TOKYO MASTER BANNER

MINISTRY OF TOKYO
US-ANGLO CAPITALISMEU-NATO IMPERIALISM
Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies
Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships
Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY
[LINK | Article]

*U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR*

Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
[info from Craig Murray video appearance, follows]  US-Anglo Alliance DELIBERATELY STOKING ANTI-RUSSIAN FEELING & RAMPING UP TENSION BETWEEN EASTERN EUROPE & RUSSIA.  British military/government feeding media PROPAGANDA.  Media choosing to PUBLISH government PROPAGANDA.  US naval aggression against Russia:  Baltic Sea — US naval aggression against China:  South China Sea.  Continued NATO pressure on Russia:  US missile systems moving into Eastern Europe.     [info from John Pilger interview follows]  War Hawk:  Hillary Clinton — embodiment of seamless aggressive American imperialist post-WWII system.  USA in frenzy of preparation for a conflict.  Greatest US-led build-up of forces since WWII gathered in Eastern Europe and in Baltic states.  US expansion & military preparation HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED IN THE WEST.  Since US paid for & controlled US coup, UKRAINE has become an American preserve and CIA Theme Park, on Russia's borderland, through which Germans invaded in the 1940s, costing 27 million Russian lives.  Imagine equivalent occurring on US borders in Canada or Mexico.  US military preparations against RUSSIA and against CHINA have NOT been reported by MEDIA.  US has sent guided missile ships to diputed zone in South China Sea.  DANGER OF US PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES.  China is on HIGH NUCLEAR ALERT.  US spy plane intercepted by Chinese fighter jets.  Public is primed to accept so-called 'aggressive' moves by China, when these are in fact defensive moves:  US 400 major bases encircling China; Okinawa has 32 American military installations; Japan has 130 American military bases in all.  WARNING PENTAGON MILITARY THINKING DOMINATES WASHINGTON. ⟴  
Showing posts with label Paul Singer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Singer. Show all posts

December 19, 2015

Illinois USA - How the Rich Bought Political Power

Article
SOURCE
as indicated




Illinois USA

Bruce Rauner
Governor of Illinois
Swedish-German descent
venture capitalist
private equity firm GTCR (30 years)
father lawyer / senior VP Motorola

Wife #1
Beth Konker Wessel (3 ch.)
Wife #2
Diana Mendley Rauner (3 ch.)

Son:

"In 2010, Eric, then 21, got arrested for trying to rob a Walgreen’s drive-through in Missoula, Montana. He gave a pharmacist “a note threatening to blow his head off unless he handed over prescription painkillers, according to charging documents in the case,” reported the Daily Missoulian. The paper further reported that he told authorities that he was drunk at the time and addicted to pills. Originally charged with felony robbery, Eric, who had been unarmed, pleaded guilty in July 2012 to an amended charge of felony criminal endangerment and received a three-year deferred sentence."

[Comment:  Eric was 1 years old when his parents separated, before divorcing (affair allegedly discovered by wife #1)  
Siblings were 4 and 6 years old]
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2014/Bruce-Rauner/


D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
Article & Divorce Court Documents
Affair allegedly discovered by Wife #1
Rauner allegedly sought reconciliation & continued to live in house
However, Wife #1 allegedly discovered  consultation with lawyer
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/bruce-rauner-1993-divorce-2014-5?r=US&IR=T
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NYT
Wealthy Governor & His Friends
Remaking Illinois
Unprecedented Political Spending



By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
NOV. 29, 2015


SUMMARY - as per my understanding
Kenneth C. Griffin
billionaire
founder
one of the world’s largest hedge funds

-- Griffin & friends ('the families')
-- poured tens of millions of dollars into the state
-- concentration of political money
-- unprecedented in Illinois history
-- wealth forcefully shifted state’s balance of power
-- 2014:  'the families' helped elect Bruce Rauner governor
-- Griffin friend of
Rauner (elected governor)
[Wealthy Election Buyers]
Agenda:
  • cut spending
  • overhaul state’s pension system
  • impose term limits
  • weaken public employee unions
Formula:
  • change the power structure
  • change way business conducted
  • change status quo
taking advantage of shifts in:
  • regulatory factors
  • legal factors
  • cultural factors
Rich families remaking Illinois:
  • channelled vast wealth into political power
  • infusion of money into campaigns via newly carved paths
"reshaping government with fortunes so large as to defy the ordinary financial scale of politics"

