GOP Tax Scam-- Just More Failed Trickle Down

The GOP thought that at least they'd have one "achievement" to run on in the midterms-- the massive taxcut. But the tax cut-- which many call "the tax scam"-- has turned out to not be that popular, not popular enough to run on. Over the weekend, the NY Times reported that Republicans aren't barging about and aren't even bragging about the continuation of the Obama economic expansion Trump takes credit for. "Republicans have reason to doubt the efficacy of an economic message in hotly contested midterm campaigns, which have historically been referendums on the sitting president. The last time the economy grew 4 percent in a quarter was in the middle of 2014, under President Barack Obama, just before Senate Democrats lost nine seats-- and their majority-- that fall... For their part, Democrats are weaponizing the tax law-- which is mired in only middling popularity-- against Republican opponents in some key races. Their critiques have been fed by government statistics showing that wages for typical American workers have not risen over the past year, after adjusting for inflation, even though Republicans promised the tax cuts would unleash rapid wage growth."

Polling has shown that voters are skeptical of the tax cut. Six months after its passage only 34% of voters approved-- a 6 point decline from the previous month. Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute said that "Public opinion on the Republican lawmakers’ signature accomplishment has never been positive, but potentially growing uncertainty about how American taxpayers will be affected does not seem to be helping the GOP’s prospects for November."

So where's the beef dough? Early yesterday morning Politico reported that it's been gobbled up the kinds of stock buy backs that make CEOs and corporate executives very rich.

Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours being interviewed for a book. It brought me back to thinking about long-forgotten incidents in my life in corporate America. I had to recall an incident when I was arguing about freedom of expression with 4 of Time-Warners highest ranking executives-- the kinds of guys who got millions of dollars in stock options annually. These are people whose net worth went up and down based on rises and drops in the company stock. And a record I had been executive producer on, "Cop Killer" by Ice-T's Body Count was causing the stock to go down-- a lot. I was arguing about freedom of expression. They were arguing about their personal wealth. At one point they rose from the table as one and walked out of the room snarling, sure they would never see me again. (At the time I was an obscure employee at Sire Records, someone whose name they didn't know and would never have to know. When they saw me next I had just been named president of Reprise and they walked into a party and saw me, thought about it in their hive brain and nearly fainted.)



Anyway, the gist of the Politico feature was that the biggest winners from Señor Trumpanzee’s new tax law "are corporate executives who have reaped gains as their companies buy back a record amount of stock, a practice that rewards shareholders by boosting the value of existing shares." These executives "have been profiting handsomely by selling shares since Trump signed the law on Dec. 22 and slashed corporate tax rates to 21 percent. That trend is likely to increase as Wall Street analysts expect buyback activity to accelerate in the coming weeks."

“It is going to be a parade of eye-popping numbers,” said Pat McGurn, the head of strategic research and analysis at Institutional Shareholder Services, a shareholder advisory firm.

That could undercut the political messaging value of the tax cuts in the Republican campaign to maintain control of Congress in the midterm elections.

Since the tax cuts were enacted, Oracle Corp. CEO Safra Catz sold $250 million worth of shares in her company-- the largest executive payday this year. Product development head Thomas Kurian sold $85 million. The sales came after the company announced a $12 billion share repurchase.

Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga sold $44.4 million of stock in May, the largest single cash-out by an executive of the company in at least 10 years, months after the company announced a $4 billion buyback of its own stock.

Two days after Eastman Chemical announced it would purchase $2 billion of its own stock, CEO Mark Costa sold 55,000 shares for $5.4 million.

The SEC requires company executives to disclose share purchases or sales within two business days. Companies emphasize that their executives’ share sales are often scheduled at regular intervals well in advance. In Banga’s case, he has routinely sold shares once a year, and always in May, since 2013.

Yet the insider sales feed the narrative that corporate tax cuts enrich executives in the short term while yielding less clear long-term benefits for workers and the broader economy. Critics of insider sales argue that they diminish the value of paying C-suite employees in shares-- a practice that’s intended to give them a greater stake in the long-term health of the company-- and can even raise questions about the motivation for the buybacks themselves.

Following the tax cuts, roughly 28 percent of companies in the S&P 500 mentioned plans to return some of their tax savings to shareholders, according to Morgan Stanley. Public companies announced more than $600 billion in buybacks in the first half of this year-- already toppling the previous annual record.

Year to date, buybacks have doubled from the same period a year ago, Merrill Lynch said in a July 24 report, citing its clients’ trading activity. “Last week we noted that buyback activity [was] poised to accelerate over the next six weeks, and indeed, corporate clients’ buybacks picked up to a two-month high and the 6th-highest level in our data history,” the company said.

The correlation between corporate buybacks and insider sales is clear, according to SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson, a Democrat. He studied 385 buybacks since the beginning of 2017 and found that after half of them, at least one executive sold shares within the next month.

The link between the tax cuts and big executive payouts, fueled by buybacks, is also plain, according to one institutional research firm.

“Stock buyback announcements in the U.S. have swelled to the highest levels on record in the wake of last year’s corporate tax cut,” said TrimTabs Investment Research in a July 10 report. “Corporate America’s actions suggest that most of the benefits of the corporate tax cut will flow to investors in general and top corporate executives in particular.”

