A Drip of Truth Leaks Out

Great article. Spending is the problem! This is where the focus of our discussion as conservatives should rest when it comes to fiscal policy. Everything else is a distraction. Tweaking Clinton's famous tagline during his run for the presidency is appropriate here... 'It's the spending stupid! '

Yes, the government has been lying to the people about everything under the sun for generation after generation. And characterizing it as coming from a single party is ludicrous.

So both the FED and Social Security are Ponzi schemes and confidence games.

What do you now propose be done about it? Are you in favor of punishing the victims of these schemes by simply reneging on the promises - however false they may be - to pay back to those who paid into the SS system their whole lives?

If you are you are talking about sending some 80 million people into perdition. You are falling right into agreeing with the trap laid by these lying fiends so long ago.
Yes the citizens of the nation were scammed so not "conservatives" insist the only proper answer is to screw the victims all the way. Brilliant my man.

And in all this talk about cutting spending, I notice no one mentions trimming the military-security-industrial complex down to size. No, there is a global empire to maintain, and that is all that is important to the Power Elite.

Meanwhile it is urged to allow the infrastructure to crumble, cut all the "entitlements" and to hell with the millions stuck in that scam, after the corporatists off-shored all the jobs, while talking this self righteous “free market' balderdash -which is another load of it.

What you are calling a 'Solution', I would call 'Genocide'.

Trillions have been looted, and these trillions remain unaccounted for. And trillions more will disappear.

What is clear is that there is endless money for endless wars, endless CIA budgets, and endless tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations. But nothing for anything else.

Criminal aristocracies have increased their plunder, with Washington spearheading the operations. Governments of the capitalist world---each regime a criminal enterprise---are impoverishing their populaces, subjecting citizens to unprecedented suffering under the Orwellian rubric of “shared sacrifice”. Systematic destruction is taking place from the international down to the local level.
ww

The Ponzi scheme called Social Security cannot continue. I go for simple solutions. None are perfect including mine. There needs to be an age picked where the money and matching monies are put into a 401k type retirement vehicle. A sliding scale of say 18-35 all money goes to 401k type retirement. 36-45 25% of monies goes to 401K, 46-55 50% of monies go to 401k, 56 and above 100%. All could elect to go cold turkey and be 100 % invested in the 401k program.

The historical return on monies put into social security is about 2%. One could buy US bonds and historically speaking easily double that figure. A county in Texas did just that when they elected to not participate in social security. Their retirees have a significantly higher check each month because the money is there. An added benefit is that upon one's death the money in his/her account stays in the family.

The knee jerk response is that the average guy is not sophisticated enough to manage his own money. What I just described is the safest way to have the return of your money, US bonds. I think that way is preferable to allowing the federal government manage my money.

What about the lack of revenue to take care of social security recipients when my program goes into effect? In my perfect world I would close down or cut back many government agencies, bring back troops from Japan, Germany, South Korea and many other places scattered around the globe. The big thing that I would do away with is base line budgeting. For those who are not familiar with how the federal government operates they increase spending 8% each year. With the rule of 72 that will result in a doubling of the budget in 9 years. To do away with it and just spend what you spent last year should be sufficient in my mind. This is how the progressives, liberals, leftists, rinos, insure that big government is here to stay. Rand Paul goes a step further which I like. Besides eliminating the 8% automatic increase he would cut spending 1% each year which would balance the budget in 6-7 years. My way would be faster because of the closing of government programs, the military, etc.

These are not draconian measures, they are what you and I do when we don't have enough money to do what we want to do. With the moochers that vote the moochers into office it will be a struggle to overcome our present mentality but change will come about, either willfully or by a meltdown.

Well Bassboat,

I have no real argument with your plan.

My only comment would be that the US doesn't have the future for such a thing.

I don't think you, or practically anyone besides a small percentage realize that this is a 'take-down', that it is all been a purposefull set-up and all the money's gone nowhere to go.

