Having failed with drowning polar bears, global superstorms, rising sea levels and a myriad of other manufactured hoaxes, global warming alarmists have invented a new threat to try and persuade us to pay carbon taxes directly to Al Gore and the global elite — vengeful environmentalist extraterrestrials from outer space.
“It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim,” according to a Guardian report.
It has been over three years since . In fact, his receptionist payed almost twice the percentage he pays, even though he doesn’t even take advantage of tax shelters that are available to the rich.
It isn’t like the rich don’t appreciate this. Some of you may remember billionaire real estate baroness Leona Helmsley, who was prosecuted for fraud and tax evasion by then District Attorney Rudy Giuliani. During her trial, one of her maids famously quoted Helmsley as saying “.”
So it is somewhat fitting that a study of the Helmsley Building shows that the rich residents of that building also pay a far smaller percentage of their income than “the little people”. The residents averaged over a million dollars in income in 2007, and yet they paid less than 15% of this in federal taxes. On the other hand, the workers in that building — janitors and security guards — who earned on average a paltry $30,000 dollars a year, paid as much as a quarter of that in federal taxes. Can you even survive in New York City on $23,000 a year?
And it isn’t just rich individuals that are making out like bandits. Corporations are using tax loopholes toavoid paying any taxes at all.
“As long as the $1.2-trillion annual budget for the military-security complex is off limits (to cutting), nothing can be done about the US budget deficit except to renege on obligations to the elderly, confiscate private assets or print enough money to inflate away all debts,” Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Treasury Secretary under President Reagan warns.
In an article titled “Stealing from Social Security to Pay for Wars and Bailouts,” published in the April issue of the “Rock Creek Free Press” of Washington, D.C., Roberts says that Republicans are calling Social Security and Medicare “entitlements”—making them sound like welfare—when, in fact, workers over their lifetimes have contributed 15 percent of all their earnings to the payroll tax that funds these benefits and have every right to them.
ONE thing is clear about the carbon tax debate: everything is about to get more expensive - including the Government's hold on power. There is much argy-bargy about whether or not Julia Gillard's proposed initial scheme amounts to a tax. Of course it does.
This is the Government's plan as Ms Gillard has outlined it so far. If this legislation is passed, after negotiations with Greens and independents, Ms Gillard will impose a fixed price on carbon, calculated per tonne of carbon emitted by polluters. That price will take effect on July 1, 2012.
Ultimately, the system will be designed to morph into an emissions trading scheme, where the price of carbon (let's say it starts at $20 per tonne) is determined by its market value, and everyone can buy and sell carbon permits on that market. So a heavy polluter could buy up permits, thereby allowing it to continue its activities, albeit at a higher cost.
The carbon price will rise or fall like any other tradeable commodity, depending on the level of demand, environmental conditions and the value of other investments such as bonds, currencies and stocks.
The Obama administration said today if Congress refuses to raise the U.S. Debt Ceiling in time, then bond investors will flee U.S. debt and create a larger meltdown than the last one. I have no doubt that a complicit and compliant Congress will bow to Obama’s demands and raise the Debt Ceiling; no matter that Bond Investors have warned that to raise the debt ceiling would cause their profits to rise obscenely, and deliver unto them an American- crushing National Debt that would enslave future generations in perpetuity. That is apparently just what this President loves to hear.
“Congressional Republicans say bond investors will set off a Greek-style financial crisis in the U.S. if the national debt grows. They've promised not to raise the limit without deep spending cuts.” reports Matthew Craft at Forbes.com.
With a budget proposal of 3.8 Trillion Dollars for FY 2011 about to be presented by Obama to Congress February 1st and $928.5 Billion dollars allocated for Defense, then maybe we should take a look there first to find a paltry 1 Trillion to stave off raising the Debt Ceiling.
Additionally, it has always been this reporter’s experience that you can discern the government’s true intent by observing its Defense contracts. So this will be a multi-task in that many revelations may be made other than the main topic.
