AlterNet: Elizabeth Warren Confronts the Atrocity of Drug Money Laundering by Big BanksYes, America has been waiting for a politician like Ms. Warren for a long time. Let's just hope she gets some support and keeps on the attack!
Heavens to Betsy. Sen. Elizabeth Warren leapt from the gate of her first term pummeling Ben Bernanke on too-big-to-fail financial institutions. Then she demanded to know why American banks were never brought to trial. Finally, last Thursday, looking for all the world like a school principal called to sort out teenage hooligans, she queried regulators as to why HSBC bankers who launder money for drug lords and terrorists should go free. Quoth the senator:
"If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're going to jail. If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night.”your own bed at night.”
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Truthdig: If Corporations Don’t Pay Taxes, Why Should You?
Robert Scheer makes a good point in this piece. Corporations get all the benefits without having to pay for them, hum, Who are the Real Takers???!!
Go offshore young man and avoid paying taxes. Plunder at will in those foreign lands, and if you get in trouble, Uncle Sam will come rushing to your assistance, diplomatically, financially and militarily, even if you have managed to avoid paying for those government services. Just pretend you’re a multinational corporation.
That’s the honest instruction for business success provided by 60 of the largest U.S. corporations that, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis, “parked a total of $166 billion offshore last year” shielding more than 40 percent of their profits from U.S. taxes. They all do it, including Microsoft, GE and pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories. Many, like GE, are so good at it that they have avoided taxes altogether in some recent years.
But they all still expect Uncle Sam to come to their aid with military firepower in case the natives abroad get restless and nationalize their company’s assets. We still have a blockade against Cuba because Fidel Castro more than a half century ago dared seize an American-owned telephone company. During that same period, we have consistently intervened to maintain the lock of U.S. corporations on the world’s resources, continuing to the present task of making Iraq and Libya safe for our oil companies. Read More
Raw Story: Armory: Little league’s AR-15 raffle ‘going gangbusters’
This is just plain insensitive and idiotic - ok you can have your guns but really is their a need for something like this??
An Illinois armory that has partnered with a local little league to raffle off an AR-15 military-style assault rifle says that tickets are selling like “gangbusters.”
Atwood Armory co-owner Charidy Butcher told The Raw Story that her phone had been “ringing nonstop” since the raffle for Atwood-Hammond Little League began on Tuesday.
“We have teamed up with the Atwood-Hammond Little League to raffle off a Rock River Arms Tactical Operator AR-15,” she explained. “It just kicked off today. It has been going gangbusters, my phone has been ringing nonstop since 4:30 this morning.”
“It’s just been crazy. The amount of interest so far has just been astronomical,” Butcher added. “It’s for a good cause for the kids and we’re just trying to raise as much money as we can. Their fundraiser last year only raised $10.” Read More
Raw Story: How Americans were swindled by the hidden cost of the Iraq warI was against the war when it started because I didn't think it was necessary and that because Iraq was so splintered it was just going to make things worse, which it did! The real losers in the whole mess have been the Iraqi people, who were supposed to see us as great saviors and all we've given them is a big mess! Coming in a close second are the American people who are payng for the cost of the war now, through the Republicans railing against the deficits that they created!!! Let's just remember the nation's had a surplus went "Shrub" and Halliburton took over!
George Bush sold the war as quick and cheap; it was long and costly. Even now, the US is paying billions to private contractors
When the US invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration estimated that it would cost $50-60bn to overthrow Saddam Hussein and establish a functioning government. This estimate was catastrophically wrong: the war in Iraq has cost $823.2bn between 2003 and 2011. Some estimates suggesting that it may eventually cost as much as $3.7tn when factoring in the long-term costs of caring for the wounded and the families of those killed.
The most striking fact about the cost of the war in Iraq has been the extent to which it has been kept “off the books” of the government’s ledgers and hidden from the American people. This was done by design. A fundamental assumption of the Bush administration’s approach to the war was that it was only politically sustainable if it was portrayed as near-costless to the American public and to key constituencies in Washington. The dirty little secret of the Iraq war – one that both Bush and the war hawks in the Democratic party knew, but would never admit – was that the American people would only support a war to get rid of Saddam Hussein if they could be assured that they would pay almost nothing for it. Read More
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