Paul Ryan: "Let's Make This Country a Tax Shelter" (VIDEO) After calling the Cayman Islands "the place where you hide your money," Ryan said we should make the United States more like that notorious tax haven. —By Nick Baumann and Brett Brownell via MotherJones | Fri Oct. 5, 2012
In 2010, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), now Mitt Romney's running mate, called the Cayman Islands "the place you hide your money," arguing that the United States needs to slash tax rates below those of other countries in order to make this country "a haven for capital formation." But in previously unreported comments, from an interview with American Business Magazine in August 2011, Ryan went even further on the same topic, saying, "let's make this country a tax shelter for other countries instead of having other countries be a tax shelter for America."
Ryan has his own version of the "47 percent": "Takers" vs. "makers."
Romney has been criticized for his use of controversial tax techniques and overseas investment vehicles, including some in the Caymans—where he has at least $30 million in assets—and other well known tax havens. Here's how one expert described tax haven countries to our colleague Stephanie Mencimer:
James Henry, a former chief economist at McKinsey & Co., describes offshore tax havens like the "bar scene in Star Wars." He explains, "Dictators and kleptocrats used them to conceal stolen loot. Arms dealers and drug dealers use them to launder their deals. Google and Apple and Pfizer use them to park their intellectual property and pay themselves tax-free royalties. Banks use them to park lousy loans and stash the offshore accounts and assets under management of their wealthy individual clients, many of which are paying zero taxes back home…And so on."
Here's the transcript of the full Ryan interview; the "tax shelter" line, which was pointed out to Mother Jones by a tipster, begins at 18:22 in the full video, which you can see here. You can also jump down to the full Q&A.
As you can see in the charts below, the United States already raises significantly less money (as a percentage of GDP) from corporate taxes than most other first-world nations, and although corporate tax rates are high here, corporations' effective tax rates—what they actually pay—are lower than those in most other first-world economies.
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Michael Collins in the article below raises the question whether the USA and NATO partners are hoping to use Turkey in a proxy war with Syria in order to give the US and NATO a means by which to legitimize a war with Syria as they did with their proxy war on Iran through Saddam and Iraq in the 1980s . Saddam wanted to end that war shortly after it had begun but his American and Western handlers pushed Saddam into continuing that war for over 8 years.
Turkey Plays Lee Harvey for NATO Plotters by Michael Collins at Opednews.com, October 6, 2012
The Turkish Parliament provided Prime Minister Recep Erdogan with a broad authorization "to make the necessary arrangements for sending the Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries" Hurriyet, October 4, 2012. The vote was on party lines with the dominant AKP party forming a majority. Muharrem Ä°nce of the CHP opposition party said: "This motion has no limits. You can wage a world war with [it]."
The warning about the road to war may be near reality. McClatchy Newspapers just reported the following:
ISTANBUL -- One day after winning blanket authority to send forces into Syria, Turkey's prime minister warned Friday that his country is "not far from war" and said that it would be a "deadly mistake" for the Syrian government to test Turkey's will. McClatchy Newspapers, October 6, 2012
There is little doubt about which foreign country the president plans to invade. The resolution begins with these words: "The negative impact of the ongoing crisis in Syria on our national security, as well as on regional stability and security, is increasingly being seen." Never mind that the negative impact was brought on by Turkey's role as a supplier and conduit for foreign fighters now ravaging the two major cities of Syria.
The parliament also ignored the fact that the Turkish people they allegedly represent are overwhelmingly opposed to any action in Syria. Only 18 percent of the Turks polled support current policy in Syria according to a recent poll. It is fair to assume that fewer still would favor an outright invasion.
Why are war powers necessary?
A Syrian artillery shell landed in the Turkish border city of Akakale. The Turkish government claimed it killed five soldiers. The Syrians promptly apologized. That was a generous move given the fact that Turkey has been funding, training, and transiting foreign fighters into Syria for months in alliance with NATO and the Gulf oil oligarchs.
If any nation had real cause for serious anger, it would be Syria. Under Erdogan's rule, Turkey is an imminent threat to Syria's survival as a sovereign state. Just north of the Syrian border, the Turkish city of Adana is the launching platform for supplies and personnel that have devastated Syria's two major cities, Damascus and Aleppo.
