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Individuals and their families have squirreled away $21-32T of financial assets in offshore tax...
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Sunday, July 22, 2012, 6:02 AM ETIndividuals and their families have squirreled away $21-32T of financial assets in offshore tax havens, a study conducted for pressure group Tax Justice Network shows. That represents up to $280B in lost global income tax.
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His money is a drop in the bucket.
I will attempt make the issues clear even to one with the meanest intelligence.
For a potential leader of the federal government, offshore bank accounts are completely unacceptable:
1) Anyone with a security clearance above secret would not be clearable. All the agencies with top secret clearances would not allow off shore bank accounts: CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA etc etc.
2) Anyone working on anything nuclear with a DOE Q clearance would not be clearable.
3) Anyone within the federal government who makes source selection or similar decisions (i.e. people who evaluate and award contracts) could not have offshore bank accounts.
A little closer to home:
4) Would biotech investors want the FDA folks who make drug decisions to be allowed to have offshore accounts?
5) Would investors in general want our lame SEC enforcement folks to have offshore accounts?
And yes, Obama is clearable at the top secret level because his drug use is way in the past.
My standards are higher than yours and not having offshore accounts is about leadership. It's ok for Wen Jiabao and Putin to have offshore bank accounts, it's not ok for the President of the United States.
Taxes are an assault on personal private property since the money paid as taxes represent your time, hard work, your very life.
Taxes are also used to reward, manipulate and payback political constituencies to moat in power. They are therefore a form of corruption.
Anyone who supports higher taxes is anti-American.
Once correction though... Wen Jiabao is probably one of the least corrupt leaders in China.
So on one hand we are supposed to worship money and on the other hand we are supposed to worship Jesus.
If you don't want to pay for those things then you're no better than occupy wall street.
Transfer the cash to domestic banks during that period and you will only have to pay 5% tax on all future income.
It would help recapitalize American banks and free up even more capital to loan out to struggling businesses.
It could also help us gain an even further advantage over the Asian and European economies.
The old canard about roads is tiresome, boring claptrap. The Silk Road came about from free trade. If there's a market, roads will find their way to it, not the other way around as some kind of pro-union reacharound, but nice try.
E Pluribus Unum. From many one.
Independence. The desire to be free, left alone. Protection of personal private property rights.
That's about it. Its not difficult.
If we go back to it, we all get wealthier.
If we don't, we all get poorer together.
Constrain the federal government's size, prosper.
Unrestrain it, enjoy your poverty.
You know nothing about the silk road so stop with your ignorant comparisons. The silk roads brought as much in disease and plague than they did actual silk. Not to mention the actual "silk road" for much of the journey was not an exact road but more a general direction. If you want your local roads to be as dangerous as that by all means stop paying taxes.
Police and fire on federal land and military installations are federal entities, the state has nothing to do with either them or local municipal departments.
BTW, it sounds like Tibetans were dumb if it took 75% of all their earnings to pay for a teacher's union. LOL. Dude, that's just ridic and you know it.
And the silk road was suh-cary? Oh noes! So is life. Grow up. There are drive bys everyday where I live, what are we gonna do!!!!
Your 'police and fire on federal land' was a nice diversion, but we know that's not true. These are state issues with state budgets and they are on state payrolls. Any other real bright ideas, kid?
http://bit.ly/Oem4h7
Doesn't sound so insane does it?
That's a lot of Golden Gate Bridges iddn't?
Put down the pom poms and stop jumping up and down for govt.
Time to go to work.
Passing judgement on where Romney puts his money without knowing why is not really an intelligent thing to do.
You don't know anything about life being scary I spent quite a bit of time in areas of the world that really are scary....the fact that you wanna live safe and sound off the grid just proves that you don't know what "scary" parts of the world are like.
Those parts of the world allow for off the grid living. If you have the balls you can move to any of the pretty easily.
A safe and secure most likely "silver spoon" whining about taxes LOL I love it.
You are stating that an off shore account implies malfeasance of some kind, then what is it? Care to cite what part of the US Code or law you are referring to that makes this inappropriate? Or is this simply an agency policy issue? Oh wait thats right, its a policy issue within your agency...so you are completely wrong!
Lets talk something that makes more sense, since the president is not held to the standards of agency policy. If the president were, he would have been disqualified for past drug use as most agencies would disqualify him based on his admittedly enthusiastic participation in hard drug use, cocaine, ect. Marijuana has become more excusable, however hard drugs have not.
