Are You Really Ready for the World to be Ruled by Bankers?
Believe it or not, Citigroup announced on Friday that it would move its headquarters from New York to the actual U.S. Capitol Building, in Washington, D.C., in early 2015. Yes! Your read this correctly. Citi outbid JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to lease thirty thousand square feet of prime real estate on the floor of the House of Representatives.
This is just jumping off the cliff. Not only did these people grease enough palms to repeal Dodd Frank, they are now leasing space right in the Capital Building and managed to increase the donation limitation from $32,400 to $324,000.
Well as they say – there goes the neighborhood. The real problem we face is when you take polls on the job performance on Capitol Hill, we will have to ask which group? Looks like the clouds are starting to gather for 2015.75 in a very dramatic way. Maybe it is just time to leave. Oh ya. This is fulfilling the lyrics of the Eagle’s songHotel California – where you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Roman Coins for Christmas
Yes Stocking Stuffers to Hand Out To Wake-Up Your Friends
We will ship these out this week. There is now less than 400 left. After the Holidays they will be sold by Amazon. For now, we rushed this out to try to make available for clients who wanted to hand out gifts to friends to wake them up before BIG BANG.
Plus $4 Shipping & Handling
The Three Bombshells Tucked Inside The Continuing Resolution to Fund the Gov’t
The continuing resolution to fund the gov’t $1.1 trillion, the sum of the entire national debt under President Reagan in 1980, narrowly passed the House late Thursday by a 219-206 vote, with support from 57 Democrats. This was after a much turmoil amid fierce lobbying from the White House and Congressional leaders. That’s right. Obama supported the repeal of Dodd Frank. Why, lift the rug and you will see. Donations to political parties was raised from $32,400 to $324,000. They think some of us are stupid and do not pay attention to where the hide the decimal points.
There were some Democrats who refused to follow Obama. The House extended the time the Senate has to vote by two days, and this actually opened the door for some changes they might make. But Obama is on board with the Republicans on this, After all, the bankers were the biggest contributor to him as well and so there is no objection from Obama to the bill’s inclusion of a rollback of financial reforms. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, famed as a thorn in Wall Street’s side, branded those changes a “bailout” for big banks at taxpayers’ expense. She is correct on this one. Nevertheless, Harry Reid supported the bill and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said on the House floor it was “better to pass it than to defeat it.” Yet House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi opposed the inclusion of the banking changes calling it a loosening of financial regulations that amount to “a ransom and a blackmail”.
This is the way politics functions. If you want to get something passed corruptly, stuff it inside a bill they have to pass. This is totally unethical and such practices are most likely unconstitutional. But Congress created these rules to allow for such provisions to be included that would never stand on their own. This is how democracy died in the USA.
White House officials – including Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama – worked the phones to push passage of the bill along with Jamie Diamond of J.P.Morgan.. The White House chief of staff Denis McDonough went to Capitol Hill late Thursday to personally lobby Democrats to support the measure in a closed-door meeting.
They needed Democratic votes in order to offset defections on the Republican side from conservative Tea Party. This lays the seeds for a split and this rollback of Dodd Frank may be the key to dividing the Republican Party. As for the Senate, in the coming days in order to avert a shutdown, they have to vote fast. That could be procedurally accomplished only if no member objects to its passage. If even a single senator holds up the process, it could drag on for several days, yet it is ultimately expected to pass.
The third bombshell has gotten almost no press. Hidden inside you will also find a haircut for pensions. This provision would allow the promised pension benefits of up to 1.5 million workers and retirees to be cut. It would affect the pooled pension plans — called multiemployer plans — of mostly union workers across a bunch of companies, where it looks like the plans won’t be able to cover full benefits in coming decades. That’s right. I have been warning there will be no hyperinflation – try deflation. These people will default rather than print. We are headed toward BIG BANK on such a grand scale, it might be time to start looking for some island to hide and wait until the warm orange glow of the financial mushroom cloud to subside.
Here are the key points:
- Funding until September 2015 for 11 of 12 federal agencies. The Department of Homeland Security is only funded until early next year, setting up another spending fight over immigration in just a few weeks
- No new funding for the Affordable Care Act, but funding for the health care law is also not cut
- $5.4 million to fight Ebola abroad and prepare for potential outbreaks at home
- Changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank banking reform bill concerning derivatives trading – lobbied for heavily by the banking industry
- Language prohibiting the District of Columbia from legalizing marijuana, which city residents greenlighted in a November ballot initiative by a wide margin
- Language raising donation limits to the Democratic National Committee or the Republican National Committee from $32,400 per donor to $324,000
- About $8 billion in funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, a substantial cut from last year’s funding that will likely force a hefty reduction in staffing
- $5 billion to fight the Islamic militant group known as ISIS
- A ban on the transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to the United States
- Funding to aid the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Service and local school districts in immigration-related programs
- A cut of almost $350 million to the budget of the IRS
- Cuts to multi-employer pension plans
- Language allowing school districts more flexibility in instituting the nutrition standards championed by Michelle Obama
FATCA Going Worldwide
At G20 last year, all governments agreed to report everyone everywhere to their host countries for tax purposes. The hunt for taxes is destroying the world economy at a staggering rapid pace and this is far worse than even I had anticipated when we first forecast BIG BANG would hit 2015.75 back in 1985. Here is a email a non-US citizen received from his trust company in Malta.
“The reporting charges have arisen due to the implementation of new U.S legislation known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (“FATCA”) which has been introduced as part of a global initiative to create an International tax reporting regime. Together with the majority of the World’s major trading nations, the Maltese Government has entered into an agreement with the US Authorities to implement FATCA legislation in Malta. The legislation has required all Trust Companies in Malta to evaluate all structures operated on behalf of clients and categorise them according to detailed rules set out in the FATCA legislation.This categorisation process is not just limited to structures operated on behalf of US clients, or clients holding US assets but has to include all clients and structures irrespective of where clients and their structures are domiciled. We can advise you that <Name> has taken extensive legal and tax advice regarding the categorisation of clients and which information should be reported according to various trigger reporting events since our accounting and client management systems have to be tailored to supply relevant information on a per client and <Name> entity basis to the Malta Authorities who then report directly to the IRS.
Consistent with many other Trust Companies a decision has been taken to pass on some of the costs of this work to client structures for whom we act.Accordingly a December invoice will be issued for a one off fee of £250 that will be described in the invoice as a FATCA classification fee.“