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617

A NY Times Editorial Hits Mitt

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The editorial board of the NY Times hits Mitt for his opaque finances in a lead editorial “Mitt Romney’s Financial Black Hole.”

“Mitt Romney has upended that tradition this year. He has released only one complete tax return, for 2010, along with an unfinished estimate of his 2011 taxes. What information he did release provides a fuzzy glimpse at a concerted effort to park much of his wealth in overseas tax shelters, suggesting a widespread pattern of tax avoidance unlike that of any previous candidate. [emphasis mine]

I recommend you read the whole editorial and share it widely.

618

An Honor for Jim Tully’s Biographers

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I am very pleased for authors Paul Bauer and Mark Dawidziak that their biography Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, and Hollywood Brawler has won a Gold award  in Foreword Magazine‘s annual recognition of the best books of the past year. Winning books were selected by a panel of librarians and booksellers.

I had put the book on my best list for 2011, blogging about in a foundational post called Lost American Writer Found: Jim Tully and again after the authors gave a presentation at NYU last April when I posted A Book Talk on Jim  Tully. In the first post I wrote that the authors,

steep the reader in Tully’s lifelong struggle to make himself into a significant person; glimpsing his continual act of self-creation is what I found thrilling about this book. The authors chronicle how even in relatively prosperous years, he continued striving to create himself and forge his work. Family agonies–his son Alton served several jail terms for brutal assaults on women–sapped Tully’s energies and darkened many of his latter days. Sadly, he lived along enough to see his reputation and book sales decline, leaving him to ponder what kind of country no longer cared to read about the travails of its have-nots, even while America roared ahead into the second half of the century. I felt Tully’s sorrow as his reputation ebbed and editors no longer kept him in demand for assignments.

It’s a great book and along with the judges at Foreword Magazine, I recommend it highly.

619

Tax Fairness High on the President’s List & a Video on Mitt’s Offshore Accounts

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Greg Sargent is reporting in his Morning Round-up on the Plum Line that President Obama will today reiterate his intention to end the Bush-era tax cuts on affluent people making more than $250,000 annually. To be precise, the reversion to higher rates, those that prevailed in the 90s when the economy did much better than in the 2000s, would actually apply only to that portion of their income above $250K, not on the amount below it. This fact won’t quell the outcry from the right-wing who are already claiming it’s a tax hike on small businesses, but that’s just rhetoric. As Sargent explains, the key point of tax fairness is one that the president will be campaigning on through the fall, offering potent contrast with Mitt Romney’s stated policies, and to Mitt’s own taxes. The Obama campaign will also use the issue to highlight the Republican candidate’s stunning lack of transparency about his finances, and the rate at which he pays taxes.

In this same vein, be sure to read Paul Krugman’s column today, Mitt’s Gray Areas, where as Sargent observes,

“Romney’s refusal to be transparent about his own finances suggests he doesn’t want to reveal the extent to which he would personally benefit from the policies he’s advocating, because so doing would be deeply damaging.”

Meantime, on my tumblr I’ve posted a new video from the Obama campaign, asking key questions about Mitt Romney’s offshore investments, including Sankaty High Yield Assets, the fund he transferred to his wife in 2003, the day before he was sworn in as MA governor. For convenience, the video is also right here. Share it around if you like, as Mitt’s offshore holdings bear a lot more scrutiny. Clearly, the Obama campaign is hoping that the media will continue reporting on Mitt’s opaque finances, with many unanswered questions about his investments and holdings.

 

620

Annals of Urban Wildlife–Meeting a Skunk in the City (or a Sturgeon)

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Update: A day or two after my encounter with the skunk chronicled below, I read of a wild urban encounter involving my friend, CBC Radio host and author Grant Lawrence. In the coastal waters washing around Vancouver, B.C., where he lives, he saw a huge, prehistoric-looking fish whose presence in water he had been about to swim in alarmed him and a young nephew until they determined that the marine creature was actually dead. He took the photo shown here and sent it out on Twitter, crowd-sourcing identification of it. Grant’s discovery turns out to have been a sturgeon, the world’s largest freshwater fish. This one was seven or eight feet long, as shown in Grant’s amazing picture. Now, a local paper has written up the account in full, which I invite you to read at this link. Not so coincidentally, this summer Grant is hosting CBC Radio’s The Wild Side, all about encounters with creatures and the wilderness. As Grant’s discovery shows, and even mine with the little skunk, our cities are also the scene for brushes with the wild side.
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I ride my bicycle nearly every day in New York City, even during this current heat wave. Biking is my preferred form of exercise, and has been for years, going back to my days at Franconia College, near Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, when I rode all over the White Mountains. I was never in better shape than in those years.