An offshore account could by interpretation be considered a conflict of interest since most of these banks are "centralized" government run entities. However you don't know what banks he is involved with, whether they are foreign government run or if its a Citibank in Cayman islands.
Tax shelters are a normal part of a wealthy individuals portfolio. There are no issues with this, and are simply made up by liberal hacks like yourself, who are attempting to paint a mormon bishop as a criminal. It doesn't work.
You don't hold a president to agency policy, which isn't law your jack ass. That agency policy could change with the next director, without presidential approval, your agency is not the law, it follows orders.
Go sit down back at your cubicle and get those STP reports done you data entry specialist.
He's got something to hide, and it's bad enough to take him out of the race.
Otherwise, why doesn't he just provide us with a 12 year history of his earnings, to reflect his great business acumen?
Second, HE IS RETIRED!
His investment income by law is taxed at 15%
The vast majority of our countries existence survived on trade taxes and customs duty. You need to learn history. At least take a 20th century American history class.
Romney: $250M @ 15% = 37,500,000 in taxes
Joe the Plummer: 25,000 @ 15% = 3,750
Lets put it in perspective though, the context is, Romney still has 212M left, and Joe only has 21,250 left. This is why we have a progressive system.
However, for a very long time, it was the states responsibility to provide for its citizens from roads to schools.
Its not so cut and dry.
Do you want your whole country to be fiscally managed like Detroit or California has been "managed"?
That smacks to me of anti-military, a stance I will not accept in any circumstance.
It doesn't bother you at all that 30% of Obama's income comes from overseas assets. Nor does it bother you that his grades were so low in university that he's afraid to release his transcripts and prove that he's an imbecile, which as he can't speak without reading from a teleprompter we already have evidence of.
OK so if the US is going to enter into a Weimar style inflation spiral it is not OK with you to move money into other currencies? We should all be stupid and go down with the ship? Do you think John Kennedy had no money outside of the US or his family?
The movement of capital is for real reasons and there should be a lot of self reflection on why US citizens move money out. Some or even a lot maybe very rationale. On the other side it is worth noting there is a lot of money flowing in right now from Greece, etc.
Being irrational and emotional is not a strategy.
Who gives a crap about MR's returns? Personally I hope he made a killing doing all kinds of things because we need a creative mind like that to get us out of the financial jam we are in now.
Obviously he business acumen is great enough that he is rich so move along. Better than making money off writing self indulgent books and living off peoples' taxes. What value has that added?
Barak offered me the opportunity to look at 20 years worth, but I told him no thanks, I trust you.
Obama is bright enough to figure out that two expensive unfunded wars, a wildly extravagant prescription drug benefit, and massive tax cuts for the rich don't add up. It's a pity Bush couldn't figure that out.
Obama also has noticed that lack of regulation in financial markets gave us a financial crisis that very nearly morphed into a Depression. He rescued us from that plight, against the vehement oppostion of the Republican lunatic fringe, who were so blinded by their own nut case ideology they couldn't think straight.
Romney's sole experience in public office was a Governor of Massachusetts, and his biggest achievement was mandatory health insurance, a program that served as a model for Obamacare. As soon as Obama brought in his reform, Romney tried to forget and hide his role in soving the healthcare problems in Massachusetts.
Romney flip flops on issues, trying to align himself with the lunatic fringe of the Republican party.
Romney himself is a walking, talking advertisement for taxing the rich. Listen to him sing the national anthem, it inspires you to confiscate the $30 trillion of secret assets hidden in all these offshore tax haven accounts.
Inquiring minds want to know, what is in those returns?
Romney is secretive, opaque, evasive. We had a Republican president once, who answered that description, his name was Nixon.
We need transparency in financial markets, not obscurity and obfuscation. Romney is the last person on earth you want as President, with a country that is still trying to shake free of domination by TBTF banks, hedge funds, and private equity.
Romney's experience and expertise lies in screwing the middle class, and redistributing their life savings to those who already have too much.
So you personally know the president and is his advisor? Bababahahaha
It appears you have a little difficulty dealing with humor.
A sense of humor helps.
If we get the answer to that question, we will understand why we don't want him in the Oval Office.
As a further aside, the Revolution was not about religious freedom, that issue was why so many came to the "New World" starting a couple centuries earlier, long before we had a tea party in Boston and a declaration because of taxation without any representation in the House of Commons or Lords.
