US Plutocrats: Delaware, Not Panama

I long said that the USA was the world’s number one tax haven, followed by Great Britain. And this is exactly why these two countries are the seat of global plutocracy. (London boasts that it is the world’s number one financial place, ahead of New York.) The New York Times in “Need to Hide Some Income? You Don’t Have to Go to Panama”, April 8, 2016:

“For wealthy Americans looking to veil their assets and shield some of their income from taxation, there is no need to go to Panama or any other offshore tax haven. It’s easy to establish a shell corporation right here at home.

“In Wyoming, Nevada and Delaware, it’s possible to create these shell corporations with virtually no questions asked,” said Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit research organization in Washington.

In some places, it can be more difficult to get a fishing license than to register a shell company. And it doesn’t cost much more.”

Delaware Is The World’s Pluto Center. 285,000 Companies Are Registered In That Delaware Building Alone.

Delaware allows companies to shift the seat of their business and their profits to Delaware, where, conveniently, there is no tax.

Speaking of the Panama Papers, “This is just one firm [Panamanian Mossack Fonseca law firm] in one place,” said Gabriel Zucman, an economist and the author of “The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens,” “So it cannot be representative of what’s happening as a whole in the world.”

“But Mr. Zucman, who estimates that about 8 percent of the world’s financial wealth — more than $7.6 trillion — is hidden in offshore accounts, said another reason was that it is so simple to create anonymous shell companies within the United States.

Wealthy individuals and businesses that want to mask their ownership can conveniently do so in the United States, and then stash those assets abroad.

Yet while the United States demands that financial institutions in other countries share information about Americans with accounts overseas, its reciprocation efforts fall short, critics say.

“You see a ton of wealth in tax havens in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands that is owned by shell companies that are incorporated in Panama or in Delaware,” he said. “The bulk of this wealth does not seem to be duly declared on tax returns.”

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in “Delaware: An Onshore Tax Haven” observed that the state’s obscurity, combining with a loophole in its tax code “makes it a magnet for people looking to create anonymous shell companies, which individuals and corporations can use to evade an inestimable amount in federal and foreign taxes.”

***

Not to think the New York Times is going against the branch on which it sits, plutocracy. The preceding extracts were hidden away from the electronic front page. What we found on the front page was Krugman going all-out against Bernie Sanders in Sanders Over The Edge.

A good way to say bad things is to sound reasonable’ Krugman excels at that:

“…most liberal policy wonks were skeptical about Bernie Sanders. On many major issues — including the signature issues of his campaign, especially financial reform — he seemed to go for easy slogans over hard thinking. And his political theory of change, his waving away of limits, seemed utterly unrealistic.

Some Sanders supporters responded angrily when these concerns were raised, immediately accusing anyone expressing doubts about their hero of being corrupt if not actually criminal. But intolerance and cultishness from some of a candidate’s supporters are one thing; what about the candidate himself?

Unfortunately, in the past few days the answer has become all too clear: Mr. Sanders is starting to sound like his worst followers. Bernie is becoming a Bernie Bro.

Let me illustrate the point about issues by talking about bank reform.

The easy slogan here is “Break up the big banks.” It’s obvious why this slogan is appealing from a political point of view: Wall Street supplies an excellent cast of villains. But were big banks really at the heart of the financial crisis, and would breaking them up protect us from future crises?”

Actually Krugman is a specialist of trade, not banks. Bank specialists like Simon Johnson, have called for the break-up of the 21 biggest banks (which are recognized as special by the present US government).

Krugman detests Sanders saying Hillary has no clothes:

“It’s one thing for the Sanders campaign to point to Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street connections, which are real, although the question should be whether they have distorted her positions… But recent attacks on Mrs. Clinton as a tool of the fossil fuel industry are just plain dishonest, and speak of a campaign that has lost its ethical moorings.

And then there was Wednesday’s rant about how Mrs. Clinton is not “qualified” to be president.

What probably set that off was a recent interview of Mr. Sanders by The Daily News, in which he repeatedly seemed unable to respond when pressed to go beyond his usual slogans. Mrs. Clinton, asked about that interview, was careful in her choice of words, suggesting that “he hadn’t done his homework.”

