I think this deserves a look...

I came across this video and feel that it deserves a look. This comes from a 14 year old...after going over today's blog banter, Click the vid below! It takes me back to my Saturday post a bit about how our government does not wish to give us the real truth as they don't feel we can handle it...


On June 5th, 2008 the Senate intelligence committee has released their Phase II report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq. To no one’s surprise, it confirms that the Bush administration’s rationale for the war in Iraq was founded almost entirely on mendacity and disinformation:

* Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.
* Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.
* Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
* Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
* The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.
* The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.






Just like in "The Wizard of Oz" there was someone behind the curtain...
*

On a lighter note...

My wife and I had some friends over for wine, cheese and endless discussions on various topics the other night. I got a very interesting tip from my friend Aaron. He mentioned about a music website that he was into lately. The topic came up as we were listening to some various tunes being pumped over our house sound system. I have since joined the site and set things up. It was amazingly user friendly and easy to get things going. I mean it took only a minute...

Did I mention that it was FREE!!

Go and join immediately as it is an amazing!!

Pandora Music - The Music Genome Project!


Thanks Aaron!

You can't handle the truth!

Remember when Jack Nicholson played the part of the General, as Tom Cruise cross examined him, in the movie "A Few Good Men"? Where Tom got Jack heated to a point where the General lost his temper? Tom was grilling him over a soldiers apparent accidental death asking the General for the truth stating that we as a society deserve at least that. Then the General screamed "You can't handle the truth!"

The Declaration of Independence says “...we hold these truths to be self evident.” The thought behind this statement shows that these thinkers and policy makers of their time thought that there was a truth.(note: we know that the same men writing these words at the time owned slaves, but I use this to make a point) That there was an undeniable meaning behind thoughts and statements that would be either based on facts or based on inherent or undeniable universal laws. As there is truth, there is also, now, truth by proxy. Today, our society, that being America, has become a people that hold truth to be a collective idea.

Can we find real truth today?

As we now seem to hold truth as a collective, we have become a society that is set more on feeling good about our world than actually knowing about our world. The science behind evolution is being diluted with the right wing propaganda of creationism or intelligent design. However, science is based on fact and creationism and intelligent design are based on belief. These are two very different means of conclusion.

Ayn Rand, author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, believed that truth exists independently of the minds and opinions of people. That there was an underlying universal self evident truth that existed beyond the scope of society and its collective manipulations that can cloud the value of universal truth.

It seems that truth can be manipulated by proclamation. Through continuous self serving statements the use of collective intelligence can make a non reality the opposite. As we watch this current political process unfold we must stay aware of the proclamations and the manipulations of truth since, as a collective populace, we do not take the time to educate ourselves to statements that are thrown into the public consciousness. There is a reality beyond our will and we must respect it if we want to succeed.(1) As we have seen in the past, and it has become much more pronounced with this recent administration that the truth can be manipulated and self serving. And look at the results...

When our elected representatives nearly unanimously allowed this current administration to invade Iraq the checks and balances of our democracy were torn. Allowing this, with a judicial branch that stands behind the Bush agenda shows the danger we have allowed ourselves to become. Our representatives did not call on the facts, did not listen to the facts (as we find that nearly all of the facts were heresay, manipulated, and falsified) and did not take the time as outlined in our Constitution to allow for the truth to come out and be verified. Through the collective emotion and the administrations manipulated truth by proclamation the Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush team have subsequently taken our country into a never ending war on terror. Immediately after 9-11 the statements at that time were a war on terrorism. Over a short calculated time frame this was reworded to be a war on terror. The collective intelligence was blinded by the collective emotions of the society. As the truth can be manipulated to the extent that the outcomes can dictate our will depends directly on the extent that our understanding dictates reality.

In a democracy it is the people that have to keep the elected officials and political operatives honest and on point. This is where America is slipping. We are losing our grip as the politicians have learned and become quite astute at giving us only the information that will make us feel good rather than the truth of situations. As a society, it seems, we cannot come to face the realities that exist around us which is why most people get their current event news from late night comedian shows. They would rather feel good as they get a little information. There is a saying that “information is power”. It seems that our current state of society seems to choose to be powerless. Perhaps this is why during the past 16 months of Presidential campaigning we have not heard much dialogue on policy or global issues, but more character issues seem to be dominate. There would be light discussions on talking points to make sure that the public knew what they were supposed to be concerned about...

