Month: October 2016

Submitted by Shaun Bradley via The Foundation for Economic Education,

Since the United States was founded, citizenship has represented a safe haven from oppressive regimes around the world. By preserving the principles of small government and free markets, those who were willing to work hard found success, and America became a magnet for innovation. But as the U.S. continues to erode personal and economic freedom, more people than ever before are handing over their U.S. passports to seek better opportunities abroad.

The staggering amount of debt held by the American empire ensures the public will be working it off for generations to come. The government has already begun its campaign to make it more difficult to leave the country, and it has also begun to crack down on the finances of the eight million Americans living abroad. Regardless of whether you’re a millionaire with multiple foreign bank accounts or a recent college graduate with a boatload of debt, the status of being a United States citizen brings with it a burden that will only grow heavier over time.

Tax Refugees

Since 2008, the number of individuals giving up their citizenship has increased by almost 560%, setting new records each of the past three years. Some of these expats are motivated by the extra tax load paid when working abroad, while others are trying to avoid student loan debt. Others have just had enough of the encroaching police state.

Every taxpayer left in the country now owes more than $149,000 of the national debt, so it’s no surprise the tide is beginning to turn. By hook or by crook, in the coming years, citizens will be fleeced of that money through higher taxes, savings that are inflated away, and an overall drop in their standard of living. Many can see the writing on the wall and have become determined to protect themselves from the years of economic repression coming down the pipe.

Draconian steps have already been taken to slow the rate of expatriation. For one, the IRS has broadened its reach into foreign bank accounts through the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. Through agreements with over 100 nations, the law is able to require all financial institutions abroad to report the account details of any American customers they have. With access to this new information, the IRS can revoke the passports of potential tax evaders and hinder their ability to travel using yet another additional power the agency was granted last year.

The Internal Revenue Service is one of the most powerful agencies of the federal government and has a track record of persecuting groups for political reasons. The fact that they have now set their sights are expats shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The Tea Party movement, whatever your views on it, experienced this first-hand during the 2012 elections. Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, spoke on the targeting scandal:

The IRS has demonstrated the most disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power. This deliberate targeting and harassment of tea party groups reaches a new low in illegal government activity and overreach.

Targeting the Young

While penalties are being levied against those with enough money to work around the world, the most impactful measures are aimed at those just making ends meet.

The initial paperwork for renouncing citizenship used to cost just $450, but it has skyrocketed to $2,350, making it the most expensive fee of any country in the world. It may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but this additional expense directly targets the young and working class, creating a huge barrier to even starting the process. As an added bonus, the price increase has raised over $12 million for government coffers in just over a year.

The $19.5 trillion in debt that has been amassed through decades of interventionist policies and clandestine operations can only be maintained by taxing the government’s human livestock. After all, the federal government counts student loans as almost 30% of their net worth. If the young and productive workers of the future are allowed to leave, U.S. power and wealth will go with them.

The Millennial generation has been completely duped by the federal loan programs, pumped out to any 18-year-old with a pulse. The $1.3 trillion in outstanding student loans is akin to indentured servitude for those entering the dismal job market. And students themselves aren’t the only ones on the chopping block — 90% of these loans are co-signed by the parents, attaching the ball and chain further up the family tree. For those tempted to jump ship and disappear into another country, their families will be held responsible in their stead. It’s reminiscent of North Korea, where the families of defectors are punished.

Noah Brown, president of the Association of Community College Trustees, wrote:

If you default, your financial life is ruined. You have to deal in cash for the rest of your life. It used to be death and taxes were the only certainty. You can throw in student loans now.

Many are learning the hard way that these loans are unique and can’t be wiped away by simply declaring bankruptcy. Instead of the collateral being a house or a car, it’s future earnings that can be seized.

Those who find themselves with no way out have been offered a deal with the devil — work in the public sector for 10 years and you will be granted your freedom. This has created a perverse incentive to work directly for the state, placing fresh cogs in the military, police, and bureaucratic machines. The policies seen so far are soft measures compared to what may be tried in the future as the government grows and the economy weakens. A new type of debt prison is being built in the U.S., and as the inmates realize their predicament, the rush for the exits could be chaotic — so long as people can afford to pay the fee to leave.

