Which Way’s Up?

Nicholas D. Kristof investigates experts: 

You are all blithering idiots that couldn’t form your own opinion to save your life and the folks you rely on to make opinions for you are  ”the equivalent of a chimpanzee throwing darts at a board.” 

Turns out people firm in their conviction are right less often that those with more pliable world-view.  Oh and loud-mouthed pompous asses score the worst.  Still these are the people we are innately draw to believe.  God really screwed us on that one. 

Have fun idiots! Kristof OUT!

Oh wait, I mean hold us accountable, except for that whole anthrax libel thing.  Oh you don’t remember that I ruined a man’s life by falsely accusing him of being a suspect in the anthrax attacks?  Me neither!  Carry on.

Which Way's Up? Politics Economic Meltdown, Nicholas D. Kristof, Politics, Stupid

I hate to say it, but if we don't pay these guys they will blow up the world.

The Case for Paying Out Bonuses at A.I.G.

I know that the official line is that the U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists, but these guys at AIG have pieced together one of the most destructive weapons of mass destruction known to man and they say they are the only ones that know how to diffuse it.  Also, even though the job market in general is shit right now, it turns out the job market for top executives, who brought about calamitous failure to their companies is still really good.  So, let’s just pay them off, because if we don’t someone else will.  There is still hope that they give back some of their ill gotten gains later.  Sound Good?  Also, if they leave they will do everything in their power to work against the government for further ill gotten gains.  Maybe we can ask them nicely to save the global economy and then shower them with money for un-fucking what they fucked.  It’s just crazy enough to work!

Which Way's Up? About the same length, Politics Andrew Ross Sorkin, bailout, Economic Meltdown, Politics, risk-free investments, Stupid

Grassley elaborated:

“Listen, what I meant was these people are the scum of the earth.  If they show their faces, I will take it upon myself to murder them in the most brutal fashion.  I have this book in my house about the Spanish Inquisition - I plan to throw it at them very hard . . . It’s a really big book.  Then whatever page it opens to - I will read it to them start to finish.  This of course will result in their not being able to stay awake.  Which is my opportunity to find the nearest National Science Foundation porn addict.  He will have his way with these dishonorable people.  Really, I’m saying the only merciful way out for these AIG executives is to kill themselves.  Otherwise, I am getting my pitchfork and torch and we will have old fashioned mob rule.  That’ll take me back.  DIE!  DIE!  DIE!”

Now excuse me, I have to get to my real job as a public access TV host:

Which Way's Up? Out of Context, Politics Corruption, Economic Meltdown, fresh faces of the GOP, Grassley, POLITICO, Politics, Republicans, Stupid

There is an entire industry devoted to this exact problem.  Many rich people step out of their bed every morning thinking, “I am rich and do not like paying taxes, who can I pay to lower my taxes?”

 The answer is anyone.  People like, Brent Bergan are featured in many an article from the heart of the housing boom.  Peter is “an attorney at Global Tax Network in Denver, which advises international corporations, individuals and small businesses on tax compliance.”  

Ah yes “tax compliance.”  That looks much nicer on the business card than “the kind of tax evasion that doesn’t get you thrown in jail”

Another guy you can pay to lower your tax bill,  Richard Cahan, insists that gone are the days where tropical tax haven can be use to evade income tax.  

Damn!  

what you find [instead] is most people setting up offshore trusts and offshore corporations for asset protection or divorce planning but no income tax evasion. They don’t want to go to jail.

So your job is to help them avoid jail?  Kind of like a mob attorney?  Let’s see I’m moving my assets around in a way that if not done exactly right . . . could land me in jail.  I better hire someone who knows how to walk the line of criminality without actually crossing it.

Please Mr. Cahan, go on.  

[My clients] come to me to ensure that their hard-earned wealth remains theirs and can be passed down to their families, as well as for legitimate and compliant offshore business planning.

Well that sounds nice.  Every American values the corporate responsibility that mega businesses to seek out “legitimate and compliant offshore business planning.”  Just make sure Mr. Cahan, that they are legitimate tax evasion methods.  I don’t want my tax evasion tainted by the scent of impropriety.  So where are you legitimately taking my money, anyhow?

many of [the legitimate offshore business planning hot spots] are the same tropical places which have gained notoriety as tax havens, and more recently, the home of flimsy corporate vehicles designed to evade taxes or conceal company debt.

I see.

Well nothing that’s made the news at least.  I don’t want to be associated with corporate crime.

Enron, for example, was recently revealed to have had 881 offshore subsidiaries, including 692 in the Cayman Islands alone, and many more in Turks and Caicos, Mauritius and Bermuda. Scandal-plagued companies like Parmalat and Halliburton used similar devices in the Cayman Islands, for one simple reason.

Tax Evasion!

Certain foreign countries have developed their own particular asset-protection laws, and they market themselves to people looking to set up offshore accounts,” says Thomas Wells, an attorney at Florida-based Berger Singerman

Right asset preservation, I keep forgetting to not call it tax evasion. Who am I preserving my assets from?  

What you find is most people setting up offshore trusts and offshore corporations for asset protection or divorce planning but no income tax evasion. They don’t want to go to jail.

I see a pissed off ex.  And from Uncle Sam getting his hands on my corporate profits, but not my income.  But wait, I’m the head of a large corporation is there anyway I can get my hands on corporate profits and put them in my bank account, but not in an income way because I heard Uncle Sam looks for that these days.

