sheeeit

I think this is largely correct with a few caveats. I think Manafort had a short term cash flow issue and needed to collect money from the Uks. So he wanted loans to bridge the gap. I think this because some of the potentially fraudulent loans have been paid back. I have to believe that the feds have him pretty cold as it would be unusual to bring the case without pretty iron clad evidence. It is an interesting case. He was really playing fast and loose with loans and income etc. I am having a hard time coming up with a plausible defense for him but he must have something. I do not see how blaming Gates will be a winner without some paper trail we do not know about. I could see him trying to play a semantics game on the foreign accounts. I suppose he could argue that he understood the disclosure rule to be foreign accounts in his personal name versus business accounts that he controlled. It is also not illegal or uncommon for individuals to take out loans from their businesses. It does need to be well papered though and sounds like his was not. But you can take loans from your business and not pay any taxes. You can also then declare the loan forgiven but then have to report the full amount of the loan as income but could time it to a year when you had losses to off set it or a surplus of cash. The bank fraud aspect is more interesting. Typically, these cases come when someone stops paying the banks back. As far as I know, he is not delinquent in his loans. Obviously does not justify falsifying docs but it is unusual. Especially if it is true that the loans are heavily collateralized and at market rates or above. My experience is that bankers get pretty easy with some of the regulations and paperwork when there is substantial collateral to cover the loan. It is also interesting that usually tax fraud like this gets uncovered when people either do not file or really file low. According to what I have seen, Manafort did declare $5-$6M in earnings on his return so he definitely paid some taxes. It will be interesting to see his defense. I think right now it is at least 95% that he is going down.

You realize that what you posted has nothing to do with what I actually typed right? I have no narrative. I said I thought Manafort was guilty already. I am working a hypothetical. Businesses set up corps in foreign countries all of the time. US citizens are required to pay taxes on all income that they earn PERSONALLY wherever they reside. Foreign corps that do business in foreign countries are not subject to US income tax even if owned by US citizens. A US citizen could set up a business in Cypress and start selling stuff to Germany for millions of dollars and there is not tax due on anything in the US that is not paid to the US citizen personally.

Been interesting so far. It is obviously early, but the prosecutors haven't actually pointed out any crimes yet. I am assuming they are setting up the lavish lifestyle so that they can then show how much income was reported on tax returns and there wont be enough. Got me to thinking about something that may not have anything to do with this particular case but is tangential. If a person sets up a corp in a foreign country and then does work under that company and the money is paid to the corp in the foreign country, I do not think that money would be subject to US taxation. Now any amounts that were transferred to the US would certainly be subject to taxation. What I do not know is what happens to purchases made from that foreign account for the benefit of that corp. For instance, if the corp had $5M in income then it should pay taxes on that income in the foreign country. But if that corp then buys real estate in the US, and the real estate is owned by the corp that is based in a foreign country, I am not sure there is any kind of tax due other than property tax. It would be complicated, but in theory, a person that earned significant income from outside of the US, could have their foreign corp own all of their assets (houses, cars, jewelry, furniture, art etc) and then "pay"themselves a nominal amount from the corp and then pay taxes on that amount only and be perfectly legal.

LOL. Thanks for the tip Einstein. I am not confused about anything. We are using an overly simplified example to make a point. This is getting way in the financial weeds and I have zero interest in debating it with you. There are a myriad of things that maintain the dollar as the reserve currency.

Of course. I was just commenting that deals are still offered during trial. If the prosecution appears to be winning then the deals get worse for Manafort or there are none at all. If Manafort's team comes up with some out of nowhere point then the deal might get better. I do not think Manafort has anything to offer. Based solely on what we know (which isnt much) I see no reason for the feds to offer him any kind of good deal. I think their case is probably pretty tight.

No shit. You are selling them to someone else. You will have a NET surplus trade position. It is entirely normal and customary to have different trade positions with different people. If the US has a $100B trade deficit with China but a $200B trade surplus with everyone else then we do not have a problem. But we do not. We have a massive NET trade deficit that is unsustainable. In the example above the company will have a trade deficit with Hong Kong. In this example we are using, virtually every business will have a trade deficit with their suppliers, (unless there is some weird contract where suppliers buy back finished goods) they have to. But they then sell the manufactured goods to other people and they will have trade surpluses with those people and the net position will be a surplus.