And as the Washington Post pointed out yesterday, "since Paul Ryan joined Congress in 1999, the budget will have gone from a $125 billion surplus to a $1.1 trillion deficit." But... maybe some of these rich executives getting much richer are hiring butlers or buying more private planes and yachts and a little of that money is trickling down to working folks. Maybe. But a blue collar friend of mine who just moved to L.A. can't find a job. And he's been looking really hard and is pretty much willing to do anything. Trickle down has never worked and it's not working now.

Ellen Lipton, is running for an open seat in a suburban Michigan district north of Detroit. Today she pointed out that "For decades, Republicans have been running on the same message-- that massive tax cuts to billionaires and huge corporations will spur economic growth and make everyone better off. One reason I'm running for Congress in Michigan's 9th district is because voters here know that's not true, and that we can't afford to keep giving massive tax breaks to the top 1% while working people in this country continue to suffer. If Republicans in Congress could find over a trillion dollars to give tax breaks to their rich donors, we can absolutely make universal health care a reality in this country. Americans are sick and tired of hearing that there's no money for free college, no money for infrastructure, no money for a living wage. We know trickle-down doesn't work, and that it's time to stop putting the needs of political donors ahead of everyone else."

Progressive Democrat Lisa Brown was the chancellor of Washington State University in Spokane and an economist herself. She pointed out that despite the terrible numbers, her opponent, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers "continues to deliver the DC talking points in eastern Washington to avoid talking about what’s really coming down-- which is the fallout of the ill-conceived tariffs and trade war on farms, ranches, businesses, and consumers. Tariffs are taxes. Worth repeating-- tariffs are taxes, ultimately paid in lost markets and revenue for farms and businesses  and higher prices for everyone. The administration has imposed billions of dollars of tariffs on imports and friends and foes alike are in retaliation imposing billions on U.S. exports. Republicans in the House are 'expressing disappointment' and then pivoting to their talking points while this disaster continues to unfold."

J.D. Scholten is giving Iowa racist Steve King a real race for his money, Yesterday he told me that "Trump and Speaker Ryan said the average American worker would see an extra $4,000-9,000 a year from this bill. So far, the average American worker has seen an additional $323, according to an Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In IA-04, we haven't seen any job growth. Our district is shrinking. As much as we produce corn, hogs and wind energy, the best thing we produce is our children. This Tax Bill doesn't do a damn thing for this district long term and it doesn't help us create a modern economy that allows us to keep our high school and college graduates in our district."

Matt Haggman is running for the open Miami-Dade seat that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is retiring from, the bluest Republican-held district in the country. Trump only took 38.9% of the vote in 2016. Matt told us that "we know America is the strongest when its middle class is in good shape and we also know that trickle-down economics only benefits the wealthiest in this country. Trickle-down economics has never worked in this country and it never will. It’s time that as a country we get smarter about changing the economic landscape and start preparing our workforce for a 21st century economy. Too many families today are working twice as hard for less and we don’t tackle this issue now it will likely get much worse soon. The GOP tax reform passed in late 2017 was not only a scam that lied and manipulated lower and middle-class Americans, but it gave the wealthiest 1% breaks that they don’t need. The tax cuts that should have been made should’ve gone towards middle class families. It should have also made sure corporations and the wealthiest 1% are paying their fair share of taxes-- which as of today is not the case. I believe that everyone who is willing to work hard and play by the rules deserves a fair shot at the American Dream. It is clear though, after their horrendous Tax plan, we see the GOPs mentality is more towards the ‘kick them while they’re down’ approach."

Black Lives Matter? Ice-T And Body Count Have Something To Say About That

Body Count's new album, Bloodlust, will be out March 31 but yesterday, the band's new single was released. You can hear it-- and watch the provocative new video-- above; please do. It's special for me, mostly because Bodycount is a band I worked with when I was general manger of Sire Records. Seymour Stein had signed Ice-T to the label and he was a star-- a successful star who sold a lot of albums. In 1990 Ice asked me to come see his metal band, Body Count, play. Their music and stage show were right up my alley and they were a big hit at Lollapalooza in 1991. It's nice when you work at a record company and actually like the music you have to work.

In early 1992, we released the eponymous album and I was thrilled that Ice had decided to give me credit as executive producer. What an honor! Commercially-speaking, he album was modestly successful-- not on an Ice-T level-- but big for a debut by a new rock band. I don't remember the exact figure but we had sold a solid 100,000 albums when the record was "over." Returns started trickling back from the retail accounts and it was time to start thinking about the next Ice-T album. Then something incredible happened.

We hadn't got a lot of airplay or effective promotion for the Body Count album. But then the Dallas Police force got involved and started complaining about the song "Cop Killer." Complaining really loudly... and really effectively. DC politicians suddenly saw an opportunity to jump on a slightly, subtly racist "law and order" bandwagon. And it wasn't just Republicans. Suddenly we had Dan Quayle and then George H.W. Bush denouncing our artist and their song by name-- on national TV. The trickle of returns stopped and the orders for more album started coming in-- bigly! The album went gold quickly, quickly enough for me to make a gold album for Dan Quayle for helping get the massive sales rush going. (My boss asked me not to send it to him.)

