed at Steyer and Bloomberg, while downplaying his own support from the billionaire donor class.
“Since the day that this campaign launched, we have relied on grassroots support to power this campaign,” Biden’s team wrote.
JPMorgan shares climb after the bank posts record earnings and revenue
Jamie Dimon arriving to testify before Congress. Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters
· JPMorgan reported first-quarter earnings results on Friday, kicking off another earnings season for the largest US banks.
JPMorgan Chase reported record first-quarter results on both the top and bottom lines Friday morning. Shares climbed 2.3% in early trading to $108.68.
Here's how the results stacked up with Wall Street's expectations as compiled by Bloomberg.
· Adjusted net income: $9.18 billion versus $7.7 billion expected
· Earnings per share: $2.65 versus $2.34 expected
· Revenue: $29.85 billion versus $28.4 billion expected
· Expenses: $16.4 billion versus $16.7 billion expected
"In the first quarter of 2019, we had record revenue and net income, strong performance across each of our major businesses, and a more constructive environment," CEO Jamie Dimon said in the earnings release. "Even amid some global geopolitical uncertainty, the US economy continues to grow, employment and wages are going up, inflation is moderate, financial markets are healthy, and consumer and business confidence remains strong."
A deeper look into the numbers showed the trading and investment-banking businesses exceeded expectations, though trading declined 17% from the year earlier:
· FICC sales & trading revenue: $3.73 billion versus $3.67 billion expected
· Equity sales & trading revenue: $1.74 billion versus $1.73 billion expected
· Investment-banking revenue: $1.75 billion versus $1.63 billion expected
Obama's Wall Street cabinet
6 April 2009
A series of articles published over the weekend, based on financial disclosure reports released by the Obama administration last Friday concerning top White House officials, documents the extent to which the administration, in both its personnel and policies, is a political instrument of Wall Street.
Policies that are extraordinarily favorable to the financial elite that were put in place over the past month by the Obama administration have fed a surge in share values on Wall Street. These include the scheme to use hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds to pay hedge funds to buy up the banks’ toxic assets at inflated prices, the Auto Task Force’s rejection of the recovery plans of Chrysler and General Motors and its demand for even more brutal layoffs, wage cuts and attacks on workers’ health benefits and pensions, and the decision by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to weaken “mark-to-market” accounting rules and permit banks to inflate the value of their toxic assets.
At the same time, Obama has campaigned against restrictions on bonuses paid to executives at insurance giant American International Group (AIG) and other bailed-out firms, and repeatedly assured Wall Street that he will slash social spending, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
The new financial disclosures reveal that top Obama advisors directly involved in setting these policies have received millions from Wall Street firms, including those that have received huge taxpayer bailouts.
The case of Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council and Obama’s top economic adviser, highlights the politically incestuous character of relations between the Obama administration and the American financial elite.
Last year, Summers pocketed $5 million as a managing director of D.E. Shaw, one of the biggest hedge funds in the world, and another $2.7 million for speeches delivered to Wall Street firms that have received government bailout money. This includes $45,000 from Citigroup and $67,500 each from JPMorgan Chase and the now-liquidated Lehman Brothers.
For a speech to Goldman Sachs executives, Summers walked away with $135,000. This is substantially more than double the earnings for an entire year of high-seniority auto workers, who have been pilloried by the Obama administration and the media for their supposedly exorbitant and “unsustainable” wages.
Alluding diplomatically to the flagrant conflict of interest revealed by these disclosures, the New York Times noted on Saturday: “Mr. Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, wields important influence over Mr. Obama’s policy decisions for the troubled financial industry, including firms from which he recently received payments.”
Summers was a leading advocate of banking deregulation. As treasury secretary in the second Clinton administration, he oversaw the lifting of basic financial regulations dating from the 1930s. The Times article notes that among his current responsibilities is deciding “whether—and how—to tighten regulation of hedge funds.”
Summers is not an exception. He is rather typical of the Wall Street insiders who comprise a cabinet and White House team that is filled with multi-millionaires, presided over by a president who parlayed his own political career into a multi-million-dollar fortune.
Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, worked for Citigroup and received more than $7.4 million from the bank from January of 2008 until he entered the Obama administration this year. This included a $2.25 million year-end bonus handed him this past January, within weeks of his joining the Obama administration.
Citigroup has thus far been the beneficiary of $45 billion in cash and over $300 billion in government guarantees of its bad debts.
David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s top strategist and now senior adviser to the president, was paid $1.55 million last year from two consulting firms he controls. He has agreed to buyouts that will garner him another $3 million over the next five years. His disclosure claims personal assets of between $7 and $10 million.
Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, was paid $3.9 million by a Washington law firm whose major clients include Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and the private equity firm Apollo Management.
Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, made $227,155 last year from IndyMac Bancorp, the California bank that heavily promoted subprime mortgages. It collapsed last summer and was placed under federal receivership.
The presence of multi-millionaire Wall Street insiders extends to second- and third-tier positions in the Obama administration as well. David Stevens, who has been tapped by Obama to head the Federal Housing Administration, is the president and chief operating officer of Long and Foster Cos., a real estate brokerage firm. From 1999 to 2005, Stevens served as a top executive for Freddie Mac, the federally-backed mortgage lending giant that was bailed out and seized by federal regulators in September.
Neal Wolin, Obama’s selection for deputy counsel to the president for economic policy, is a top executive at the insurance giant Hartford Financial Services, where his salary was $4.5 million.
Obama’s Auto Task Force has as its top advisers two investment bankers with a long resume in corporate downsizing and asset-stripping.
It is not new for leading figures from finance to be named to high posts in a US administration. However, there has traditionally been an effort to demonstrate a degree of independence from Wall Street in the selection of cabinet officials and high-ranking presidential aides, often through the appointment of figures from academia or the public sector. In previous decades, moreover, representatives of the corporate elite were more likely to come from industry than from finance.
In the Obama administration such considerations have largely been abandoned.
This will not come as a surprise to those who critically followed Obama’s election campaign. While he postured before the electorate as a critic of the war in Iraq and a quasi-populist force for “change,” he was from the first heavily dependent on the financial and political backing of powerful financiers in Chicago. Banks, hedge funds and other financial firms lavishly backed his presidential bid, giving him considerably more than they gave to his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain.
Friday’s financial disclosures further expose the bankruptcy of American democracy. Elections have no real effect on government policy, which is determined by the interests of the financial aristocracy that dominates both political parties. The working class can fight for its own interests—for jobs, decent living standards, health care, education, housing and an end to war.
