Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for August 2012

August 24, 2012 By Fausta

Meanwhile, over at Gawker…

… they came up with a worthless report on the “Bain Files”, which Dan Primack had already studied,

Let me save you some time: There is nothing in there that will inform your opinion of Mitt Romney.

How do I know? Because I saw many of the exact same documents months ago, after requesting them from a Bain Capital investor. What I quickly learned was that there was little of interest, except perhaps for private equity geeks who want to know exactly how much Bain paid for a particular company back in 2006. Sure I would have loved the pageviews, but not at the expense of tricking readers into clicking on something of so little value.

Let’s go over what Gawker believes it found:

“Mitt Romney’s $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income.”

There actually is plenty of data on Romney’s Bain-related holdings. For example, Bain’s own website lists most of its active private equity portfolio companies. Then there are third-party databases operated by such organizations as Dow Jones, Thomson Reuters and CapitalIQ — each one of which includes searchable lists of past Bain Capital deals (often with detailed financial information). And, finally, Bain isn’t really in the business of doing tiny purchases of unknown family businesses. When it buys something, there is almost always a press release and/or media coverage. Perhaps Gawker hasn’t yet discovered the magic of Lexis-Nexis. Maybe it should sign up for the daily Term Sheet email.

“Today, we are publishing more than 950 pages of internal audits, financial statements, and private investor letters for 21 cryptically named entities in which Romney had invested… Many of them are offshore funds based in the Cayman Islands.”

I get it. “Cayman Islands” is supposed to be code for tax avoidance or shady dealings. But the reality is that most private equity firms form Cayman-domiciled funds to accommodate investors based outside of the United States (particularly when those funds also are making some non-U.S. investments). One private equity fund formation attorney I spoke with says that the Caymans structure usually doesn’t have real tax benefit for the non-U.S. investors, but that they nonetheless feel more comfortable. He added that, for most U.S. private equity executives, the Cayman structure has little to zero impact in terms of personal taxes.

Primack has a lot more on “the Bain Files”, but Roger L. Simon looked at Gawker and the Caiman Islands,
Owner of Liberal Outlet Attacking Romney for “Cayman Islands” Accounts Based in… Cayman Islands.

Say again?

Gawker Media has been going through a big corporate revamp over the past year or so. The ultimate parent company has never been in the U.S.: it used to be Blogwire in Hungary, but now Blogwire Hungary has become a subsidiary of a Cayman Islands entity called Gawker Media Group Inc, which also owns various U.S. operations like Gawker Media LLC, Gawker Entertainment LLC, Gawker Technology LLC, and Gawker Sales LLC.

If the above link doesn’t work, try the cache, via Rusty Weiss, who has more,

Then there’s this little tidbit of information; something regarding obscene profits, untaxed revenue, and side-stepping the IRS…

The Hungarian companies get all of Gawker’s international income, which flows in from 13 different salespeople in ten different countries and which, since it’s international income flowing to a Hungarian company owned by a Cayman Islands parent, is basically pure profit which never comes close to being taxed in the U.S. The result is a company where 130 U.S. employees eat up the lion’s share of the U.S. revenues, resulting in little if any taxable income, while the international income, the franchise value of the brands, and the value of the technology all stays permanently overseas, untouched by the IRS.

As Rusty says, “This is weapons-grade hypocrisy…” but what else can you expect?

Related:
Mitt Romney: What I Learned at Bain Capital
My business experience taught me how to help companies grow—and what to do when trouble arises. When you see a problem, run toward it before the problem gets worse
.

Paul Ryan was on Kudlow

President Obama turned down a chance to have Timothy Cardinal Dolan deliver a prayer at the Democratic National Convention after Dolan told Democrats he would be “grateful” to deliver a blessing in Charlotte.

Barack Obama asks eurozone to keep Greece in until after election day
US officials are worried that if Greece exits the eurozone, it will damage President’s election hopes
.

Obama doesn’t know his Navy from his Army or Marines – the Daily Mail shows that Biden ‘s “gaffes” aren’t the only ones.

The Dems may try to run their convention agenda on Todd Aiken,

an issue that registers at less than 1 percent in Gallup’s poll asking about voters’ most important issues

while Anderson Cooper obliterates DNC Chair over her lies about Romney’s stance on abortion. The Right Scoop has the video. And, Oops — Looks Like That Pro-Obama Joe Soptic Ad Backfired.

Romney, however, is running on the economy, and is committed to making America energy independent by 2020. You can read his white paper below the fold,
[Read more…]

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Filed Under: abortion, Barack Obama, Democrats, elections, energy, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, politics, Republicans, RNC Tagged With: Fausta's blog

August 23, 2012 By Fausta

Isaac? No problem!

As of the writing of this post, tropical storm Isaac is a couple of hundred miles south of Puerto Rico. Politico has updates,

The RNC has contingency plans in case Isaac becomes a hurricane and strikes near Tampa next week,

“We do have contingency plans to deal with weather-related and other circumstances that may occur to ensure that … the business can go on at the RNC and Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will become our nominees and that the safety of the folks here attending it and in the Tampa Bay community are taken care of,” RNC communications director Sean Spicer said on CNN’s “Starting Point.”

The Dems may be turning their convention into an anti-Aiken affair, even when Aiken has managed to unite the entire Republican establishment, the Tea Party, and the radio hosts against himself. That’s what happens when
a. a president can’t run on his record, and
b. women’s health is politicized entirely in reproductive terms.

