at Breitbart
May 26, 2015
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the socialist who is challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democrat party's presidential nomination, believes that the millions Hillary Clinton made from speaking fees can only make her even more out of touch with the everyday Americans she is purporting to champion.
"When you hustle money like that, you don't sit in restaurants like this," Sanders told CNBC before his Tuesday campaign kickoff event. “You sit in restaurants where you're spending—I don't know what they spend—hundreds of dollars for dinner and so forth. That's the world that you’re accustomed to, and that’s the world view that you adopt. You’re not worrying about a kid three blocks away from here whose mom can't afford to feed him."
He added, "So yes, I think that can isolate you—that type of wealth has the potential to isolate you from the reality of the world."
After mainstream media outlets confirmed the numerous pay-to-play revelations in Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer's blockbuster book, Clinton Cash, the Clintons have come under even more fire for their financial dealings and those of their family's foundation, which received millions in donations from individuals, corporation and nations that may have sought to influence Hillary Clinton's State Department.
Financial disclosures revealed that Bill and Hillary Clinton made more than $25 million in speaking fees alone since the start of 2014. The Clinton Foundation also revealed last week that it has received more than $12 million in speaking fees that were donated to the foundation from speeches that Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton have given since 2002.
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This article appeared
at PDA Fund
Bernie Sanders Exposes 18 CEOs who took Trillions in Bailouts, Evaded Taxes and Outsourced Jobs
Sen. Bernie Sanders fired back at 80 CEOs who wrote a letter lecturing America about deficit reduction by released a report detailing how 18 of these CEOs have wrecked the economy by evading taxes and outsourcing jobs. 80 CEO's raised the ire of Sen. Sanders by publishing a letter in the Wall Street Journal urging America to act on the deficit, and reform Medicare and Medicaid.
Sen. Sanders responded to the lecture from America's CEO's by releasing a report that detailed how 18 of them have helped blow up the deficit and wreck the economy by outsourcing jobs and evading US taxes.
Sanders said:
There really is no shame. The Wall Street leaders whose recklessness and illegal behavior caused this terrible recession are now lecturing the American people on the need for courage to deal with the nation’s finances and deficit crisis. Before telling us why we should cut Social Security, Medicare and other vitally important programs, these CEOs might want to take a hard look at their responsibility for causing the deficit and this terrible recession.Here are the 18 CEO's Sanders labeled job destroyers in his report. (All data from Top Corporate Dodgers report.)
Our Wall Street friends might also want to show some courage of their own by suggesting that the wealthiest people in this country, like them, start paying their fair share of taxes. They might work to end the outrageous corporate loopholes, tax havens and outsourcing provisions that their lobbyists have littered throughout the tax code – contributing greatly to our deficit.
Many of the CEO's who signed the deficit-reduction letter run corporations that evaded at least $34.5 billion in taxes by setting up more than 600 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens since 2008. As a result, at least a dozen of the companies avoided paying any federal income taxes in recent years, and even received more than $6.4 billion in tax refunds from the IRS since 2008.
Several of the companies received a total taxpayer bailout of more than $2.5 trillion from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department.
Many of the companies also have outsourced hundreds of thousands of American jobs to China and other low wage countries, forcing their workers to receive unemployment insurance and other federal benefits. In other words, these are some of the same people who have significantly caused the deficit to explode over the last four years.
1). 1. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $1.9 billion tax refund. Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? Over $1.3 trillion.
Amount of federal income taxes Bank of America would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.6 billion.
2). Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $278 million tax refund. Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $824 billion. Amount of federal income taxes Goldman Sachs would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.7 billion
3). JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $416 billion.
Amount of federal income taxes JP Morgan Chase would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.9 billion.
4). General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $3.3 billion tax refund. Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve? $16 billion. Jobs Shipped Overseas? At least 25,000 since 2001.
5). Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $705 million tax refund. American Jobs Cut in 2010? In 2010, Verizon announced 13,000 job cuts, the third highest corporate layoff total that year.
6). Boeing CEO James McNerney, Jr.