But Mr. Sanders wasn’t careful at all, declaring that what he considers Mrs. Clinton’s past sins, including her support for trade agreements and her vote to authorize the Iraq war — for which she has apologized — make her totally unfit for office.”

Speaking of exhibiting extremely deep, vicious dishonesty, I sent the following comment, it was censored:

It was obvious, during the ramp-up to the Iraq war that the top leaders of the USA had lost their mental balance. The United Nations did not believe their lies and refused to give them an authorization to attack Iraq. Bush attacked, without a UN Security Council authorization, because he was supported by New York Senator Clinton. The invasion of Iraq by the US caused millions of people to die or being wounded. It brought the Islamist State.

Those who engineered this debacle should have been prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Suggesting they are decent, because they apologize, is to deny civilization has merit. Proposing to be led by them again is proposing to learn nothing from the past.

Specialists of banks long suggested to break big banks and big shadow banks (Simon Johnson, 2009). This is not a revolutionary proposition. Teddy Roosevelt broke big oil. When President Franklin Roosevelt came to power, he closed all the banks. That was much more revolutionary.

Global trade treaties enabled giant corporations to extend their monopolies to the entire world. This way, they escape local legislation. An example is the “Double Irish” Apple Inc. and many other corporations use. The CEO of Apple admitted that two-third of the profits of Apple were not taxed.

End of my comment. Krugman never mentions subjects such as the preceding with the angle I use. In his world, big banks, big trade, big bucks, etc. are absolute big goods.

Hillary is his “sis”, with a bit of luck, she will be grateful, and make him big something, some more. Heathens such as me, with their strident Clintonophobia, have no doubt “not done our homework” because, like Sanders, we are just reprobate school children of no intellectual merit.

Try not paying taxes, as big fishes do, if you are a little guy. You will be sent to jail, anywhere in the West. Plutocracy central? You bet!

Another, completely innocuous comment of mine to Krugman later in the day was also censored. Krugman’s post was entitled “Why Cruz is worse than Trump“. Exactly what I have been saying for five months. I guess the dear professor noble Nobel whatever, is not too keen to expose where he gets (some of) his inspiration from. These are sad, nervous days, for those who love plutocracy, the old fashion way.

Nine 5 Star Hotels In Bariloche, Argentina, & Golf Courses To Receive Obama & His Secret Service, In Style, Next Year

In “USA Financial Extortion“, the essay linked to at the beginning of this essay, I pointed out the connivance between New York “Justice” and financial “Vulture Funds”. Meanwhile, the son and scion of one of the richest persons in Argentina was duly elected president, and Obama rushed to celebrate him, after 15 years of cruel, demented, anti-Krugman, anti-financial plutocracy rule in Argentina. That new Argentinian plutocrat and president is called Macri. He is a dancer. It turns out he was the name on shell companies in several places of the Anglo-Saxon plutocratic empire (such as the Bahamas). That was just revealed in the Panama Papers. Never mind.

Macri, as president, reduced the arrogant financial demands of the lower classes in Argentina: he needs all the money in the world, to pay his Vulture Fund friends in New York, whom Obama serves so well. So brand new president Macri threw more than one million people in poverty, by gutting their allowances: more than 2.5% of the total population of Argentina. Such is the way of the admirers of Reagan: make the rich richer, and the economy will reward you (thus, when Obama came to power, he saw the economy and its big banks were sick: so he gave all the money in the world to the big banks, and reduced the tax rates of the hyper rich by 20%, and now you can see the economy is right).

In any case, throwing more than a million to the poor house is glorious: not bad in a few weeks of assuredly very presidential work. Maybe Macri’s dad can propose newly retired super star noble Nobel Obama some 5 star stay in Bariloche, next year? Just an idea. What are friends for, among the world’s rulers, if not grateful?

Patrice Ayme’

Tags: Delaware, Krugman, Macri, Panama, plutocracy, Sanders, Shell Companies, Tax Avoidance