The Reason Small Businesses Are Disappearing, As Explained By A Small Business Owner

going out of business

The Reason Small Businesses Are Disappearing, As Explained By A Small Business Owner (ZeroHedge, Nov 14,  2014):

Confused why despite endless daily propaganda that the US economy is getting better – after all “just look at the record high S&P 500” – fewer and fewer Americans believe the narrative, as the Democrats and Obama found out the very hard way in last week’s midterm elections? Then the following explanation written by the owner of a small business – the segment of the US economy that has historically led every single recovery but this time was left behind – should help answer some questions.

The reason small businesses are disappearing written by a small business owner.

Read moreThe Reason Small Businesses Are Disappearing, As Explained By A Small Business Owner

Russia opening gov’t-backed startup accelerator in Crimea

Russia opening gov’t-backed startup accelerator in Crimea (Venture Beat, April 26, 2014):

The Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF, or FRII in Russian), a government-backed fund supporting startup development, will open a remote regional accelerator in Sevastopol, Crimea, as soon as this summer, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported last week.

The fund is expecting to support five to seven projects, which will be evaluated on the local and national levels. Funding will be received based on the results of three month’s work in the accelerator.

Read moreRussia opening gov’t-backed startup accelerator in Crimea

New Company Allows Organizations To Hire Fake Protesters


When a reporter asked a paid protester in the above image what this protest was for- he told the reporter, “It’s a day to ban guns, I think.”
-The Event was actually for a new movement called “Purge Day” dealing with mental illness.

New Company Allows Organizations To Hire Fake Protesters (Benn Swan Full Disclosure, Aug 9, 2013):

So, no one supports your cause? No problem. You can hire supporters- even protesters. A company started last October by 22-year-old Adam Swart provides just this service.  In a telephone interview I spoke with Swart about his new found success. “I came up with the idea on a visit to Estonia,” says Swart. At the airport, Swart says he saw a man who was being swarmed by a crowd of excited onlookers. He tells me, “I thought- Why can’t I have that kind of attention?” And so, Swart’s company, Crowds on Demand, was born.

Swart says that business is doing extremely well. According to their website, their office is located in a swanky downtown LA office suite. He says his biggest client so far was a $10k contract, but he would not disclose the client. Not bad for a 22-year-old kid. “We do most of our business through word of mouth. We are able to provide our customers with top-notch service, so they spread the word to other potential clients,” says Swart.

Read moreNew Company Allows Organizations To Hire Fake Protesters

ECONOMIC COLLAPSE: Each Day 134 Retail Outlets Close In Italy … ‘It’s A Massacre’

Retail association ‘Confesercenti’.


Crisis is closing ‘134 retail outlets’ a day in Italy (ANSA.it, June 19, 2013):

Confesercenti describes situation as a ‘massacre’

Rome, June 19 – Each day 134 shops, restaurants and bars close in recession-hit Italy, retail association Confesercenti said on Wednesday. Confesercenti, which represents small and medium-sized businesses in the retail and tourism sectors, said 224,000 enterprises had closed their shutters since the start of the global economic crisis in 2008.

“It’s a massacre,” said Confesercenti President Marco Venturi.

“Every day five green grocers, four butchers, 42 clothes shops, 43 restaurants and 40 bars and catering business close down”.

Killing Small Business: Percentage Of Self-Employed Americans At Record Low

They Are Murdering Small Business: The Percentage Of Self-Employed Americans Is At A Record Low (Economic Collapse, May 2, 2013):

The percentage of Americans that are working for themselves has never been lower in the history of the United States.  Once upon a time, the United States was a paradise for entrepreneurs and small businesses, but now the control freak bureaucrats that dominate our society have created a system that absolutely eviscerates them.  This is very unfortunate, because by murdering small business, the bureaucrats are destroying the primary engine of job growth in this country.  One of the big reasons why there are not enough jobs in America today is because small business creation is way down.  As I mentioned yesterday, entrepreneurs and small businesses are being absolutely devastated by rules, regulations, red tape and by oppressive levels of taxation.  If anyone doubts that small business in the United States is dying, just look at the charts below.  Sadly, this is what the bureaucrats that run things want.  They don’t want us to be independent of the system.  Instead, they are much more comfortable when as many of us as possible are heavily dependent on the system in one way or another.  If all of us have to go running to the government or to one of the big corporations for a job, then we are much easier to control.  But as the control freaks continue to construct their bureaucratic utopia, they are also killing off what once made the U.S. economy so great.