The God of madav1138's understanding, perhaps.
It's always hazardous to introduce metaphysical conceptions into a political discussion.
Maybe madav's God can answer the question, what is in those returns, that Romney is so eager to conceal them?
Ask anyone in Medellin.
Mafia is only dangerous to other mafioso, if you have the common sense to never get involved in things much bigger than you that shouldnt have your nose involved in, then you can live your entire life and not be the victim of a "hit"......of course this is all said in jest.
Everyone of the detractors who spout about this issue of 15% tax will also take every available tax break offered on their tax returns. So this is hypocrisy in the highest form. If they don't like the tax code then have their congressional representatives change it.
Ch_habs.....wow 14%.....you should be outraged then at the 47% of Americans who pay NO Federal Income Tax - are you?
Have you seen Obama transcripts? Any indication of how he paid for his education? Are you a hypocrite too in the sense of what you are willing to except from one and not the other?
How many people have companies that are "domiciled" in the BVI, or in Cayman Islands, or in other countries? Oops. There is a requirement for them to have an Offshore Bank Account.
Frankly sir, I think you only scratch the surface with your analysis?
Now, someone would be so kind as to provide all of us with an explanation of how an offshore bank account avoids taxes, that would be helpful. Please kindly do so.
Several years ago while visiting New Zealand, I personally looked into opening a bank account at a NZ bank.....oops, because the interest rates they offered on savings accounts and CD were 3 - 4% higher than those being offered in the US. It was also a way to diversify currency holdings.
Just because you cower and ignore what goes on in your own neighborhood doesn't mean its not going to affect you.
I find Mars fascinating, but we don't need to send a man to that planet, our robots are doing a fine job at it.
I hope you are being paid by Obama because you are a good lap dog with all that populist garbage.
Romney has likely saved and created more jobs in America that can actually be proven than Obama by a long shot and did not run up debt he dropped on the American taxpayer to do it. You are spouting political talking points not real business sense which is going to be hard to blow by people who deal with real jobs in a real economy both of which Obama has never seen.
If Romney does not want to share his tax returns personally I don't care. I assume he made massive money and he brutally restructured companies to do it and try to keep them in business. Big risk and big return. And by the way if they companies he invested in were so great they would get a loan from a bank or go to the capital markets to solve their problems. They were sick puppies.
Go ahead and sit in your lazy boy and carp about people you are really jealous about but you are forgetting that we actually need a President that can walk and chew gum at the same time. Someone who can solve a really screwed up country with financial problems and Obama is not that guy.
Most of what you said is so much garbage it is not worth addressing point by point.
Obama has never had any experience as an executive and his pathetic attempt to play US President shows that. Romney has held executive positions in and out of government and been successful at them. Obama didn't even serve out his term in the US Senate and had a short career as a state legislator. Most of his time has been spent as a community aggitator and vacuous academic.
The $30 trillion of secret assets hidden in offshore tax havens is just more of your fanatical, wacked out imagination. Like all fascists the first rule of propaganda is repeat the lie over and over. You'd have made a perfect snitch in the East German Stasi. You've got the paranoia of those around you combined with the need to have your nose in everybody else's business and the willingness to make up lies to further your attempt to smear those that won't play your political games.
If you don't want Wall Street running things then you certainly don't want Obama in office. Most of Wall Street is Democrat, and Wall Street heavily contributes to Democrat campaigns. When Obama took office only two other members of Congress had taken in more in lifetime campaign contributions from Wall Street - Dems Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, and both of them had decades in office. Obama had less than one term in the US Senate.
As one would expect from the money flow Wall Street has a cozy relationship with Obama and they have easy access to the White House back-room dealings. Dimon and Blankfein have visited the White House so often they have their own revolving door.
http://bit.ly/NqYQKd
http://xfin.tv/MiiAva
http://xfin.tv/NqYTpm
Questions for you Armistead: why is Obama protecting Jon Corzine from prosecution? Why is the lamestream liberal media not going after Corzine, one of the more accomplished Democrat crooks that have come out of Wall Street and like most Dems has spent his whole life screwing the middle class?
What does the media think they will find that the IRS did not?
a) Al Gore created the internet.
b) The government created the internet.
c) Private enterprise created the internet.
Hint: if you're a fool choose (a) or (b).
Hear no evil see no evil, so you make it ok by your inaction.
Get your binoculars out of my front window peeping tom.