What will be done about the more than 16 Trillon dollars that has disappeared into the hands of the central banking cabal?
If you actually believe it will be anything by nada, you have your eyes squeezed very tightly shut.
They didn't seize this power simply to hand it back because of some silly ideas about "democracy" or liberty and justice.

One does not petition tyranny.

One does not say "pretty please" to a despotic system. One goes with the program, is eliminated, or fights back.

Social Security is NOT government funded. American workers fund the program and had the federal government kept its sticky fingers off of it there would be ample funds for many years to come. The government has stolen nearly 3 trillion in SS funds over the last 45 years and has no way of paying it back and never intended to. They now term it an “unfunded liability”. What they are telling you is that they (the federal government) owe you (the investors in SS) a boat load of money and they can’t figure out how to make you anti up for what they stole.

Let’s get something straight here for once and for all regardless of what the legally pigally Judicial Branch has decided: WE, the workers of America fund Social Security. YOU, government of America do NOT! You stole our money, we did not steal yours.

The overall intent is to divert the SS taxes to Wall Street. Yes….Wall Street. That bastion of crooks, thieves, liars, cheats, and criminals of all kinds and stripes. But you know you can trust them to handle your money wisely and fairly. After all, look how well they have handled everything else. Those bailout thingy’s?…..let’s just forget about that. By all means, let’s put our retirement money in the shadiest, most crooked, unstable, uncontrollable, criminal infested racket going (if you don’t include District of Criminals)…Wall Street.
ww

SS is a scam but it has been paid into by contributors (who have been funding their parents and grandparents, not themselves) for decades. It should not be summarily ended, and no current contributor should get less than what they paid in.

The solution is to continue funding anyone already over the SS age who is receiving it, pay back all current contributors under the SS age and end the program.

We can pay back current contributors by increasing revenue.

How?

By implementing the FAIR tax and encouraging jobs and manufacturing here in US.

How?

By GETTING RID OF CORPORATE TAXES AND REGULATIONS.

Go back to pure free markets and the revenue will come pouring into to the treasury.

ww... you should be writing for Scragged. I'd be listening. You are right on the money. No pun intended.

Hmmm..?? A doppelganger? Lets see ah Warren Warwick? Wally Waxfield?...
Okay, I give up. But seriously thanks for the thought WW.

"By GETTING RID OF CORPORATE TAXES AND REGULATIONS"~Ifon

Lunacy, the corporations already run the show, they aren't
regulated" anymore than the Federal Reserve is.
They write their own regulations with pre-designed loop-holes, that few fighure out before the damage is done - that being the International Corporations offshoring all their profits, until they can spring another "temporary 'Tax Holiday" - and they fold over all their off shore profits during that window of 1 to 2 percent rates. And then the gaming circle starts again.
This isn't "free market capitalism" this is pure Corporatism - fascism, and those who don't grasp this are fascist dupes.

Remember back during Bush the Dolt’s reign of terror when they “reformed” Medicare? Why….it was going to save us 150 billion a year! And it ended up costing us 750 billion because the whole thing was a gift to pharmaceutical and insurance industry’s along with major boosts to the medical industry.
Obamacare will add 540 billion in administrative, record keeping, data basing over the next ten years, to Medicare.

Is it any wonder why Medicare is going broke?

Within the Obamacare bill there is a ONE-HALF TRILLION DOLLAR cut to Medicare. So, Obama’s contempt for the elderly is inappropriately blamed on Republicans. He (Obama) maintains the GOP wants to cut Medicare… what a hypocrite! He has already cut $500 Billion from it in his Obamacare.

And if this doesn't prove that the nation is being double teamed by a good-cop bad-cop scam, that the whole L/R - Democrok v Repulirat is a hoax of the Hegelian dialectic, then you are a bland man walking with no stick.

