Between 1945 and 1973, US Federal Government Individual income tax revenue remained relatively flat. It increased by 300% between 1973 and 1989. And between 1989 and 2005 it increased again by about 300%. These time frames loosened individual tax rates.
In 2012, it was revealed that Mitt Romney had over $250million in offshore accounts immune from Federal taxation. In 2015, The Atlantic published an article about offshore accounts in which the author quotes a gentleman she interviewed in the British Virgin Islands as stating that offshore accounts are a ‘left-leaning agenda’. She also provided an interesting insight from the prospective of the islands chosen as the havens; ‘as the financial services industry gained momentum in these island havens crime rates shot up’. But these offshore accounts aren’t only to evade income taxes, they also effectively hide money from potentially costly divorces and lawsuits, including government authority lawsuits, often empowering the elite to operate above the law with complete immunity.
One form of an offshore account is called the ‘Asset Protection Trust’. The Rothschilds are the largest progenitors of such arrangements, but most wealthy elite utilize these instruments routinely. Facebook founder, Eduardo Saverin, utilized the loopholes of wealth protection by simply denouncing his US citizenship and re-establishing citizenship in Singapore. Singapore’s top tax rate is 22%, $0 capital gains tax, and $0 inheritance tax.
While many people believe offshore banking is a relatively new financial scheme, it actually has its origins in 1815 in Vienna. The reason? Exorbitant taxes imposed by monarchial governments. France was the first EU nation to offer offshore haven to the elite and wealthy wanting to evade taxes and protect their money from the monarchies. BY the end of the 1800’s these offshore accounts were estimated to hold billions.
After WWI, Caribbean offshore havens became the rage for wealthy Americans due to the proximity of the islands. Americans saw these arrangements as a means to protect their wealth from wars and depressions.
In 1929, London courts declared that any monies held in offshore accounts were exempt from taxation by the British authorities.
Switzerland saw the burgeoning business and as competition had risen throughout European banks, Switzerland extended the policy of privacy; The Swiss Banking Act of 1934 made it illegal for banks to provide personal or account information on any of its clients even if requested by government authorities.
All these havens gained traction when the British and US governments began attempting to rail in the offshore accounts by raising the top tax bracket to 70%. As such the beginning of the collapse of middle income earners began its descent creating the ever growing skew of income disparity. In the US it came as a consequence of the election of FDR, a Democrat, who ushered in The New Deal by Executive Order and the confiscation of all personal holdings of gold. As an ally of Stalin, FDR mobilized the war effort of WWII – but by then the wealthy elites of the US did not participate in the financial application given their money was safely harbored in offshore accounts and unattachable. His actions were likely the springboard that ushered in the greatest leap into income disparity in history since monarchial rule.
The purpose for the confiscation of personal holdings of gold was to bail out the private banking system known as the Federal Reserve which had over-extended its credit. As European countries presented their notes demanding gold in exchange which was supposed to be held in US Reserve banking institutions, the Federal Reserve realized they didn’t have the physical gold to pay off the notes so FDR simply confiscated personal holdings, and gave it to the Federal Reserve so as to payoff reserve debt owed to European countries.
The Chairman of the Federal Reserve at this time was Eugene Meyer, an American financier who was cited as being worth $40 million as of 1915. In today’s dollars adjusting only for inflation, $40million would equate to just shy of $1billion. Along with JP Morgan, Andrew Mellon, and Ogden Mills, Meyer and his entourage were known as The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse. In 1933 Meyers bought the Washington Post and his descendants held it until it was sold Amazon’s Bezos in 2013. Including during the blitz of the CIA agenda, Operation Mockingbird.
In the end, the 70% tax rate taught us that the higher the rate the more likely wealth managers will help you find a means to evade taxes putting a heavier burden on the remaining middle class and lower class to fund the government, depleting Social Security as deficits borrow from the fund, and ultimately bankrupting the economy. So Ocasio-Cortez and Bloomberg and Gates and Buffet, and all those wealthy elite who support such a tax increase will be laughing all the way to the Cooke Islands at the stupidity of those who think this is a solution to anything.
FDR was independently wealthy having inherited everything and never working in the real world business sector. He and the elite wealthy of the time are directly responsible for the evolution of tax evasion, the quash of the middle class, and the rise of wealth disparity. They were Democrats and they were Republicans, they were The Swamp.
Problem; the rich aren’t paying the tax rate that they already should because, a) their money is in offshore accounts where they pay no taxes, or b) because they take advantage of all the loopholes that Trump wants to close. In fact, Soros hedge fund paid less than $1000 in taxes in 2013. So, their argument is well – condescendingly hypocritical, and manipulative… It presents a highly ethical mindset while the wolfe eats the chickens and disposes of the bones.
Why do the wealthy have offshore accounts? To pay less taxes. It is so obvious, and yet, the allusion would have us believe they ‘want to pay more’. If they did they wouldn’t have offshore accounts!!
Hillary argued that the wealthy pay too little. Yes, but not because of tax ‘rates’. The argument keeps surfacing, and yet the reality is obscured.
Hypocrisy is a tool, it is a cloak, a mask, and ultimately a dagger as it pervades in brain-washing the minds of mankind speaking lies until the truth no longer even exists.
So who are the ‘politicians’ that want to raise taxes?