Those who understand the fragile state of our economic and political system can see that when politicians start building walls, it may be more about keeping people in than out. Despite the brainwashing often conducted in public schools, many are realizing the future for U.S. citizens may look very different than the past. The freedom and opportunity that have been synonymous with U.S. citizenship are being transformed before our eyes. When America abandoned its core values and let loose the scourge of oppressive big government, the countdown to when citizens would pay the price began.

 

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Sssh. Don’t tell anyone but Black Lives Matter’s protesters just vandalized the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C.

As IJR reports, the words “No Justice” and the word “Peace,” with a red line through it, flank the left side of what appears to be the front entrance, the words “Black Lives Matter -Van” are sprayed to the right.

Earlier today, security officers were seen putting wooden boards up to block the vandalism:

A search of the internet or viewing of mainstream media will find no mention of this attack by the group supported by Hillary Clinton.

However, one prominent member of the White House press corps, April D. Ryan of Urban Radio Networks, also tweeted the image:

Hurt feelings from racial hostilities have spilled over onto the walls of Trump property in Downtown DC. Look! http://pic.twitter.com/JLNQLBgVYx

— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) October 2, 2016

OK, now go back to your regular viewing discussion of Trump’s tax losses.

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Earlier this morning Florida Governor, Rick Scott, issued an emergency advisory warning to Florida residents regarding the very powerful Hurricane Matthew that could reach Florida as early as Wednesday.  The storm is currently located just south of Jamaica where it is set to make landfall tomorrow morning.  As of right now, according to the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Matthew is a major category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 145 miles per hour making it one of the strongest hurricanes in the Atlantic basin in 10 years.   

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued a hurricane warning for Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba where the storm is expected to make landfall tomorrow morning.   

 

 

 

Haiti residents have been issued a severe flood warning as Hurricane Matthew is expected to dump as much as 40 inches of rain on parts of the island in a very short period of time.  NOAA also warns that the storm is bringing “the combination of a dangerous storm surge and large and destructive waves that could raise water levels by as much as 7 to 11 feet.” 

 

Meanwhile, the projected path of the storm currently calls for it to reach the eastern coast of Florida as early as Wednesday.  No evacuations have been ordered for Florida residents at this point though Governor Scott warned that this “catastrophic” storm could change paths very quickly resulting in evacuation orders to be issued on short notice. 

Earlier this morning Florida Governor, Rick Scott, issued the following emergency advisory warning to Florida residents:

“This is a serious and life threatening storm. I was just briefed on the developments of Hurricane Matthew as it moves through the Caribbean Sea. I also just spoke with county emergency management officials who are working in our local communities to ensure our state is prepared for the potential impacts of this major hurricane. This storm is catastrophic, and if it hits our state, we could see impacts that we have not seen in many years. Even though the storm’s projected path is just east of our state, no one should take this lightly. Storms change fast and Hurricane Matthew could hit Florida as early as Wednesday. At this time, there have been no evacuations ordered in Florida, but that could change quickly. Please stay alert and watch your local news and listen to your local officials for protective actions and emergency messages. I urge everyone to visit FLGetAPlan.com to get prepared before the weekend is over. Make sure to have three days of food and water, flashlights, batteries and a battery powered radio.”

 

As mentioned above, most computer models predict the center of the storm to bypass the east coast of Florida though meteorologists warn that models are much less accurate at predicting storm paths several days out.

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Well this is a little awkward. With the leaked 1995 Trump tax returns 'scandal' focused on the billionaire's yuuge "net operating loss" and how it might have 'legally' enabled him to pay no taxes for years, we now discover none other than Hillary Rodham Clinton utilized a $700,000 "loss" to avoid paying some taxes in 2015.