So anyone calling Obama and the Democrats "socialists" are diaper loaders, this nation is run by the central banking cabal and the corporations that grew up around it.

they are crashing the system now, only to arise phoenix like as a totally centralized global authority - the infamous New World Order that most of Scragged thinks is some sort of fantasy, regardless of how out of the closet it is. Your eyes are squeezed shut so tight it is a wonder you haven't broken your noses trying to walk out the door.

The stuff I read from many here is truly delusional - the denial is simply awesome...and then I am argued against for pointing out how effective Public Relations are.

So that is what it means to be well adjusted in a psychotic society.
You have to be nuts to fit in, Left or Right nut. Not a pretty picture.
ww

"They write their own regulations with pre-designed loop-holes, that few fighure out before the damage is done - that being the International Corporations offshoring all their profits"

Willy once again has contradicted himself, this time within the same paragraph.

He claims that corporations write their own regulations. Okay, hmmm... Then why exactly would they need to offshore their profits?

It takes a TON of time and effort to set up foreign companies and funnel revenue through them so that you can "book earnings" in the right tax jurisdiction. Wired magazine recently had an article about Google, Cisco and Microsoft doing this through Europe and the Caribbean and the billions they saved doing it. It required **years** of setup and a team of dozens of focused accountants just working on this problem. You have to actually establish legitimate trade there - real buildings, employees and such.

Even if you only have a simple accounting office, you still have to keep tracking of millions of line items so that you can "repatriate" those earnings later once the US tax rates go down or the foreign tax rate goes up. You have to keep track of where each earning has paid taxes and which it hasn't. US tax law allows corporations to avoid paying federal taxes to multiple counties on the same earnings.

Why would the big corporations go to this much trouble - as well as outsourcing labor and distribution - if they could simple "write their own regulations" here in the US?

Why not just write their own tax rates at 1 or 2% to being with? Why not give themselves tax credits for all the Employer Contributions to FICA they have to make. That's 7.5% of their entire payroll.

It's a clear contradiction of logic.

ww: I agree with you that corporations are "running the show". Thing is, though, this is _because_ of the massive forest of regulations, not because of a lack of regulation.

We don't have a free market capitalist system, and we haven't had one for half a century at the least. Instead, we have a heavily regulated system, wherein the regulators and legislators are captured by the big business and made to serve the corporate interests.

Loopholes, high taxes, lots of bureaucratic red tape -- big businesses love these because it provides a barrier to entry keeping the productive small businesses out of the market. Government regulation makes this all possible.

There are government regulators charged with protecting investors, with the duty to investigate fraud. They have all the tools and laws they need, but they've just sat on their hands over the past couple of decades as corporations looted the citizens of the US. Again, the problem is not lack of regulation -- the problem happened because of regulation, because of complacency and because of the corruption of the regulators.

The only solution is to remove most of the government regulation, not to add more of it. We need some regulation, sure, but not the thousands of pages of omnibus bills that the CONgress passes nowadays. Those bills contain innumerable loopholes waiting to be exploited, combined with metric tons of productivity choking red tape.

Glass Stegall was 10 pages. We need a few good and simple laws like that, and actual enforcement of them. We need an actual free market system, not the government/corporate duopoly we've had for decades if not a century.

Hank makes some great points, but I have to disagree that corporations really truly "run the show". That is far too broad of a statement. Both Japan and Germany are run by their corporations far more than the US.

I think what we've seen in the past 40 years is corporations giving up the fight and embracing the power of lobbying. If you can't beat em, join em.

Microsoft spent millions fighting unfair legal battles against the DoJ for anti-trust. Only a few years later, they're nudging the DoJ to go after Google and Apple for the very same thing, even they know better than most what it's like to be falsely accused.

American corporations aren't going to give up, roll over and die. They're going to do what they can to play the same game and get THEIR guys on the inside.

And that's exactly what the last 40 years of regulations (the "Soft Tyranny" of bureaucracy) has made them do. They don't run the show, but they hold the lighting, do the makeup and build the props for the politicians in DC. If you're scared of Big Business, get rid of DC and you'll fix the problem.

