Facts and figures on American tax evasion

Shame on those many American tax evaders, those who we euphemistically say are "investing offshore." Here are some stunning facts and figures, from the Tax Justice Network:

The very existence of the global offshore industry, and the tax free status of the enormoussumsinvestedbytheirwealthyclients,ispredicatedonsecrecy:that is what this industry really “supplies” as it competes for, conceals, and manages private capital from all over the planet, from any and all sources, no questions asked. We are up against one of society's most well entrenched interest groups. After all, there’s no interest group more rich and powerful than the rich and powerful, who are the ultimate subjects of our research.

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Now that so many people have lost their homes

Now that so many people have lost their homes to foreclosure, the banks are swooping in the buy them up as investments. This is raising the cost of owning housing, making it difficult for many people to buy their own home. This article suggests that this is the beginning of yet another housing bubble. Furthermore, it has the perverse effect of steering former homeowners into the arms of banks, who will now be happy to serve as landlords.

The ability of investors to make cash deals is helping them buy a large portion of the distressed homes that continue to flood the market. Property brokers and others in Florida say traditional buyers — even those able to qualify for financing in a still-tight mortgage market — are finding it difficult to compete with the cash and market savvy of large investors.

“The investors are making it hard for a regular homeowner to buy a property,” said Robert Russotto, a broker with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate in Fort Lauderdale. “They are getting outbid by people with cash.” Russotto noted that out of the 20 home sale contracts he is the process of completing, 17 of the buyers are major investors.

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Bail-in of big banks as an ongoing strategy

Was Cyprus a one-off situation? At Alternet, Ellen Brown says no, and she indicates that the repeal of Glass-Steagall, "too big to fail" and the subsequent $230 trillion derivatives boondoggle should make many of us wary.

The Cyprus bail-in was not a one-off emergency measure but was consistent with similar policies already in the works for the US, UK, EU, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, as detailed in my earlier articles here and here. “Too big to fail” now trumps all. Rather than banks being put into bankruptcy to salvage the deposits of their customers, the customers will be put into bankruptcy to save the banks. The big risk behind all this is the massive $230 trillion derivatives boondoggle managed by US banks . . . The tab for the 2008 bailout was $700 billion in taxpayer funds, and that was just to start. Another $700 billion disaster could easily wipe out all the money in the FDIC insurance fund, which has only about $25 billion in it.
Under the guise of protecting taxpayers, Dodd-Frank makes depositors of failing institutions are to be de-facto subordinated to interbank claims. Brown writes: "The FDIC was set up to ensure the safety of deposits. Now it, it seems, its function will be the confiscation of deposits to save Wall Street." The urgent solution, is to repeal the super-priority status of derivatives, so that the banks themselves lose out to the security of the depositors.

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The extent of income inequality in America

"The numbers in this Alternet article are shocking. We are well on our way to having a country of very poor Americans ruled over by very rich Americans. Some would say, what are you proposing, COMMUNISM? No, just end the current corporate communism (privatized profits, socialized risks). We need go back to something like the tax codes of prior decades, and consider the other suggestions in the above article as well as the basic principles announced by Dylan Ratigan in his famous rant. Why should it matter to those who are still reasonably well off that there is a stark growing divide between rich and poor Americans? Because social science has demonstrated the clear correlation between income inequality and societal dysfunction.

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