We have become a society that holds truth to be collective intelligence and self serving. We are a Wikipedia society. It seems ironic how Wikipedia has become such an ingrained and integral part of our international society and Internet experience for finding and distributing information. This information being as a collective. The old school of thought that truth and reality were fixed and objectively knowable is going away. Through libertarian thinkers like, Friedrich von Hayek, who says that decentralized markets work best because they are so much more efficient than centralized bureaucracies at digesting information.(2) Although, given the deregulated markets of telecommunications and energy, as an example, there may be room to disagree. Although, we are now not discussing capitalism or markets we are discussing knowledge and truth.

We are a society that is concerned much more with success rather than truth. Due to this we have become a society that is much more concerned with feeling good rather than dealing with the unpleasantness of our society. We see examples of this with the nature of our economic situation to date. We are not looking at the root causes of the ills of our society rather we are looking for band-aids or bailouts. I recently had an interesting conversation with a banker of a global banking institution regarding the Bear Stearn bailout. Perhaps, he pined, if we unveiled the truths behind this transaction we might find more evidence of a truth we would rather not know and believe. Upon some recent meetings to which he had attended he found some interesting clues to market manipulation and conspiracy. It seems that the global money laundering empire of the elite global families like the Rothchild's, Rockefeller's, Bush, and more was about to become exposed if this financial institution were to go bankrupt. As the court documents of this failed institution would have allowed the bank's books to become public knowledge the Amerikan power mongers manipulated the system for JP Morgan to come to the rescue using government backed guarantees. Upon this the public is non the wiser and the propaganda machine gives a manipulated truth to become a collective truth.

The truth will set us free!? We live in an open cage with a very fragile glass ceiling.


(1)George Soros - The Age Of Fallibility
(2)The Economist Magazine

Taxation without Representation...Exit Tax

This was one of our first founding father's statement or mantra that ended the reign and the sell off of England by the pound. Today's title represents just how far we have NOT come in the past 250 years.

The U.S. has always tried to keep the slaves on the "Plantation". Throughout the 1600's, 1700's, even on past the 1860's and emancipation, on through the 1960's, to today the worlds most powerful international families have set a highly orchestrated agenda to keep the facade of freedom while hording the funds. Well, this may well be the icing on the cake.

Some people say that if you don't like what happening here, then leave. Well, it may not be that simple any longer. I came across some interesting information lately as I begin to plan ahead. I have been saying that if McCain wins in Nov. I will be ready to leave...I don't know if I can take it any more...

However...just when they know that I am thinking this, they throw in this one!!

The United States is the only major country on the planet that taxes citizens on their worldwide income, no matter where those citizens happen to live. It's not like that everywhere else. If you were born in England, Ireland, Japan, or almost any other country, all you need to do to avoid the obligation to pay tax on your worldwide income is leave. The money you make outside of your home country can be tax exempt. Why not just move somewhere else. Want to stop paying taxes? Simply pick up and move again. Then after an extended period, sometime around a year or so, you no longer have any obligation to pay taxes on your income outside that country. There may be some taxes such as a gift tax or estate tax.

No longer in the good ole' United State. In order to permanently remove yourself from U.S. tax obligations, one must not only leave the United States, but also take the radical step of giving up U.S. citizenship. This process (from a U.S. standpoint) is called expatriation. The income tax savings from expatriation can be huge. But, of course, this is only for truly wealthy U.S. citizens, and the biggest savings from expatriation come after they die.

In fact, the tax savings makes a wealthy U.S. expat as fortunate as wealthy foreigners when it comes to estate taxes. To dissect this we will look at an Irish citizen died this year after relocating to Italy two years ago. After living outside Ireland at the time of death, the US$1 billion estate pays zero gift and estate tax for all bequests outside of Ireland.