Soon Tipper Gore and Joe Lieberman jumped in and started denouncing us. (Anyone remember the PMRC?) It turned into a real mess. The police would claim several times a week that they had a bomb threat for our building and kept evacuating us so they could search the building. It was pure harassment and it went on and on and on. In the end, the corporate bosses in New York were concerned about Time Warner's stock price. They demanded we drop Ice-T. We refused. They demanded louder. Eventually, the chairman of the company asked me if I wanted to go to New York and argue the case. I said sure. He asked me if I owned a suit. I said, "Of course... I had a bar mitzvah." He looked at me strangely and wished me luck. When the meeting was done-- they walked out cursing under their collective breath-- I was sure my career at Warner Bros was over.

The next time I saw these corporate overseers was about a year later at a company meeting. By then I was the president of Reprise Records, one of their crown jewels. They looked at me and I could see then thinking, "Oh my God, it's him again! Where are the aspirins!" In the interim, though, Ice decided to leave Warner Bros, amicably. I was sad too see him go but it worked out really well for him-- and Warner Bros was basically out of the Black Music business for years.

Among the guest musicians on the album-- not on this song though-- are Megadeth's Dave Mustaine )n the song "Civil War"), Randy Blyth from Lamb of God (on the song "Walk With Me") and Soulfly's Max Cavalera (on the song "All Love is Lost"). There's also a cover Slayer's "Raining Blood" and "Postmortem."

Here are the "No Lives Matter" lyrics:

It’s unfortunate that we even have
To say Black Lives Matter
I mean if you go through history
Nobody ever gave a fuck
I mean you can kill Black People in the street
Nobody goes to jail nobody goes to prison,
But when I say Black Lives Matter
And you say All Lives Matter
That’s like if I was to say Gay Lives Matter
And you say All Lives Matter
If I said Women’s Lives Matter
and you say All Lives Matter
You dilutin’ what i’m sayin’
You dilutin’ the issue the issue isn’t about everybody
It’s about Black Lives at the moment,
But the truth of the matter is they don’t really give a fuck about anybody
if you break the shit all the way down to the low fuckin’ dirty ass truth.

We say that Black Lives Matter
But truthfully they really never have
No one really ever gave a fuck just
Read your bullshit history books
But honestly it ain’t just Black
It’s Yellow, it’s Brown, it’s Red,
It’s anyone who ain’t got cash
Poor Whites that they call trash

They can’t fuck with us
Once we realize we’re all on the same side
They can’t split us up,
And let ‘em prosper off the divide
They can’t fuck with us
Once we realize we’re all on the same side
They can’t split us up and let ‘em
Prosper off the divide

Don't fall for the bait and switch
Racisim is real but not it,
They fuck whoever can’t fight back
But now we got to change all that
The people  have had enough
Right now it’s them against us
This shit is ugly to the core
When it comes to the poor  - NO LIVES MATTER

America’s always been
A place that’s judged by skin,
And racisim is real as fuck
Ain’t no way to play that off,
And in the eyes of the law
Black skin has always stood for poor
This is basic shit - They know who they’re fuckin’ with

They can’t fuck with us
Once we realize we’re all on the same side
They can’t split us up,
And let ‘em prosper off the divide
They can’t fuck with us
Once we realize we’re all on the same side
They can’t split us up and let ‘em
Prosper off the divide

Don't fall for the bait and switch
Racisim is real but not it,
They fuck whoever can’t fight back
But now we got to change all that
The people  have had enough
Right now it’s them against us
This shit is ugly to the core
When it comes to the poor  - NO LIVES MATTER

You never see ‘em pullin’ rich people
Out of they cars in their neighborhood
Because they know they got lawyers
They know they’ll sue their ass
They can tell who to fuck with
Unfortunately Black or Brown skin
Has always meant poor
They’re profiling you kid they know
You can’t fight back, but we about  to

In an interview with Paul Gargano last month, Ice said that he "may have an acting job to fall back on, but my core still looks out there and says that people are a bunch of pussies. What the fuck!?! I never had a hard time putting myself on the line, now I want people to stand up and open their eyes. People are dumb, they don’t know. The cops shoot kids and they say it’s white people-- it ain’t white people, it’s the cops! Racism is real, but that’s not all that’s happening here. I’m singing to my white audience and letting them know that I see them as an ally, and I’m singing to my black audience and telling them to judge a devil by their deeds. I’m trying to lose that picture of the one-dimensional gangster. Mother fuckers that act hard are the fakest mother fuckers in the world-- us right now, this is how human beings really are. We can joke and talk shit, we can hit a political note and be adamant and angry as shit, then on the next note you can be watching cartoons and bouncing your kid on your knee. I’m not worried about people misinterpreting me anymore-- the dummies misinterpret, and the real fans will assassinate them for that. The intention here was to make some great music, open some eyes, and offer people some entertainment. People should rock to this-- I didn’t want to make a mix tape, I wanted to make a BODY COUNT album."

I have a feeling the cops aren't going to be any happier about this one than they were about "Cop Killer," since the implication is clear-- that cops kill innocent people. I wonder if Trump's going to help it go platinum. Listen again.