2016 USA Presidential Campaign - 158 Families

New York Times analysis
-- just 158 families
-- provided nearly HALF of early campaign money
-- donors from FINANCE INDUSTRY
-- finance field = more new political wealth than other
Following helped elect Rauner:

John Childs
-- Florida-based leveraged-buyout pioneer

Sam Zell
-- private equity investor

Paul Singer
-- hedge fund manager, NY

Richard Uihlein (Dick)
-- Chicago suburbs businessman
-- General Bindings Corp
-- plastic binding manufacture, family business
-- family co-founded: Schlitz Brewing
-- Uline, Inc - shipping supplies distribution company

Philosophies of donors
becoming widely adopted blueprint for public officials in USA
-- critical of powerful unions
-- want reduction of public (government) spending
-- want reduction of taxation
-- want to undermine govt-led efforts to redress gap b/w rich/poor
-- consider strong public unions root of all evil
-- re governance:  Chicago, New York & California
Increasing Amounts of Money
-- much stronger last 5-6 years

To usurp political power in Illinois
-- the rich have pumped BIG money into political campaigns
-- money that outstrips that of unions
--{unions were formerly 'financial lifeblood of both parties'}
-- Rauner:
    "triggered a state law that removes limits on campaign contributions when a wealthy candidate spends heavily on his or her own race."

    "The law, intended to limit the influence of the wealthy by providing a level playing field, had the opposite effect: Freed of the restraints, supporters of Mr. Rauner poured millions more into his campaign, breaking state records."

Rauner - Campaign Spending v. Unions
-- abt half of $65 million Rauner spent in 2014
-- came from Rauner & x9 others

-- (other individuals, families or companies they control)
-- $13.6 million Griffin family contributions
-- MORE than --> 244 labour unions combined donations

Kenneth C. Griffin
Biggest Donor - re Rauner
-- Griffin:   $5.5 million
-- private plane at Rauner’s disposal

HOW MILLIONS OF ELECTION FUNDS SPENT
-- political advocacy groups
-- research organizations
-- party committees
-- credit union on Chicago’s predominantly black South Side
-- depositing $1 million to support small-business loans
-- $20 million (Rauner, Griffin & Uihlein)

    Note: 
Rauner as given “$27 million of his own money to public education, both CPS and charters.” (Rauner publicly stated figure is:  $20 million) [ChicagoMag]
-- to beat back union pressure

Other
-- Rauner advocacy of school choice
-- African-USA voter appeal - stuck in worst schools [ChicagoMag]

Result
-- Rauner elected
-- agenda to shrink govt
-- agenda to make state more business friendly
-- however:  Democrats supermajority in both houses

DEMOCRATS
Democrat majority want:
-- minimum wage
-- millionaires-only income tax increase
-- both items against Rauner position

REPUBLICANS
Rauner - governor (thus opposed to Democrat majority)

Chicago Sun-Times  |  PRESS
-- reversed no-endorsement policy to back Rauner
-- Rauner, part-owner prior to run for governor

Illinois State:
-- mismanagement by state officials
-- both parties
-- over $100-Billion in UNFUNDED pension liabilities
-- x10 governors went to prison
-- public employee unions unaware re absence of retirement benefit funding by state
-- lobbied for other spending
-- state owes billions in unpaid bills

NOTE:  Illinois state constitution BANS raising taxes solely on rich

SOURCE
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/us/politics/illinois-campaign-money-bruce-rauner.html?_r=0




Illinois' flat income tax places it in the 'Terrible Ten'

Written By sswerdlow Posted: 06/25/2014, 06:52pm

Illinois is one of the ten most regressive states in the country ...