Now, let's say a U.S. person died with a US$1 billion estate this year, after relocating to Hong Kong back in 2000. Even though this wealthy businessman lived and died outside the U.S., his estate would still have to pay a maximum combined gift and estate tax burden exceeding US$450 million.

The arithmetic is nearly as compelling for smaller estates. An entrepreneur with a US$20 million estate could save over US$8 million in estate and gift taxes by giving up U.S. citizenship.

However, the image of wealthy former U.S. citizens living tax-free in tropical paradises is an irresistible populist target. The result has been a series of increasingly stringent laws that penalize U.S. citizens who give up their U.S. citizenship with "tax avoidance" as a principal purpose. Leave the USA, Pay an "Exit Tax"

Congress has amended these "anti-expatriation" provisions once again in a new bill. Both houses approved the bill unanimously, and sent it to President Bush for his signature.

The primary purpose of the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2008 is to provide a range of tax breaks for veterans. But the law also imposes the first-ever "exit tax" on even moderately wealthy expatriates. Mark Nestmann, a wealth preservation and tax consultant and President of The Nestmann Group, predicted Congress could pass an exit tax bill like this over a year ago, and now they have.

Once President Bush signs this bill, the law will require future expatriates to pay a tax on all unrealized gains of their worldwide estate, including most offshore trusts. And the tax applies not only to former U.S. citizens, but also to long-term green card holders who have resided in the United States for at least eight of the 15 years before they expatriate. (Fortunately, long-term residents can "opt out" of the exit tax, as I'll explain in a moment.)

How are you supposed to pay the tax without selling your assets? That's your problem, although the bill permits deferral in certain circumstances, but either way, the IRS doesn't care. Needless to say you don't need to be "rich" to pay the "exit tax".

It would be one thing if the exit tax only affected billionaires. But, with only a few exceptions for dual nationals and others with strong ties to another country, the law applies to any expatriate that:

1. Has an average annual net income tax liability that exceeds US$139,000 adjusted annually for inflation for the five preceding years ending before the date you lose your U.S. citizenship or terminate your residency

2. Has a net worth of US$2 million or more on such date

3. Fails to certify under penalty of perjury that he or she has complied with all U.S. federal tax obligations for the preceding five years or fails to submit any proof of compliance the IRS demands

If you qualify under any of these criteria, you may be subject to the exit tax. The good news, if there is any, is that the first US$600,000 of gains is excluded. This exclusion doubles to US$1.2 million for a married couple filing jointly, when both expatriate. This exclusion will increase by a cost of living adjustment factor after 2008.

Gains will be calculated "mark-to-market," or the difference between the market value on the expatriation date and the market value at acquisition. Expatriates who were not born in the United States may elect to value their property at its fair market value on the date they first became a U.S.resident, rather than when they first acquired it.

This phantom gain will presumably be taxed as ordinary income (at rates as high as 35%) or capital gains (at either a 15%, 25%, or 28% rate), as provided under current law. When you actually sell the assets, you won't have to pay any additional taxes. However, your adopted country might tax the gain a second time, leading to double taxation on the same income.

Now for the really bad news. Once you expatriate, you'll pay up to a 51% tax on distributions from retirement plans. The same goes for most other forms of deferred payments. If there's a silver lining, it's that the tax isn't due until you actually receive payments from the plan.

Plans covered by this provision include:

* Qualified pension, profit sharing and stock bonus plans
* Qualified annuity plans
* Federal pension plans
* Simplified employee pension plans
* Simplified retirement accounts

The IRS imposes this extra 51% tax on these plans in two steps. First of all, the entity that makes the payment (like your pension fund) must withhold a 30% tax from any distributions to a "covered expatriate." That entity must also withhold a second 30% tax for payments to a "non-resident alien individual." Applying these two taxes sequentially equals a 51% net tax.

Similar rules (but with some added complexities) apply for distributions from non-grantor trusts. These are trusts where the expatriate isn't even treated as the trust's owner under the grantor trust rules.

Your individual retirement account is NOT eligible for this treatment. If you're a "covered expatriate," you must pay income tax on the entire value of the plan, as if you received it in a lump sum. (Fortunately, no "early distribution" tax applies if you're under age 59 1/2.)

