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Monday, March 21st, 2016

 Stop a Drug Company From Dodging $35 Billion in Taxes

,    -  The Nation

Stephan:  You already know you are getting screwed every time you fill a prescription, paying on average twice what someone in another country pays for the same drug -- something 10 times what they pay. But that is just part of it. Here is another facet of the outrageous and corrupt reality that is Big Pharma in the U.S.. Please sign the petition mentioned in this report.

 

Pfizer Headquarters

Pfizer Headquarters

If the administration doesn’t block it, Pfizer, one of the world’s biggest drug companies, could successfully dodge approximately $35 billion in taxes. (emphasis added)

How would Pfizer get away with that tax dodge? By merging with a firm in Ireland, then reincorporating overseas so that it can pay that country’s lower tax rate. Pfizer would not become an Irish company in any meaningful sense. The hugely profitable drug company would still remain based in New York and continue to benefit from all that America offers—legal protections for its lucrative drug patents, government purchases from Medicare and Medicaid, and much more. Pfizer will simply stop paying its fair share of US taxes.

This trick is called “corporate inversion” and President Obama, who once called these companies “corporate deserters,” has the power to stop it. To prevent Pfizer and similar corporations from shirking their responsibility, the president can instruct the Treasury Department to update its 2014 Notice or issue a new Notice. That wonky-sounding change could ensure the American people are […]

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Monday, March 21st, 2016

$2 billion loss for generators as a million U.S. roofs get solar

Jonathan N. Crawford,    -  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Bloomberg News

Stephan:  I chose this report because it is the first I have seen that makes it clear why the old centralized carbon energy utilities are in a complete freak-out about solar and wind. They remind me of shipyards that made wooden sailing ships, once a great industry, then a dying economic sector.

solarcity_installRooftop solar is casting a $2 billion shadow over power generators across the eastern United States.

With more than a million U.S. houses set to have solar panels by the end of next month, grid managers serving the eastern U.S. plan to cut the amount of electricity they buy from conventional plants by about 1,400 megawatts, starting in 2019, according to industry consultant ICF International Inc. That’s enough juice to power about 780,000 households.

The result could be as much as $2 billion in lost revenue for generators that are already reeling from lower demand, tight environmental regulation and depressed prices. Power producers including NRG Energy Inc. warn that the growing reliance on solar may curtail investment in conventional power plants, threatening the reliability of the U.S. electricity system. That’s already happened in Germany, they say, citing plans by EON and RWE to scrap existing or planned plants.

The decision “creates a risk you are going to repeat in the United States what’s happening in Germany,” said George Katsigiannakis, a principal at Fairfax, Va.-based ICF, in a telephone interview. “The result of that is going to […]

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Monday, March 21st, 2016

Legal marijuana: A $44 billion business by 2020?

David Schepp,    -  CBS Money Watch

Stephan:  Mainstream media and government have begun to take the end of marijuana prohibition seriously and to think about the tax implications. Here is a report.
Marijuana Shop Credit: www.tokeofthetown.com

Marijuana Shop
Credit: www.tokeofthetown.com

The growing acceptance and legalization of marijuana is helping the U.S. cannabis industry expand well beyond niche status. It’s forecast to pump from $24 billion to $44 billion annually into the country’s economy by 2020, according to an industry publication.

At the upper end of that forecast, published in the Marijuana Business Factbook 2016, it means sales of medicinal and recreational marijuana and related products and services would nearly equal the annual revenues of such Fortune 500 firms as FedEx (FDX) and Lockheed Martin (LMT), should current trends continue.

Put another way, that $44 billion is just shy of Panama’s $46.2 billion GDP and ahead of Serbia’s $43.9 billion. Even if the industry publication’s forecast is a bit puffed up, cannabis is clearly heading for the big time.

Monday, March 21st, 2016

Governor Blocks $2.85 Minimum Wage Increase After Giving Staffers $73,405 Raises

Aaron Rupar,    -  Think Progress

Stephan:  Yet another example of corrupt arrogant self-serving Republican governance. It just never seems to end, and it is so blatant; yet corporate media rarely covers it, and never as the nationwide trend it is. I used to feel sorry for the people in the states led by these hacks, but then I realized they are in office because they were voted there by the people of their state. Vote Republican and you reap what you sow.
In this Monday, Jan. 19, 2015, file photo, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and his wife, Dianne Bentley, walk down the Capitol steps during his inauguration for a second term, in Montgomery, Ala. Alabama’s first lady on Friday. Aug. 28, 2015, filed for divorce from Gov. Robert Bentley, saying their 50-year marriage has suffered an “irretrievable breakdown.” The divorce was one of Alabama's top stories in 2015. Credit: AP/Brynn Anderson

In this Monday, Jan. 19, 2015, file photo, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and his wife, Dianne Bentley, walk down the Capitol steps during his inauguration for a second term, in Montgomery, Ala. Alabama’s first lady on Friday. Aug. 28, 2015, filed for divorce from Gov. Robert Bentley, saying their 50-year marriage has suffered an “irretrievable breakdown.” The divorce was one of Alabama’s top stories in 2015.
Credit: AP/Brynn Anderson

When the city Birmingham, Alabama voted last month to give its lowest-paid workers a $2.85 raise, Republican Gov. Robert Bentley signed a bill banning Alabama cities from raising their minimum wages at all. Now, news […]

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Sunday, March 20th, 2016

Non-partisan analyst flips 10 House races to favoring Democrats

Scott Wong,    -  The Hill

Stephan:  For the first time the professional political class are beginning to think the unthinkable -- despite grotesque gerrymandering and voter suppression the Republicans might lose control of the House. Here is the story. This would be a huge deal, and if the Senate flipped as well, and a Democrat won the Presidency, for the first time in eight years the U.S. might actually have a functioning government.
U.S. House of Representative with all members present. Credit: www.ibtimes.co.uk

U.S. House of Representative with all members present.
Credit: www.ibtimes.co.uk

House Democrats received a bit of good news on Friday: The nonpartisan Cook Political Report changed the ratings of 10 House races in Democrats’ favor.

And given the unpredictable nature of this cycle, the elections and campaigns newsletter said it could not be certain Republicans will hold the House in November.

“So many assumptions have been wrong this cycle that it’s difficult to be definitive about another: that the House majority won’t be in play in 2016,” wrote longtime Cook political analyst David Wasserman.

While a Donald Trump or Ted Cruz nomination “wouldn’t guarantee a down-ballot disaster,” Wasserman wrote, it would make congressional races much more difficult to predict, especially if Trump becomes the GOP standard bearer.

Here are the 10 Cook ratings changes that favored Democrats: