Tag Archives: Ireland

The Unlamented Passing of a “Free Trade” Pro-illegal Immigration Fraud, Peter Sutherland

Tuesday, 16 January 2018 06:19

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, January 15, 2018:

DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 27JAN11 - Peter D. Sutherla...

Peter D. Sutherland

Peter Sutherland lived just long enough to see his dream – a beige world filled with non-resistant sheeple – seriously challenged. He is quoted as saying that plans to extricate itself from the European Union by the United Kingdom (Brexit) are “insane” and “morally indefensible.” During President Trump’s first year in office, Sutherland was in declining health (he’d suffered a heart attack last year and had never fully recovered) and so quotes about his opinion of MAGA and “America First” aren’t available. But during Trump’s presidential campaign Sutherland was in full throat:

Keep Reading…

Hanjin Bankruptcy: a Harbinger for the Global Economy?

Friday, 09 September 2016 04:26

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, September 8, 2016:

South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping was the world’s seventh-largest container shipping company, moving (until last week) 100 million tons of cargo on its 200 cargo ships from manufacturers to retailers across the globe. Last week, following years of losses as the global economy has slowed, Hanjin declared bankruptcy. That move stranded 90 of those ships as off-loading companies refused to unload them over concerns that they wouldn’t be paid.

Even an offer of $90 million from what’s left of Hanjin (including $36 million from the personal assets of its chairman) fell far short of the necessary $543 million estimated to unload all of its ships that are now circling ports around the world.

Concerns are mounting that

Keep Reading…

Apple’s Issue With EU Order to Pay $14.5B Tax to Ireland Is About Sovereignty

Thursday, 01 September 2016 05:51

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, August 31, 2016:

Tim Cook, Apple COO, in january 2009, after Ma...

Tim Cook, Apple CEO

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook sharply criticized the European Commission’s Thursday ruling that his company must pay $14.5 billion in taxes to Ireland for what it said were illegal tax breaks. Cook explained that as the world’s largest company his is also the world’s largest taxpayer. He reminded his customers that Steve Jobs rescued the town of Cork, Ireland, from a failing economy when he opened an Apple factory there in 1980:

Keep Reading…

Treasury Rules Axe $160 Billion Merger; Obama Calls it Good

Friday, 08 April 2016 04:33

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, April 7, 2016:

Map of USA highlighting states with no income ...

Map of USA highlighting states with no income tax on wages (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

New Jersey’s wealthiest resident, David Tepper, decided to move himself and his business, Appaloosa Management, to Florida in order to take advantage of Florida’s much more favorable tax climate.

It’s going to make a big difference.

Keep Reading…

Fallout From Scottish Vote: European Separatist Movements Surge

Tuesday, 23 September 2014 06:10

This article was first published at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, September 22, 2014:

St Andrews, Scotland, "home of Golf".

St Andrews, Scotland

In reporting on the Scottish vote for independence last week, the Associated Press noted that, despite the failure, the vote “sets up a whole new political dynamic in the kingdom.” This has turned out to be a breathtaking understatement. The day after the election results were announced, Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, said he would not accept his party’s nomination for leader in November and that he would quit his role as

Keep Reading…

British PM Cameron Promises “Devolution” of Powers to Scotland

Tuesday, 23 September 2014 05:57

This article was first published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, September 22, 2014:

English: Home nations flag of the United Kingd...

Home nations flag of the United Kingdom. A combination of four flags of the four constituent countries of the UK: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thanks to the Scottish independence referendum last week, a new word has entered the political lexicon: devolution. The day after the election, British Prime Minister David Cameron urged the immediate formation of a cabinet level committee to study exactly how much power the UK will “devolve” to Scotland. He doubled-down by saying that that devolution should also apply to England, Wales, and Northern Ireland as well:

Keep Reading…

Last-Minute Bribe Keeps Scotland in the United Kingdom

Monday, 22 September 2014 06:23

This article first appeared at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 19, 2014:

First Minister Alex Salmond

First Minister Alex Salmond (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The polls in Scotland hadn’t been closed for more than an hour or two before the outcome of the independence vote was clear. By the time all the votes were tallied, 1.6 million Scots voted for independence while two million voted to stay in the United Kingdom. The massive turnout represented a remarkable 85 percent of all registered voters in Scotland, and the outcome prevented, for the time being anyway, the end of Scotland’s 307-year union with England.

Polls testing the waters just days before the election revealed a contest too close to call. The single question on the ballot, “Should Scotland to be an independent country?” could only be answered “yes” or “no,” and polls measuring the number of those voters planning to vote “no” slightly outnumbered those planning to vote “yes.” It wasn’t until the heads of the three major political parties in Westminster published a last-minute bribe on Tuesday

Keep Reading…

Medtronic Announces Largest “Tax Inversion” deal in move to save taxes

Wednesday, 18 June 2014 08:08

The announcement earlier this week that Medtronic is buying up Covidien in a $43 billion “tax inversion” deal confirms that momentum is building for more and more companies to use this strategy as a way to avoid high US corporate tax rates. Medtronic, a huge medical device maker headquartered in Minneapolis, will buy Covidien, a smaller company in the same business. Although Covidien is run out of Mansfield, Massachusetts, it has been incorporated for tax purposes in Ireland since 2009.

Once the deal is complete, a new company will emerge with a much lower income tax liability because

Keep Reading…

Michigan Senator wants to close “Tax Inversion” Loophole

Friday, 09 May 2014 13:01

United States Senate election in Michigan, 2002

United States Senate election in Michigan, 2002 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The recent bid by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to acquire British-based drug maker AstraZeneca has given the senior senator from Michigan, Carl Levin, just the opening he has been seeking: to offer his bill prevent such “tax inversions” from taking place. Said Levin:

It’s become increasingly clear that a loophole in our tax laws allowing these inversions threatens to devastate federal tax receipts.