"He claims that corporations write their own regulations. Okay, hmmm... Then why exactly would they need to offshore their profits?"

Because these corprations use every technique available, not yousimpleton exageration of what writing their own legislation means in your interpretation of my words Ifon.

These are global corporations I refer to, they do have global operations wherein it is easier to simply maintain those profits in such accounts than blatantly demanding a one percent tax base for their billions in profits while the middle class is in the 30 percent bracket.

You find it strange that they would remain at least somewhat subtle in such activities.

You find "contradictions" in my words by using your own jejune interpretations of what I am pointing out.

But don't you worry - the time for such subtleties is quickly coming to a close. But for someone with your mind set, you will still not see the blatant corporatist machinations, but will continue with your juvenile apologia.
ww

"Because these corprations use every technique available, not yousimpleton exageration of what writing their own legislation means in your interpretation of my words "

In what way does that make sense?

If they're "writing the regulations" and "running the show", why not simply make their life easier and get rid of the obstacles?

Big corporations have thousands of mouths to feed. They have boards filled with dozens of people just to decide the rules for hundreds of other people to enforce.

Big corporations aren't run by one old man, with a long white beard, from a seat on high.

Corporations have incentive to build streamlined efficient processes, not complicated labyrinths.

Can you think of one major corporation that supported Sarbanes-Oxley? Of course, not. Why not? After all, it makes it harder for small businesses from doing IPOs, thus limiting their growth potential. Yet Big Business overwhelming hated Sarbanes-Oxley.

There is no conspiracy. Just human nature.

"In what way does that make sense?"~Ifon

Rather than say something new, I will repeat exactly what I said before, if you can't get that there is no reason to go through a new set of contortions to get you to see what is clear in the first instance:

**These are global corporations I refer to, they do have global operations wherein it is easier to simply maintain those profits in such accounts than blatantly demanding a one percent tax base for their billions in profits while the middle class is in the 30 percent bracket.

[But]>>>You find it strange that they would remain at least somewhat subtle in such activities.**

Does the use of subtlety in this situation really baffle you Ifon?
I feel at times that I am talking to mr. potato head Ifon.
At this point perception manipulation is still important for the oliarchy. It is only at full fruition that all of these masks will be dropped.
It is rare to come across someone with such a complete lack of imagination as I am encountering here.
ww

"These are global corporations I refer to, they do have global operations wherein it is easier to simply maintain those profits in such accounts than blatantly demanding a one percent tax base for their billions in profits while the middle class is in the 30 percent bracket"

Instead of opining at the sky, let's consider some real world examples.

Google has operations in dozens of countries. By "operations" I'm referring to real offices, employees and infrastructure (data centers, servers, etc).

They sell advertising services to Irish customers just like they do German customers, French customers and American customers. To use your adjective, they are a "global" corporation.

It would make the most sense - the most streamline efficient sense - to simply collect their Irish payments in their Irish bank account and pay taxes to the Irish government, the French payments in their French bank account and pay French taxes from it and so forth and so on. They already have bank accounts, offices and Tax IDs set up in each country. This is the easiest way of booking earnings and making sure each government is happy. Historically, this is how international corporations have always done it

Instead, they've chosen to collect payments from American customers using a Bermudan bank which then pays their Irish subsidiary for "services rendered". They can only get away with justifying Irish revenue so much in this manner, but the scheme is spread out over many different countries.

This type of process is not "easier to simply maintain profits in each account" as you suggested. What you're suggesting is the process I laid out two paragraphs up - payments from each country's customers to that country's bank so the tax man would be happy.

This new type of routing involves dozens of extra bank accounts and an extra meta-layer between the original country of service and the final country of accounting.

In Google's case, they do everything electronically so they have somewhat of a leg up. In the case of corporations like GE, it gets far more complicated. They have to set up "inventory management" subsidiaries in tax-friendly countries that buy inventory and book earnings on behalf of sibling subsidiaries in tax-heavy countries.

Why all the labyrinth building? Because they're trying to get around the very regulations you claim they "write".