Pos rep. This point is so badly understood by the masses that it is comical.

Calling out someone for being stupid and not understanding the issue is a bold strategy. You clearly have exactly no idea what we are discussing. In your scenario above, why in the hell would you say that your company has a "million dollar trade deficit" after being in the black? You do understand that when you manufacture and sell your rubber dogshit that you are entering into a trade surplus right? That is the whole point you dumbass. It is ok to have trade deficits when you are growing or are positioning yourself for future growth. Your company has a trade deficit in year 1 when you buy the million dollar gizmo. You spent more money bringing in goods than you made selling them. But when you start selling the dog shit in years 2 and 3 and making a profit your company now has a trade surplus. You are selling more items than you are buying and making a profit.

I suspect Manafort will get convicted. He can always take a deal at any point before sentencing. Obviously the deal gets worse for him as time goes on.

I am actually really curious who you think might have paid me for this?

lulz. There was a time when I thought you were a fairly smart guy. Feel free to look up everyone who has ever repped me (it certainly will not take too long) and let us know who the socks are. It is amazing that people exist that absolutely believe something based on zero actual knowledge.

You keep saying this and it is just too stupid. I have never used a "sock" of any kind. I can not think of too many more pathetic things to do. I type one post using the first person to make a point and you dorks go crazy. I am certain that the mods can track IP addresses fairly easily. I am happy to have them track mine anytime they want.

It is not that simple. The cost difference right now is not nearly as high as you might think. Countries like Poland and the Netherlands already have signed deals with US nat gas companies to ship lng. The costs are coming down and Germany (the biggest user of Russian nat gas) is moving forward with very large investments in nat gas infrastructure to facilitate shipped gas. Also, there is a tremendous amount of investment being made right now to lower the costs associated with shipping lng. And the point is that anything the US is doing in this regard is going to hurt russia financially in a big way. In the short term, Russia will have to, and has, reduced their price for nat gas which obviously hurts their profits. In the long term, if the EU and the surrounding countries decide to use more shipped gas from the US and the middle east then Russia gets hurt even more. And there is a decision to be made. Trump is so bad at speaking clearly that most people missed the point of what he is doing. The EU and the surrounding areas are practically begging the US to stay strong in NATO. Lets be honest, NATO in the EU is protection from Russia. Yet, Germany is buying some 50% of its gas from Russia. So germany wants protection from Russia by the US and wants unfettered access to the US markets but still wants to buy the bulk of their energy from russia. The US should absolutely push them to buy more from us. And the bigger point as it relates to this thread on Trump/russia collusion is that ANY action by the US that has the potential to hurt Russia's profits from selling nat gas to the EU is going to be considered incredibly hostile by Putin. As mentioned above, going after Russia's energy exports is about the worst thing that you could do to russia from a financial standpoint. It is hard for me to believe that a Putin puppet would do it.

I am not even sure where to put this stuff anymore. Been wanting to post this after the recent trade stuff with the EU. One of you conspiracy/russia guys is going to have to explain to me how Putin has Trump as his bitch while Trump is pressuring Europe to import more LNG from the US and is using access to all things US (our markets, our military, our expertise etc) to do it. There is no single bigger harm to Russia/Putin than a decline in their natural gas sales. It is the life blood of their entire economy and Putin's power. Any action by the US to curb its influence is a massive threat to them. Something like 65% of russian exports are oil and gas. Oil is already such a global commodity that russia profits no more or no less than anyone else but, natural gas is very different. Russia's pipeline system gives them an almost monopoly on selling natural gas in the region. Their profits from natural gas are actually higher than that from oil.