The Libyan model of false flags, false reports, and subsidized rebels wasn't doing the trick with the next victim of the co-opted Arab Spring. Free Syrian Army (read Libyan rebels) looked too much like a terrorist organization to gain much sympathy. Then we heard the inconvenient truth about the presence of al Qaeda fighters and a contingent from the new Libyan state. As a result, the Syrian Transition Council became so toxic that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused an invitation to a meeting several weeks ago. From the very start, Russia and China vetoed UN resolutions that would have legitimized full scale NATO assistance to the rebels and their partners, the foreign fighters.
Despite all of this, the minute an excuse emerged to rattle swords and plan an invasion, NATO was right there with full support for Turkish belligerence. The British and French, along with the U.S. state department chimed in demanding a "firm" response to Syria.
...Epic cynicism
The rhetoric and behavior by those who will say and do anything to get their way represents cynicism on an epic scale.
Until the last two or so years, Erdogan and the AKP Party had a foreign policy doctrine that stressed zero problems with neighbors. Turkey acted as an intermediary between the West and Iran on delicate nuclear power negotiations. It developed a close relationship with Iraq. Most remarkably, Erdogan reached important agreements with Syria's Assad, offered to help in negotiations with Israel on Syria's behalf, and proposed a strong alliance with the Assad regime.
Today, Turkey's policy is insults and attacks on its neighbors. The Turkish foreign minister blamed Iran for the problems in Syria. In a massive show of disrespect to Iraq, the Turkish foreign minister recently visited Kirkuk, the capital of the Kurdish section of that country, without announcing the trip to Iraq's central government. The union with Syria is clearly dead, unless union comes through conquest.
Erdogan has offered up his country as the patsy for the monarchies of the Persian Gulf and NATO. That alliance didn't have the room to drag the Syrian rebels across the finish line due to the blocking action of Russia and China in the United Nations. Turkey is their solution to get the war they want.
The entire effort by other nations to topple the government of Syria is a war crime. Syria represents no danger to the hostile nations, no imminent threat.
To show how lawless international relations are at this point, recall that President George W. Bush needed to create the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). With that fiction established as fact, the Bush administration then had the permission it thought necessary to invade Iraq.
By the new lower standards, the United States and the NATO nations feel no need to offer proof that the nations they want to bump off are an imminent danger. These new world leaders simply create internal disruption and death in the target nations, call it a civil war, and then either get the UN or a patsy like Erdogan to do the dirty work.
The African American writer and activist Alice Walker who wrote The Color Purple recently visited Israel, the occupied territories and Gaza in various writings and interviews expresses her shock and her embarrassment as an American to see the consequences of America's no strings attached unconditional support for Israel while the Palestinians often live in squalor and who's lives become less tolerable each day by the racist draconian Apartheid system in Israel.
Walker says even though she grew up in the South in a poor family and was discriminated against in a hundred ways each day that she believes that the racist/religious Apartheid system in Israel is in some ways far worse.
Alice Walker was interviewed on the program DemocracyNow! which was then picked up and restates in a transcript by David Harris-Gershon at Tikkun.org in which Alice Walker: Palestinian Oppression Is “More Brutal” Than the Jim Crow South ,Sept. 29,2012 when she was being interviewed by Amy Goodmann her words for Israel were harsh yet given the facts right on target as she says says in the interview :
[I]t’s just horrible to see the treatment of the people. I mean, the checkpoints are dreadful. We went through some of them. And the way the Palestinians are treated is so reminiscent of the way black people were treated in the South when I was growing up. And it’s an intolerable situation. And that our country backs this treatment by standing with Israel through thick and thin is just unbearable.
At any given moment, hundreds of Palestinians are held by Israel without trial, with no charges filed against them, and without the ability to defend themselves against non-existent charges. In short, they are simply thrown into prison for a period of up to six months, which can be renewed indefinitely.
Administrative detention exist in other countries, but is considered a unique and exceptional measure, and its implementation usually leads to a vigorous public debate. In the West Bank, it’s routine. Over the years, Israel has held thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for periods ranging from a few months to several years. Eighty of the Palestinians held under administrative arrest – some 26 percent of the detainees – have been held for six months to one year; another 88 people (about 28.5 percent) from one to two years. Sixteen Palestinians have been in administrative detention continuously for two to four and a half years, and one man has been held for over five years...