Goldman Sachs is investing $450 million of its own money in Facebook, at a valuation that implies the social networking company is now worth $50 billion. Goldman is also apparently launching a fund that will bring its own high net worth clients in as investors for Facebook.
On the face of it, this might just seem like the financial sector doing what it is supposed to – channeling funds into productive enterprise. The SEC is apparently looking at the way private investors will be involved, but there are some more deeply unsettling factors at work here.
Remember that Goldman Sachs is now a bank holding company – a status it received in September 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, in order to avoid collapse (for the details, see Andrew Ross Sorkin’s blow-by-blow account in Too Big To Fail.) This means that it has essentially unfettered access to the Federal Reserve’s discount window, i.e., it can borrow against all kinds of assets in its portfolio, effective ensuring it has government-provided liquidity at any time.
Official figures show that, under Private Finance Initiative [PFI] schemes, British taxpayers are committed to pay £229 billion for new hospitals, schools and other projects with a capital value of just £56 billion. Several contracts are due to run for 60 years, documents released under freedom of information requests show, meaning taxpayers will be paying for the projects for generations to come.
Private contractors who agreed PFI deals with the Government are set to make billions of pounds in profit, with some due to see returns of up to 71 per cent.
In the first of a series of reports, The Daily Telegraph discloses the heavy costs and administrative burdens caused by PFIs. The deals are a way of building large public projects using private finance, which were relied upon by the Labour government. The disclosures will lend weight to MPs calling on PFI companies to refund a share of their profits to the taxpayer.
While most emphasis has been on Speaker Madigan's pension reform law setting up for later retirements and less cushy pensions for new firemen and law enforcement hires, little attention has been focused on the shift in pension fund pay=in burden that local city councils argue will now suddenly fall on their already cash-strapped budgets. Chicago's Mayor Daley blasted the reform bill Quinn signed on Thursday, predicting it will cause Chicago to hike its property taxes up to 60%.
British taxpayers will have to fork out £2.9 billion over the next four years to help the world’s poorest countries cope with global warming, the Government said last night.
The Coalition said the 'climate finance' package was essential if the world was to get a legally binding treaty to stop global temperatures rising by more than 2c.
In the last year alone, the UK has paid £500 million for new wind farms, solar panel power plants and forestry protection schemes across Asia, Africa and South America.
But critics say British taxpayers are paying more than their fair share in green aid - and that other Western countries should shoulder more of the burden at a time of massive cuts in public spending.
The figures emerged as a new report warned that rising sea levels could destroy more than 300 of the Caribbean’s best loved tourist resorts - causing billions of pounds of damage.
Aid is expected to dominate the latest round of United Nations Climate Change talks in Cancun, Mexico over the next two weeks
MPs were under fire last night for wasting taxpayers’ cash on a £500-a-day ‘Commons food-taster’ to ensure Westminster’s restaurants are up to scratch.
They have drafted in the food consultant to run the rule over the Palace’s catering.
Hospitality expert Jon Hewett will work on a daily rate as an adviser to the Commons administration committee.
Sources were unable to confirm what Mr Hewett would be paid but insiders estimated he would receive the £500-a-day fee.
The move comes amid furious complaints from some MPs that Commons food is now ‘overpriced’ and ‘literally uneatable’, with ex-Labour Cabinet Minister Bob Ainsworth even calling for the entire operation to be privatised as ‘it could not be worse’
In a classic case of misdirection, while the media are preoccupied with the fate of the Bush tax cuts, President Obama is preparing to attend a United Nations summit next week to endorse "innovative finance mechanisms"-global taxes-to drain even more wealth out of the U.S. economy.
A draft "outcome document[1]" produced in advance of the September 20-22 U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) commits the nations of the world to supporting "innovative financing mechanisms" to supplement foreign aid spending.
The term "innovative financing mechanisms" is a U.N. euphemism for global taxes. But the document actually goes further, praising the "Task Force on International Financial Transactions for Development" for its work on the subject of mobilizing additional "resources" for countries to achieve the MDGs. This is a body tasked with proposing and implementing global tax schemes.