We have to close that loophole.

If the deal between Pfizer and AstraZeneca (currently in doubt) actually takes place, the tax inversion would allow Pfizer to consider Great Britain as

Keep Reading…

14,000 Idle Wind Turbines a Testament to Failed Energy Policies

Wednesday, 10 April 2013 19:00

When Element Power announced on Wednesday the closing of a deal to build wind turbines for Blackrock in Ireland, nothing was said about the more than 14,000 other wind turbines lying idle across the world. Instead, Jim Barry, Managing Director for BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, expressed great pleasure at its new venture with Element:

Keep Reading…

Cyprus Deal Turns Bank Depositors into Lenders, Abolishes National Sovereignty

Monday, 25 March 2013 19:00

Late Sunday night the president of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, was officially informed of the deal the unelected Eurogroup had come up with in order for Cyprus to receive its bailout from the European Central Bank. Anastasiades flew to Brussels on Sunday to meet with Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Jose Barroso, the president of the European commission. The meeting was run by Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council. On his way to the meeting, Anastasiades admitted that

Keep Reading…

Ministers Meet as Eurozone Time Bomb Ticks Down

Wednesday, 30 November 2011 04:16

As the finance ministers from each of the 17 members of the eurozone meet in Brussels yesterday, the main topic was “integration.” It’s a race against the clock.

One of the first items being discussed is putting in place the leveraging of the stability fund—otherwise known as the EFSF, or European Financial Stability Fund. At present, this fund holds some $600 billion in assets, much of which has already been invested in government bonds issued by the eurozone’s weak sisters: Ireland, Greece, and Spain. The leveraging, through some opaque maneuvering, will then allow the fund to do some serious purchasing of enough of Italy’s debt to solve two problems at the same time. One is to bring down interest rates to some level that Italy may be able, in the short run, to afford to pay. And the other is to give

Keep Reading…

The Eurozone Continues to Unravel

Thursday, 10 November 2011 04:02

With Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou agreeing to step down in order to secure more bailout funds from the ECB, attention turned immediately to Italy’s financial problems that dwarf those of Greece’s. The Greek PM’s decision now clears the way for an interim government to agree formally to the new austerity measures demanded by the European Union as a condition of receiving additional financing by the end of the month. Those funds are needed to pay Greece’s bills through January 2012.

The bond market shifted its attention to Italy on Monday, driving interest rates on its 10-year bond to a record-high 6.66 percent, the highest since the country entered the union in 1999 and perilously close to

Keep Reading…

Jon Corzine Proves Regulation is Rigged

Monday, 07 November 2011 04:58

After spending the entire weekend trying to sell his company, MF Global, Chairman Jon Corzine finally capitulated, and his board declared bankruptcy on Monday morning, October 31. It was during negotiations with a potential suitor for the business, Interactive Brokers (IB), that word leaked out that customers’ monies were missing, and IB left Corzine to fend for himself. A board meeting was hastily called and ended Corzine’s dream of building another Goldman Sachs with other peoples’ money.

It isn’t as if the regulators were asleep. According to the New York Times, alarm bells went off last June when regulators from the Financial Industry Regulatory Agency (FINRA) first discovered that

Keep Reading…

Free Market Economist Cheers End of Borders Books

Sunday, 18 September 2011 23:28

Borders Books at 1807 Fordham Boulevard in Cha...

Image via Wikipedia

Dr. Mark Perry, economics professor at the University of Michigan and blogger at Carpe Diem joyously announced that the closing of Borders’ last bookstore on Sunday, September 18th “is a glorious, beautiful thing.” He said:

In the rearrangement of resources to serve customers we see the beautiful actions of the market economy reconfiguring the world to provide goods and services that are most wanted and needed in the most effective way.

It was those customers who built Borders into the world’s second largest bookseller from its first location—a humble second-floor used-book shop in Ann Arbor in 1971—into a world-wide operation with over 1,000 stores. It was those same customers who, 40 years later, humbled Borders into bankruptcy and liquidation.

Keep Reading…

Tea Party About to Give Obama a Second Term

Tuesday, 26 April 2011 23:26

obama for tacos

Image by mediajorgenyc via Flickr

The McClatchy-Marist Poll, which was released last Monday, revealed that those calling themselves Tea Partiers have little interest in doing anything substantial about slashing government spending. This cuts the legs out from under any attempt by conservatives in Washington to rein in that spending and it also gives President Obama a huge edge going into the 2012 elections.

Keep Reading…

Standard & Poor’s: Clock is Ticking on U.S. Debt

Monday, 18 April 2011 15:42

NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 16: A trader works on the...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Within minutes of Monday morning’s announcement by the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s that “we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating [for US government debt] to negative from stable,” the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 200 points.

In its announcement, the agency tried to soften the blow:

Keep Reading…

Portugal PM Resignation Rattles EU

Monday, 28 March 2011 00:47

Sócrates

Image by José Goulão via Flickr

When the Portuguese Parliament failed to pass an austerity bill on March 23, the country’s Prime Minister, Jose Socrates, resigned. That move leaves Portugal leaderless for at least two months while facing a significant financial crisis: it must refinance nearly $13 billion of short-term debt by June. Investors have already pushed interest rates on Portugal’s sovereign 10-year debt to almost 8 percent, while credit-rating agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor’s both downgraded that debt’s quality on March 24.

The European Union (EU) has already bailed out Greece and Ireland, and a top official announced that the EU has the resources to rescue Portugal, if necessary. The bailout would cost an estimated $60 billion to $80 billion.

Keep Reading…