Better yet get your fanny pack and reflective vest and get out on your neighborhood watch shift.
n pl -cencies, -cences
1. a feeling of satisfaction, esp extreme self-satisfaction; smugness
2. an obsolete word for complaisance
How's it feel to get educated by someone much younger than you.
It's not ignorance when you are aware of a situation and choose not to get involved its called live and let live.
Why are you on here posting super hero? I'm sure there's crime to fight in your community Batman!
Oh just another with high ideals from their comfy couch but low action.
n.
1. A feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger, trouble, or controversy.
It's not ignorance when you are aware of a situation and choose not to get involved ...
You are officially an idiot.
That is exactly what ignorance is.
n
lack of knowledge, information, or education; the state of being ignorant
YOU are officially an idiot x2
But I suppose if I made up my own definition like you did I'd be wrong! Ha enjoy.
It was great Batman but I've actually got work to do can't banter with you all day. I'm sure you've got prostitutes to bust and gangs to break up anyway!
Do you know what grammar is genius?
Your opinion on my character is, yet again, irrelevant.
We all can't be Charles Bronson....even he learned the lesson of being a super hero bringing trouble down on his family, Death Wish 2 I believe.
I was going to chide Cincinnatus for calling you a fascist, but seriously?
So small = ineffective thus I presume you think big = effective?
Can't we have small and effective?
Pervasive legacy centralized governments like the USSR and PRC have shown total collapse. Mega large centralized governments like in Europe are teetering and trying not to collapse. We are right behind them.
So let's go back in history. Centralized large kingdoms like GB and the Roman Empire collapsed as they could not manage the scale and issues of so many people and they were more interested in their togas then whatever was happening in the provinces. And all they wanted from the people is more taxes. Let's go further to Biblical times. The nation of Israel split in two and a lot due to heavy tax burdens on the people.
Government always expands and becomes disconnected from the citizens until collapse unless there is discipline and the ability to take on less. Government naturally destroys its environment for many reasons not the least of which is that they believe everything they do is good and nobody connects all the taxes and government self interest with total destruction.
Get over it birther!
You think you are being smart and witty, but your comments fall flat of logic or reason. TVP below just demonstrated the error in your point of view, even though you will not see it that way and continue to drink your own Kool aid.
Hard to believe isn't it that the real axiom is that piggish government fall? How can it be that be centralized government can fail? Don't alot of people carry the common wisdom that the more government does the better? We are all in this together? Common wisdom is really a reflection more of common greed and government confiscation and the extreme conclusion of it is failure.
Then think about Singapore for a while. Reasonable sized government just clicking along. Government does not have to go to zero but there are burdens and insensitivity that people will just not tolerate and it is historical across countries, nationalities and boundaries.
Germany is unique to itself as they have not carried a military since WWII and they are likely the best engineers in the world as related to cars and other industries. They have been hyper focused on it for many decades and they also seem to have a natural talent or culture that supports their industry and engineering efforts. Or another version is that they built an incredible industry to support their WWII efforts and the remnants of that build the country for the next 60 years plus.
You are right on that not eveyone can have a trade surplus. Call Obama and tell him that because he entertains the idea we can export our way out of financial trouble. He does not understand our relative competetiveness in the world. We have areas where we are very competetive and other areas we have no chance.
they have all kinds of useful information about every country in the world.
It is clear that classic economics.. Where governments are acting rationally does not work when the governments are so far in debt that payments are jeopardized.. The likelihood of tax increases is extreme and business is reacting to the likelihood of government confiscating the value of their labors through the tax mechanism. This just points out the need for focusing on reducing government expenditures.
I have a real hard time telling my son to invest in an education if the government is only going to take the benefits of his work away. The current middle class thinking wants push him down into the middle class after he works so hard to get ahead.
Agree. The argument is then what is government's scope and how much do they take before people opt out. I think we are there now unfortunately.
/thread.
The article started with the word " Rich" why did you decide to leave
that off??
People don't like to have money confiscated from them for being successful.
How about we start to agree to raise taxes on EVERYONE, not just the "rich" which is a silly definition anyways (if you consider >$200K individual "rich", which is what Obama does), and use that money to pay off the national debt, not sit there and give out more government benefits
If you want to talk in the plural using the word 'trillions' then we need to be honest and say that a plurality of trillions has been spent instead on social programs, transfer payments, welfare and the lies of broken promises of guaranteed entitlements. Then, and only then can you use the word 'trillion' in the plural.