Life Of Crime... And So On

This week, I had a call from Steve Knopper, a writer doing a story for Billboard, about how musicians may look at their responsibility to call attention to the political anomalies around Trump and Trumpism. I'll share that with you when it's published next week. Usually when people ask me if I'm involved in the music business any longer I just say "no" or, if I'm feeling garrulous, "no, thank God." In fact when Steve asked me a question for a post-Nirvana period book he's writing, all I could do was offer to talk about how in 1994, the midterm election after Bill Clinton's first victory, saw a loss of 54 Democratic House seats and the rise of Newt Gingrich... but that my mind was blank about anything to do with music of the period other than how we had a huge success with Candlebox in that period. He didn't seem interested in hearing that Ted Strickland, Jack Brooks, Dan Rostenkowski, Maria Cantwell, Jay Inslee, Speaker Tom Foley and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky all lost their seats that year. Alas, who would be? That said, just hours later I got three music-related e-mails.

The first came from the producer of a film, Pitching Tents who is locking down the score and trailer and is eager to use a song my own little company publishes, "Teenage Underground" by the Red Rockers. Here listen:



I should have told Steve Knopper to call them about how singers and songwriters are going to react to Trump. You can probably guess how the Red Rockers would react. They also recorded Guns of Revolution, the song that persuaded me to sign them to my little indie label, and Dead Heroes. I did mention Bodycount to Steve. That was Ice-T's rock band that got into some trouble for their song, "Cop Killer." I was the executive producer. It's a little harsh but listen:



Why bring that up? That was the second e-mail. It was from a sociology professor at Cal State Long Beach telling me one of her students asked her to invite me to speak to her class about censorship. I'm going to.

The third e-mail was from Johnny Strike, who I haven't been in contact with in a couple of decades. He was one of the singer/guitar players in San Francisco's legendary punk rock pioneers, Crime. Crime was mostly Johnny plus Frankie Fix who I believe died about 20 years ago. But there were a delightful cast of characters over the years I lived in San Francisco who came and went from Crime and two of them-- Hank Rank and Joey D'Kaye-- are, according to Johnny's e-mail joining him in a new recording project, Naked Beast. LP out in 2017. I can't wait. Meanwhile, I didn't even realize that Johnny Strike is an author and has a new book out, Name of the Stranger. He described the new music as "Crimey but also experimental." Want to hear what "Crimey" sounds like? This is Crime's classic first single, "Hot Wire My Heart" b/w "Baby You're So Repulsive" from late 1976. This is what I used to play on my radio show:





UPDATE: New Old Pic

Johnny just sent me this, a photo, probably backstage at the Mabuhay in 1977, of Crime's Frankie Fix and Johnny Strike and yours truly in the middle. The world has changed so much since then! (I'm pretty sure I was wearing a Jefferson Starship promo jacket in the photo that Craig Chaquico gave me in return for a compromising audio tape.)

The Forces Of Racism Are Stoking Divisiveness... And Trumpism

I was listed as the Executive Producer of the record from which the video above was made. I'm very proud to have played a small part in getting these ideas out in 1992. I would have wished the police would have learned something from the song and the ensuing controversy-- and, truth be told, many have. But not enough to stop the attitude that keeps the police murder of young black men at epidemic levels in America. I believe in peace and love and non-violence... and I understand why black men don't want to be victims and need to defend themselves from the real life (and death) manifestation of this attitude.

In Baton Rouge, where police murder citizens with impunity (and, apparently, immunity), #BlackLivesMatter activist DeRay McKesson fell into their hands late Saturday night while protesting the unprovoked murder of Alton Sterling. Approximately 100 protesters were arrested. Unable to show up for his scheduled Face the Nation appearance yesterday, Deray tweeted: "The protestors weren't blocking traffic or doing anything else. The police simply wanted to show and use force."

Demonstrations protesting the police murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, respectively in Baton Rouge and St. Paul, continued into Sunday all around the country, while the forces of racism, bigotry and Trumpism took to the mass media to stoke the hatred.

It’s all the fault of Black Lives Matter. This uncivil war that has broken out. This slaughtering of blacks and whites, cops and civilians, civilians and cops around the country.

Instead of laying off their ugly rhetoric while too many families were trying to heal from last week’s horrific violence and death, has-been and should-be has-been right-wing politicians took to social media and TV to spew their hate and point their trigger fingers at those trying to heal the hate.

Take Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. This heartless creep, in the aftermath of the horror that took the lives of five police officers, declared on Fox that the protesters who ran from the sniper fire were hypocrites “with big mouths” who are “creating situations like we saw last night.” Perhaps he would have preferred that they didn’t protect their children in the peaceful protest but pulled out guns and shot? “I do blame former Black Lives Matter protests,” he added.

So much for the right to assembly and free speech.

Then there was Corey Stewart, Donald Trump’s Virginia campaign chair.

“Liberal politicians who label police as racists-- specifically Hillary Clinton and Virginia Lt. Governor Ralph Northam-- are to blame for essentially encouraging the murder of these police officers,” he said.

Can you repeat that in the original German, Herr Stewart?

Tea Party racist hate-baiting former Congressman Joe Walsh actually went one worse, calling for war against the President.

“3 Dallas Cops killed, 7 wounded. This is now war,” he tweeted. “Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you.”

And, before he had the facts, he declared the shooting was done by “2 uneducated black thugs.”