The other day I came across the following two charts in an article by Charles Hugh Smith, and I was absolutely stunned by what I saw.  This first chart shows that the number of unincorporated self-employed Americans has dropped back to levels that we have not seen since the mid-1980s even though our population has increased by tens of millions of people since that time…

Read moreKilling Small Business: Percentage Of Self-Employed Americans At Record Low

Record 2,564 Spanish Firms File For Bankruptcy In Q1, 45% Higher Than Year Ago

Record 2,564 Spanish Firms File For Bankruptcy In Q1, 45% Higher Than Year Ago (ZeroHedge, April 8, 2013):

Perhaps the best measure to gauge the European recovery is by the soaring number of companies going bust, because only from this perspective is Europe finally “fixed.” As Reuters reports citing a report by Axesor, a record 2,564 companies filed for “insolvency proceedings”, a more palatable version of the word bankruptcy, in the first quarter – an increase of 10% from Q4 and up a whopping 45% from Q1 2012. The reasons given: “tight credit conditions and meager demand.” Or in other words: no actual cash flow to fund demand for products and services. Obviously it will take some truly phenomenal massaging and manipulation to represent GDP as rising in this environment, but we are confident the Spanish authorities are already on it, and somehow the Spanish pension fund, already 97% filled with Spanish government bonds, will somehow have a finger in yet another completely unbelievable economic print which will fool most of the algos most of the time on flashing red Bloomberg headlines.

Per Reuters:

“Most Spanish businesses did not prepare for a crisis this big or this long, which could be a determining factor,” said Javier Ramos-Juste, head of economic studies at Axesor.

Spain has been in its second recession in five years for the past 18 months and unemployment is more than 25 percent.

Read moreRecord 2,564 Spanish Firms File For Bankruptcy In Q1, 45% Higher Than Year Ago

An Entrepreneur In France: ‘I Need To Hire More People, But The Government Won’t Let Me’

My Talk With An Endangered Species: An Entrepreneur In France (Testosterone Pit, April 5, 2013):

“I need to hire more people, but the government won’t let me,” said my friend, an internet entrepreneur in France, one of the intrepid figures still slugging it out over there—in a country whose relentlessly deteriorating unemployment problem is gnawing at the very fabric of society.

We spent an hour and a half on Skype, talking about topics that were a bit, let’s say, delicate under the current regime in France. So he and his company, both well known, will remain unnamed. He has been successful in the startup sense: his company has had two solid rounds of funding from venture capital investors. VCs are another phenomenon that hasn’t gone extinct in France yet, testimony to the mind-boggling human capacity to adapt and survive no matter how hostile the environment.

Read moreAn Entrepreneur In France: ‘I Need To Hire More People, But The Government Won’t Let Me’

$529 Million In Federal Funding And All Jobs Destroyed Or Lost

Flashback:

Total Karma Recall: Fisker (Received $529 Million In Federal Subsidies) Pulls All Cars Due To Fire Risk

Taxpayers Lose Another $118.5 Million As Next Obama Stimulus Pet Project Files For Bankruptcy (Video)


$529 Million In Federal Funding And All Jobs Destroyed Or Lost (ZeroHedge, April 5, 2013):

Pop quiz:Q. What is the fiscal multiplier on $529 in government stimulus?

A. If you are Fisker Automotive, zero.

While the terminal fate of the federally-subdizied car company was no secret to anyone, there were some questions when this latest example of idiotic government “capital allocation” would get Solyndraed. The answer is now.

GigaOm reports:

According to several sources, electric car maker Fisker Automotive is planning to lay off many of its employees today. Sources tell me that there is a company meeting at 8AM today where the company will announce this to the employees.

I’ve also heard that law firm Outten & Golden has been looking into initiating a class action law suit to represent Fisker’s employees should Fisker fall into bankruptcy. The firm is looking into whether Fisker (like Solyndra) will or already has violated the WARN act.

Read more$529 Million In Federal Funding And All Jobs Destroyed Or Lost

List Released With 132 Names Who Pulled Cyprus Deposits Ahead Of ‘Confiscation Day’

List Released With 132 Names Who Pulled Cyprus Deposits Ahead Of “Confiscation Day” (ZeroHedge, April 1, 2013):

With every passing day, it becomes clearer and clearer the Cyprus deposit confiscation “news” was the most unsurprising outcome for the nation’s financial system and was known by virtually everyone on the ground days and weeks in advance: first it was disclosed that Russians had been pulling their  money, then it was suggested the president himself had made sure some €21 million of his family’s money was parked safely in London, then we showed a massive surge in Cyprus deposit outflows in February, and now the latest news is that a list of 132 companies and individuals has emerged who withdrew their €-denominated deposits in the two weeks from March 1 to March 15, among which the previously noted company Loutsios & Sons which is alleged to have ties with the current Cypriot president Anastasiadis.