The Clinton Campaign was quick to jump on the leaked Trump tax filing with Robby Mook tweeting…

Trump "apparently got to avoid paying taxes for nearly two decades—while tens of millions of working families paid theirs." http://pic.twitter.com/g62jB9fKr5

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 2, 2016

And Hillary following up, adding Trump "apparently got to avoid paying taxes for nearly two decades—while tens of millions of working families paid theirs."

However, a look back at Hillary Clinton's tax returns from 2015 (here), proudly displayed by the campaign proving she has nothing to hide – shows something awkward on page 17…

 

While not on the scale of Trump's business "operating loss", Hillary Clinton – like many 'wealthy' individuals is taking advantage of a legal scheme to use historical losses to avoid paying current taxes.

As Bloomberg notes, this federal tax break is among the wealthy's most used avoidance schemes…

Those 1.1 million folks in the 1 percent, as measured by the TPC, have annual income that averages a little less than $700,000. The top one-tenth of that group, some 110,000 households, average about $3.6 million, according to Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the TPC.2

 

The middle of the pack, some 33 million people, have pretax income ranging from $45,000 to $80,000. The lowest one-fifth of taxpayers, a universe of about 47 million Americans, have income up to about $24,000.

 

Among the biggest of these givebacks, courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service (well, really Congress), are capital gains and dividends—these are the biggest way the wealthiest benefit.

In the words of Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, "this bombshell report reveals [Hillary Clinton's] past business failures… and may show just how long [Hillary Clinton] may have avoided paying taxes."

*  *  *

Finally, as we noted previously, the NYT itself is also perfectly happy to take advantage of the US tax to minimize the amount of money it pays to the government: in 2014 the company got a tax refund of $3.6 million despite having a $29.9 million pretax profit, an effective negative tax rate for 2014, which it explained was favorably affected by approximately $21.1 million for the reversal of reserves for uncertain tax positions due to the lapse of applicable statutes of limitations. 

*  *  *

Simply put – pot, kettle, black.

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Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Credentials are increasingly in over-supply; problem-solving skills are scarce.

How do we create value in an economy that is increasingly dependent on knowledge? The answer is complicated by the reality that knowledge is increasingly digital and "unownable" and therefore almost free.

Financialization as a substitute for creating value has run its course.

The crony-capitalist answer is always the same, of course: bribe the government to create and enforce private monopolies. This process has many variations, but a favored one is to deepen the regulatory moat around an industry to the point that competition is virtually eliminated and innovation is shackled.

Businesses protected by the regulatory moat can charge whatever they wish, becoming monopolistic rentiers that are parasites on the consumer and economy.

State-crony-capitalism destroys democracy and the economic vitality of the nation. I've covered this many times, and there is no solution to this oppressive marriage of state and monopoly other than innovations that open wormholes in the monopoly.

This is where knowledge comes in, as new forms of knowledge (not just technical innovations, but new business models), once digitized, can be distributed at near-zero cost.

This almost-free knowledge creates another problem: how do we create value in a knowledge economy when knowledge is increasingly free?

Correspondent Dave P. offered one answer: static knowledge is indeed increasingly free, but dynamic information (such as market conditions) generates value to those who need actionable, timely information.

One example of this might be a Bloomberg terminal, which delivers a flood of information for a monthly fee.

Another source of value is generated by firms offering a warehouse of free knowledge–for example, YouTube. The instructional videos are free to the user, but YouTube skims an advertising income from every view.

I would add a third type of value: curation of almost-free knowledge/ information. What is the value proposition in blogs and media outlets, when "news" is essentially free? The value is created by the curation of insightful commentary, charts, histories, etc.

Anyone who successfully curates the overwhelming torrent of free info/knowledge into useful, manageable troves has provided a very valuable service.

A fourth type of value is created by systems such as bitcoin which are structured to keep transactional information transparent: add in that there are a limited number of bitcoins that can be mined, and this digital information (the blockchain) becomes valuable.

Correspondent Bart D. recently described another source of value in a world in which knowledge is nearly free: the social capital of who you know, and what all the people in your social-capital circle know.

A person could perform well in school and obtain a university degree signifying acquisition of knowledge, but their successful leveraging of that new knowledge often boils down to the social and cultural capital they acquired in their home, neighborhood, city and wider social circles.

Disadvantaged people tend to stay disadvantaged not just from a lack of knowledge but from a lack of cultural and social capital–habits of work, ability to sacrifice today to meet long-term goals, and access to a successful circle of people who can act as mentors or collaborators in a knowledge-based economy.

I describe the eight essential skills needed to build social and cultural capital in my book Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy.

So how do we create value in an economy that is increasingly knowledge-based? There is no one size fits all answer, but we know this:

1. Value flows to what's scarce. Unskilled labor and financial capital are both abundant, and hence have near-zero scarcity value: cash in the bank earns nothing.

2. Experiential knowledge that cannot be digitized will retain scarcity value even as knowledge and expertise that can be digitized become essentially free.

This is the basis of my suggestion to acquire skills, not credentials. Credentials are increasingly in over-supply; problem-solving skills remain scarce.

*  *  *

This essay was drawn from Musings Report #7. The Musings Reports are emailed exclusively to patrons and subscribers ($5/month or $50/annually).

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Pensioners around the world should take note of the controversial new legislation being considered by the UK Parliament’s Work and Pensions Select Committee that would allow private businesses to cut pension costs by suspending contractual inflation-linked benefit increases.  Of course, this could be just a crucial first step in the long journey toward cutting pension benefits and finally admitting that many defined benefit pension plans around the globe are nothing more than insolvent, ponzi schemes. 

Committee Chairman Frank Field told the Financial Times that the goal of the proposed legislation is to simply create an environment that helps insure the “survival” of defined benefit pension plans for now “which gives you flexibility in the longer run.”

“We should make clear our aim, with any policy changes, is the primary goal of safeguarding, in the best possible form, DB pension schemes,” Mr Field said ahead of the launch of the inquiry into defined benefit schemes.

 

“The aim is survival now, which gives you flexibility in the longer run,” he said.

 

Mr Field said his committee would look at what is required to “help create a climate of opinion so scheme trustees would naturally think about introducing flexibility on benefits”, primarily on inflation-matching increases.

 

The veteran Labour MP said that while it might be difficult for trustees to negotiate flexibility, they should insist they have the right to reverse any agreement on reducing inflation rises “if and when better times come”.

 

“That might be the price for survival now,” said Mr Field.

Efforts by the UK Parliament to cut pension losses come just as new data from Mercer’s Pensions Risk Survey shows that the underfunding levels of defined benefit pension plans for the UK’s 350 largest companies increased from £98 billion as of May to £119 billion at the end of June.  Meanwhile, aggregate funding levels for the UK’s largest private pensions dropped below 85% for the first time since Mercer started measuring the data.

 

Mercer research also points out that the annual accounting cost for the UK’s largest 350 listed companies has increased by over £2 billion since the start of 2016. 

Warren Singer, Mercer’s UK head of Pension Accounting, said: “Our analysis of current low bond yields shows that new DB pension savings now typically have an accounting cost about four times higher than the cost of defined contribution (DC) retirement savings. The impact of over £2 billion on profits is material compared with pre-tax profits of FTSE 350 companies of £84 billion in 2015.

 

“The key question is whether you expect 30 years of stagnation in the UK, as implied by the UK bond market.  We have seen in Japan this scenario is possible but the Governor of the Bank of England has stated that UK bond yields are distorted by an investor community as a whole that is taking out insurance for extreme risk events.  He believes there will be adjustment and growth without question.   However, if employers believe in a low growth world, they may find it unsustainable to allow employees to continue building up new DB pension savings.”

 

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

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While it now seems that Friday’s rumor of a substantially reduced Deutsche Bank settlement with the DOJ, which sent the stock price soaring from all time lows, was false following a FAZ report that CEO John Cryan has not yet begun the renegotiation process, and in the “next few days” is set to fly to the US to discuss the proposed RMBS misselling settlement with the US Attorney General, Germany’s largest lender continues to be impacted by the public’s declining confidence, exacerbated over the weekend by a disturbing “IT glitch.”