If I'm wrong, why did Big Business wholly oppose Sarbanes-Oxley? If they wanted to use regulations to keep small and medium businesses from growing into their space, they should have welcomed Sarbanes-Oxley.

Guys... I am following the discussion and enjoying it. ww... while I agreed with many of your earlier stated positions, you are now at a point where you have to defend them with concrete examples. Your last response gave us nothing new except the name calling. lfon continued the discourse with clear illustrations to make his point. I should hope that nothing less comes from you.

"This type of process is not "easier to simply maintain profits in each account" as you suggested. What you're suggesting is the process I laid out two paragraphs up - payments from each country's customers to that country's bank so the tax man would be happy.
This new type of routing involves dozens of extra bank accounts and an extra meta-layer between the original country of service and the final country of accounting."~Ifon

But Ifon, I was not talking about ease nor convenience. My points were to appearances and subtlety. If you will go over my arguments again you will realise this. I know it is pointed out for me not to be too cruel in my responses - but I must point out that as you have addressed an argument to some other point that you took me to mean, your response is nevertheless a 'strawman argument'.

That is true. You have never asserted than any of this would be the easy option for the corporation, only that it would maintain a certain appearance.

However, if subtlety is their goal, they have failed. Not a week goes by where the mainstream media isn't exposing the revenue tricks of Big Business. They can't hide it because their SEC filings make it clear.

Thank you Ed Burg, I appreciate your pointing this out to me.
I admit I grow very frustrated with Ifon. It becomes a constant bickering. And I don't think it unfair to point out that he is constantly not grasping what I am actually saying and arguing essentially with himself.

As far as concrete examples, I am going to have to refer to notes in docs in my files. But until at least the time that we are straight on what the actual dispute is, it seems like it is not worth that effort.

ww

"However, if subtlety is their goal, they have failed. Not a week goes by where the mainstream media isn't exposing the revenue tricks of Big Business. They can't hide it because their SEC filings make it clear."~Ifon

Yes this is absolutely true, and I commend you on paying attention to such shenanegans. But this is where distraction and PR come into play.
We can only hope for large percentages of the viewing audience to notice, care, or grasp what these various revelations mean and stack up to in their aggregate. And it has been my contention all along here that that media that does speak to these things presents them piecemeal, and makes it a point for the most part to bury the larger conext that such items fit into, and what that actually reveals.

This is the Public Relations Regime, and the social engineering that I am constantly referring to. It does have a purpose and an agenda, and that is the ground floor of my arguments here.

"that he is constantly not grasping what I am actually saying and arguing essentially with himself"

Much of the time, I am attempting to think about the situation at a high level. The more data you consider, the less important the individual bits of data tend to be.

For instance, in the other thread on taser deaths, the point can't be made that police are militarizing at a much higher rate unless you first accept the fact that 156 taser deaths over five years is a bad thing. To do so, you have to disregard lots of information.

Petrarch made that point very well in the recent article about Police States. One can look at any particular problem - TSA for example - and scream police state, or one can back up and see that in the long view of history, we are far from a police state. (Though making fast troubling steps in that direction.)

I fear that conservatives and libertarians are burning themselves out with too much immediate anger and not enough long-term planning. The fight is going to take a _long_ time. We have to stay the course and convert from within.

Conservatives need to start crowdsourcing their solutions. If Scragged built a site boycotting TSA for a month, how many people would join?

Excuse my brevity here, I know that Ifon and I are discussing things on two seperate threads on Scragged - and I have conversations going on another two on different sites as well. I never joined the circus as I never had the notion to become a juggler...but alas...
ww

"One can look at any particular problem - TSA for example - and scream police state, or one can back up and see that in the long view of history, we are far from a police state. (Though making fast troubling steps in that direction.)"~Ifon

I disagree that the "in the long view of history, we are far from a police state," it is in fact my long view of that history that convinces me that it is presently a police state.

