Election 2012

[DanaC]

It's stoopid anyway. Most internet providers these days offer filtering systems as standard. But the kids can just work their waythrough them anyway. So...when the government mandated filters are no longer effecrive, who is resopnsible for ensring they are brought up to date with the latest effort to stop computer savvy children looking at titties?

[classicman]

It's stoopid anyway.

Now THAT I agree with!

giggle - she said titties.

[BigV]

you don't understand how a filter like this works, do you?

How is it made? How is it configured to determine what is pornographic? Saying "the parents decide" isn't viable for the filter. For direct supervision of the kids, sure. But for a filter to work, it has to ... it has to "know" what "pornography" (and drug culture and violence and sex and perversion--not selective misleading quoting *whatever the hell that meant*--Romney's own words) IS. It has to know what to filter, right? Who decides that? What is the standard?

Y'know... don't feel compelled to answer. You're not Romney of course. It is pure pandering, whoring. It can't be done. If it could be done, believe me, you'd be a rich man, the creator would be rich that is. Lots of people are scared of sex and his remarks are simply playing on that fear.

[classicman]

ok

[Lamplighter]

No idea. But I will say that having his taxes become the focus of the election will not help answer that question.

I do agree that making tax returns public is/should not be a deal-breaker.

But why make an issue of the previous 2 years, as opposed to 12 ... none at all ?
If someone is planning to run for the Presidency, or any political office,
they are certainly going to start planning their campaign at least two years before the election.
This gives plenty of time to "re-arrange" their finances,
and either hide or obscure whatever they might consider embarrassing.

Whatever ... it seems to be the precedent that McCain and Romney have set,
at least until a future candidate refuses to release any financial records at all.
.

[piercehawkeye45]

I believe this story gives a good sense of the issue with Romney's tax returns.

I really doubt that Romney did anything illegal. However, he most likely manipulated the financial system to benefit him at the expense of others. This is probably standard procedure within the elite upper class, therefore Romney doesn't see anything wrong with it. Yet, he knows it is controversial enough that his financial doings can easily be spun (justifiably or not).

I've been involved for many years with a family business worth considerably more than what Romney has disclosed in his federal forms, first on the board, then on the committee to sell the company. I got some sense of Romney's financial world when the board sat down with our high-priced investment bankers in the sale process.

At 40, I was the youngest by 20 years on our side of the table, the rest being folks who had given their whole adult lives to patiently building up the company. When the bankers came in, there was one guy my age, the senior banker, and the rest looked like they were barely out of college.

I was instantly struck by a sense that I was back in the locker room before a [big college game]. The smell was the same-- testosterone and a swaggering sense of competitiveness. These were just like guys I'd played with in college, except they couldn't give up or hadn't outgrown having to win at all costs, and they were wearing $1,000 suits, not sports gear. I got the sense that they would have had a hard time letting their kids win at a board game.

Throughout the process, the bankers tried to sell the founders on various tax avoidance strategies, essentially using a complicated process where separate entities were set up, and loans were employed to allow the sellers to defer the large capital gains tax that would be due on the sale. A sort of legal maneuver of having your cake and eating it too, where the family could receive money for their interests, but do so in such a way that for tax purposes they hadn't really sold. And, of course, the bank was more than happy to manage all the money for the family.

The bankers also tried to sell us on letting their bank use what's called "stapled finance", where their bank, in addition to advising the seller, would also provide financing for the buyers. The founder asked how they could be on both sides of the transaction. They said, don't worry, we have a Chinese wall, which will ensure that we can do both.

After a quick consult, we told them we just wanted them to sell the company for us. The proposed financial engineering was too confusing, didn't smell right, and, after all, there was a big gain built up over decades, and taxes were due. In the end, the bank tried to gouge more fees out of us and then they moved on to another deal.

Looking back, it seems plain that Romney would have gone for the tax avoidance scheme. After all, he's a product of the financial world where value is supposedly unlocked by messing around with the process, restructuring or repackaging things in a way that makes the company look better, but also allows connected folks to get a payoff. But the folks who had built the company made a different choice. To be sure, they used trust structures over the years, but there clearly was a limit to how far they would go to avoid taxes. (Of the three branches of the family, two are strong Democrats, one a Republican.)

I don't think that Americans begrudge rich folks, particularly those who start and build companies. But it's harder to warm up to someone who gained wealth by manipulating what the labor of others has built, and getting the lions share of the profit. And doing this over and over. I think this largely explains why the Romney campaign doesn't want to release any more tax returns.

Certainly it's easy for folks on the left to buttonhole any rich folks as being as out of touch, tax scheming, selfish, tax avoiding jerks. But I think that Romney actually represents a particular kind of wealth that's arisen from the success in the world of private equity/high finance.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...p-view/260168/

[DanaC]

Excellent. That really gels with my image of that world and that kind of business environment.

There are plenty of wealthy people in the public eye whose money does not make them a target for people's anger and disdain. But when one of them offers himself up as a potential leader for a nation of hardworking individualists and entrepreneurs, Romney's particular flavour of wealth seems insulting. Particularly coupled with his aggressiveness towards anybody else getting 'something for nothing' and 'free stuff'.

Personally, the way I see it is this: nobody is obligated to pay more tax than they are legally bound to. If there is a legal way of reducing that tax burden then have at it. But...reducing it too much starts to show a lack of consideration for the national community. People like Romney paint their stance on tax as anti-big government, but it plays an awful lot like anti-American to me. Morally irresponsible. Now that's all well and good and we can all roll our eyes at the shennanigans of the moneyed few. But when someone wants to lead the country I would want to see a person who cares enough about the country to pay a fair level of tax.

[classicman]

If someone is planning to run for the Presidency, or any political office,
they are certainly going to start planning their campaign at least two years before the election.

Lamp, its even worse. He gave them to McCain when he was being vetted for the VP spot.

[piercehawkeye45]

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...d-America.html

[glatt]

It's just an adviser, but still. If he surrounds himself with idiots like that...

[classicman]

Old & incorrect. Too late though, the damage has been done.

Mitt Romney's campaign forcefully repudiated a quotation, ascribed to one of his foreign policy advisers and published by a leading British newspaper, suggesting that President Barack Obama does not understand America's "Anglo-Saxon heritage."

Spokesman Ryan Williams angrily denounced the comment on Wednesday as "an anonymous and false quote from a foreign newspaper." And Williams assailed Vice President Joe Biden for using the news report to accuse the Republican standard-bearer of playing politics with foreign policy while on an overseas tour.

"Today, the race for the highest office in our land was diminished to a sad level when the Vice President of the United States used an anonymous and false quote from a foreign newspaper to prop up their flailing campaign," Williams said in a statement emailed to reporters. The spokesman charged that Biden—who did not cite the specific quotation—had "advanced a falsehood" and accused him of trying "to divert voters' attention with specious shiny objects."

[Pico and ME]

Pot calling kettle black.

[classicman]

Thats racist!

[Pico and ME]

lol

[Ibby]

The Telegraph is standing by their reporting. Just cause the campaign says nobody told them that doesn't mean nobody told them that.