For one, it remains unclear if Friday’s report halted, or reversed, the outflow of cash from DB’s prime brokerage clients, which as Bloomberg first reported last week was a major catalyst for the swoon in the stock price. However, as UniCredit’s chief economist Erik Nielsen notes in a Sunday notes, one thing is certain: “so long as a fine of this order of magnitude ($14 billion) is an even remote possibility, markets worry.”

There is also the threat of the bank’s massive derivative book, which despite attempts of many pundits to gloss over, over the weekend none other than JPM admitted that that is what the markets will likely be focusing on for the foreseeable future: “In our opinion it is not so much funding issues but rather derivatives exposures that more likely to trouble markets going forward if Deutsche Bank concerns continue.  This is especially true if these concerns propagate into a confidence crisis inducing more rapid unwinding of derivative contracts.”

Indeed, as we first hinted last Thursday…

Here come novations

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 29, 2016

…  and as CNBC’s Jeff Cox correctly observed subsequently, at the core of this week’s investor angst is a word that came up during Bear’s demise: “novation,” or a request by hedge funds that deal with the bank to have others take their place in derivatives trades. In the case of Bear Stearns, word in March 2008 that Goldman Sachs had refused a novation request spread panic through Wall Street.

A few days later, the erstwhile Wall Street institution was no more. Though Bear was loaded with toxic assets, it was essentially a rapid crisis of confidence that had done in the firm.

 

That’s why Thursday’s news that a couple of hedge funds doing business with Deutsche were trimming their sales caused such a ruckus in the market. A Bloomberg report indicated that three hedge funds that do business with Deutsche were reducing their positions, causing afternoon market hyperventilation that the funds were losing confidence in the bank.

But while DB’s market woes have been duly discussed, at home, the bank is fighting a “rearguard action” as Reuters writes, seeking to shore up confidence among the public, politicians and regulators who say the bank brought many of its problems upon itself by overreaching itself and then reacting too slowly to the 2008 financial crisis.

Making matters even worse, as Reuters and Handelsblatt reported, the bank suffered a further blow to its image this weekend with a third IT outage in the space of a few months on Saturday “that prevented some customers getting access to their money for a short time.”

Handelsblatt adds that “among rumors about state aid, the dramatic fall in its stock price, and an attack by hedge funds on the most important domestic bank, now come reports of a new IT glitch. “Customers can not access their cash because it is blocked”, a customer complained on Saturday morning to Handelsblatt, adding that “I am stunned: I can’t make weekend purchases since I can neither get cash nor pay by card.”

 

While the bank emphasized that the glitch was temporary, “and only a few customers were affected”, it was still an embarrassing moment as this was just the latest “glitch” to affect the bank.

One week ago, the bank suffered delays and errors in its online banking platform, and in many cases deposits and debits “were displayed twice or not displayed at all.” In June, customers were unable to withdraw money. Also, as reported here, in late August, Deutsche Bank was forced to make a statement after reports emerged that it was unable to provide physical gold upon request for delivery from the Xetra-Gold ETN. This is what DB said:

As one of the sponsoring financial institutions, Deutsche Bank fulfils the obligations specified in the Xetra-Gold sales prospectus as a matter of course. This includes fulfilling claims to the delivery of physical gold certified by Xetra-Gold. This must take place through the investor’s principal bank where the investor’s securities account is maintained. Deutsche Bank accepts such orders for delivery from its clients. The investor incurs the costs described in the sales prospectus, for example, for the forming, packaging and the insured transport to the place of delivery. For this reason, we recommend in each specific case an individual review of the economic efficiency of a physical delivery. Should an investor’s request for the handover of physical gold not have been complied with immediately in individual cases, this will be reviewed and an individual solution will be found with the client.