You'd think the United States would encourage wealthy foreigners to make payments to persons in the United States. After all, any beneficiaries in the U.S. would presumably spend that money on U.S. goods and services.

But if you're a covered expatriate, and you make a gift or bequest to a U.S. person 10, 15, or even 50 years after your expatriation, the recipient must withhold tax at the highest marginal gift or estate tax rate that applies. Exactly how much tax you pay depends on the amount of gift or estate tax paid to a foreign country with respect to that gift or bequest.

Can you avoid the tax? Perhaps...If your net worth is only a little over US$2 million (US$4 million for a married couple expatriating at the same time), the most obvious way to avoid the exit tax is to spend enough money to get your net worth under these thresholds. This could actually be fun, too. Take a trip around the world. Blow some money in Las Vegas. Throw a really big party.

You can also contribute your excess funds to a qualified charity, or give away up to US$1 million over your lifetime to anyone else without triggering a gift tax liability.

If you've paid more than an average of US$139,000 annually for the previous five years, however, this strategy won't work. And if you don't have sufficient cash to pay the exit tax, your best option may be to elect to defer payment. You'll pay interest for the period tax is deferred, and you may be required to post a bond with the Treasury Department.

Fortunately, you can make this election (which is irrevocable) on a property-by-property basis. For instance, it appears as if you could pay the exit tax on all assets outside your IRA, and defer it for the assets in the IRA.

If you weren't born in the United States, you have a couple of additional options.

* If you were born with citizenship both in the United States and another country, you may not be subject to the exit tax. To qualify for this exemption, when you expatriate, you must also be a citizen of another country (and taxed by another country), and not been a U.S. resident for more than 10 years during the 15-year period prior to your expatriation.
* If you're a green card holder, you can opt out of the exit tax. To do so, you must become resident for tax purposes in a foreign country that has a tax treaty with the United States. You must also inform the IRS of your intention not to waive the benefits of the tax treaty applicable to that country.

The bottom line: with the exit tax, Congress has made the most significant change to the anti-expatriation rules since their inception in 1966. In doing so, the IRS has sent wealthy U.S. citizens and long-term residents a clear message: You're slaves on our plantation. And if you want to exercise your right to leave, you'll pay dearly for the privilege.

Is expatriation for you? The decision to give up U.S. citizenship is a serious one. It requires that you obtain a passport from another country, leave the United States permanently, and set up residence in a suitable jurisdiction. It's a step you should take only after consulting with your family and professional advisors. But it's the only way that U.S. citizens and long-term residents can eliminate U.S. tax liability on their non-U.S. income, wherever they live. And it's a tax avoidance option that Congress has now made much more difficult.

What is next on the agenda?


This entry is heavily drawn with information and context from Mark Nestmann, a wealth preservation and tax consultant and President of The Nestmann Group, for the Sovereign Society.

The untold story...

I will resume my follow up story from yesterday for tomorrow but I wanted to get this out.

There is an untold story of the Republican primaries, which, for the nearly every American has had no way of knowing, that has continued alongside the Democratic primaries, and received almost no media coverage. That story is that the Republican primaries could have been made more interesting media content due to the fact that, although, John McCain has been the “presumptive Republican nominee” since January, as late as last month, McCain squeeked out 70% in the Pennsylvania primary. I use squeeked due to the fact that even without any media coverage over 11% of the Republican primary voters went for Mike Huckabee, who had officially dropped out in February, and 16% have voiced their desires for Ron Paul.

In Idaho, just last week, Ron Paul received 24% in the Republican primary. This is an amazing figure considering the public has been fed virtually no information indicating that McCain has any opponents at all! Huckabee has consistently managed to pick up 7-10% in each state. He continued to wipe up the core religious right wing that remains of the dying Republican generation. But Ron Paul is a phenomenon that the Republican Party refuses to let the media get their hands on. They don't want to dilute the Republican vote as they know how much work it is going to be to beat the democrats anyway, let alone having problems even to this date of party unity. They present their story that the Republican Party is solid and behind McCain to a false reality, of which they have become very proficient at presenting their false realities. We can see based on these poll recent results that the Republican primaries media coverage don’t give us the full view of appropriate proportional delegate representation, as the democrats do. If they did, there would still be a race going on there with true media coverage. So, what does all of this mean?