Swam may get an F for some of his economic posts but the rest of you barely get Ds. You are basically just as guilty as swam for cherry picking data and then using the cherry picked data out of context. Using the BOP as an example of our current economic health is very deceiving and I actually expected some of you to know better. It is true that trade deficits are not always bad and not always a sign of economic sickness. As the CATO article pointed out, when an economy is growing and expanding, it often gets into trade deficits so that it can get the goods/materials/resources it needs to keep pace with its expansion. BUT, that is only good in the short term. The win comes when an economy expands enough and grows enough to eventually switch the balance of trade with other economies. Long term trade deficits are a death knell to any economy. Think of it like a small company that takes on a bunch of debt in order to add new machinery or expand a new product line or similar. In the short term, that company will be adding debt at a much higher rate than it is adding income. It will have a "trade imbalance" as it buys new expensive machinery or takes on new people to a point where the new stuff is more expensive than what it is currently producing. But that is ok as long as the company can then use the new machinery and new product line to eventually bring in more money than it cost to add the new stuff. Using the BOP graph is completely bogus. It is certainly correct that a surplus balance of payments is a good thing as long as the foreign investment is actually an investment. If the bulk of the balance was actually foreign govts and entities buying US real estate or US companies or US services then it would truly be a great thing. But it is not that. If we remove things like purchases of US treasuries from foreign govts from our BOP we would be way underwater. We are currently selling treasuries NOT to stimulate growth or make investment in our country. We are selling them to service our debt first and foremost and then to supplement our ability to make payroll. We are not adding new machinery to position ourselves to be the big dog in the future. We are simply taking on debt to stay alive. On tariffs, it is universally agreed that tariffs for the sake of tariffs is a bad idea and, ultimately counter productive. This is especially true if the tariffs are long term in nature. What trump is doing is using the threat of tariffs to get a more level playing field in our trade with other countries. This may or may not be a good strategy, it is way too early to tell. But it is not too early to tell that the course we have been on previously is not working at all. There is certainly a chance that trump's strategy will work. He may be able to leverage tariffs and access to the US markets to get fairer trade deals. I do not believe any country would ever agree to straight up free trade with no tariffs or subsidies. I think they know that the american machine and work ethic and ingenuity etc will win a fair fight more times than not. So we will never get to that point but we might get a lot closer which will certainly help america.

This sure sounds like a fine ideal but it is just so naively stupid it is hard to take it seriously. If there is a vote to say open up more offshore drilling in the Gulf then it would be great for a lot of texans that work for oil/gas companies and great for the state to get more tax dollars. However, there are a group of conservationists that are worried that expanding drilling will hurt the ecosystem. How should the senator vote on this? How can he represent ALL Texans? You can never possibly represent ALL of anything. Make your platform known, make your ideology known and then follow those if you get elected. Vote for whoever matches closest to you and then hope.

OK. Just be clear. If you watched wrestlers talking about it on TV and believe them (nothing wrong with that) then just say that. But you can not say you accept that there is a chance Jordan knew nothing but then assert there is no chance he is not in a morally bad position.

Gotcha. So when you speculated that there might be reasons that Jordan would not welcome an investigation when you obviously knew that he had already welcomed the investigation and volunteered to assist in any way he could (I mean you had to know that since you are "well aware of what's gone on with this story") you were just being a disingenuous asshole? That does sound entertaining.

Well since you clearly have not researched anything I am not surprised by this post. If you had done 2 minutes of research you would have learned that Jordan was receiving constant emails from a former wrestler claiming that Jordan knew of the "abuse" and Jordan turned those emails over to the capital police. Great strategy to cover up something by alerting the police about it. Also, his office put out a statement weeks ago saying that Jordan has not been questioned or requested at all by the investigators and would be happy to cooperate and assist in any he can. But your take is probably better.

Agreed. And if we take it further, do any of us actually want to elect a person that has zero skeletons? I actually like the fact that Obama smoked a little and maybe tried coke. I can not imagine the crazy that would exist in my mind if I never did things I wasn't always proud of.

