British Rum Maker Got a $2.7 Billion Payout from TARP
By Susie Madrak Saturday Jun 27, 2009 4:00pm
I'm getting so tired of these stories. I mean, what's the point? Americans are perfectly happy to stay home and watch TV while our elected officials rob us blind and we struggle along without needed health care:
June 26 (Bloomberg) -- In June 2008, U.S. Virgin Islands Governor John deJongh Jr. agreed to give London-based Diageo Plc billions of dollars in tax incentives to move its production of Captain Morgan rum from one U.S. island -- Puerto Rico -- to another, namely St. Croix.
DeJongh says he had no idea his deal would help make the world’s largest liquor distiller the most unlikely beneficiary of the emergency Troubled Asset Relief Program approved by Congress just four months later.
Today, as two 56-foot-high (17-meter-high) tanks for holding fermenting molasses will soon rise from the ground on the Caribbean island of St. Croix, the extent to which dozens of nonbank companies benefited from last October’s emergency financial rescue plan is just beginning to come to light.
The hurried legislation adopted by a Congress voting under the threat of sudden global economic collapse led to hidden tax breaks for firms in dozens of industries. They included builders of Nascar auto-racing tracks, restaurant chains such as Burger King Holdings Inc., movie and television producers -- and London’s Diageo.
“It’s kind of like the magician’s sleight of hand,” says former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman William Thomas, a California Republican who ran the committee from 2001 to 2007 and oversaw all tax legislation. “They snuck these things in a bill that was focused on other things.”
[...] The added tax breaks prevented the TARP legislation from being rejected a second time, says Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner. Twenty-six Republicans, including Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania, John Shadegg of Arizona and Zach Wamp of Tennessee, reversed their earlier no votes.
Each of the tax provisions has a story -- and plenty of defenders.
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Those extra little corporate perks and twists were not added due to fears of economic collapse, and they sure as heck weren't missed because of rushing the legislation. This was planned. Bush gave 'em all a chunk of change, and Obama added to it.
Americans continue to lose their homes.
Americans continue to die for lack of health care - even if they are in a plan.
Screw the people -- why don't they just hurry up and DIE?
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Just like the patriot act. Except the TARP bailout plan was only like 4 pages. But they still wouldn't do their jobs.
......exactly what it will take before we "take to the streets".........not sure, but think we might be getting closer to that scenario.......then we'll see what "our" troops will do to its
own citizens!!!!!!!....it is painfully obvious that no one in DC cares......they all have their hands in the cookie jar........or money bag........
never mind.
Will they scream "Death to the fascist insects who prey on the blood of the people?" I hope so, but I strongly doubt it. Americans have lost their revolutionary heart. Like Michael Jackson, they are dead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI
Great clip by George Carlin...
But if you want to REALLY understand "money", please watch "The Money Masters" parts 1 and 2.
Just Google it, make sure you have several hours to digest it all, and pour a nice, tall, cool glass of something....
Let me know what you think.
Nighty-night from The Berkshires.
Who said: "The American experiment in Democracy will last until people catch on that they can vote themselves money from the Treasury." ???
a) Thomas Jefferson
b) Ben Franklin
c) Alexis de Tocqueville
d) Someone else .. who?
I copied and pasted that into Google, and C&L (you) was hit #1. Hey hey. So, yes, I cheated. The "experiemnt in democracy" was a dead give away though. (I studied European history.)
Your answer is (D)? With C&L standing in as other?
I could have sworn it was Tocqueville.
"Everyone who is anyone" has got their cheque "in the mail," and that's no one here. Biggest ripoff in world history.
Represntative democracy gets a facelift: they represent themselves.
the past 100 years a hundred years from now...
That is if there's anyone left to read it?
Speaking of history, here is Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" on audio for anyone who's interested:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article2...
It's the foreign debt people, were driving nails in our coffin with all this deficit spending and in the end it won't matter who got TARP money or stimulus money for one simple reason. We don't have any money. Keynesian foolery is going to come home like 1 ton anvil on our head.
The headline makes it seem as if these companies received tarp funds, i.e. they got tarp checks, as opposed to getting tax-breaks and whatnot from language inserted into the tarp bill.
The difference is actually quite big. If they got tarp money directly it could be fraud IF those companies didn't need it. After all the tarp money was to be given to companies that needed it on the feds (or treasury's (I always mix them up)) discretion. If however the companies got breaks because of unrelated language inserted into the bill that approved tarp then the culprit is really the lawmakers who voted for it, without knowing what was in it. And to a lesser extent the press who should be reporting on stuff like this, but they've abrogated that role quite some time ago so no biggie.
Few things get me upset, but this really pisses me off big time!
These fucking greedy pigs never have enough. The more they have the more they want. They even start wars to benefit their cronies and themselves. All this while people are losing their homes, life savings and medical insurance. Homeless war veterans, collapsing infrastructure, skyrocketing health care costs, price gouging by the phone, oil, and utilities companies.
U.S. broadband internet among the slowest in the world and outsourcing U.S. jobs to third world countries.
The middle class is disappearing to the delight of the squealing pigs in the top one percent.
Yet, not a peep from the MSM.
I mean, how much more can we take?
I guess they were actually saying some companies were too pig to fail.
This is from a piece I wrote on OpEdNews.com back on October 3, 2008:
Today the House of Representatives passed the Wall Street bailout bill. But it wasn't the $700 billion bill that was defeated on Monday. No, it was an $850 billion bill that included the original $700 billion for the bailout and $150 billion of pork. Among the goodies:
-- A $2 million tax break for makers of children's arrows.
-- A $192 million tax rebate for PR/VI rum producers.
-- $148 million of tariff relief for people who make things from wool.
-- $100 million for accelerated depreciation of NASCAR race tracks.
-- $397 million over 10 years in tax breaks for domestic movie producers.
That's why this bill will always be known to me as the "Boy Scouts, Pirates, and Shepherds Relief Act."
There are probably many other juicy bites of pork in there. The act burgeoned from 140 to 450 pages as the week unfolded and I have not even seen the final bill yet.
Is it any wonder why people have trouble taking politicians seriously anymore?
I'm afraid it's all over for the United States of America. Obama said "This is our time, this is our chance," and Americans have let it pass without doing a damned thing. No public health option, no true health care reform, capitalist pigs ripping us off through TARP and Obama's bailouts. Americans too dumbed down, too tired and too stupid to rise up and destroy the 1% ruling class that rapes them daily. It will now require a foreign power to do that. Too bad because many innocent will also die.
There's no hope for the United States of America. It is utterly, hopelessly doomed. My bet it won't even exist 50 years from now. My family and I are leaving this burned-out nation for good.
What was that song , " turn out the lights the partys over " , i dont know if it is time to give up yet , it is just not looking real good to me right now .
The DOJ is going after " made off " and their money , how about doing the same with bushco , wait we need to look forward , question are you still looking forward when you are walking backwards ? .
The sole point of the TARP was to hand billions of dollars in welfare to the obscenely wealthy to reward them for intentionally destroying the American and global economies.
Why is anyone surprised?
And you want the people who are responsible for TARP to now be responsible for health care?
These fucking greedy pigs never have enough. The more they have the more they want. They even start wars to benefit their cronies and themselves. All this while people are losing their homes, life savings and medical insurance.
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While you will be paying higher utility bills, Goldman Sachs will be raking in the dough from Cap and Trade, mandated by the government, assuming it passes the Senate. This after getting tax payer dough through the AIG bailout. Goldman spent over 3 million lobbying congress to pass Cap and Trade.
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