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? None. $124 million tax refund. American Jobs Shipped overseas? Over 57,000. Amount of Corporate Welfare? At least $58 billion.
7). Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
Amount of federal income taxes Microsoft would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $19.4 billion.
8). Honeywell International CEO David Cote
Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $34 million tax refund.
9). Corning CEO Wendell Weeks
Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $4 million tax refund.
10). Time Warner CEO Glenn Britt
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $74 million tax refund.
11). Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $55 million tax refund.
12). Deere & Company CEO Samuel Allen
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $1 million tax refund.
13). Marsh & McLennan Companies CEO Brian Duperreault
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $90 million refund.
14). Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs
Amount of federal income taxes Qualcomm would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.7 billion.
15). Tenneco CEO Gregg Sherill
Amount of federal income taxes Tenneco would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $269 million.
16). Express Scripts CEO George Paz
Amount of federal income taxes Express Scripts would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $20 million.
17). Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman
Amount of federal income taxes Caesars Entertainment would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $9 million.
18). R.R. Donnelly & Sons CEO Thomas Quinlan III
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $49 million tax refund.
Eighteen of the 80 CEOs who signed the call for deficit action are actually some of the biggest outsourcers and tax cheats in America. First, they crashed the economy in 2008. They followed that up by taking billions in taxpayer bailout dollars. Their next step was to outsource jobs and evade taxes. Now they are calling for action on a deficit that they helped create over the past four years.
Bernie Sanders is exposing the hypocrisy of these CEOs, and every American should understand that if Mitt Romney is elected president, these pigs see potential for unlimited feeding from the taxpayer trough. Only by standing together can we tell these CEOs that the bill has come due, and it is time for them to pay.
We can tell these gluttons of our dollars that the all you can eat taxpayer buffet is now closed.
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This article appeared
at Opposing Views
Warren Buffett: Stop Blaming The Rich For Income Inequality
May 25, 2015
In the opinion piece, Buffett targeted those who have sought to put the blame for income inequality in America on rich people.
"The poor are most definitely not poor because the rich are rich. Nor are the rich undeserving. Most of them have contributed brilliant innovations or managerial expertise to America's well-being. We all live far better because of Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Sam Walton and the like," Buffett wrote. "Instead, this widening gap is an inevitable consequence of an advanced market-based economy."
Buffett dismissed claims made often that the income gap can be rectified through an increase in the minimum wage or by an improvement in the quality of education. Instead, he wrote, the way to solve the problem is by increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is currently given to millions of low-income workers.
"The existing EITC needs much improvement. Fraud is a big problem; penalties for it should be stiffened," he wrote.
"There should be widespread publicity that workers can receive free and convenient filing help. An annual payment is now the rule; monthly installments would make more sense, since they would discourage people from taking out loans while waiting for their refunds to come through. Dollar amounts should be increased, particularly for those earning the least."
Buffett did acknowledge that the gap seemed to be widening, with the total net worth of those on the most recent Forbes 400 list being $2.3 trillion — compared to a $93 billion total in 1982 when the list was first compiled. In that same period, according to Buffett's piece, median household income in the country rose only 180 percent.
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Further reading:
Where was Warren Buffett on 9/11?
This is an example of how power is exerted in America through powerful financial commercial interests which Americans have always been afraid of discussing in public. The militarized police state taking shape in American under the "national security state" is all about protecting the monopolization of wealth and using brute power to get its way:
Towards a Militarized Police State in America? Explosive New Revelations over "Jade Helm 15 Exercise" and Potential False Flags
Here is another detrimental aspect of power and wealth happening to major cities. There is nothing particularly wrong morally with wealth, it is the power associated with wealth that becomes dangerous. In the following linked article, this is what is going to also happen in London, Paris etc. All these extremely high rents aimed at attracting millionaires into these cities like New York and Paris, only further destroys the once thriving culture of these once great cities. The extremely wealthy who move say for example to New York, London or Paris for the culture only come to realize that they priced all the artists and culture out of these once magnificent cities with their unique local artists. This kind of concentrated wealth associated with power destroys local culture.
Why Are There So Many Shuttered Storefronts in the West Village?
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