"We consider," the document says, "that innovative financing mechanisms can make a positive contribution in assisting developing countries to mobilize additional resources for financing for development on a voluntary basis. Such financing should supplement and not be a substitute for traditional sources of financing."
In other words, the revenue from global taxes should be in addition to foreign aid spending.
As the BP oil spill slips off the front pages, replaced by daily reports of Lindsey Lohan’s release from jail; as Chelsea Clinton’s marriage is no longer news; as the war in Afghanistan loses traction with the public; and as Barack Obama pauses to review his declining approval rates, it is time once again to ask, whatever happened to global warming?
Here’s an update. On the basis of legitimate—not government funded—science: it is as dead as Marley’s ghost.
There actually was global warming. It began around 1850 as a Little Ice Age receded from America and Europe. From about the 1500s on, it caused the Thames to freeze over in London, widespread crop failures, the fall of the French monarchy, and the tribulations of Washington’s troops in Valley Forge, among many other notable historic events. The earth continued to warm, very moderately, until the 1990s.
Officials at an anti-poverty quango are ' living it up' in luxury hotels at taxpayers' expense, devastating documents reveal.
Executives at the Commonwealth Development Corporation also dined in London's finest restaurants, according to Freedom of Information replies seen by the Daily Mail.
Taxpayers were billed more than £700 for a dinner for CDC non-executive directors at the Michelin-starred L'Autre Pied restaurant. Lap of luxury: Mr Laing also claimed £254 for a night at Singapore's five-star Fullerton hotel
The inspectors can now turn up at people’s homes or businesses unannounced and examine their records if they believe not enough tax has been paid.
The news comes at the end of a week in which HM Revenue & Customs was accused of incompetence because of failings in the ‘pay-as-you-earn’ (PAYE) system. About 1.4 million people are now facing tax demands because of HMRC errors
The Lux award shortlist was announced last week,which means that for one lucky European filmmaker the European Parliament will pay to translate their film into all 23 official languages of the Union of European Socialist Republics, among them Slovenian, Latvian, Finnish, and Irish Gaelic, spoken only by about 12 people and only when Dubliners are around.
The prize is given every year to films that illustrate “the universality of European values and the diversity of European culture, bringing insights into the debate on the process of building Europe”. Or to translate into English – films that portray nationalism as evil and promote the EU agenda.
Viewers who watch television on their computer could be forced to pay the licence fee as early as next year.
Those who do not own a TV but watch programmes on services such as the BBC's iPlayer do not have to pay the £145.50 annual charge.
But Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday hinted that this exemption could be stopped.
The Tory MP revealed that he plans to discuss the issue with BBC Director General Mark Thompson when the corporation's funding levels come up for review next year.
The fiscal consequences of this amnesty will vary depending on the time period analyzed. It is expected that many illegal immigrants who are currently working "off the books" and paying no direct taxes will begin to work "on the books" after receiving amnesty, and therefore tax payments will rise immediately. By contrast, under S. 1348, benefits to these immigrants from Social Security, Medicare, and most means-tested welfare programs (such as Food Stamps, public housing, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) will be delayed for many years. In consequence, then, the increase in taxes and fines paid by amnesty recipients may initially exceed slightly the increase in government benefits received. In the long run, however, the opposite will be true
Middle-class Americans–not the rich or the poor–pay the majority of annual tax revenues taken in by the federal government, according to data released in a new Congressional Budget Office study. Households earning less than $34,300 per year, meanwhile, actually pay a negative average federal income tax rate.
Middle-class households that earned between $34,300 and $141,900 paid 50.5 percent of all federal tax revenues in 2007 (the most recent year analyzed), according to the CBO study released Thursday, and households that earned between $34,300 and $352,900 paid 66.7 percent of all federal taxes.
According to Somali human rights groups and United Nations officials, the Somali government, which relies on assistance from the West to survive, is fielding hundreds of children or more on the front lines, some as young as 9.