In any other country, calling for an attack on the President would be an act of treason. Here, it’s a one-day twitter rant.

Amping up the racism was Congressman Steve King, who tweeted, “The Dallas Police officer shooting has roots in first of anti-white/cop events illuminated by Obama…”

But we New Yorkers bear a special shame today after the hatred spewed by our loathsome former mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who blamed black children. “Let’s teach everyone including the children of the black community that most of those police officers are the reason you’re alive,” he said on MSNBC. “Because the real danger to you is that black kid who is going to shoot you on the street.”

Then, he shamelessly added, “My father taught me that, when a police officer tells you something, do what he says.”

Dad must have learned this after he went to Sing Sing for armed robbery. (Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudolph W. Giuliani, by Wayne Barrett).

Not one of these jerks brought up the fact that thanks to the NRA and the pols they buy, there are more guns than humans in this country and the gap is increasing daily. The right to bear arms has overtaken the right to free assembly in the USA of the NRA. We are becoming our own terrorists.

Gunfire hit the police headquarters in San Antonio. And Saturday night protests in St .Paul shut down the I-94 and resulted in police using tear gas against demonstrators and, eventually, in dozens of arrests. Stones were thrown at some of the policemen.

At least the Black Caucus took time out of it's crusade for re-enabling Wall Street predators to demand that Congress over-ride Ryan and the NRA and take action on gun violence. Not reassuring enough for the government of the Bahamas, which issued a travel alert Friday for it's citizens thinking of going to the U.S.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration has taken a note of the recent tensions in some American cities over shootings of young black males by police officers.

At the commencement of the Independence holiday weekend, many Bahamians will no doubt use the opportunity to travel, in particular to destinations in the United States.

We wish to advise all Bahamians traveling to the US but especially to the affected cities to exercise appropriate caution generally. In particular young males are asked to exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police. Do not be confrontational and cooperate.

If there is any issue please allow consular offices for The Bahamas to deal with the issues. Do not get involved in political or other demonstrations under any circumstances and avoid crowds.

Michael Bloomberg's Idea Of A Real Estate Godsend Is A Catastrophe And A Nightmare For American Working Families

The L.A. Basin is filled with empty McMansions. I hear there are also lots of big empty homes in Seattle, Vancouver, San Diego and the space-strapped San Francisco Bay Area as well. They're like fields left fallow, although they're not getting more fertile over time. These homes are investments from wealthy foreigners, predominantly from China and Russia, although from anywhere in the world where the wealthy know their riches could be seized in a political upheaval at any time. American real estate has proven a good parking place. The value of the investment has tended to grow, and real estate in these desirable markets has been very liquid. Annually, around $8 billion is spent for New York City residences that cost more than $5 million each, more than triple the amount of a decade ago-- and more than half that money is from shell companies. At the Time Warner Center was built, 26% of the original buyers were foreigners, and more recently that has grown to over 50%. Only about a third of the owners live there at any one time. In 2003, one-third of the units sold in Time Warner were purchased by shell companies. By 2014, that figure was over 80%.

If you watch the BRAVO! real estate shows about Los Angeles, Manhattan and Miami you've probably noticed that many of the million dollar listings are going to foreigners looking to park (invest) their money. Some may also be looking towards an eventual retirement. Some buy their children nice homes while they're studying in the U.S. Over the weekend, Louise Story and Stephanie Saul penned an eye-popping real estate story for the New York Times, Stream of Foreign Wealth Flows To Elite New York Real Estate. Russian banksters connected to organized crime, corrupt Greek businessmen, financial predators from China, crooked politicians from Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Gabon, Mexico and Kazakhstan... if you move into high end luxury buildings in New York those will be your neighbors. "Behind the dark glass towers of the Time Warner Center looming over Central Park," they wrote, "a majority of owners have taken steps to keep their identities hidden, registering condos in trusts, limited liability corporations or other entities that shield their names. By piercing the secrecy of more than 200 shell companies, the New York Times documented a decade of ownership in this iconic Manhattan way station for global money transforming the city’s real estate market... They have been able to make these multimillion-dollar purchases with few questions asked because of United States laws that foster the movement of largely untraceable money through shell companies. Vast sums are flowing unchecked around the world as never before-- whether motivated by corruption, tax avoidance or investment strategy, and enabled by an ever-more-borderless economy and a proliferation of ways to move and hide assets."

The high-end real estate market has become less and less transparent-- and more alluring for those abroad with assets they wish to keep anonymous-- even as the United States pushes other nations to help stanch the flow of American money leaving the country to avoid taxes. Yet for all the concerns of law enforcement officials that shell companies can hide illicit gains, regulatory efforts to require more openness from these companies have failed.

“We like the money,” said Raymond Baker, the president of Global Financial Integrity, a Washington nonprofit that tracks the illicit flow of money. “It’s that simple. We like the money that comes into our accounts, and we are not nearly as judgmental about it as we should be.”

In some ways, officials are clamoring for the foreign wealthy. In New York, tax breaks for condominium developments benefit owners looking for a second, or third, residence in one of Manhattan’s premier buildings. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on his weekly radio program in 2013, shortly before leaving office: “If we could get every billionaire around the world to move here, it would be a godsend.”

