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What we don't know about Romney's money

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Monday, April 9, 2012 10:35
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Saturday, April 7, 2012 4:03 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Quote:

Mitt Romney's tax returns for 2010 and 2011 were released in January, but revelatory details are still trickling out in the press, underscoring just how complex the private equity star's holdings are.

The headline numbers are simple enough. The documents show that Romney made $42.7 million over the past two years and paid $6.2 million in taxes. He paid an effective tax rate of 14.5%.

His personal financial disclosure form, filed with the Federal Election Commission, has been in the public domain for even longer. The document contains page after page of assets held by the former Massachusetts governor, including the so-called blind trust that contains the bulk of his wealth.

But the listed assets are described only in a limited fashion. As the Washington Post reported earlier this week, Romney is taking advantage of an ethics exemption that allows him "to postpone revealing underlying assets in investment accounts that have a legally binding confidentiality agreement."

Basically, we know Romney has money in specific accounts, but the underlying assets remain a mystery.

And last week, the Wall Street Journal offered the most convincing explanation yet as to how Romney stuffed an IRA with between $20 and $100 million. Turns out, Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney ran, allows employees to co-invest in takeover deals via tax-deferred retirement accounts, a strategy capable of bringing 583-fold returns on investment.

Now, of course, Romney has not done anything illegal or improper. But if elected, he would be one of the richest presidents in history. And certainly the first private equity man.

The breadth and complexity of Romney's investments, and the fact that only two years of returns have been released, make it difficult to put together a complete and accurate analysis of his holdings --just witness how long it took to figure out how that IRA got so big.

The Romney campaign has no apparent plan to release additional tax returns. Obama has already made public many years of relatively straightforward returns.

Releasing multiple years of returns (Romney's father released 12 years-worth when he ran for president) would allow for a better look at how Romney's assets evolved over time. This would be useful in the way a movie can relate more information than a snapshot.

Releasing more returns could open old wounds -- especially if nasty little items like Cayman Island funds are peppered throughout. But for a candidate running in large part on his business acumen, more returns might also lift the cloud of suspicion.

And who knows, the country might even have a productive conversation about the tax system in the process. http://economy.money.cnn.com/2012/04/06/what-we-dont-know-about-romney
s-money/?hpt=hp_bn5

I don't expect further returns, either...

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Saturday, April 7, 2012 10:22 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Hello,

Being staggeringly rich and running on business acumen probably go hand in hand. I suspect businessmen would have more respect for him if he didn't reveal more than he had to about his finances.

--Anthony



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Sunday, April 8, 2012 5:28 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


The appearance of a potential President is an important part of people choosing to elect them. The idea that he may be hiding something doesn't look good, especially as others (particularly his father) felt okay with releasing their financials. Nobody HAS to release anything, but if they don't, there's a perception that there's something to hide. What if it were found out that he's used illegal tax dodges (not that some of the "legal" ones are right, in my opinion)? Doesn't the country have the right to know that?

Candidates' families come under scrutiny. Their past actions come under scrutiny. Everything comes under scrutiny, whether that's right or wrong. The decision to run for President means the public will judge you in many ways, this is just one of them. No law says he has to reveal anything, but if he doesn't, he has to accept public opinion of his not doing so. That's just the way it is.

Our government isn't perfect, and that means those with power can institute laws that give preference to some over others; those laws are sometimes passed with less-than-honorable intent. If people don't like the results of those laws, they should overturn them. I don't consider it "business accumen" to make use of laws that are wrong and only benefit one class of people.

It's up to him in the end, but the people have as much right to make judgments on him AS a business person in their decision whether to support him or not.



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Sunday, April 8, 2012 8:07 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Of course he doesn't wanna pull back the curtain - a good chunk of it is Hellcamp money, laundered and leveraged via Bain Capital, and while that isn't quite exactly "public" information, once you know the source, it's not at all hard to put the pieces together.

What surprises me is that the Democratic political machine seems unwilling to flog him with this despite my willingness to hand them the whole goddamn thing on a silver platter, pre-packaged, fully sourced and ready to deploy all wrapped up with a neat little bow on top.