As it stands, war spending has remained static as a percentage of overall government spending, yes, even in the last two 'wars'.
You are very simply, uneducated.
"According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth. On top of the $38.6 trillion that this study reveals, they have an estimated $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts."
http://bit.ly/OaaAir
In order for the this SA post to be true, which is contradicted by the Deloitte report, the average person would have to have about 75% of their wealth held offshore. IMHO, the vast majority don't hold that much liquid wealth. It's tied up in closely held business, stock, etc. NOT CASH!
Another quality business run and founded by a mormon. Go figure...starting to see a pattern about mormons here.
So what has changed in the last 4 years?
...nothing...
who are truly undecided...they are white, a women,moderate in viewpoint,
independent in affiliation,under 45 years old,make under 50,000 a year.
and say they are a non tea party member...
I am not supporting the idea of tax havens nor their use in tax avoidance, but I find it deeply disturbing that our government (like many others) mostly chooses to avoid doing anything substantive about them. I would far prefer to see a fair, uniformly enforced tax policy here that was intolerant of avoidance schemes and facilitators, than the unfair crony system we have today.
I would rather my taxes(let's be real here, my money, my time and my life) once taken by force, was doused in lighter fluid and burnt in public in protest. I would have more peace about the confiscation knowing that I wasn't also contributing to a society that is training its citizens to be layabouts in order to buy a vote from them via DC.
We are now officially Food Stamp Nation and we have a very first Food Stamp President. He is proud of this legacy. 99 weeks of UI is also welfare at this point. And SDI is turning into a pit of fraud with the highest ever claims of disability ever in the history of the nation.
All of it because my money is stolen to fund it all.
Burn it.
Teach the people that 'free' isn't free. Either a brave politician does it or the bond market will.
Obama? Who the heck is this guy? His collective past reads like a CIA "legend" - from his sketchy birth, upbringing, lack of managerical experience, lack of legislative accomplishment, drug use, fictional ex-girlfriends, shaky marriage, public sex joke about his wife, strange public remark about his "sons", Executive Orders that prepare for some sort of martial law ......where does this weirdness end?
Disputes about fairness don't make any sense when the laws are not enforced.
In most countries, to include the US, tax evasion (breaking the law) is winked at. "Everybody does it." Regretfully, a person whose income consists of wages on a W2, and whose wealth consists of a house, can't evade taxes. Most of them do what they can by exaggerating charitable donations, or fighting with their ex over who gets to deduct the kid at tax time. There are some kids, the only time anyone wants them, is tax time, for the deduction, or to claim EIC.
For the self-employed, those who own cash businesses, or those with substantial financial assets, there is usually some combination of ingenuity, studied carelessness, tax shelters, concealed assets, etc that will do the trick. As an example, I once knew a storekeeper who paid all his bills with cashier's checks or postal money orders. The reason: not to leave tracks so the IRS could check his income.
Or the owner of a pizza parlor, who owned a lot of jewelry. Offered the chance to insure it, on a jewelry floater, she declined. The main reason: it would leave tracks for the taxman.
Or the businessowner who furnished cars to all his relatives, and deducted them as a business expense. He gladly paid the business use rate (on his insurance), as opposed to the lower pleasure use rate, so the IRS wouldn't have something to point to and disallow the expense.
Why is it that the IRS has to phase in the amount of information provided by brokers? Why wasn't it possible to require those who pay independent contractors to report the payments to the IRS? The answer is, many taxpayers cheat, as much as they can get away with. So our lawmakers, in their wisdom, give us what we want: a system that enables cheating.
Of course those with sufficient income, legal and accounting advisers, and political connnections have brought legal tax avoidance to an extraordinarily advanced level. Your friendly politician, if approached with a little envelope at a propitious time, will get an obscure clause buried somewhere that will benefit your special situation.
Greece, Spain and Italy have a culture of tax evasion. The tax collectors in Greece refuse to collect the taxes. Doctors in exclusive suburbs make 25,000 euros a year. Nobody owns a swimming pool. Paupers drive around in expensive late model German made automobiles. Everything is under the table. The unseen, untaxed economy is as big as the reported GDP.
The house two doors down was totally renovated for an accountant, by his contractor clients. No money changed hands. The barter profits will be included in the price when it is sold. Is the house rented, or owner-occupied? We'll find out at tax time, my best guess is, he lives there, or wil claim to live there, for tax purposes.
It's pervasive. To get back to my original point: there is very little reason to waste a lot of breath arguing about fairness when the laws aren't enforced, and the system is designed to be porus and ineffective.
Government needs to be responsible. Greece has never had a responsible government in my memory.
Why would a Greek pay taxes? The government isn't going to make it anyway, it's a complete waste of money.
Once you get there, the government makes extravagant promises of social benefits, and grants extraordinary considerations to the wealthy and politically connnected. Nobody pays in any more than they have to, and everybody loots it until it goes under.
I'm 65, I don't think we'll get there in my lifetime, for which I am grateful.
Time to educate yourself Tommy.
http://bit.ly/Oem4h7
http://bit.ly/MCYSPp
If anybody commenting on here believes that a wealthy person would do that and possibly face prison time for tax evasion, is so far out of touch with reality that it impossible to believe their comments. Why would a wealthy person substitute personal freedom at a high class resort for IRS penalties and prison. Remember that IRS accountants do carry guns.
As for Romney, why would a man of that wealth even slightly jeopardize his freedom by making an illegal deposit to a foreign bank? I think not. As for the politics of the deposit, that was just stupid considering that he should have known it would come out in full disclosure.
I have a close relative who is married to a Swedish woman (yes she is a Swedish national) and she has accounts in Sweden - big deal. They list those accounts on the right form each year with the IRS and declare the income.
This whole issue is another smoke screen to keep people focused on small issues they don't understand and that don't matter. Look at Obama's record, he should run on that, but he can't. I wonder why???
"While President Obama exhorts Americans to support tax hikes on high income individuals, families and businesses, he could stand to look inside the halls of the White House for some extra revenue.
Andrew Malcolm over at Investor's Business Daily points us to the hard numbers: three dozen Obama executive advisers and aides owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes - and federal workers as a whole owe the IRS $3.4 billion in unpaid taxes. "
http://bit.ly/MCZBQv
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Looks like Mr. Fair Share has some serious problems.
The last line takes the cake.
"Meanwhile, President Obama's IRS is busy auditing top Mitt Romney donors. "
As a side note, if there was anything the slightest bit illegal in about his activities you can bet that Dems would have figured out how to leak it. By this point, a small army of folks within the IRS have likely pored over every single letter in Mitt's returns that IRS has on record.
I wish this wasn't a choice between the lesser of two evils. As long as it, I will avoid the guy who appears to be a lead in the "Manchurian Candidate".
And frankly, I'd rather have a Republican President to protect our Civil Liberities (because the liberal media won't ever trust him!) than this Hyped Messiah who keeps tossing out Executive Orders that Establish Control Over Everything.
Great fun, and good stress relief if you had a bad day on the market.
http://1.usa.gov/MV1XnR
If one actually reads what is being reported one would note that it is foreign countries, not the U.S. that have significant problems. Maybe capital gains tax rates should be higher, maybe carried interest should be taxed differently, maybe estate tax rates should be higher but overall our individual tax system works reasonably well and I hope people don't think rich people are moving money offshore to evade taxes because that is pretty darn rare and illegal to boot.
A Global Recession? The Warning Signs Are EVERYWHERE http://goo.gl/eNmWi
If the standard over the years has been to reveal all sources of income does not Romney know he is to be expected to reveal it as all other candidates do? Why is he better than anybody else?
The BALANCE SHEET RECESSION in the US (FT) http://goo.gl/9zUUQ
This is a good blog, but I don't like when people hijack the facts.
Please don't give out misinformation.
There is no standard. The constitution does not make personal finances a requirement for President. Most presidents only disclose their tax returns while in office. The fact that it is an issue now is that President Obama is choosing to create a non-controversy, and most voters listen to guys like you are not smart enough to truly understand the issue. Your contention that there is a standard shows that you are equally misinformed.
Here are the actual presidential tax returns, dispute the facts... oh yeah, you can't! :
http://bit.ly/NYRyNh
Don't try to suck my into an exhaustive debate where we won't agree.
His foreign policy is perfect.
walking away now.
Also, if there is any indication what will happen in November...look at the 2010 tea party movement...tea party members are still making head way into the electorate, and then look at the Chik-fil-a day! Holy cow that was amazing, those people will vote Romney in November, its going to be a land slide.
You have to stand in the booth and look at the roster and ask yourself:
Do I really want 4 more years of this?