How long has the Constitution been defunct? And how long that has been means that the nation went from republic to oligarchy. At that point the nation is being RULED. When a nation is ruled rather than constitutionally governed it is a police state no matter how subtle, and no matter well disguised.

That this is all hidden by PR, perception manipulation and spin, doesnot amend the fact of draconian rule, it only makes such 'bearable' to the population suffering under it.

This is not government, this is predation, and this has been a fact for at least a hundred years. Just because you have been conditioned to bear it, does not change any of these historical facts.

One might recall the 'experience' of those who lived in Huxley's Brave New World. There was no brutal 'police state' ruling these people. They were too entirly subdued for anything of that nature. And yet at its core meaning, it was 'policed' by the system, one of drugging, constant supervision, and control of paradigm.

This paradigm exists to a great extent in the US and western world today.
But it is still incomplete. To reach the total subjugation invisioned in the novel will take the greatest of pogroms, to sort out those who will and will not obey. To eliminate those that will not, and to nurture those who will.

As hard as it is for some to imagine it, the people of this planet are on that very brink today.

And again, to confuse the context of my use of the word 'brink' in this instance to claim I am saying we are on the 'brink' of a police state is to mix together aspects that I have been careful to delineate. so let us not muddy the waters by going through that again.
ww

Something for Ed Burg,

For those who don’t know about it, tax repatriation is one of the all-time long cons and also one of the most supremely evil achievements of the Washington lobbying community, which has perhaps told more shameless lies about this one topic than about any other in modern history – which is saying a lot, considering the many absurd things that are said and done by lobbyists in our nation’s capital.

Here’s how it works: the tax laws say that companies can avoid paying taxes as long as they keep their profits overseas. Whenever that money comes back to the U.S., the companies have to pay taxes on it.

Think of it as a gigantic global IRA. Companies that put their profits in the offshore IRA can leave them there indefinitely with no tax consequence. Then, when they cash out, they pay the tax.

Only there’s a catch. In 2004, the corporate lobby got together and major employers like Cisco and Apple and GE begged congress to give them a “one-time” tax holiday, arguing that they would use the savings to create jobs. Congress, shamefully, relented, and a tax holiday was declared. Now companies paid about 5 percent in taxes, instead of 35-40 percent.

Money streamed back into America. But the companies did not use the savings to create jobs. Instead, they mostly just turned it into executive bonuses and ate the extra cash.

It was bad enough when lobbyists managed to pull this trick off once, in 2004. But in one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington, companies immediately started to systematically “offshore” their profits right after the 2004 holiday with the expectation that somewhere down the road, and probably sooner rather than later, they would get another holiday.

Companies used dozens of fiendish methods to keep profits overseas, including such scams as “transfer pricing,” a technique in which profits are shifted to overseas subsidiaries. A typical example might involve a pharmaceutical company that licenses the rights or the patent to one of its more successful drugs to a foreign affiliate, which in turn manufactures the product and sells it back to the U.S. branch, thereby shifting the profits overseas.

Companies have been doing this for years, to incredible effect. Bloomberg’s Jesse Drucker estimated that Google all by itself has saved $3.1 billion in taxes in the past three years by shifting its profits overseas. Add that to the already rampant system of loopholes and what you have is a completely broken corporate tax system.

If Scragged built a site boycotting TSA for a month, how many people would join?

Ifon, I believe 90 out 0f 100 that fly would join, especially when the stories are told over and over about the abuses. This is a grass roots that could work.

Your comments regarding repatriation don't provoke me to 'get angry' at corporations for off-shoring money to protect their profits. On the contrary, the numbers you share regarding their 'evil' pale in comparison to the truly criminal activity ongoing by our federal government.

A corporation's desire to keep their money out of the US is not evil, and it is certainly not a con. If anything, it's a form of creative preservation akin to what we see with individuals when they file their taxes at year end.

Do you personally avoid deductions in order to offer more income to the federal government when you file your taxes each year? Why would you fault corporations for doing the same... preserving their income?