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Politics : How Quickly Can Obama Totally Destroy the US? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (12154)11/11/2014 5:05:01 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
McCain Assures Incoming GOP Senators Won’t Be More Ted Cruz Types

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Mediaite ^ | Nov. 11, 2014 | Josh Feldman



To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (12154)11/12/2014 10:13:18 AM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
GOP adds another Senate seat as Sullivan wins Alaska

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FOX News ^ | November 12, 2014










To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (12154)11/12/2014 12:13:22 PM
From: joseffy  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 16547
 



To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (12154)11/12/2014 4:05:23 PM
From: joseffy1 Recommendation

Recommended By
slowmo

  Respond to of 16547
 
Eaten at a Philadelphia McDonald's Lately ? VIDEO
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To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (12154)11/13/2014 1:57:45 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
. Most Americans don’t think Obama tells the truth about anything,



To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (12154)11/13/2014 1:58:39 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
Nancy Pelosi says she doesn’t know who Jonathan Gruber is. She touted his work in 2009.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/13/nancy-pelosi-says-she-doesnt-know-who-jonathan-gruber-is-she-touted-his-work-in-2009/



To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (12154)11/13/2014 2:18:25 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
Nancy Pelosi says she doesn’t know who Jonathan Gruber is. She touted his work in 2009.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/13/nancy-pelosi-says-she-doesnt-know-who-jonathan-gruber-is-she-touted-his-work-in-2009/



To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (12154)11/13/2014 4:44:13 PM
From: joseffy1 Recommendation

Recommended By
slowmo

  Respond to of 16547
 
Buffett Set to Save More Than $1 Billion in Taxes With Duracell Stock Swap


here





By Noah Buhayar, Richard Rubin and Zachary Tracer 3 hours ago



Warren Buffett is again showing how to use the U.S. tax code to his advantage.

For the third time in a year, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) has structured a deal in which he buys businesses in exchange for stock that has appreciated. The transactions, called cash-rich split-offs, allow him to avoid capital gains taxes that would be incurred if he sold the shares in the open market.

Berkshire announced today that it would turn over about $4.7 billion in Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) stock in exchange for P&G's Duracell battery business, which will be infused with about $1.7 billion in cash.

Since Buffett's cost basis on the shares was about $336 million, and corporate capital gains are typically taxed at 35 percent, structuring the deal in this way could save Berkshire more than $1 billion. P&G also stands to reduce its tax liability on the sale.

"Cutting out the 35 percent capital gains allows them to do this at a price that's more attractive for Berkshire," said Richard Cook, co-founder of Cook & Bynum Capital Management LLC, which holds shares in Buffett's company. "If they did it in an open auction, P&G would probably wind up in a similar position, and Berkshire wouldn't have participated."

The Duracell deal mirrors two of Buffett's transactions this year. In February, Berkshire handed over a holding in Phillips 66 in exchange for its pipeline-flow-improver business. He later swapped a stake in Graham Holdings Co. (GHC) for cash, a Miami television station and Berkshire stock that Graham held. Graham is the former publisher of the Washington Post.

Berkshire highlighted the attractive nature of the deals in its latest quarterly report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

‘Tax-Free Reorganization' "Each exchange transaction was structured as a tax-free reorganization under the Internal Revenue Code," the company said in the Nov. 7 filing. "As a result, no income taxes were provided on the excess of the fair value of the businesses received over the tax-basis cost of the common stock of Phillips 66 and Graham Holdings Company exchanged."

A similar result should be "eminently achievable" on the Duracell deal, Robert Willens, an independent tax consultant, said in a report today. Willens and Cook said that tax savings would be more than $1 billion based on the cost basis listed by Berkshire. Buffett didn't return a call left with an assistant seeking comment.

"These transactions, amazingly enough, are not really considered aggressive, because there's such a well-prescribed formula that you need to follow," Willens said in an interview.

Burger King P&G will also benefit because it's getting to retire a portion of its stock using property that has appreciated in value without paying taxes on that increase, he said.

Buffett, 84, has publicly supported a higher tax rate on wealthy individuals and even lent his name to President Barack Obama's effort to do just that. The stance has often been compared with some of the actions his company has taken.

In August, Burger King Worldwide Inc. (BKW)'s proposed takeover of Oakville, Ontario-based doughnut chain Tim Hortons Inc., which Buffett agreed to help finance, drew criticism. The combined company plans to locate in Canada, making it eligible for a lower corporate tax rate.

Obama and Congress have been weighing how to dissuade companies from moving to other nations to reduce their tax bill after several sought to do such deals this year. Buffett has said that while the Burger King deal fits the definition of a so-called inversion, it should be distinguished from transactions in which companies shift valuable intellectual property to other nations.

Buffett's Duty "There isn't a whole lot of intellectual property to transfer with hamburgers," Buffett said on MSNBC in September. "This is not a case of trapped cash, it's not a case of intellectual property. It's a case of the larger company being in Canada."

Cliff Gallant, an analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc., said Buffett's personal views should be distinguished from how he runs his business. As a chief executive officer, he's obligated to make decisions that maximize value for shareholders.