I mean for cryin out loud I've had "The Goods" on this guy for far longer than he's even been a consideration, have I not ?

Above all things, I loathe incompetence.

-Frem


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Sunday, April 8, 2012 8:02 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


Out of curiosity Frem, are you going to release those records you have about him?

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

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Monday, April 9, 2012 2:15 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Candidates' families come under scrutiny. Their past actions come under scrutiny. Everything comes under scrutiny, whether that's right or wrong. The decision to run for President means the public will judge you in many ways, this is just one of them. No law says he has to reveal anything, but if he doesn't, he has to accept public opinion of his not doing so. That's just the way it is.



So would you like him to produce a notorized birth certificate?

Sorry, Niki, but this article is just a classic hatchet-job. He hasn't done X, or produced Y, so he MUST be hiding something. Yawn.


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Monday, April 9, 2012 10:35 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Already done Riona, some time ago - but nobody seems to care, for all the lip service about it, it's like people are deliberately looking the other way, something I am all too familar with cause when things get past a certain point of ugly, no one wants to talk about it...

I mean the crap he pulled with Bain Capital is bad enough, but when you throw in the Hellcamp angle it becomes so horrific that the automatic-denial reflexes kick in and so on and so forth - just like those two PA Judges, they only ever charged em with financial crimes, cause no one wanted to talk about the lives they destroyed and how, which is gonna come back around if I can make that happen cause their misdeeds go back much, MUCH further than previously admitted, going all the way back to 1980 and involving more Judges and across several states, particularly revolving around VisionQuest, which that we know of, had the highest casualty rate of any "aboveboard" sites.
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-22/local/me-624_1_reform-program
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-demands-of-cold-blood?mid=53
5


But cause of just how awful the truth of it is, the public officials chose to pursue ONLY the financial flakery, and ONLY of the two Judges, and then call it case closed and pretend the rest of it never happened, see ?
And this is a problem with Romneys bankroll too, past a certain point when it starts coming clear WHERE it came from, and WHAT it came from, suddenly no one wants to discuss it no more.

But frankly the whole Bain Capital mess is by *itself* enough to sink him deep, and the only reason I can think of that none of the Dimbulbcrats wants to flail him with it is cause they have their own fingers quite deep into similar pies - a scumbag form of gentlemans agreement or something.
(Bain and Co have contributed $267,000.00 to Romneys war chest)

But yanno, I don't play by their rules...
As for the info itself, again, while not directly "publicly" available in one handy, convenient package, anyone with half a brain can put it together themselves with only those connections I've mentioned.
Like this stuff...
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00431171/

The name Robert Crist would mean nothing to someone who didn't know he's the primary "psychologist"(quack and scumbag) of Provo Canyon School, aka the Provo Canyon Hellcamp, nor would multiple contributions from 552 W 880 S Orem, UT - unless you knew that was their address.
Once one can match up the names and addresses, it comes clear there's a LOT of money flowing in from those sources, all broken up into smaller chunks to escape notice, especially when those people and ALL their relatives, even penniless art students and folks who may not be old enough to legally politically donate, all throw in the exact same amount - in 2007 this was $2100/$2300 for most of them, just crossref Sembler and Lichfield, the obvious ones, for starters...
Anyways, if *I* can find it, sure as hell professional muckruckers damn well can, and that no issue is being made of it annoys me.

But even on the financial end, holy moly, look at the contributor list, neh ?
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286
Quote:

Goldman Sachs $535,680
JPMorgan Chase & Co $375,650
Morgan Stanley $323,800
Credit Suisse Group $299,160
Citigroup Inc $282,765
Bank of America $277,850
Kirkland & Ellis $222,702
Barclays $221,650
PricewaterhouseCoopers $191,500
HIG Capital $188,500
Blackstone Group $178,800
Wells Fargo $163,200
UBS AG $156,550
Bain Capital $154,000
EMC Corp $128,300
Citadel Investment Group$122,125
Elliott Management $121,000
Bain & Co $113,300
Sullivan & Cromwell $107,150


So there's PLENTY to sink his ass with right there, and that's on a CURSORY examination.
Ergo, there's some other factor at work here, and I would much like to know what it is.

-Frem

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