A state is regressive if it requires the poor to pay a greater share of their income in taxes than the rich. In Illinois, the state’s poorest residents—those in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale—pay almost three times as much of their earnings in taxes as the top one percent do.

Illinois’ flat income tax is one of the primary reasons ITEP ranks the state as the fourth most regressive. A flat income tax means the state takes the same percentage of income from everyone, regardless of how much or how little they earn.

Illinois is one of only ten states with a flat tax rate. There are seven states that collect no taxes on individual income. See which states have flat, graduated, or no income taxes in the map below.

Illinois increased the tax rate on individual income from 3 percent to 5 percent in 2011. That increase is set to expire January 1, 2015. Speaker Michael Madigan reports that the House Democratic caucus is almost 30 votes shy of the 60 needed to make what was a temporary increase permanent.

If Illinois fails to extend the tax rate of 5 percent, it will have the third lowest individual income tax rate of any state with a flat tax. According to the Tax Foundation, only Indiana and Pennsylvania will have lower rates, at 3.4 and 3.07 percent respectively.

Illinois depends on individual income taxes for 42 percent of its tax revenue, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Taxes on individual income bring in more money for the state than any other tax. This wasn’t the case in 2009, when half of the state’s tax revenue came from sales tax. Sales tax revenue has steadily declined since then, though, due to the Great Recession.
http://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/7/71/876236/chicago-budget-revenue-tax-ideas



---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------

COMMENT


The word 'gubernatorial' is unpleasant sounding to me:
"C18: from Latin gubernator governor."

Really enjoyed checking this out.

American politics is sooooooo disgusting. USA doesn't even pretend to be democratic.

This story has everything ... & the state's broke.  Quick, someone write a TV-series. 

It should be interesting to see what happens when the opposition (Democrats) have the majority in both houses. 
Second article on income tax is also very interesting.  Those rates are bizarre.  It's so low it's like there is just about no income tax.



August 07, 2014

US AUTO INDUSTRY BAIL-OUT - INVERSIONS - HEDGE FUND WINS





SPECIAL REPORT
Obama aides let Delphi avoid taxes with 'inversion' tactic now assailed



Zachary R. Mider
Bloomberg
August 6, 2014 - 12:34 am ET

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says U.S. corporations that adopt foreign addresses to avoid taxes are unpatriotic. His own administration helped one $20 billion American company do just that.

As part of the bailout of the auto industry in 2009, Obama's Treasury Department authorized spending $1.7 billion of government funds to get a bankrupt Michigan parts-maker back on its feet -- as a British company.

While executives continue to run Delphi Automotive from a Detroit suburb, the paper headquarters in England potentially reduces the company's U.S. tax bill by as much as $110 million a year.

The Obama administration's role in aiding Delphi's escape from the U.S. tax system may complicate the president's new campaign against corporate expatriation.
...
Thanks to gaps in a Congressional ban on contracts with inverted companies, his administration continues to award more than $1 billion annually in government business to more than a dozen corporate expats.

IRS case

The Obama administration is now trying to rescind the tax benefits of the Delphi deal that it helped broker.

In June, the Internal Revenue Service told Delphi that the 2009 address change should be disregarded for tax purposes, and that Delphi must pay taxes as a U.S. company.

Delphi says in a securities filing that it will "vigorously contest" the IRS's demand.

"The recent rise in inversion transactions has the IRS and Treasury and the president understandably rattled, so they're now trying to play catch up," said Julie Roin, a tax professor at University of Chicago Law School. "They were worried about other things in 2009."

U.S. companies have been inverting for decades. The pace of departures began to quicken about two years ago, as a series of drugmakers sought to become Irish. The issue caught the attention of lawmakers and the Obama administration this year.

...
Rescue loans

Facing the worst car market in decades, GM and Chrysler were themselves running out of cash. Some officials said they feared an economic catastrophe if the automakers were forced to liquidate and put hundreds of thousands out of work.

In December 2008, the outgoing Bush administration approved $17.4 billion in rescue loans for GM and Chrysler. In February, Obama assembled a task force led by Steven Rattner, a Wall Street financier, to oversee the bailout.