Palestine Conditions "More Brutal" Than in U.S. South of 50 Years Ago, Says Author Alice Walker
In the last post yesterday Friday Oct. 5, 2012 we saw how the Israeli authorities and extremist settlers in the specific case of Al-Aqa Mosque deny the Palestinians in Israel their equal rights including their right to practice their religion. The incidents this week at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem highlight this disparity and how those in authority and the Media propagandist for Israel twist the facts to create a narrative creating the erroneous appearance that it is the Palestinians and other Muslims who are prone to violence and are irrational and not open to compromise over the Al Aqsa mosque issue.
For years now the Israeli government has restricted Palestinian and other Muslims access to Al Aqsa Mosque based supposedly on security concerns . It in fact is the case that it is Israelis who are connected to the extremist Settlers movement who keep encroaching upon Al Aqsa Mosque sometimes large numbers of Israeli Jews enter the Mosque and create a disturbance insulting the worshipers and insulting Islam and the prophet Muhammad to try to get a violent reaction which they can use against the Palestinians and call in the police and or IDF who then rough up the Muslim worshipers while protecting they claim these Israeli Jewish citizens. Al Aqsa Mosque is an important and revered historical site for all Muslims .
The controversy over Al Aqsa Mosque is just part of Israel's hostility towards all Muslims and Palestinians in particular .
Some Palestinians and Israelis sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians refer to this further encroachment on Islamic holy Sites and the expulsion of Palestinians out of East Jerusalem etc. as the attempt to Judaizing larger and larger parts of Israel and the Occupied Territories to make this areas off limits to non-Jews and to encourage Palestinians and all Arabs inside Israel's expanded borders to eventually get the message that they are not welcome in Israel.
The Israeli extremist believe only Jews should be permitted to live in Israel and all others are to be driven out.
So as Palestinians are excluded from certain areas in the occupied territories and Jerusalem the Israeli Jews do all they can to make life more difficult for Palestinians by various means such as the construction of the Security Fence or wall also known as Israel's Apartheid Wall and once again the authorities claim it is necessary for security reasons but it is just another way to make daily life intolerable for the Palestinians .
The Israeli government imposes other restrictions quite often arbitrarily upon the Palestinian population as in the case of the numerous check points where IDF soldiers humiliate and abuse Palestinians while the Israeli Settlers movement is permitted to take over any piece of land they wish even if owned by Palestinians including farms and olive Groves and entire villages and the settlers have carte blanche for meting out abuse to Palestinians including Palestinian men, women and children including pre-schoolers all in the name of Israeli Jews superiority over Palestinians and all Arabs .
Children as young as 5, 6 and 7 year olds on their way to and from school are harassed , stoned, beaten by adult Jewish settlers and sometimes shot by Settlers or members of the IDF but this unjust intolerable situation is defended by the Israeli and the US government. Killing a six year old for insulting or just defying or throwing rocks at well armed IDF soldiers can lead to the child being beaten,arrested or shot .
This murdering even of children can be done in Israel without the concern of most Israelis because they do not see the Palestinians or others Arabs as equals in terms of humanity ,intelligence and becoming civilized individuals. Many Israelis like many Americans see all Arabs, Palestinians and other groups in the Middle East and North Africa etc. and their religions and cultures like the colonial powers before them as an inferior race to be enslaved or used for the colonialists own agenda and to be driven from their land or ruled over with an iron fist such as occurred historically in the British, French,Dutch,Spanish ,Portuguese and other European Empires .
This strain of racism and bigotry exhibited by these colonial powers and Empire Builders even contaminated the original European settlers in America after 1492 leading to the deaths of some 100 million or more members of the indigenous population and which did not end for the most part in the USA until the late nineteenth century (even if then)when the native people were reduced to a mere remnant who's way of life, their language , their culture, their traditions, their religion were all but wiped out.
It would not be much of a leap to suggest that the American and European and Israeli agenda is quite similar in its belief that all of the indigenous peoples in the Middle East, North Africa or Asia are just stumbling blocks to Western and American expansionism and hegemony over a large swath of the earth. But it does make it easier to rid or subdue a land you want to control of its indigenous people if one can demonize them to create the belief that they are beyond redemption and are barbarians who cannot appreciate the aspects of civilization being offered to them and are therefore less than human and as such not under God's protection.
(To be Continued)
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