“The Bush-Cheney administration, knowing that collapse was coming, looted the U.S. economy on behalf of its base. It was perhaps the largest wealth transfer (theft) in history.”

Get your livestock and gardening skills ready. Globalization is dead.

Soldiers innocent? Tricking American citizens into believing that the bogey man was in Iraq was what Bush and company wanted. Creating a false war to steal resources was THE ONLY REASON Bush and bandits wanted to invade Iraq. How many terrorists that attacked the US on 911 had Iraqi passports? NONE. Weapons of mass destruction = NONE.

“Seriously”
Every day a new outrage – today we hear this move, but if there were ANY oversight or accountability for the trillions he’s spending (yeah – transparency) this wouldn’t be necessary.”

Wow, I could certainly apply that statement to Bush and companies campaign of terror and mismanagement during his terms. America is bankrupt because it’s fighting made up wars to steal resources that aren’t theirs. If there was ever a polarizing president it was Bush. He apparently stole 2 elections and American’s let it happen, twice. Electronic ballots with no receipts. ouch.

Brave new world. not.
Cheers.

How were any of our soldiers innocent? Every one of them volunteered to join the US Military. We have not had a draft since 1972.

Of course, it’s not that much compared to the $7 or $8 trillion that we’ve spent or pledged to spend just in the last several months.

I always find it interesting to note that the world had no problem lending us money for the War in Iraq yet is closing their wallets to lend for the spending we are doing these days. Do they know something our leaders don’t know?

Hey, I’m about to make the switch to shorts myself, getting kinda warm down here. No knee high socks though.

Also, I am not going to touch what Obama is doing with Chrysler and the Senior Bond holders there. That single act could ruin American financial law as we know it. I encourage you to read Clifford Asness to get going on that one:
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/cliff-asness-i-am-ready-for-my.html

TrevNutz is in Bermuda…crazy shorts and all.

While I agree with everything in Trevnutz response above I’m a little tired of everyone jumping on this “18,000 companies in one building” bandwagon that Obama is using to get headlines. Should have seen the clueless Tweets flying around about #Cayman after that comment! Trevnutz, sounds like you may be in Bermuda (our competition), remember though, we’re all in this together (G20 grey list sound familiar?). I know you meant no harm, but be careful not to join in on this little blame game on Cayman.

Cayman is clearly not in the business of chicanery as evidenced in numerous treaties that we have signed such as the 1986 Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the U.S. as well as more recent measures to come in line with European Union savings directive.

Whether US subsidiaries should be entitled to tax deferral is entirely a matter of United States tax policy, however, having a registered office address in the Cayman Islands is driven by commercial considerations, not by tax avoidance. It allows companies to raise capital and conduct global business.

Perhaps if more companies and individuals had utilised the legitimate asset protection and management services offered in the Cayman Islands instead of the all the recently folded U.S. domestic investment companies they (and the country) would be in better shape.

I wholeheartedly agree with Conor that offshore financial centers are indeed essential to the U.S.

Thank you for allowing me to share my views, I’m just a Cayman architect, musician, domainer, husband, and father that is tired of all the misconceptions people have of my country and the continued propagation of these ideas by Hollywood and now the President of the United States. Hope my small voice is heard by some.

He’s gonna bring you low and squander what generations fought for, guaranteed. Only hope is to ask him for his birth cert, so you can see you’ve been royally screwed and get him the hell out of there before his international friends cut your collective throats.

But chances of this are mighty slim, when your media has turned so far left and treats conservative citizens as dummies and tea baggers.

Every day a new outrage – today we hear this move, but if there were ANY oversight or accountability for the trillions he’s spending (yeah – transparency) this wouldnt be necessary.

Hasn’t anyone in your country read of your President’s associates and works and beliefs before he ran for your leader?

Collective suicide at the very time the west needs to stand firm in its resolve.

“Pejorative” because it is often used inaccurately. Just because a country chooses to raise its revenue differently from the US, doesn’t mean it is doing something wrong. True, Bermuda does not have an income tax, but we raise substantial tax revenue charging an import duty on every good brought to the island (and before anyone loses their shit about free trade, Bermuda has no domestic manufacturing industry so this is not protectionist). Think of it as a sales tax, levied at the dock.

“Relative” because the US was, for many years, a “tax haven” compared with, say, its European counterparts. For some reason, many Americans like to think that their government has hit the sweet spot vis-a-vis taxation – any who taxes more is socialist, anyone who taxes less is a haven.

I agree that countries which operate institutions designed to help individuals hide assets from their home governments is wrong; transparency is always the best policy, and secretive black-box banks in Switzerland are giving the rest of us a bad name. I also agree that it would be unfair for a country to free-ride off the public sector of a neighbour and then benefit by charging lower taxes (for instance, I imagine Lichtenstien and Bermuda can afford to spend relatively little on national defense, comfortable in the assumption that Britain or the US will ride to our rescue if we were ever invaded); my solution to this is a quid-pro-quo, with greater openness from the low-tax jurisdiction regarding their financial institutions and customers.

As for those companies with a PO Box in the Caymans but all other operations onshore claiming to be “foreign”, I say bust ‘em, and good riddance – the economies of offshore financial centres do not and should not revolve around chicanery. My worry is that the whole spectrum of legitimate foreign companies (from 49% operations in the US down to 1%) will get tarred and feathered the same.

As usual, I don’t think the White House’s position was made on the advice of cool-headed economists, but rather because it is a politically attractive soundbite to point to a foreign scapegoat and make John and Jill Voter think that all their problems are caused by the mobile rich chilling out in tropical islands, and multinational corporations “sending” jobs overseas. Obama ran a compelling campaign, denouncing fear mongering and unthinking devotion to the party line, but I guess once in office those old tricks look damn appealing.