The Treasury task force had broad authority at the automakers, because the terms of the government loans propping them up gave it veto power over major decisions. One of the team's first jobs was to fix Delphi.

GM still depended on its former subsidiary for crucial parts like steering assemblies. A liquidation of the supplier could end up shutting down many of GM's assembly lines, too. But the team members didn't want GM to dump money into Delphi indefinitely.
...

Tax-friendly Luxembourg

He doesn't mention one detail of the transaction that was disclosed three weeks after the Platinum agreement in a public court filing: Platinum was considering registering the new Delphi in tax-friendly Luxembourg rather than in the U.S.

The following month, Platinum took steps to carry out the plan, dispatching lawyers to register two Luxembourg entities. Both bore the name Platinum used for its Delphi project: Parnassus, the mountain in Greece where, according to legend, the oracle of Delphi issued her prophecies.

Meanwhile, GM made its own trip through bankruptcy court to shed its debts. On July 10, 2009, it emerged under the formal control of the Treasury Department, which had swapped some of its debt for stock and now held 61 percent of the shares. [So is this like a govt takeover?]
...

Platinum out

The deal with Platinum soon ran into trouble. Creditors including Elliott Management, the hedge fund run by New York billionaire Paul E. Singer, said Platinum was buying the company too cheap. [Singer's the Argentina vulture hedge fund guy.]

So Elliott and another hedge fund, Greenwich, Connecticut-based Silver Point Capital LP, put in their own bid for the company, offering to swap their debt for new shares. On July 26, 2009, they agreed with GM to cut Platinum out of the deal.

In some ways, the Elliott deal was similar to the one Rattner's task force approved the previous month.

GM would provide crucial financing for the new company -- a $1.7 billion direct investment in its equity, making it a shareholder alongside the hedge funds. GM would also buy the steering business and other assets for about $1.1 billion.

All this spending would depend on the Treasury Department's approval. After it emerged from bankruptcy, GM ended up with $16 billion of Treasury Department funds in a special escrow account that could be tapped only with the government's blessing.

Another detail remained the same as well: GM and the hedge funds agreed to register the new Delphi in Luxembourg or another, mutually agreeable foreign country.

...

Lower corporate taxes

Along with Ireland and the Netherlands, the United Kingdom is becoming increasingly popular with companies seeking to flee the U.S. system. In addition to Pfizer, AbbVie Inc., an Illinois drugmaker with a market value of about $85 billion, announced plans last month to become a U.K. taxpayer.

The United Kingdom not only has a lower corporate tax rate -- 21 percent -- than the United States, but it taxes companies only on their domestic earnings.

U.S. companies must pay taxes on the profits of their foreign operations -- a major hindrance for Delphi, whose factories are spread around the world.

Judge Robert Drain, who approved the sale in bankruptcy court, declined to comment. Spokesmen at Elliott and Silver Point also declined to comment, and Mark Barnhill, a partner at Platinum, didn't respond to requests for comment.

...

Hedge funds win

The Delphi takeover proved to be a huge win for the hedge funds, and for Treasury-controlled GM.

Stripped of its debts and its U.S. tax domicile, the company surged in value. GM sold its stake back to Delphi in 2011, recognizing a $1.6 billion after-tax gain. Elliott did even better, according to the New York Post. Singer's fund turned a $300 million investment into $1.3 billion by the time Delphi sold shares to the public that year, the Post reported at the time.  [OMG!!]

After Delphi got its New York Stock Exchange listing in 2011, its stock continued to advance. With a market capitalization of about $20 billion, it's now among the biggest and most profitable U.S. corporate expatriates.

Going public required Delphi to switch from partnership to corporate form. Becoming a U.K. corporation, though, would have required an accounting change that could have threatened its eligibility for inclusion in the Standard and Poor's 500 Index of the largest U.S. companies.

Instead, Delphi incorporated in the tiny English Channel island of Jersey, a self-governing Crown dependency that didn't require the accounting change.

...



Hedge funds always win!