Less than a month later, rumors of a state bailout of Deutsche Bank had gripped both the capital markets and the press.

* * *

As a result of the ongoing crisis of confidence, DB has gotten an outpouring of both industry and regulatory support. German business leaders from companies including BASF, Daimler, E.ON, RWE and Siemens lined up to defend the bank Sunday in a front-page article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. “German industry needs a Deutsche Bank to accompany us out into the world,” BASF Chairman Juergen Hambrecht said. Curiously, a spokesman for a blue-chip company that did not feature in the article told Reuters he had been asked by Deutsche for an executive to provide a similar supportive comment.

It did not stop there: in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper, the head of Bafin, Felix Hufeld said: “I warn people not to let themselves be drawn into a kind of downward spiral of negative perception. Not every nervous market reaction is backed by objective facts” warning of negative perceptions that could lead to downward spirals on the markets.

Which, perhaps, goes to underscore the biggest problem for Deutsche Bank: the bank and the government in Berlin have had to play a delicate balancing act, emphasizing the substance and importance of the bank without implying any need for state aid or willingness to supply it. Both the bank and Berlin this week denied reports that the government was preparing a rescue plan, even as the outpouring of moral support for the bank continues.

Finally, any negative news in the coming days, whether involving the just filed charges in Italy over the falsification of Monte Paschi accounts and “market manipulation“, more reports of cash outflows, or news of further operational weakness, may lead to a prompt return of the panicked selling. Just moments ago, Bloomberg reported that Deutsche Bank is poised to reach an agreement with labor representatives this week that will pave the way for eliminating another 1,000 jobs in its home market. The cuts will mostly affect back-office staff such as in IT services.

We hope that among those IT specialists laid off are not the ones responsible for keeping the bank’s online bank accounts and ATMs online, because a few more “IT glitches” that prevent depositors from accessing their cash could be all that it takes for DB’s impressive liquidity position as described here first last week, to become rather, well, “deplorable.”

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Earlier this morning we wrote about the New York Times article that exposed Trump’s 1995 tax returns and its $916mm net loss.  Without any evidence whatsoever, the New York Times used the existence of the net loss to argue that Trump likely hasn’t paid taxes in the past 20 years (see “Trump “Deep Throat” Emerges: Someone Leaks Donald’s ’95 Tax Filing To The NYT“). 

Of course, as anyone with any financial sense at all knows, net operating losses are a very common tax deduction used by most corporations, including the New York Times (as we pointed out earlier), to offset taxable gains.  Is it really a shock to anyone that corporations don’t pay taxes when they lose money?  So, from a practical standpoint, the only thing the New York Times really “uncovered” was that Trump lost a whole lot of money on bad casino deals back in the mid-90s which, of course, we all knew already.

But, the facts have not stopped the main stream media from launching a full-on attack against Trump, proving once again that, in the best case scenario, they’re completely ignorant of basic financial concepts or, in the worst case, they’re simply once again exposing their own extreme political bias.

The first example of grandstanding over the Trump tax “issue” comes to us via CNN’s Jake Tapper on a State of the Union interview with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.  Here are a couple of the priceless, “well-informed” one-liners offered up by Tapper:

“Donald Trump said during the debate that not paying federal income taxes makes him smart.  Does that mean the rest of who don’t look for every possible loophole and provisions to avoid paying our fair share of taxes…does that mean the rest of us are stupid?”

 

“I think that there are a lot of very very successful businessmen and women who pay federal income taxes and don’t look for every single opportunity there is to avoid paying them.”

 

“I think most Americans are probably offended.  I know most Americans pay their federal income taxes.”

 

“Mr. Mayor, in 2012, Donald Trump tweeted ‘half of Americans don’t pay income tax despite crippling government debt.’ He is in that half that does not pay federal income taxes despite crippling government debt.  When he rails against the junky infrastructure, when he rails against La Guardia Airport, when he talks about how bridges are collapsing, is he not responsible at least in part for the fact that these things are not being repaired?”