...The proliferation of shell companies incorporated in the United States has hurt Washington’s attempt to get other countries to crack down on Americans who move money offshore to avoid taxes.

“We are in a totally inconsistent position,” said Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who pushed for transparency in shell companies when he served in the Senate. “We’re way behind in terms of keeping up with what the international standard is, and it weakens our argument when we go to try to crack down the use of these offshore tax havens.”

About a year ago, after the Group of 8 industrialized nations issued goals requiring identification of shell company owners, a British representative met with Justice Department officials to complain about the United States’ failure to comply.

According to two people at the meeting, the British representative, Dominic Martin, delivered a stern message: The lax American laws were being used by other countries as an excuse for inaction.

Such a message resonates with Justice Department officials who have advocated tightening the rules.

“For a long time we’ve taken the view that you have to focus on the people that manage the gateway to the financial system, and those guys are not only the banks,” said Stefan Cassella, a Justice Department lawyer. “Bad guys who are trying to invest money in the financial system-- they use lawyers, they use accountants, they use real estate, they use jewelers and private jets.”

...When Mr. Bloomberg set out the welcome mat for the world’s billionaires, the idea was this: Money they spent would trickle down to the doormen, concierges, cleaners, drivers and construction workers, as well as to the shopkeepers and restaurateurs who sell $5,000 handbags and $450 sushi dinners.

And many of the players at the Time Warner Center are indeed big spenders.

After Maxim Finskiy, a Russian business associate of the Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, moved in, he imported his Bentley.

Robert Tsao, who gave up his Taiwanese citizenship after authorities there sued him unsuccessfully for investing in mainland China, owns one of the world’s most renowned private collections of Asian art.

Adam Chen, who graduated from New York University in May, was one of several college students to use the complex as a dormitory. He celebrated his birthday last year at the restaurant Per Se in the Time Warner Center, dining on its famous starter, Oysters and Pearls, all captured in photographs on Instagram.

The precise impact of wealthy foreigners on the city may be more complex, though. As nonresidents, they pay no city income taxes and often receive hefty property tax breaks. A program aimed at new condo development doles out about a half-billion dollars in tax breaks a year, according to the city’s independent budget office. These savings are passed on to owners in the form of lower property taxes. The Time Warner Center was not part of the most lucrative tax break program, but many other buildings around Central Park have benefited.

The city’s first condo costing more than $100 million, which sold in the last few weeks at the new luxury tower One57, had property taxes this past year of $17,268, according to the city’s finance office. Those taxes will go up over time, but for now that is a savings of more than $359,000.

The Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonprofit in New York, recently suggested a downside to the influx of billionaires who are in the city only sporadically.

“In terms of the local economy, you don’t have people who are going to plays, going to restaurants,” James Parrott, the institute’s chief economist, said. “They’re not spending at the dry cleaners, the grocers and all of that, so it deprives New York of all that local multiplier effect.”

What is more, Mr. Parrott said, the skyrocketing prices of the pieds-à-terre are affecting the price of real estate in the city more broadly. “There’s a downside to having such pressure at the top. It pulls up the prices overall. When owners of $10 million condos see that there’s a big market for $95 million condos, they’re more likely to raise their prices,” he said. “Then the person at $2 million raises his prices, then the person at $1 million sees that and there aren’t any prices below $1 million.”

Through a spokesman, Mr. Bloomberg said last month that he had hoped billionaires who moved to New York would not simply be part-timers but would live in the city and pay taxes “so we could use that revenue for government services that, incidentally, disproportionately benefit lower-income New Yorkers.”

Some local politicians have suggested taxing the owners of pieds-à-terre who are not city residents.

“We are spending money to keep them safe and maintaining the infrastructure,” said Brad Lander, a city councilman. “Should there be the equivalent of a commuter tax? An international residents tax?”

A proposal from the Fiscal Policy Institute would impose a graduated tax on pieds-à-terre worth $5 million or more. The group estimates it would generate $665 million a year in revenue for the city, mostly from owners of the approximately 445 apartments valued at more than $25 million.

Is Violence Ever Justified? Against The Police?

When I ran Sire Records and then Reprise bands often asked me if I would be the executive producer of their album. I never felt comfortable doing it-- showing that kind of perceived favoritism when I was responsible for all the bands and all their albums-- so I would routinely say "no, thanks." Except once. That once was a band I had signed to Sire, Body Count. My boss, Seymour Stein, had already signed the ground-breaking rapper Ice-T to the label but when Ice put together a punk/metal band, he brought it to me. I loved the live shows I had seen around L.A. and I saw how well they connected with a punk audience at Lollapalooza in 1991. I loved the songs Ice and lead guitarist Ernie C had written and I was excited-- and proud-- to be the executive producer.

We released the band's eponymous debut album on March 31, 1992. The first single was "There goes the neighborhood," a kind of ethos for what the band was saying about musical genre segregation and how that fit into a wider narrative of American racism:

Here come them fuckin' niggas
with their fancy cars.
Who gave them fuckin' niggas
those rock guitars?
Who let 'em in the club?
Did you make 'em pay?
Who let 'em on the stage?
Whose lettin' 'em play?