Go to places to dodge tax:
  • Luxemburg
  • Ireland
  • Netherlands
  • UK (21% corporate tax + no tax on foreign earnings)
  • Jersey Island
The above is only extracts from the article in Autonews.  Go to link for the whole story.

August 01, 2014

Argentina and the Hedge Fund Vultures


Meet the billionaire hedge-fund manager at the center of Argentina’s default

By Rebecca Robbins July 31 at 3:32 PM

When Argentina defaulted on its debt for the second time in 13 years this week, it was largely because of the legal pressure applied by one group of investors led by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer.

...  missed a deadline for more than $500 million in interest payments that were due to bondholders. ... case even more curious is its link to Singer, who has become known for picking — and winning — fights with foreign governments over his hedge fund Elliott Management’s investments.

He’s tussled with Peru, taking the country to the brink of default in 2000. He’s taken on Congo-Brazzaville, pushing the country to settle after he uncovered alleged corruption within the country’s government.

But he’s never gone as far as he has with Argentina, which the ratings agency Standard and Poor’s declared in selective default on Wednesday, meaning that it has the wherewithal to pay its creditors but will not agree to.

Argentina’s debt troubles date back to its last default in 2001, when it gave up on its sovereign debt payments to its bondholders. As the country’s finances rebounded, the majority of the country’s creditors agreed to a restructured debt package, but a handful turned the deal down. Led by the NML Capital division of Singer’s hedge fund, a group of holdout creditors have pushed Argentina to repay them in full, $1.5 billion. (Elliott officials have also said they would be willing to negotiate the terms.)

Argentina says a large payment could expose it to a cascade of claims that it cannot afford to pay.

The creditors have sued the Argentinian government, scoring a victory in 2012 when a federal court in Manhattan ruled that Argentina must first pay the holdouts before paying its other bondholders, leading to the country’s default on Wednesday.

Argentinian politicians and their supporters have blamed the hedge funds for refusing to compromise, but Singer’s hedge fund denied culpability for the default of one of Latin America’s largest economies and say they have been willing to negotiate a deal.
...These hedge funds say they are simply collecting on their legitimate debt holdings, but critics call them “vultures” who prey on developing countries and unsettle the global economic balance.

...
While distressed-debt investing remains a niche investment strategy, it has boomed since the recession. Total assets in the 300 hedge funds that buy up distressed and restructuring debt reached about $183.8 billion at the end of the second quarter of this year, a $100 billion increase since 2008, according to Hedge Fund Research.

Within the distressed-debt market, Singer is a leader. A prominent Republican donor with libertarian views, he’s never been one to shy from a fight and has been an ardent critic of the Federal Reserve.

It’s unclear just how much Singer stands to make if he can force Argentina to pay up, because it’s not known how much his hedge fund originally bought the defaulted debt holdings for. But Mark Brodsky of Aurelius Capital Management, another one of the creditors holding out against Argentina, said last year that his hedge fund stands to make some $500 million in profit if it wins the dispute.

Several financial historians said they can’t remember another time that hedge funds had pulled a government into default, though they noted that there was some precedent for litigation surrounding sovereign debt.

“The whole affair is reminiscent of vulture investors 25 years ago who would buy up distressed debt at a deep discount and hope to profit on subsequent good news,” Charles Geisst, a finance professor at Manhattan College, said in an e-mail. “But taking a large debtor to court is a more recent development and illustrates the extent of the profit to be made if they are successful.”

Although talks between Argentina and the hedge funds have been unsuccessful thus far, an accord could still be reached out of court. Citing an unnamed source, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that JPMorgan Chase could step in to buy the disputed bonds.

...
Source - Washington Post - here.



Hedge funds buy up debts and somehow make massive profits, by look of it.

Looks like Argentina shouldn't have given up its sovereign debt to bondholders back in 2001.

Not entire clear on that, but expect they gave over their 'foreign debt payments' to hedge funds.

Argentina can pay; but payment is at issue because it exposes them to other claims.

Like the bit about hedge funds being 'vultures' preying on developing countries.  Probably accurate.