What the Republicans must do is

They should talk the economy non-stop, with occasional digressions into foreign policy. If they are asked about abortion, they should chide the reporter for asking about a topic that is of little interest to voters and that, by the way, the president, vice president, senators and congressmen have no ability to do anything about, and give an answer about the economy.

But the Democratic convention’s not until September 4, so who knows what may turn up.

Meanwhile, Team Obama breaks precedent to try to spoil Romney’s convention

The most aggressive attack was left for Biden, who is heading behind enemy lines for campaign events in Tampa on Monday and Tuesday. Leading congressional Democrats, including Reps. James Clyburn (S.C.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), will be joining the vice president to help crash the party.

Of course the media will be by his side.

Joe, who has known three presidents intimately will surely follow the RNC to its new location, wherever it may be, perhaps in the hope of meeting the boss.


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Filed Under: Democrats, elections, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney, politics, Republicans, RNC Tagged With: Fausta's blog

August 22, 2012 By Fausta

The border conspiracy: PJM Videos Show How One Texas County Fakes Crime Statistics to Make the Border Look Safe

Part 1.

Part 2:

Part Three: Murder in Reynosa

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Filed Under: crime, drugs, Mexico Tagged With: Fausta's blog

August 22, 2012 By Fausta

Argentina: tango festival in full swing

Buenos Aires tango festival in full swing
Buenos Aires is once again throbing to the rhythm of tango as this year’s Buenos Aires Tango Festival and Tango Dance World Cup gets underway here attracting over 2.000 musicians and dancers from around the world.
(h/t DP)

The festival opened in the La Boca district – an area of Buenos Aires that is considered to be the cradle of tango – with the Tipica Sub 25 youth orchestra conducted by violinist Pablo Agri and Eduardo Baffa on bandoneon as well as dancers Juan Carlos and Johanna Copes among others.

Here’s last week’s opening concert,

Check out the tango files!


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Filed Under: Argentina, dance, tango Tagged With: Fausta's blog

August 22, 2012 By Fausta

Photo of the year

“I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

— Barack H. Obama, The Audacity of Hope, quoted by Ace.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama Tagged With: Fausta's blog

August 21, 2012 By Fausta

On Rick Moran’s podcast

live, at 8-9PM EDT.

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Filed Under: Blog Talk Radio, podcasts, politics Tagged With: Fausta's blog

August 21, 2012 By Fausta

“When those kids finally get off the toilet , they’ll all be Republicans !”

First Lady serves ‘Cabbage Sloppy Joes’ and ‘Zucchini Fries’ to kids for state dinner

(h/t MOTUS. Post title stolen from a commenter in the news article.)

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Filed Under: Democrats, food, Michelle Obama Tagged With: Fausta's blog

August 21, 2012 By Fausta

Venezuela: Protestors charge Chavez’s stage

Just as Chavez was droning on about some glass business with Uruguay, protestors climbed on his stage and disrupted his cadena (TV broadcast on all licensed stations in the country),

As you can see, first the sound was interrupted, then the protestors got on stage, and the program was interrupted.

The Real Cuba describes,

Chávez went to Siderurgica del Orinoco (SIDOR), Venezuela’s largest steel company, to meet with workers of the company, which he nationalized in 2009.
Now that the company “belongs to the workers,” according to Chávez, the workers have not been able to sign a collective working agreement with the real owner, the Chávez regime.
During the televised ‘cadena’ you could hear workers asking Chávez when will he sign new contract with them, since they have been working without a contract for two years.
You could see the dictator upset at the workers for demanding their rights. He told them not to hold any more outside protests, like those that have happened in the last few weeks when workers of SIDOR took to the streets and stopped traffic demanding a new contract.
And the protests from the workers kept getting louder and louder.
Then, when Chávez was talking about a new project for the plant, some of the workers tried to reach the podium from where the dictator was peaking and there was complete pandemonium.
First they caught the audio and you could not hear Chávez any more, you could see some of his military guards and Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro running to where the workers were and then after a few seconds you could hear the audio of the workers protesting while an image of the Francisco de Miranda dam was the only thing that could be seen and finally the ‘cadena’ went off the air without any further explanation.

The Devil’s Excrement also has video of a SIDOR worker asking Chavez yesterday why haven’t they been able to get a contract,

Chavez’s only response was that he couldn’t hear well because of the poor acoustics (!).

This is the first time workers (or protestors of any kind) have disrupted a cadena.

Which

This is the sort of thing that until now has only happened in Putin’s Russia, where the disenfranchised voters lash out in many ways.

Devil’s Excrement asks,

Is this a turning point in the campaign?

Meanwhile, the campaign is now trying to project a youthful Chavez with the logo “Chavez es otro beta“.

In some parts of Venezuela a beta is a news item, an issue, so, the point they are trying to make is?

According to the PSUV’s website [Chavez’s party], the word’s meaning evolved to “thing”, “issue”, and by using “Otra Beta” the concept becomes synonymous with “something new”, or a “change.”

Which comes to show two things:
a. the guy who’s been in power for 13 years is running on “change” since he can’t run on his record (oddly familiar, isn’t it?), and
b. obviously the Chavez campaign doesn’t read this blog.

UPDATE
Linked by Extranos alley. Thanks!


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Filed Under: Communism, Hugo Chavez, news, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog, SIDOR

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