Some morning media today included an item on an F.B.I. counterterrorism supervisor who, after a night of heavy drinking at a Charlotte, North Carolina hotel, got rolled by an exotic dancer for $60 cash, a $6,000 Rolex watch, and his gun.
He keeps us safe from terrorists... though he did find he was unable to keep his accoutrements safe from -- dancing girls....
(Could write a country song about this, I think...)
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In other news: the New York Times, Today's Paper --
| | THE PARADISE PAPERS
Endowments Boom as Colleges Bury Earnings Overseas
"American universities are using offshore strategies to swell their coffers, skirt taxes and obscure investments that could spark campus protests."
Reader Comments:
Anita
Richmond
The Educational Industrial Complex now joins the Big Pharma Industrial Complex and the Military Industrial Complex. ...
Essence
Academia is yet another institution that has gotten corrupt and out-of-control. ...the biggest current problem is the national erosion of civic virtue, and the corruption of nearly every pillar of our society by monied interests.
Anne
Washington, DC
Meanwhile, payments on gigantic student loans mean that many college graduates cannot buy cars, or homes or marry and provide for children.
John Smith
Cherry Hills, New Jersey
Universities are referred to as Institutions of Higher Learning for a reason. They are meant to form good character in those who attend them. The financial skulduggery and dirty deals described here are precisely the opposite of what higher education was intended to do -- to inculcate morality, ethics and duty to serve others through leading by example....
e.s.
St. Paul, Minnesota
University endowment funds like these no longer exist to benefit students. They exist to perpetuate themselves and to support an industry of well-heeled lawyers, investment bankers, consultants, etc. that feed on them. Their intentions may be good, but the organizations themselves have reached the point where the survival and prosperity of the organization is at least as important as the original mission.
Jim McAdams
Boston
If congress were honest about tax reform they would start with the elimination of all the tax avoidance schemes exposed in the Paradise Papers.
How little trust do our institutions and leaders hold now?
Bob
Minnesota
Articles about the use of blocker corporations are interesting. However, where are the articles about how the hedge fund and private equity managers (who are US citizens making billions of dollars annually) who use these strategies to defer their own income taxes for years and even when they are taxed, pay it at the much lower capital gains rate as opposed to ordinary income tax rates that most Americans pay?
President Trump promised to close this loophole but, not surprisingly, nothing was done about it in the Republican tax bill. Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohen no doubt have friends at Goldman Sachs (or even they themselves) who benefit from this strategy.
Closing this loophole would restore some fairness to the tax code and raise revenue that could be used to restore some of the deductions being taken away from the middle class. Why not do this, Speaker Ryan?
L
Connecticut
Hopefully all these revelations blow up the Republican tax cuts for the wealthy.
It seems that the poor and middle class are really bearing the tax burden in this country, while the GOP insists on providing corporate welfare to big corporations and wealthy donors.
JC
Brooklyn
Not only do colleges send their money out of the country but they make the poor and the middle class pay for the services they need. Yale, with its huge endowment, pays no taxes but uses the police, fire and other services paid for by the poor residents of New Haven.
I'd like to believe that something will change but I don't think so. This is just the outrage du jour.
Daniel Baum
Toronto, Ontario
Isn't it time for students and faculty to have places on university governing bodies -- especially as to investment policies?
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