The price of American citizenship

One of Facebook's founders, Eduardo Saverin, has renounced his American citizenship in a move widely viewed as a means to avoid paying taxes on the Facebook IPO this week.  Saverin's Facebook shares are estimated to be worth more than $3 billion, and by renouncing his American citizenship he is expected to avoid at least $67 million in taxes.  Needless to say, this has drawn quite the outrage on the Democratic side with Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Bob Casey putting forth legislation to stop such shenanigans in the future. 

It's entirely predictable that Forbes magazine would defend Saverin by denouncing U.S. tax policy saying it drives entrepreneurs out of the country (really?  tell it to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) or that Rush Limbaugh would declare it's not unpatriotic (um, bullshit, it most certainly is), but what's surprising is that John Boehner would go on TV today and say he would support the legislation (though he believed another law already on the books accomplished the same).  I almost waited a couple of days on this post to see what kind of a backlash he drew and how quickly he'd withdraw his support--but then I remembered it was an election year and letting a multibillionaire get away without paying a pittance of his earnings in taxes wouldn't win a lot of Independent votes....

Besides, it will be fun watching republicans choke on this one for a few days because you know there isn't a goddamn one of them that wouldn't sell their American citizenship for a whole hell of a lot less than $67 million--especially when it comes to paying taxes.

Peace,
emaycee

Screwed, blued, and tattooed

That would be us, the working men and women of this country. Two pieces in The Huffington Post (figures--a short while back I made some catty remarks about how far it's fallen in relevancy, and since, the Post has featured several excellent pieces; the power of the lone blogger!) show just how much we've been let down by the government and our global corporations (no surprise on the last one). Robert Reich explains why the Chinese are racing past us toward economic success--surprise! It's because they are actually investing in more and better higher education, as well as good paying jobs. Compare and contrast with the home team, which isn't doing much of anything other than watching as the wheels go round and round. No money for infrastructure? Check. No money for universal higher education? Check. Record profits for multinational American corporations with no investment in their (and our) future? Check. Sublime, darling.... The other, by Les Leopold, shows how socialism is alive and well in America...for the monied elites. Wall Street's casino playing with the American economy is bailed out by the U. S. government, but when the average American gets fucked by the monied elites bad business decisions, they're on their own. My, my, my.... As Mr. Dylan once said, it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry--the government's failure to look out for us and the continued raping of our economy by the wealthy, Wall Street, and multinational corporation are two mighty big steam engines. Peace, emaycee