While offshore banking has been around for some decades, it was predominantly utilized by the mob to launder money. Later, the concept of moving money through citizenship gained traction in the 1960’s – remember the Beatles? By the 1970’s corporations were developing strategies, but still there were no loopholes in place for its legality. Switzerland became the dominant haven for opaque banking. It’s popularity gained traction in the 1990’s, around the time Billy came into Power.
But the use and size of tax havens can directly be tracked to ‘rising tax rates’, greed, power, and the desire to “NOT PAY TAXES”.
The haven itself became big business, the British owned Caymen Islands evolved in the 1960’s when Britain’s taxes peaked at over 95%. Enter Singapore. Then the Brits used more island hostages to evade paying their dues. The Queen is implicated. David Cameron. By the 1990’s Ireland saw the advantage and lowered their corporate rate to lure Big Pharma. Insurance and re-insurance companies followed with Bermuda.
The largest worldwide group of tax havens are British Empire based. The second largest is European based. Coincidentally, they have some of the highest tax rates in the world. Socialism not working? It does have one claim to fame, it provides for the poor while robbing from the middle class, because the wealthy are all on their islands laughing hysterically. Until their is no middle class – Venezuela… And that is the ultimate agenda, because only then can the World Order be ushered in.
So when Soros, McCain, Clinton, Romney, Wasserman, Ryan, Cantor, Flake and the host of 400 who advocate for and demand that the wealthy pay a higher rate … it is a hypocritical joke, because they have no intention of actually moving assets back to the US, or paying a higher rate when they don’t pay at all. Because $42 Trillion is held in offshore accounts where the point is – to evade/avoid taxes.
Part of the problem is that Economists work from ‘theory’, not fact or emotion, and therefore their argument might have some merit on paper, but the reality doesn’t hold. It is much like most science which purports to build a “fact” based on a plethora of ‘theories’ as the core. No matter how many facts you stack on top of a theory, the end will always be – a theory.
Raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations will have only one effect – more offshore accounts.
There are 31 instances in the Bible where God’s judgment of hypocrites is fiercely decried. Judgment is harsh for these pretenders who live both within and without Christianity.
While the Greek bailout debacle continues to wind and waver, it is an interesting phenomena pitting economic, political, societal and social ideals against one another. The bailout certainly isn’t new, it has been an ongoing grind for five years that has only recently come to a fullblown volcanic eruption reminiscent of the ancient Greek ruins.
Corruption of the system has been ongoing for decades. But the basis is rooted in a ethical and moral demise that has become so pervasive no one really cares. Tax evasion is rampant. Some estimates describe the ‘game’ as a common occurrence – 6 out of 10 Greeks pay no taxes. Not because they don’t have the income but because – they can get away with it. It was and is a country mired in no fiscal policy whatsoever. Spending was backed by borrowing, borrowing was backed by more borrowing. Revenue was not the focus and thus the entire house of cards was easily blown apart.
Despite the government threatening Greek citizens to pay their outstanding taxes, it is a farce. Given returns were not even filed, the estimates of liability are simply that – estimates. And the threat – a published list of your name – is more of a boogeyman threat than a true consequence. Wealthy businessmen, pop stars, doctors, lawyers, politicians, you name it – could care less. A threat that has no consequence, is as worthless as the country. Money was diverted to Swiss bank accounts and their hands were cleansed.
This is the mentality. A Greek bailout would produce nothing of change, only a greater and more radical exodus of sheltered money until the next crisis. The terms of the ‘new and improved’ bailout include greater spending cuts and higher taxes… What incentive do the people really have? Lower wages (spending cuts would trickle) and higher taxes (on people that don’t file)– means less people paying taxes, more evasion and another fallout. A Greek Ruin.
Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, no when to run!
Tsipras inherited a no win situation. He knows it and has rightly deferred to the people, the contingent that he leads. Asking for a referendum makes sense, it leaves the fate to those that created the mess – the people.
Since the early 1990’s the Prime Ministers of Greece have all hailed from elite American and UK schools, predominantly in the fields of law and economics. The schooling includes our own president’s alma mater, Harvard. Presumably well educated in how to valiantly run an economy and democratic political system, they blame the Ottoman Empire for their failures. Not unlike our own president who blames the failures of his administration on rooted economics of previous president’s, perhaps the Greek corruption scandal is truly a lesson we need to pay attention to lest we allow ourselves to blindly follow into the blood of borrowing to pay borrowing debt.
Like a computer, Greece is now far past the potential of a bailout and needs a complete ‘reboot’. They can not change the cards they hold and the game is lost. Germany stands to lose the most in a Greek exit scenario – potentially as high as $84 billion. But nothing is so simple. Previous Greek bailouts have simply done – nothing. To think that rolling the terms to a longer time frame is ludicrous as it only prolongs the inevitable. It is not much different than our current agenda of proposing changes that are slated to be addressed 75 years from now… It is a sloughing off of responsibility – a band-aide at best solution while the cancer metasticizes.
In 2010, Greece received $105 billion in bailout funds. The economy of Greece is estimated to be worth $242 billion. The second bailout rescue in 2012 was valued at $170 billion. In the span of just five years, Greece has gone through $275 billion, more than the value of the entire economy. To think that throwing more money into the melt will have any positive outcome is beyond ludicrous and borders on insanity. If you bought a computer for $1000 and it broke five years later, would you spend $1200 to fix it knowing that in another year you would pay another $500 to fix it again, or would you simply buy a new one for $1200?
Greece – is not trying and needs the opportunity to do so – alone.