Child soldiers are deployed across the globe, but according to the United Nations, the Somali government is among the “most persistent violators” of sending children into war, finding itself on a list with notorious rebel groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Somali government officials concede that they have not done the proper vetting. Officials also revealed that the United States government was helping pay their soldiers, an arrangement American officials confirmed, raising the possibility that the wages for some of these child combatants may have come from American taxpayers
The World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations' public health arm, is moving full speed ahead with a controversial plan to impose global consumer taxes on such things as Internet activity and everyday financial transactions like paying bills online — while its spending soars and its own financial house is in disarray.
The aim of its taxing plans is to raise "tens of billions" of dollars for WHO that would be used to radically reorganize the research, development, production and distribution of medicines around the world, with greater emphasis on drugs for communicable diseases in poor countries.
The irony is that the WHO push to take a huge bite out of global consumers comes as the organization is having a management crisis of its own, juggling finances, failing to use its current resources efficiently, or keep its costs under control — and it doesn't expect to show positive results in managing those challenges until a year from now, at the earliest.
Fox News initially reported last January on the "suite of proposals" for "new and innovative sources of funding," prepared by a 25-member panel of medical experts, academics and health care bureaucrats, when it was presented of a meeting of WHO's 34-member Executive Board in Geneva
If President Obama repeals the Bush tax cuts and imposes a 20 percent value added tax, or VAT, on the U.S., Americans may be facing tax rates where more than half of everything earned is confiscated by the federal government in the form of income taxes, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
Add Social Security taxes and the tax burden quickly advances to more than 60 percent.
"Adding state property and income taxes to the burden, the amount government confiscates could be in the 75 percent range before Americans have a chance to vote Obama out of office in 2012," Corsi wrote. "Are Americans willing to be taxed 75 percent of every dollar earned?"
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday unveiled plans to plug California's budget deficit by slashing billions of dollars worth of funding for services designed to help the state's poor.
Schwarzenegger's budget proposals would see spending cuts of 12.4 billion dollars and include the elimination of California's welfare-to-work program and virtually all child care for low income families.
"California no longer has low-hanging fruits," Schwarzenegger said in Sacramento. "We have to take the ladder away from the tree and shake the whole tree. We must make very difficult decisions."
Martin Weale, director of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, said the winner of the election should consider the plan in an effort to wean Britain off its reliance on debt. He said that a small annual levy of 1pc on all household debt, including mortgages and credit cards, could help raise £15bn a year – more than would be raised from a 3p increase in the basic rate of income tax.
Although the suggestion will raise eyebrows, Mr Weale runs one of the country's most respected independent institutions, so may spark speculation that it could be examined by the next government. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have both pledged to overhaul the tax system to remove the favourable treatment of debt, although neither has suggested a direct levy on household borrowing.
More Than 53% Of Your Tax Pmt Goes To The Military
The budget for the 2011 fiscal year, which has to be voted by Congress by this Oct. 1, looks to be about $3 trillion, not counting the funds collected for Social Security (since the Vietnam War, the government has included the Social Security Trust Fund in the budget as a way to make the cost of America's imperial military adventures seem smaller in comparison to the total cost of government).
Only the Mentally Ill Resist Confiscatory Taxation
Arden Dale, writing for The Wall Street Journal today, claims there is nothing wrong with the government taxing personal income. He cites Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said: “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”
Mr. Holmes did not explain how stealing money from people at gunpoint makes society more civilized. In fact, income taxes taken from the productive by the government through threat and intimidation are not used for civilized endeavors that benefit society at large. Virtually all of the money is used to service an astronomical debt owed to banksters.
So here, for any of you who might have forgotten, is a quick reminder: some £76bn from the Treasury to buy shares in RBS and Lloyds Banking Group ; £200bn worth of lender-of-last resort liquidity support provided by the Bank of England to stricken banks at the height of the crisis; £250bn of wholesale lending guaranteed by the Bank through the credit guarantee scheme; £185bn of loans to banks through the Special Liquidity Scheme; £40bn of loans and other funding to Bradford & Bingley and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Then, deep breath, there is the £200bn of liabilities taken on board from the Asset Protection Scheme, and the£200bn of cash poured into the economy through quantitative easing
UK: 