"Every time he tries to save a tax dollar he gets criticized," said Gallant. "He has a duty to minimize taxes for Berkshire."

To contact the reporters on this story: Noah Buhayar in Seattle at nbuhayar@bloomberg.net; Richard Rubin in Washington at rrubin12@bloomberg.net; Zachary Tracer in New York at ztracer1@bloombe





Rules are only for us Little People.



Warren wants everyone else to pay higher taxes. Not him.



Must be some mistake. Warren Buffet WANTS to pay more in taxes. Something not right here. He needs to explain.



That means he can buy 2 million more abortions.


Wasn’t this creep crying crocodile tears a couple of years ago because he wasn’t paying enough taxes?




To: Qualified Opinion who wrote (12154)11/14/2014 12:22:47 PM
From: joseffy  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 16547
 
Exactly who is Field Marshal Gruber calling stupid?
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Michelle Obama's Mirror ^ | 11-14-2014 | MOTUS


Ordinarily a big brained college professor telling us that we are stupid wouldn’t be particularly newsworthy.



“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure the CBO did not score the mandate as taxes,” said Gruber. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. Call it the stupidity of the America voter, or whatever.”

Butt when the big brain is Herr Jonathan Guber, MIT Professor of Economics1 and Field Marshal of the Operation Obamacare assault on our formerly great American health care system – and by doing so reveal the fundamental fraud at the heart of that legislation – people sit up and take notice.

Well, unless you’re ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times, etc.; in that case you pretend you’ve heard nothing.

“I heard nothink!”

To be fair, MSNBC had little Ronan Farrell provide a platform for “Professor Mandate” (as Obama calls him) to claim that he just misspoke the truth. Which was good enough for most of the mainstream alphabets to justify not covering it (CBS broke rank yesterday and mentioned it once in order to let themselves off the hook).

And yet, Herr Gruber had hardly gotten warmed up: he went on to explain that states who defy Obama ’s will by refusing to set up state exchanges will be penalized by losing subsidies for their residents: that in fact that is intended as the bait:



I guess we’ll find out if he was too clever by half when the Supreme Court takes up the case, which contends that giving subsidies to people getting their insurance through the Federal Exchange are illegal based on the way the law was written – just like Professor Bait-and-Switch said they would be.

Later he also explains that we of little brains are not smart enough to understand that businesses don’t pay taxes; they pass them along in the price of their goods and services. Wow! Well, honestly, who could have figured that out on their own!? Watch the Prof explain, as only a big brained economist can, this shockingly complex economic principal, beginning at the 3:00 minute mark:



And much, much more in this historic montage:



So let’s be perfectly clear about just who Professor Smarty Pants was calling stupid: it wasn’t the well informed readers of the new alternate media. It wasn’t those of you who smelled the dead skunk and anticipated the lies even though you didn’t get to read the bill before it passed.

“I smell nothink!”

No, Professor Smarty Pants was talking about you Mr./Ms. Mainstream Media, because he knew that without winning your hearts and minds first, they could never win the hearts and minds of the LLIV (Liberal Low Information Voters) whose hearts and minds they counted on.

In other words, I don’t think Herr Gruber is talking about us, as we all have noses that are highly sensitive to even a whiff of snake oil.



No, he was talking about people like Ron Fournier of National Journal:

He called you stupid. [ed: Herr Gruber’s talking about you, Ron] He admitted that the White House lied to you [ed: Herr Gruber’s talking about you, Ron]. Its officials lied to all of us—Republicans, Democrats, and independents; rich and poor; white and brown; men and women.

Liberals should be the angriest. Not only were they [ed: Herr Gruber’s talking about you, Ron] personally deceived, but the administration's dishonest approach to health care reform has helped make Obamacare unpopular while undermining the public's faith in an activist government. A double blow to progressives.

Butt wait! I’m not done yet!





On top of that, Gruber has helped make the legal case for anti-Obamacare lawyers. In July, a year-old video surfaced in which Gruber said Washington legally withholds money from states that don't create their own health care exchanges. That could be construed by the Supreme Court to buttress the case against health insurance subsidies.

Yup, he’s definitely talking about you, Ron, and all of your “stupid” NeoCom™2 comrades.

The moral of the story? Don’t be that stupid guy in the MSM; join the Army of Davids.

H/T Instapundit

1Economics: The social science of human behavior in the marketplace that obfuscates the obvious by using theories, epidemiological models, and a special language of invented words to write thousand page dissertations of mumbo jumbo that you are too stupid to understand. (h/t Jonathon Gruber).

2NeoCom™ - The uber-Left wing of the Democratic Party, formerly known as the “Progressive Wing.” NeoComs™ ascribe to the belief that the Constitution is merely an advisory document, written a way long time ago by a bunch of racist, homophobic, misogynist white men.” They believe that the Constitution, together with the Bill of Rights, is “a charter of negative liberties” that says what the states can’t do to you (and) what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf.” Or, to paraphrase JFK: “Ask not what you can do for your country but what your country can do for you.” Exactly who is Field Marshal Gruber calling stupid?