• Use a “Sham entity”

That seems like it could get a lot of people in trouble.

• You’re right.  Why don’t we just try to make middle-class people think that taxing the rich will inevitable lead to a tax on the poor?  Will that work?

Probably.

Which Way's Up? Politics Corruption, Politics, ridiculous, Stupid, taxes, the poor

Give me a minute . . . I'm thinking of ways this is wasteful spending . . .

To the delight of confirmed marxists and the dismay of “real” Americans, Obama issued his ambitious, proletarian-revolution-leading budget today.  Dropping all pretense that he is not a Soviet spy from the past sent here as a manchurian candidate to destroy America’s capitalist paradise, Obama included in his budget billions for the renovation of statue park  and the restoration and modernization of Comintern headquarters to include larger Comintern posters and a swiffer sweeper for Lenin (it cost billions because its globe-sized).  This will inevitable lead to a middle-American revolution with a Bobby Jindal inspired rallying cry: “Chemical Castration for all!”  The system simply was not built to handle this much change.

whichwayisup Politics Bobby Jindal, Obama, Politics, Republicans, ridiculous, Stupid

Speculating that President Obama’s Housing Plan will create a nation-wide false-bottom on the housing market, many entrepreneurs have invested heavily in the false bottom industry that is intended to boom in the near to mid-term.  Their money has been funneled into areas as varied as desk drawers with a false bottom to magicians wardrobes with a false bottom.

Dave Profitiy, a venture capitalist from Seattle has poured 70 percent of his capital into false bottom making and utilizing businesses.  He insists that the risks are inconsequential, but the potential benefits are astronomical, “You’ve got false bottom wardrobes, tables, stages, hats, pockets, vases, what have you.  And that’s only magicians we’re talking about.  Then you’ve got your false bottom paranoia, you know for the rich to stow away their valuables.  Which leads into home furniture: coffee tables, bookshelves, sections of the flooring.  I mean there’s no end to the possiblities.  And moreover, in our lifetime the price of false-bottomed things has never gone down.  My projections are telling me that this is going to be a $4 trillion dollar business in 3 years.  You don’t want to miss out on this!”

Still others are focusing their investments more narrowly.  Jacob Moneyton, an investment banker in London, sees the U.S. Housing bailout as creating a whole new industry that didn’t previously exist: “So this housing bill is intended to help those that could be reasonably able to pay their mortgages with a slight decrease in monthly payment, right?  Well that still leaves a vast sea of humanity that has no chance of paying off their mortgages as they fall deeper into debt and their mortgages go deeper and deeper underwater.  This means the people on the false bottom will have water to float on, which means they will undoubtably want to see the source of the economic meltdown they are living in.  That source though is underwater.  THEREFORE, the hunger of econo-meltdown tourist for scenes of the meltdown will give rise to what I like to call ‘Why are we fucked?’ tourist.  And why we are fucked is underwater mortgages.  THEREFORE, we need glass bottom boats to let the tourist see underwater mortgages from the false bottom that they are happily floating on.  I can see it now, people lined up around the block waiting to get a glimpse of just how fucked we’d be if there wasn’t this false bottom to float on.  

And it doesn’t have to stop there.  I’m envisioning underwater hotels with views of the abysmal state of affairs below the false bottom.  This is guaranteed to make money risk free.  What do you say can I count you in for 10 grand?”

whichwayisup Politics bailout, Economic Meltdown, housing, Obama, ridiculous, risk-free investments, Stupid

Congress passed the $789 billion stimulus bill today amiss pleas for expedience from Democrats and pleas for their mommies from Republicans.  But amid all the bellyaching and finger pointing the biggest losers in this bill were left silent: hookers.  Never has america seen a jackpot this big without a single dime going to hookers.  The world’s oldest profession is suffering as much, if not more, than any other.  The industry is hurting top to bottom, from high-class call girls to roadside hoochies.  Hedge fund managers, previously taking three to five “business lunches” a day just to relieve the stress of ruining average folks for personal gain, are now so pre-occupied with escaping prosecution that their lost wealth is not even resulting in the “trading-down” we’ve seen in other parts of the economy.  Under normal economic down turns we would expect that better managed, more streamlined and low-cost flesh “super stores” would flourish.  But instead, such big-box hooker havens have turned into barren waste lands of suburban pussy decay.  The hundreds of square miles of unpeermeable pavement alone can start a pussy typhoon in a hard rain.  This constitutes a clear and present danger not only to the frequenters of suburban ladies of the night, but to those living within 100 miles of the slowly crumbling big-box flesh factory.  

Candy searches desperately for clientele.

Something must be done.  And partisan politics is pre-occupied with mice habitats and condom give-aways.  Actually condom give aways would cut done on business expenses, so that might work.  But this only scratches the surface of the hooker crisis in this country.  The world is now systematically training a brainwashed army of hooker-killing children.  It’s bad enough that politicians have thumbed their noes at the hooker problem for centuries, meanwhile thumbing the anuses of hookers, but now the news breaks that they are training children to hunt and brutally kill hookers.  When will the world stop pushing away hookers with one hand and jerking off at the thought of them with the other!

whichwayisup Politics Hookers, Politics, Stimulus, Stupid