The Republican National Convention in Minneapolis in September may have some surprises in the form of dissent from within. Only it won’t be liberal Democrats and anarchists rioting in the streets, it will be millions of those Republicans who have been trying to register their opposition to the War, to deficit spending, and to the Imperial Presidency, to which Dick Cheney has called it, the “Unitary Executive”. (whatever he is trying to make the public know what that means)

While I can agree with only a few of Dr. Paul’s libertarian ideas (those being economic ideas) I disagree with much of his conservative platform as they are contrary to my liberalism. But I find it encouraging that so many Republicans are still expressing their views and desires even with no voice afforded them by the media. I am hoping that this will shine brightly at the Republican convention and show that party the dissent it deserves. Perhaps it will be time that the reactionary Rove agenda will dissipate and delude the overall party consensus to a point that the left wing conservative will realize the party's misrepresentations that have been going on and they will finally see the manipulation of the press that the Republicans have come to control so well and side with a democratic option in Nov.

Keep them down...

The United States is the only major country on the planet that taxes citizens on their worldwide income, no matter where those citizens happen to live.

How is that one! But, wait my wealthy friends, this does not mean you! More on this a little later, but first I wanted to discuss another fact.

The IRS had decided to audit more small businesses and reduce the audits to large businesses thereby making the small businessman that many more obstacles to try to overcome in order to maintain a livelyhood.

The IRS recently made an incredible and inexplicable decision to increase audits of small companies while easing up on the large firms. In fact, the smallest companies saw the taxman 41% more often in 2007 than in 2005, and companies with $10 million to $50 million in assets were 29% more likely to be investigated, according to a new study from Syracuse University.

Meanwhile, companies with more than $250 million in assets were almost 40% less likely to be audited than in previous years - even though an average audit hour of large firms earned the IRS about $7,500, the Syracuse study found, while a similar hour directed at smaller companies turned up $474. Now, keep in mind that an audit takes more than an hour.

Why did this take place? Because the larger corporations have lawyers and accountants that they can afford to pay to drag out an audit for years, while the small company does not. If the IRS is being told by the House Ways and Means Committee to increase their audit returns, their only way of doing this is to make sure that these audits get completed. Hereby, get the guy without representation.

It's a sad reality that the IRS is picking on the smallest of businesses when neither they, nor the country, can afford it. We are over $3 Trillion in debt now due to this administration. The Syracuse study found a 20% reduction in large-business tax underpayments caught by the IRS, from about $30 billion to some $24 billion, between 2005 and 2007. Just last month the Wall Street Journal reported that a Dutch bank is under investigation for allegedly helping big U.S. corporations save at least $1.46 billion in U.S. taxes through highly complex tax shelters. This is a situation the IRS scrutinized only after a whistleblower came forward.

That's a poor approach for a collection service charged with closing the $290 billion gap between the amount of taxes owed and the amount paid.

Tomorrow I will discuss issues on how the United States is the only major country on the planet that taxes citizens on their worldwide income, no matter where those citizens happen to live. So, whether you like it here or not, you will pay no matter if you leave or stay...

Double taxation without representation...Remember the Boston Tea Party? I thought we did away with all of that.

Calculating God...

I recently finished a book called "Calculating God". I found it to be a great read on creationism, Darwin's evolution theory, religion vs. science, death and more. Written by Robert J. Sawyer who is a very prolific Canadian SciFi writer with numerous books and awards. This book was a 2001 Hugo Nominee. You can find the book by clicking the link below;

Buy the Book

What is it that keeps science and religion from both being able to hold their truths to the idea of a God, as well as the evolutionary process? Can the two not exist together in theory and reality? This book goes through a series of discussions with visiting aliens who befriend a museum paleontologist in the Canadian ROM Museum who is dying of cancer. Written in a wonderful conversational style between humans and aliens to describe some intriguing scientific ideas and religious concepts that find the Universe is filled with the sameness in all of its randomness.