http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/4394

Barclays Bank, Recipient of $9B from AIG Bailout, Promotes U.S. Tax Avoidance Schemes of Questionable Legality
By: Janushka Tuesday March 24, 2009 10:23 am

One of the foreign banks that received a U.S taxpayer bailout through the AIG conduit was the Britsh bank, Barclays.

They received $9B.

It has had little coverage in the U.S press, but in the U.K. there is a major scandal breaking about an extremely profitable division of Barclays, the Structured Capital Markets division, whose sole business is to advise clients on tax avoidance schemes for many tax jurisdictions, including the United States.

A whistleblower from the division provided internal Barclays documents from this division to the British tax authorities, as well as a newspaper, The Guardian.

Here is a quote from one of the Guardian stories:

The internal Barclays memos were leaked by a mole to the Liberal Democrats. The new allegations reiterate claims that the bank’s main purpose in entering into these schemes was to make profit from tax avoidance through an intricate circuit of offshore Cayman Islands and Luxembourg companies. The profits are said to be enormous and the deals so complex that HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) struggles to unravel them.

Barclays got an injunction to prevent the Guardian from publishing the documents; but they are all over the internet, including this site

That One.

We’re screwed.

This administration is using “Newspeak” to deflect impressionable minds away from the source of our problems (government), and guide them to the falsehood that the private sector is the problem. While our medical, educational, and energy industries have problems, they’re ALL still pretty damn good, and it can be easily argued that it’s government meddling that’s the main cause of the problems in each of them.

Think about who 0bama constantly blames for the lion’s share of our economic problems, and how we got here,(medical, energy, education) and how he has focused on them as needing vast reform (read government control) as a solution to our economic problems.

What do those three industies represent? The medical industry represents our bodies, the education industry represents our minds, and the energy industry represents our environment (our world). 0bama is essentially determined to get iron fisted control of our bodies, our minds, and the world in which we live. What the Hell’s left?

where are all the real democrats anymore???????

where is my country??????
where is my consitution now under so called democrats???????

this makes me sick to my stomach.

Bonds overall are probably as good a place as any for the time being, although, I think interest rates are headed higher so I would encourage you to keep your money in short to intermediate bond funds vs longer maturity bonds.

At my site, Sense on Cents, I have links to a lot of financial information.

Don’t believe me??..look it up!! If the transparent one hasn’t scrubbed it yet!!

the Kissinger I have despised as a dem my entire life!!

This is the same Kissinger so many 9/11 families and families and employees of the airlines involved with 9/11 fought tooth and nail along with most dems to get him removed from the 9/11 commission because of his heavy ties with Saudi Arabia!! And because of his nafarious background.

Look into the back ground of Geithners dad , Peter Geithner and his ties to Obama’s mom and step dad!!

Google is your friend!!

See Obama sent Kissinger To Russia shortly after becoming president to represent the Obama administration in Russia..
Kissinger who held positions with Nixon, Ford and Reagan !!!!!!!!!!!!

why did Obama send Kissinger to Russia a few weeks ago , representing his administration and the USA..
lets see shall we??????

http://www.answers.com/topic/timothy-f-geithner

Timothy Geithner
Career
After completing his studies,Geithner worked for Kissinger and Associates in Washington, D.C., for three years and then joined the International Affairs division of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1988. He was deputy assistant secretary for international monetary and financial policy (1995–1996), senior deputy assistant secretary for international affairs (1996-1997), assistant secretary for international affairs (1997–1998).<

He was Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs (1998–2001) under Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers. Summers was his mentor, but other sources call him a Rubin protégé.

In 2002 he left the Treasury to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in the International Economics department. At the International Monetary Fund he was director of the Policy Development and Review Department (2001-2003).

this kissinger:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GThfWVCfjVo&eurl=http ://…

“There is a need for a new world order,” Kissinger told PBS interviewer Charlie Rose last year, “I think that at the end of this administration, with all its turmoil, and at the beginning of the next, we might actually witness the creation of a new order – because people looking in the abyss, even in the Islamic world, have to conclude that at some point, ordered expectations must return under a different system.”

This is the Kissinger Obama sent to Russia……..representing his administration..

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/82may/hershwh2.htm

Kissinger and Nixon in the White House
by Seymour M. Hersh

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0611-03.htm

and that is just for starters!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph …

Larry Summers and California Energy “crisis” / Enron

During the California energy crisis of 2000, then-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers teamed with Alan Greenspan and Enron executive Kenneth Lay to lecture California Governor Gray Davis on the causes of the crisis, explaining that the problem was excessive government regulation. Under the advice of Kenneth Lay, Summers urged Davis to relax California’s environmental standards in order to reassure the markets.

……………………………………………………………..

WSJ: Citi’s Chief Economist Leaves for Treasury Post

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Citigroup Inc.’s chief economist is leaving the New York company for a job at the U.S. Treasury Department, according to an internal Citigroup memo.

Lewis Alexander, who has been at Citigroup since 1999 and before that worked at the Federal Reserve, will head to Treasury “to work on domestic financial issues,” said the Citigroup memo, which was sent Tuesday.

According to a government official, Mr. Alexander will be a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Mr. Alexander and a Treasury spokesman weren’t immediately available to comment Tuesday. A Citigroup spokesman declined to elaborate on the company’s memo.
(…)
Mr. Alexander’s role as Citigroup’s chief economist didn’t entail significant management responsibilities. But his optimistic economic forecasts colored executives’ views that the U.S. was unlikely to face a prolonged slump.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123732747181462245.html

anyone have warm fuzzies yet?????????

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

who can make this crap up???????????

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/...

Despite his pariah status with many Left-wingers in Mr Obama’s Democratic Party, the president forged relations with Mr Kissinger during his campaign.

The compliment was returned when the 85-year-old veteran of the Nixon and Ford administrations said last month that the young president was in a position to create a “new world order” by shifting US foreign policy away from the hostile stance of the Bush administration.

He publicly supported Mr Obama’s notion of unconditional talks with Iran, though not at the presidential level.

Further demonstrating his willingness to work with his opponents on foreign policy issues, Mr Obama turned to two veteran Republicans steeped in Cold War experience to press home his plans.

Shortly after Mr Kissinger’s trip, Richard Lugar, a Republican senator from Indiana who has worked on nuclear disarmament issues for 30 years, also visited Moscow. George Schultz, another former secretary of state, has also played a vital role.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw

chaos in the market to provide him with an excuse to take over more and more

Yes, the “situation room” is going to get overtime use in this administration. Remember “Cloward-Piven” strategy of orchestrated “crisis”. We are going past taking advantage of an existing crisis to drive an agenda and are now well into orchestrating “crises” to drive the socialist and “global governance” agenda. Obama is the mac-daddy global governance “pimp”. He was right about one thing… this never was about him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUQI5PzKPPs&feature=player_embedded

DAMN, you got that right.

In spite of this, mysteriously possesed congress people incessantly rant on about bonuses. It’s like if a local business were in trouble, and then all the managers insisted on arguing about which employees stole boxes of pencils from the office supply closet.

Here’s another one: I keep hearing horror stories about the potential trillions in govt debt that will have to be shared by every one of 300-plus-million citizens for the forseeable future. Those in congress love to spew this crap. Well, sure it’s not a positive thought, but the reality doesn’t work that way, not actually.

Comparing govt debt to personal loans is apples and oranges. Technically, the government never pays off it’s debt. It rolls it over. (don’t take my word folks, look it up) That’s not to say it’s free money, because it isn’t that either. The cost to the taxpayers is whatever the general cost might be of investing in policy that hurts the economy rather than helping it, and whether that cost is actually reflected in taxes, NOT paying off the debt.

Borrowing does not in itself cause a bankruptcy danger for the government, because it borrows in the same currency that it creates. The government’s fiat money system has the same access to money with a deficit as with a surplus. Theoretically, there can be an upper limit for govt debt somewhere, but no one knows what it is.

Note that the record setting govt debt at the end of WWII, did not result in economic disaster. The infrastructure build-up for production in fact contrubuted to economic growth. So the bigger point is less about whether to spend, and more about how to spend well.

A long way of saying; I agree with Larry Doyle’s general point about the truth being in the details.