New York City doesn’t offer quite as many topographical challenges as the North Country but I get my miles in every week, and there are some lovely spots to ride in the city. Some days I ride on the Central Park loop that goes around the perimeter of the big park; other days I pedal along the Hudson River on Manhattan’s west side, all the way up to the George Washington Bridge, where readers of this blog may recall the Little Red Lighthouse resides under the Great Gray Bridge, which I wrote about in a foundational post, How This Blog Got its Name.

Today I was on the west side but in the 95 degree heat, I took a reading break at what are called the Harlem West Piers, about even with 125th Street, near the uptown branch of the Fairway market. Sitting on a bench, I read three engrossing chapters in the spy novel I’m currently enjoying, The Double Game by Dan Fesperman, which I’d made my #FridayReads yesterday. Looking at my watch I finally decided it was time to head home, so picked up my cell to let my wife know. As our phone at home began to ring, I was startled to see a creature stirring in the shrubbery and bushes just near my bench. I thought at first, ‘a rat,’ since they are common sights in New York these days. But, no, the coloring was wrong. When it emerged from the bushes, I could see it was black & white, and I said to Kyle just as she answered the phone, “Holy shit, I see a skunk!” She was taken aback, and I quietly explained what was in front of me. Neither of was completely shocked, as we have occasionally detected a skunk-like odor that wafts up from Riverside Park at night, though we were never certain that’s what we were smelling. I quickly added that I’d soon be heading home and ended the call so I could pull out my IPod-Touch and take some pictures of the sleek little creature.

I observed that it was almost certainly immature in growth, though not a pup, or whatever baby skunks are called. It seemed unafraid of me and there was not a moment where I thought it was riled up or likely to spray or, even run away from my observance of it. I took quite a few pictures and followed it as it crept along the path in front of the fence. Once it disappeared into the shrubs, I prepared to strap on my helmet and ride away, but saw a Parks Dept. worker nearby. This is a very well-maintained park so I walked over and asked her if it was known to her and her colleagues that skunks are living right here in front of the river.  She blanched a bit and said, “You saw what? Oh, no the landscaper is going to be here tomorrow and we’re supposed to work in those beds. I’m so glad you told me, I don’t want to be stirring up any angry skunks!” I explained to her that it had been a young one I’d seen, and that it didn’t appear to have been made at all nervous by being near me. She was glad of that, but mentioned there must be more than just the one. Her name was Penny Hyman and I gave her my card which I’d been using a bookmark in my novel, as she said her supervisor might want to see my photos of the little creature. For you, my dear readers, here are several of those pictures, proof that I had a close encounter with a surprising example of Manhattan wildlife. All this goes to show, you never know what may happen when you leave your house for some exercise and quiet reading time.

621

Rachel Sklar, Changing the Ratio one Mind at a Time

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I admire Rachel Sklar’s Change the Ratio initiative, from which she advocates for a more equitable proportion of women in tech fields, and now want to recommend this column of hers about the recent list of major tech influencers from Newsweek/Daily Beast that unaccountably managed to identify only 7 women listed out of 100 total standouts. To the credit of  Newsweek/Daily Beast they solicited Rachel’s critique and are running it in their own pages, but the lingering question is, “Why does this list skew list so heavily toward men?”

Rachel’s analysis makes clear that the answer to that question goes well beyond what simply happened in this one instance. She offers many women candidates who could have been included and closes her piece on an admonitory note,

“
Next year, please don’t make me write this article again.”

H/t Andrew Rasiej of Personal Democracy Forum for his editorial in TechPresident, “Let’s Change the Ration Once and For All,” which first brought Rachel’s column to my attention.