Don't they know rock's just for whites
don't they know the rules?
Those niggers are too hard core
this shit ain't cool.
Those blacks want everything
in the fuckin' world
That nigga plays so good
he took my muthafuckin' girl
there goes the neighborhood.

There goes the neighborhoooooood,
There goes the neighborhood,
There goes the neighborhood
There goes the neighborhood.

Da, Da, Da, Da, Da

We're here,
We ain't goin' nowhere.
We're movin' right next door to you,
Body Count, muthafucka.
And those of you that don't like it
can suck, my muthafuckin' dick, ha, ha, ha, ha.

There goes the neighborhood!
Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha
There goes the neighborhood!
Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha
There goes the neightborhoooooood!
There goes the neighborhood!
Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha
There goes the neighborhood!

Here come them fuckin' niggas
with their fancy cars.
Who gave them fuckin' niggas
those rock guitars?
Who let 'em in the club?
Did you make 'em pay?
Who let 'em on the stage?
Whose lettin' 'em play?
Don't they know rock's just for whites
Don't they know the rules?
Those niggas are too hard core
this shit ain't cool.
Those blacks want everything in the fuckin' world.
That nigga plays so good,
he took my muthafuckin' girl.
There goes the neighborhood
There, there, there, there goes the neighborhood.

Pretty outrageous-- ever if "niggas" was replaced with "black boys" for the video! The response to the album wasn't bad. Critics liked it; the live shows went well and the band expanded their audience. By the time the natural shelf life of the album was over we had sold a couple of hundred thousand records-- not bad... if not nearly as good as Ice-T's rap albums which were routinely going gold and platinum. The second single, "Cop Killer" had come out and it didn't make much of an impact and the project was pretty much over. Stores started shipping over-stock back to the warehouse. I figured if the second or third album was really big, the first record would eventually go gold. And then something happened: enter the Dallas Police Association.

Although not officially a KKK chapter, the Dallas Police Association was a union for racist white police in Dallas-- not to be confused with the normal police union, the Dallas Fraternal Order of Police nor, obviously with the anti-racist Black Police Association of Greater Dallas. Someone clued the Dallas Police Association onto "Cop KIller" after the record was essentially dead. They brought it back to life with a propaganda barrage that spread to more legitimate police unions, first in Texas and then around the country. They urged a boycott of Warner Bros. Records. Sales exploded and that whole shipping over-stock back to the warehouse reversed immediately. The album started selling again, but in much bigger numbers and quickly went goldm (500,000 copies in the U.S. alone). Conservative politicians, always ready to pander to the worst instincts of the most easily manipulated segment of the population, quickly jumped on board the anti-Body Count train. When the album went gold, I immediately ordered a gold award plaque for Vice President Dan Quayle who had gone on TV to call the album "obscene." (Lenny Waronker, president of Warner Bros, chanced by my office and saw the plaque and rolled his eyes. "You're not going to send that to Quayle, are you?" I was. "Can you wait 'til this all blows over first," he implored. I said OK. It didn't blow over. George H.W. Bush denounced our company. NRA spokesperson Charlton Heston, a senile old actor, went to the Time-Warner shareholders' meeting and read the lyrics to "KKK Bitch", which was very offensive to white people with a KKK mentality. But pressure started mounting on Warner Bros to withdraw the record. At first, properly seeing it as a freedom of speech issue, our corporate masters were appropriately defiant. That didn't last long.

In an Op-Ed article in the Wall Street Journal last month, Time Warner's president and co-chief executive, Gerald M. Levin, said that to give in to critics would in the long run be "a destructive precedent."

"It would be a signal to all the artists and journalists inside and outside Time Warner that if they wish to be heard, then they must tailor their minds and souls to fit the reigning orthodoxies," Mr. Levin said.

The 35,000-member National Black Police Association has said Ice-T is voicing the frustration and anger of millions of Americans over police brutality.

"Law-abiding people, not only African-Americans and Latinos but pockets in the white community, are angry with the police service in this country," said Ronald E. Hampton, the association's executive director. "These police organizations claim Time Warner has a moral obligation not to promote or condone the kind of words by Ice-T, but we say they have a moral obligation to not allow police brutality. We ought to have an even stroke across the board."

Ice-T himself has said the song is not a call to violence, but instead the first-person lament of a character who is fed up with police brutality. Addressing the New Music Seminar about two weeks ago, he said that "if the cops got a problem, let them come after me, not Time Warner."

The threat to Time-Warner's stock price quickly trumped any devotion-- real or feigned-- to the First Amendment or any kind of principles. Time-Warner told Warner Bros Records to make it go away. My bosses, Mo Ostin, Lenny Waronker and Seymour Stein were true believers and didn't budge an inch. I was very proud of them. Then the death threats started coming in. That didn't work either. Then the police tried a new tactic. They started "calling in" bomb threats to the Burbank police and the Burbank police would arrive and evacuate the building while they searched for a "bomb." It was impossible to get any work done. The corporate bosses in New York were flipping out because they said the stock price was being impacted. One day Mo and Lenny called me into Mo's office. Mo said the corporate guys were no longer asking; they were demanding. I said I was willing to talk with them. He looked at me as though I was crazy; then he laughed. He asked me if I had a suit. I said I'd buy one. I did... and flew to New York. It was a bad meeting. Me against a whole bunch of angry, Wall Street-obsessed suits. In the end there was no meeting of the minds and they walked out in disgust... angrily. I figured I was fired.

