2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHas it been mentioned that Romney gave the McCain campaign 23 years...
worth of tax returns when he was vetted for Veep? Now he's letting us see 2010 and '11.
So then, the question might be-- what happened in the years 2008 and 2009 that scare him so much?
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,976 posts)And some people say Mittens' tax returns are what scared McCain away and caused him to choose Palin instead. Yesterday McCain insisted that wasn't the reason; it was just that Palin was the better candidate.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)hadn't noticed it here in all the noise.
Granted, Mittens had some expectation of privacy with the campaign and McCain isn't going to say the taxes were a problem so we'll never know what really happened, but it's just not making any kind of sense.
annabanana
(52,791 posts)Good question!
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)If it's really just about 2008-2009 his release in Massachusetts should show greater transparency.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)It doesn't seem to be that big of a deal in Massachusetts-- the main issue wasn't what he made or paid, but resedence.
Life Long Dem
(8,582 posts)Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)Just posted this in GD, but don't see it here.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/18/opinion/kleinbard-canellos-romney-tax/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
They are laying out their top 5 red flags:
1. Swiss accounts and amnesty
2. The "magic oak" IRA
3. How the trusts were funded (see #2)
4. The shell game complexity of entities noted
5. Effective tax rate
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)most of it I've heard on various NPR programs, but this gets at the essentials.
Now, for some answers...
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)In a wonky way. Apparently Bain allowed 2 tier stock offerings, so that people could buy pink sheets on companies they were targeting and hold them through merger and/or IPO. The kicker is that they allowed this within the IRAs.
Too dry for mainstream I guess - this was released at the end of March.
No hint of insider trading going on there.
http://live.wsj.com/video/bain-capital-unique-employee-ira-plan/4517D71E-5BE5-4082-A63E-2D8194809BA4.html
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)this is not at all unusual and goes on everywhere there are large fortunes being made larger. When the people screaming about the 1% finds out what they really do, heads will explode.
Not that I'm a fan of money being used non-productively just to make more money, but a part of me does admire the inventiveness of some of the schemes. And, when there are fewer productive ways to invest, the money will find a way to do something. It's like money has the same urge to reproduce that life forms have.
One wonders if some of these schemers had studied physics instead of finance...
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)I don't want the man to release a thing. Not so much as a post it note. Even wrote him a 'letter' yesterday encouraging him to hold his ground on this.
Because people like 'wealth' but they don't want to watch that wealth sausage being made. I don't for a minute believe that anything was illegal - he has teams of people on retainer to make sure he is dancing on the edge of that knife. Well, other than his lying when its convenient - as there is that whole federal disclosure felonious lying thing (and didn't they take down Capone with Mail Fraud?)
Nah, I am thoroughly enjoying this because the question hanging in mid-air like this opens all kinds of doors to speculations and scenraios that has people going "What? Thats legal!?" that would never happen in a post-record-dump analysis.
Williard should have stood up on Day 1 back in 2008 (or 2002, or 1994) and owned it.
He should have said, I own an LBO firm. This is what we do, and we do it in order to make money for our shareholders. If labor is more efficient in other countries, then we move the labor to other countries. This is the free market, unbridled Capitalism at its finest and I am an example of it working as designed. Regulations curb my ability to maximize profits, and therefore I am against them. The IRS lays out what taxes we have to pay, and we abide by that, but not a dollar more."
(To his credit, he did say the last one)
Instead, he hit the campaign trail as a "self made man" who "picked himself up by his bootstraps" and "created jobs". He rails about "free stuff" while taking larger annual government handouts in his tax havens and loopholes than most families would see in generations of honest work. The last thing he wants is for We The Help to peek behind the curtain.
How in hades he never thought that would come back to haunt him is beyond me. He had to know that even the people who worship his wealth (and those of us who don't begrudge him his worth) would be sickened by how he came into that wealth in the first place.
Like Jon Stewart said last night - no one gives a shit how much money he has. People care about what kind of steward he is being with what has been 'entrusted' to him.
So, party on, Willard.