From Sigma:

Money transfers made within 15 days, namely from 1 until March 15. On Friday, March 15, had met the Eurogroup, which officially decided to impose a tax on deposits by companies and individuals in all financial institutions in Cyprus.

These 132 companies and individuals have withdrawn all deposits in euros, dollars and rubles, which were transferred to other banks outside Cyprus.

Read moreList Released With 132 Names Who Pulled Cyprus Deposits Ahead Of ‘Confiscation Day’

TEPCO Requests 3.2 Trillion Yen For Fukushima Compensation

Tepco requested additional financial support of 697 billion yen for the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund (Fukushima Diary, Dec 27, 2012):

Tepco has estimated the total nuclear damage compensation to be 2.5 trillion yen and has been requesting the financial support from the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund based on the revised Special Business Plan approved on May 9, 2012.

However, after deciding the compensation standard of lands or houses, adding real estate and postponing the compensation term for spontaneous evacuees and harmful rumor of agricultural products, the estimated compensation amount increased to be 3.2 trillion yen.

On 12/27/2012, Tepco requested the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund for 697 billion yen of the additional financial support.

Read moreTEPCO Requests 3.2 Trillion Yen For Fukushima Compensation

Facebook Paid £2.9 Million Tax On £840 Million Profits Made Outside US

Company channelled bulk of profits through Ireland and on to Cayman Islands, allowing to it pay just £238,000 to UK taxman


Facebook Ireland was able to cut its tax bill to just €3.2m by using an accounting technique called the ‘Double Irish’. Photograph: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

Facebook paid £2.9m tax on £840m profits made outside US, figures show (Guardian, Dec 23, 2012):

Facebook has become the latest multinational to come under the spotlight for its tax affairs after figures revealed it paid just £2.9m in tax on profits of more than more than £800m.

Filings for Facebook Ireland, through which all of the social network’s profits outside the US are channelled, show it paid the Irish tax authority €3.2m (£2.9m) last year.

Read moreFacebook Paid £2.9 Million Tax On £840 Million Profits Made Outside US

How Wal-Mart Used Payoffs To Get Its Way In Mexico

How Wal-Mart Used Payoffs to Get Its Way in Mexico (New York Times, Dec 17, 2012):

SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACÁN, Mexico — Wal-Mart longed to build in Elda Pineda’s alfalfa field. It was an ideal location, just off this town’s bustling main entrance and barely a mile from its ancient pyramids, which draw tourists from around the world. With its usual precision, Wal-Mart calculated it would attract 250 customers an hour if only it could put a store in Mrs. Pineda’s field.

One major obstacle stood in Wal-Mart’s way.

After years of study, the town’s elected leaders had just approved a new zoning map. The leaders wanted to limit growth near the pyramids, and they considered the town’s main entrance too congested already. As a result, the 2003 zoning map prohibited commercial development on Mrs. Pineda’s field, seemingly dooming Wal-Mart’s hopes.

But 30 miles away in Mexico City, at the headquarters of Wal-Mart de Mexico, executives were not about to be thwarted by an unfavorable zoning decision. Instead, records and interviews show, they decided to undo the damage with one well-placed $52,000 bribe.

The plan was simple. The zoning map would not become law until it was published in a government newspaper. So Wal-Mart de Mexico arranged to bribe an official to change the map before it was sent to the newspaper, records and interviews show. Sure enough, when the map was published, the zoning for Mrs. Pineda’s field was redrawn to allow Wal-Mart’s store.

Problem solved.

Read moreHow Wal-Mart Used Payoffs To Get Its Way In Mexico

The Death Of Small Businesses In America

We Are Witnessing The Death Of Small Business In America (Economic Collapse, Dec 13, 2012):

Historically, small businesses have been the primary engine of new job creation in the United States.  If the economy was getting healthy, we would expect to see the number of jobs at new businesses rise.  Instead, we are witnessing just the opposite.  We are told that the economy is supposed to be “recovering”, but the number of “startup jobs” at new businesses has fallen for five years in a row.  According to an analysis of U.S. Department of Labor data performed by economist Tim Kane, there were almost 12 startup jobs per 1000 Americans back in the year 2006.  By 2011, that figure had fallen to less than 8 startup jobs per 1000 Americans.  According to Kane, the number of jobs in the United States at businesses that are less than one year old has fallen from 4.1 million in 1994 to 2.5 million in 2010.  Overall, the number of “new entrepreneurs and business owners” has fallen by more than 50 percent as a percentage of the population since 1977.  The United States was once known as “the land of opportunity”, but now that is fundamentally changing.  At this point we truly do have a “crisis of entrepreneurship” in this country, and that is a huge reason why America is in decline.  We are witnessing the slow death of the small business in America, and that is incredibly bad news for all of us.

Read moreThe Death Of Small Businesses In America

15 Signs That The Economy Is Rapidly Getting Worse As We Head Into 2013

15 Signs That The Economy Is Rapidly Getting Worse As We Head Into 2013 (Economic Collapse, Dec 10, 2012):

How can the mainstream media claim that the U.S. economy is “improving” when it is painfully obvious to anyone with a brain that the middle class is being absolutely eviscerated?  According to numbers that were just released, the number of Americans on food stamps rose by more than 600,000 in a single month to an all-time record high of 47.7 million.  Youth unemployment in the U.S. is at a post-World War II high and large companies have announced the elimination of more than 100,000 jobs since Barack Obama won the election.  Consumer debt just hit a new record high and the federal government is accumulating debt at a much faster pace than it was at this time last year.  So where is the evidence that the economy is getting better?  The mainstream media says that the decline of the unemployment rate to “7.7 percent” is evidence that things are improving, but I showed how fraudulent that number is yesterday.  The percentage of working age Americans with a job today is exactly where it was back in September 2009 in the midst of the last major economic crisis.  The mainstream media is desperate for any shred of evidence that it can use to make people feel good and show that the Obama administration has our economy on the right track, and so they jump on any number that even looks remotely promising and they ignore mountains of evidence to the contrary.  They don’t seem to care that poverty is absolutely exploding and that the number of Americans on food stamps has risen by nearly 50 percent while Obama has been in the White House.  They don’t seem to care that the U.S. share of global GDP has fallen from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percent in 2011.  They don’t seem to care that more good paying jobs are being shipped overseas with each passing day.  They don’t seem to care that formerly great U.S. cities that were once the envy of the entire globe are now crime-infested hellholes.  All they seem to care about is putting out news that makes people feel warm and fuzzy and making sure that Obama looks good.  Unfortunately, the truth is that the U.S. economy is steadily getting worse, and 2013 is not looking very promising at all right now.  Hopefully at some point the mainstream media will take a break from coverage of the royal pregnancy and the latest celebrity scandals to report on the real problems that we are facing right now.The following are 15 signs that the economy is rapidly getting worse as we head into 2013…

Read more15 Signs That The Economy Is Rapidly Getting Worse As We Head Into 2013

GMOs Won’t Feed The World (Video)


YouTube Added: 04.11.2012

Description:

Monsanto, DuPont and the other biotech company’s biggest marketing myth about GMOs is that they are going to feed the world…the opposite is true.

At a conference filled with experts on world hunger and agriculture, I asked the Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack a question about GMOs. When he suggested that GMOs were needed to feed the world, the audience began hissing and booing him.

Enjoy this excerpt from our full length documentary Genetic Roulette—The Gamble of Our Lives http://geneticroulettemovie.com.

Walmart’s New Health Care Policy Shifts Burden To Medicaid, Obamacare

Walmart’s New Health Care Policy Shifts Burden To Medicaid, Obamacare (Huffington Post, Dec 1, 2012):

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy obtained by The Huffington Post.

Under the policy, slated to take effect in January, Walmart also reserves the right to eliminate health care coverage for certain workers if their average workweek dips below 30 hours — something that happens with regularity and at the direction of company managers.

Walmart declined to disclose how many of its roughly 1.4 million U.S. workers are vulnerable to losing medical insurance under its new policy. In an emailed statement, company spokesman David Tovar said Walmart had “made a business decision” not to respond to questions from The Huffington Post and accused the publication of unfair coverage.

Read moreWalmart’s New Health Care Policy Shifts Burden To Medicaid, Obamacare

They Are Going To Make It Nearly Impossible To Pass On A Farm Or A Business To Your Children

They Are Going To Make It Nearly Impossible To Pass On A Farm Or A Business To Your Children (Economic Collapse, Nov 20, 2012):

If you have a farm or a small business, would you like to pass it on to your children when you die?  Well, unless Congress does something, it is going to become much, much harder to do that starting next year.  Right now, there is a 5 million dollar estate tax exemption and anything above that is taxed at 35 percent.  But on January 1st, the exemption will go down to 1 million dollars and the tax rate will go up to 55 percent.  A lot of liberals are very excited about this, because they believe that the government will be soaking wealthy people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.  But the truth is that a lot of farms, ranches and small businesses will be absolutely devastated by this change in the tax law.  There are many farmers and ranchers out there today that do not make much money but are sitting on tracts of land that are worth millions of dollars.  According to the American Farm Bureau, approximately 97 percent of all farms and ranches in the United States would be subject to the estate tax if the exemption was reduced to just a million dollars.  That means that the children of these farmers and ranchers would be faced with a very cruel choice when it is time to inherit these farms and ranches.  Either they come up with enough money to pay the government about half of what the farm or ranch is worth, or they sell the farm or ranch that may have been in their family for generations.  Needless to say, most farm and ranch families do not have that kind of cash lying around.  Most of them are just barely making it from year to year.  So this change in the tax law is going to greatly accelerate the death of the family farm in America.  This is also going to devastate many family-owned small businesses.  Many small businesses don’t make much money, but they have buildings or land or assets worth millions of dollars.  Children that may have wanted to continue the family legacy will be forced to sell because of the massive tax bill that they get from Uncle Sam.  This is an insidious cruelty, and it shows just how broken our system has become.

Read moreThey Are Going To Make It Nearly Impossible To Pass On A Farm Or A Business To Your Children

Massive List Of Post-Election Firings And Layoffs

Share This Massive List Of Post-Election Firings And Layoffs With Everyone You Can (Economic Collapse, Nov 9, 2012):

The victory by Barack Obama on election night has resulted in a huge wave of firings and layoffs all over America.  A large number of businesses seem to have suddenly shifted into panic mode.  The number of layoff announcements that we have seen in the last 48 hours has been absolutely shocking.  So why is this happening?  Well, the truth is that the federal government is absolutely suffocating small businesses all over America with rules, regulations and taxes.  If you have never tried to run a small business, then you have no idea how oppressive this system actually is for people that are trying to run small businesses successfully.  It has steadily gotten worse over the years no matter who has been in the White House and no matter who has controlled Congress.  So we shouldn’t put 100% of the blame on Obama.  Bush massively expanded government and made things harder on small business people too.  But what many small business people were looking for on this election day was just a little bit of help.  Many were desperately holding out hope that Obamacare would be repealed so that they would not have to get rid of some of their employees.  Many were hoping to get a little bit of relief from the crippling regulations and taxes that are absolutely crushing them.  But now that Barack Obama has been given another four years, they understand that there is no hope on the horizon and that things are only going to get worse.  So they are making the hard decisions that they feel are necessary in order to survive in this economic environment.And I certainly don’t blame them.  You only want to have employees if you can make a profit on them.  And in this environment it is getting harder than ever to make a profit on an employee.  You see, the truth is that what you cost your employer goes far beyond your salary or your hourly wage.  I think many of you would be absolutely shocked if you learned how much it actually costs your employer to employ you.  And now thanks to Obamacare, that cost is going to go up even more.

Many businesses are not even feasible at all in this economic environment.  Many small businesses had been holding out hope that somehow this election might turn things around and make it possible for them to keep going, but when Obama won it was kind of like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

You can’t do what the federal government and the state governments are doing to us and expect to have a thriving economy.  They are choking the life out of us.

New businesses and small businesses are supposed to be at the heart of our economic system.  Unfortunately, the environment that has been created is absolutely killing them.  This is a recipe for disaster.

In a previous article, I noted that the number of jobs created at new businesses in 2010 in the United States was less than half of what it was back in the year 2000.

Now we can expect that number to get even worse and we can expect large numbers of small businesses to shrink in size or close their doors completely.

The following is a list of some of the post-election firings and layoffs that we have seen since Tuesday night…

Read moreMassive List Of Post-Election Firings And Layoffs

‘Welcome To The Recovery’: 112-Year-Old Pennsylvania Apparel Maker To Close

Flashback:

Welcome to the Recovery (New York Times, by Timothy Geithner, August 2, 2010)

‘Recovery’ is the ‘Greatest Depression’.

See also:

Lockheed Martin To Lay Off 123,000 Employees!!!

‘Welcome To The Recovery’: 15 Signs That Layoffs And Job Losses Are Skyrocketing



Chief Executive Officer Walter Meck is surrounded by idled sewing machines set aside for sale at FesslerUSA apparel manufacture in Orwigsburg, Pa.

112-year-old Pennsylvania apparel maker to close (NBC News/AP, Nov 5, 2012):

One of the last U.S. apparel manufacturers of its kind is losing its shirt.

FesslerUSA had survived war and depression, free trade and foreign imports, producing millions of knitted garments from its base in eastern Pennsylvania. Five years ago, third-generation owner Walter Meck and his family were feeling so good about the company’s prospects they doubled capacity, moving into a former pencil factory outside the small town of Orwigsburg.

They were still setting up shop in the new place when the Great Recession hit.

Sales plummeted. Financing dried up. And, after a long struggle to keep the manufacturer afloat, Meck has finally run out of time and money, still awaiting the strong economic rebound that never came. Production will shut down in early November, tossing 130 employees out of work and ending a run of nearly 113 years.

“We’re not even on life support any more,” the downcast CEO said in an interview on the floor of his cavernous factory, ominously quiet on a recent workday.

Read more‘Welcome To The Recovery’: 112-Year-Old Pennsylvania Apparel Maker To Close

First Vertical Farm Opens In Singapore

First vertical farm opens in Singapore (Wired, 0ct 28, 2012):

The first commercial-scale vertical farm has opened in the tiny, densely-populated city of Singapore, with the aim of decreasing dependence on food imports

Singapore, which lies at the end of the Malay Peninsula, is just 710 square kilometres, almost all of which is city. That leaves little space to grow vegetables. As a result, the city currently only produces seven percent of its vegetables locally, forcing it to buy from other countries.

The vertical farm, which has been developed by Sky Green Farms, consists of 120 aluminium towers, each extending up to 9 metres in height. It can produce 500kg of three kinds of vegetables per day, all of which are sold in the local FairPrice Finest supermarkets. However, they do cost a little more than imported vegetables.

Read moreFirst Vertical Farm Opens In Singapore

UK: Fake Shop Fronts Used To ‘Revive’ High Streets In North Tyneside

fake-shop-front The specially-designed facades feature different types of shops

Fake businesses are to be used to lessen the impact of the recession on high streets in North Tyneside.

With 140 empty shops in the borough, council bosses think they have come up with a unique way of ensuring shopping areas remain as vibrant as possible.

The first empty shop unit to be given a makeover with a “flat pack” shop front is in Whitley Bay.

North Tyneside Council said the move was cost-effective and would help to attract new investment.

The council said the fake shop in Whitley Bay – which alone has 49 empty units – has been welcomed by traders and shoppers.

‘Attractive to shoppers’

Judith Wallace, North Tyneside Council’s deputy mayor said: “The economic climate has forced many businesses to bring down the shutters.

Read moreUK: Fake Shop Fronts Used To ‘Revive’ High Streets In North Tyneside

Big Tax Breaks for Businesses in Housing Bill

WASHINGTON — The Senate proclaimed a fierce bipartisan resolve two weeks ago to help American homeowners in danger of foreclosure. But while a bill that senators approved last week would take modest steps toward that goal, it would also provide billions of dollars in tax breaks — for automakers, airlines, alternative energy producers and other struggling industries, as well as home builders.

The tax provisions of the Foreclosure Prevention Act, which consumer groups and labor leaders say amount to government handouts to big business, show how the credit crisis, while rattling the housing and financial markets, has created beneficiaries in the power corridors of Washington.

It also shows how legislation with a populist imperative offers a chance for lobbyists to press their clients’ interests.

This has proved especially true on the housing legislation, which many lawmakers and lobbyists view as one of the last opportunities before Congress grinds to a halt amid election-year politics.

In the Senate bill, the nation’s biggest home builders, some now on the verge of bankruptcy, won a provision that would let them claim millions in tax refunds by charging their current losses against the huge profits they made three or four years ago. Other struggling industries would benefit from this provision.


Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, was the main author of the Senate bill meant to help homeowners.

(The ones who will really benefit from this are, like always, the corporations.
And guess who will pay for these tax breaks in the end? – The Infinite Unknown)

Read moreBig Tax Breaks for Businesses in Housing Bill