If Tapper could please provide his extensive research backing up his claim that a lot of “very successful businessmen and women” choose to not take advantage of common income tax deductions and instead pay more in federal income taxes than is actually due, we would very much appreciate it.  If true, we suspect a lot of shareholders and lenders would be very interested in that particular information.

 

Meanwhile, political commentator Van Jones also went on State of the Union with Tapper to argue that Trump helped to write the tax code to his own advantage. 

“It is in fact true that if Donald Trump lost a billion dollars, think about this, lost a billion dollars he could wind up as a winner, legally in his taxes for a generation.  Why is that? Is that because he’s a genius?”

 

“It’s because billionaires have armies of lobbyists to write the rules.  Here’s the deal if you’re obeying horrible rules that you helped to write, it doesn’t make you a genius. It makes you part of the corruption.”

 

And finally, here is some footage of Giuliani answering all the same questions from former Bill Clinton Communications Director, George Stephanopoulos, on ABC’s “This Week.“

“My response is he’s a genius … [an] absolute genius.”

 

“This was a perfectly legal application of the tax code, and he would’ve been a fool not to take advantage of it.”

 

“You have an obligation when you run a business to maximize the profits.  And if there is a tax law that says, ‘I can deduct this,’ you deduct it. If you fail to deduct it, people can sue you.”

Rudy Giuliani responds to Trump tax revelations: “He’s a genius” #ThisWeek https://t.co/ptYCKM042u

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 2, 2016

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Submitted by Heat Street

Wikileaks has abruptly canceled a much-anticipated announcement on Tuesday, according to NBC News. The announcement had been expected to be founder Julian Assange’s long-promised document dump on Hillary Clinton.

NBC’s Jesse Rodriguez reported that the Tuesday announcement — which was to come from the balcony of London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange has sought sanctuary for years – was canceled due to “security concerns”.

Due to security concerns at the Ecuadorian Embassy, Julian Assange’s balcony announcement on Tues has been cancelled, per @wikileaks

— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) September 30, 2016

Julian Assange set to make an announcement from his balcony in London next Tuesday, according to @WikiLeaks

— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) September 27, 2016

Wikileaks has not said when it will now make its “announcement”.

Assange appeared on Fox News last month, repeating his assertion that Wikileaks has damaging documents on Clinton and suggested WikiLeaks may soon release “teasers”. More than three weeks later, that release has yet to take place.

Clinton’s more fervent opponents have hoped for weeks that the promised document dump would be an “October surprise” – damaging and revelatory emails or the like — and inflict a mortal wound on her campaign. There’s no evidence however that such damaging information even exists.

It was only this summer that Assange’s group leaked thousands of embarrassing emails from the Democratic National Committee which showed their disdain for Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The uproar over the disclosures forced DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to resign in disgrace on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.

The political provocateur and bomb-thrower Roger Stone, a fervent Donald Trump supporter, predicted Sunday morning that Wikileaks’ revelations would doom Clinton’s campaign.

Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.

— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) October 2, 2016

It’s unclear if Stone was aware that Wikileaks, according to NBC News, has canceled their Tuesday announcement.

Assange and his supporters have long claimed that his personal safety is at risk due to the danger he (supposedly) represents to Clinton’s presidential ambitions. In August, a video reemerged of liberal commentator Bob Beckel who suggested in a TV appearance that Assange be murdered, proclaiming that someone should “shoot the son of a bitch!”

Hillary Clinton strategist Bob Beckel called for WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange to be assassinated. #DNCLeak http://pic.twitter.com/9L2ixl24Er

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 10, 2016

Assange himself has also recently hinted publicly that low-level DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was murdered this summer in Washington DC, had been the source for Wikileaks’ document dump on the DNC. And that Rich’s alleged role in the leaks was linked to his death.

There has been no evidence linking Rich to the leak and no evidence that his murder was anything more than a botched robbery.

Nonetheless, the cancellation of Tuesday’s Wikileaks announcement already has anti-Clinton conspiracy theorists working up a frantic stew of speculation.

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