I can agree he should have released a better statement but releasing your statement would have ruined him by people just like you. By saying "wish I had done more" admits that he knew there was an issue worth doing something about. He probably just should have said " while i personally was never made aware of abuse by the Dr. it appears that there were issues and i welcome an investigation into the matter and I will cooperate in any way I can". However, I think only an extremely naive person would think that would actually end it. As soon as there was a whiff of sexual abuse and Jordan's name then it was out of control.

This is my basic problem with this post and, to me, represents what I have been talking about. You fully admit that "Jordan may very well have had zero knowledge.". I agree with this and I also agree that he might have known about it. But you then post that "Morally he's in a bad position and there's no disputing that.". How can you say there is no disputing that he is in a morally bad position and also say he may not have known? The way this story has been told and then exaggerated by twitter and posts and everything else, the vast majority of people are convinced that Jordan knew of sexual abuse and did not report it. I am not even sure what was purported to have happened is actually sexual abuse. Exactly ZERO wrestlers have said they said something about the issue directly to Jordan. All they have said is that Jordan, to the best of their memories from 27 years ago, was in a group of people that were discussing it. My pure opinion is that it is hard to believe that Jordan was not aware that there was a creepy Dr. hanging around and that members of the team talked about it in a joking manner. But if no one came forward to make a complaint against the Dr. I am not sure what people are expecting Jordan to have done. Especially as an assistant wrestling coach.

I have debated commenting on this thread because of the predictable nature of the responses. It represents everything that is bad with todays journalism/twitter/political world. No one cares for the actual facts and by the time the twitter world and non reputable journalists and message board dolts are done the actual truth is long gone. Obviously, any type of sexual abuse is bad and the perps deserve punishment. As best I can tell, there are 2 former wrestlers that say that they voiced their concerns with a group that included Jordan and the Head Coach. No one has said that anyone went one on one with Jordan about the abuse and that Jordan did nothing. Both of the wrestlers that have come out in public have specifically said that they never had any direct conversations with Jordan. In fact, the Head Coach did contact the Dr. involved according to his testimony. And, from that time, there were not any other complaints from the wrestlers. So 2 wrestlers come forward and the Head Coach takes action and then no other complaints were made by wrestlers. What exactly should Jordan have done? He was the assistant coach and his head coach addressed the issue. From the Perkins Coie report, they estimate that there were potentially 1500 athletes across 14 different sports that were affected. But the biggest and certainly most public blame is going towards the assistant wrestling coach. It is also worth noting that just as many wrestlers say Jordan probably did not know of the abuse as there are those that say he did know. Also, the head coach and all of the other assistant coaches have declared that Jordan was not aware of abuse. Certainly an investigation into the whole escapade is warranted. And certainly Jordan needs to be part of that investigation. If there is actual proof that he knew of the abuse and did nothing about it, then he deserves to be punished and should resign.

My brother cohosted a reception for Beto recently in Dallas and I got to chat with him a little bit. Impressive guy. Will get my vote for certain.

As usual, this is not even remotely what I postured. First, even though you guys keep ignoring it, it is, in fact, within Flynn's legal rights to rescind his guilty plea. He is not bound by his plea until sentencing. He can rescind it and ask for a jury trial. The likelihood of him actually winning a jury trial at this point (after he has plead guilty) is extremely low. The govt could also add new charges. About all Flynn could argue is that the govt withheld evidence from his lawyers and that he would not have plead guil;ty if he knew of that evidence. I seriously doubt the govt actually withheld evidence but it is obviously very unusual for a judge to order the govt to turn over evidence to a defendant's attorneys AFTER the defendant had already plead guilty. All that I am suggesting is that it could give Flynn some perceived leverage. Any one of you can read the plea agreement that Flynn signed. There are general sentencing guideline recommendations in the plea agreement. Flynn could easily be trying to use new information to get a more favorable recommendation on his sentencing. That is neither unusual or uncommon. It is also not at all unusual for Flynn to want to see what happens to Trump in the mueller probe. IF Trump is vindicated by the Mueller report then Trump will have way more political capital to pardon Flynn. If the Mueller report is damning to Trump then he obviously has a lot less political capital and touching Flynn might be too much. Trump may have no intention of pardoning him in any event. None of us knows. It is just a factor to consider.