622

A Jet-Ski Vacation

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Fresh off revelations in Vanity Fair and on the AP wire that Ann Romney had become the sole owner of an opaque investment vehicle called Sankaty High Yield Assets the day before her husband was sworn in as governor of Massachusetts in 2003, the candidate’s wife gave a rather bizarre interview on CBS TV Thursday morning. Over at my Great Gray Bridge tumblr, I’ve posted commentary on this with the ridiculous photo of Ann and Mitt Romney jet-skiing around their lakefront vacation home earlier this week.

I should add that Ann Romney, though reputed to be an electoral asset for her husband, has hit a few bumps along the campaign trail:

  • There’s her lordly and expensive sport of dressage, which I posted about in 2011;
  • On that matter of Sankaty High Yield Assets, she was Mitt’s sole beneficiary for the fund which for unknown reasons he transferred to her under the wire before taking the governor’s office. He then failed for years afterward to report it on his federal elections filings, as he was required to do, according to those Vanity Fair and AP stories.

623

More Questions about Mitt’s Money

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Update: The Obama Campaign jumped right on the AP story on Mitt’s finances that I blogged about yesterday. Above is the video they’ve made about the issues raised by the story. It includes numerous statements from voters on Mitt’s offshore money. In the statement accompanying the video campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt says,

“Yesterday’s Associated Press story raises serious questions about whether Mitt Romney established a Bermuda corporation to avoid U.S. taxes and attempted to hide it from the public. According to the report, Romney transferred the mysterious corporation to a blind trust in his wife’s name one day before taking office as Governor in order to avoid disclosure. In fact, he left this entity off of seven different personal financial disclosure statements he was required to file under state and federal law since 2001. We already know about Romney’s $3 million Swiss bank account and millions of dollars of investments in foreign tax havens like the Cayman Islands. Bermuda does not tax corporate income or capital gains. Until Romney releases additional years of tax returns, the American people will never know whether he created this shell corporation to intentionally avoid paying U.S. taxes. What is Mitt Romney trying to hide?”

For my part, I hope reporters keep asking questions about the registered-in-Bermuda Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors, Ltd. Though it’s a mouthful to say, I think this opaque Romney-owned investment vehicle could have a lot of resonance with voters.

624

Mitt’s Most Secret Offshore Investment

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First in Vanity Fair by Nicholas Shaxson and now today via AP staff reporters, journos are digging into Mitt’s most secret offshore investment, Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd., registered in Bermuda. From the AP, we now know at a minimum that he failed to report Sankaty in required filings when he held office in Massaschusetts, and that he may still be making money from it. Romney’s finances are held in many opaque vehicles.

Sankaty was transferred to a trust owned by Romney’s wife, Ann, one day before he was sworn in as Massachusetts governor in 2003, according to Bermuda records obtained by The Associated Press. The Romneys’ ownership of the offshore firm did not appear on any state or federal financial reports during Romney’s two presidential campaigns. Only the Romneys’ 2010 tax records, released under political pressure earlier this year, confirmed their continuing control of the company. . . .
Romney’s 2010 tax returns show him and his wife as sole owners of Sankaty. . . .
The candidate’s 2010 tax returns listed at least 20 investment holdings besides Sankaty that had not been previously disclosed on federal reports. At least seven were foreign investments. Bain Capital Inc., the holding that posted the $1.9 million earning, was listed on Romney’s state ethics reports in 2001 and 2002, when he ran for governor, but was missing from any annual ethics report until Romney’s trust included it last month on his 2012 financial statement. Sankaty is the only offshore holding in the Romneys’ portfolio under their full control. On his 2010 taxes, Romney’s blind trust filed an IRS form identifying Sankaty as a “controlled foreign corporation.” That filing is required for any U.S. taxpayer who owns more than 50% of a foreign company. Romney’s 2010 tax returns indicate that he and his wife control all 12,000 shares. Several U.S. Securities and Exchange documents from the late 1990s and 2000s depicted Romney as Sankaty’s owner at the time, but when he ran for Massachusetts governor in 2001 and 2002, Romney did not list the company on annual disclosure forms required by the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission. The ethics commission would not comment on the omissions. Boston College law professor R. Michael Cassidy, who was a member of the commission at the time, said that if Romney “owned this business before he signed his ethics disclosure, then he was obliged to report it.”