(I wasn't fired; Ice-T decided to withdraw the record himself. Hard to imagine, but he actually did. Soon after, he left the label, and Warner Bros was essentially excluded from the gigantic-- and growing-- rap music market for two decades. The next time I ran into those suits I had the meeting with in New York, I was introduced to them as the new president of Reprise Records. One looked like he wanted to vomit and one looked like he wanted to throw me out a window.)

Cop killer, yeah!

I got my black shirt on
I got my black gloves on
I got my ski mask on
This shit's been too long
I got my twelve gauge sawed off
I got my headlights turned off
I'm 'bout to bust some shots off
I'm 'bout to dust some cops off

I'm a cop killer, better you than me
Cop killer, fuck police brutality!
Cop killer, I know your family's grieving
(Fuck 'em!)
Cop killer, but tonight we get even, ha ha

I got my brain on hype
Tonight'll be your night
I got this long-assed knife
And your neck looks just right
My adrenaline's pumpin'
I got my stereo bumpin'
I'm 'bout to kill me somethin'
A pig stopped me for nuthin'!

Cop killer, better you than me
Cop killer, fuck police brutality!
Cop killer, I know your momma's grieving
(Fuck her!)
Cop killer, but tonight we get even, yeah!

Die, die, die, pig, die!

Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!

Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Yeah!

Cop killer, better you than me.
I'm a COP KILLER, fuck police brutality!
Cop killer, I know your family's grieving
(Fuck 'em!)
Cop killer, but tonight we get even, ha ha ha ha, yeah!

Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!

Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Fuck the police!
Break it down

Fuck the police, yeah!
Fuck the police, for Darryl Gates
Fuck the police, for Rodney King
Fuck the police, for my dead homies
Fuck the police, for your freedom
Fuck the police, don't be a pussy
Fuck the police, have some muthafuckin' courage
Fuck the police, sing along

Cop killer!
Cop killer!
Cop killer!
Cop killer!

Cop killer! Whaddyou wanna be when you grow up?
Cop killer! Good choice
Cop killer! I'm a muthafuckin'
Cop killer!

Cop killer, better you than me
Cop killer, fuck police brutality!
Cop killer, I know your momma's grieving
(Fuck her!)
Cop killer, but tonight we get even!

I can only imagine the kind of pressure Gordon Barnes, editor-in-chief of The Advocate, a CUNY grad school student paper, must be feeling today. The New York media has gotten its hands on an editorial he wrote, overtly supporting violence as a response to the police murders of black males.

Police killings of unarmed men are not unique to the black demographic. Indeed, extrajudicial murders-- what most police killings tend to be-- occur across gender and racial lines, though of course Afro-Americans, Latinos, the mentally ill, migrant laborers, and anyone who does not immediately submit to police power and authority seemingly bear the brunt of the violence meted out by police. One needs only conduct a brief Internet search to see videos of police in the United States wantonly killing people whilst in the line of duty.

The 24 November grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson over the 9 August fatal shooting of teenager Michael Brown has been met with a mixed consensus amongst people in the United States. On the one hand, there are those who claim that the rule of law has prevailed, and that there is nothing else to do. For others, there is a feeling of indignance that has catapulted people into large, sometimes violent, demonstrations in Ferguson and across the United States. State officials and political pundits have either vilified the protests or appealed for some semblance of calm in the wake of the grand jury’s decision. There is almost no discussion on the anti-democratic nature of the grand jury process, on Jay Nixon preemptively calling a state of emergency, or the role that the police play in this society. The focus, it seems, is on the lack of so-called civility on behalf of some of the protesters. Conservatives often use racialist, if not overtly racist, rhetoric when considering what is happening in Ferguson. Liberals appeal to the protestors to harken to the whitewashed legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and engage in peaceful demonstrations.

The time for peace has passed, indeed it never existed in this country. It doesn’t matter if Brown robbed a convenience store, or even if he assaulted Wilson. What matters is that the case highlights the depths to which the capitalist state and its police forces will protect their own and attempt to stifle any sort of dissent. Imagine if Wilson was the aggressor in the situation-- which is more likely than Brown being the aggressor-- and Brown defended himself with deadly force, mortally wounding Wilson. Brown would have likely go to prison for life, whereas Wilson has been cleared for what has been deemed a justifiable shooting. And it is justifiable based on how police operate within the United States: with near impunity.

The violence of the police is almost always defensible in the eyes of the ruling elite, as evinced by Barack Obama’s platitudes to liberal desires to the rule of law in the aftermath of the grand jury decision. So, why then is the violence of the protestor so reviled? It is confounding that the people seem more concerned about the loss of property than the loss of life in the aftermath of the Ferguson decision. While there are opportunists who have used the protests to their own end, the acts of looting, destruction of property, and violence directed towards state representatives is not only warranted, it is necessary. If people could, they would target the police, but the protesters know that a direct confrontation (with what is now a military force in this country) at this time would likely result in their deaths. The destruction of property in the area is the next best option. And while it is lamentable that some so-called mom-and-pop shops are targeted alongside the larger businesses, it is the truly dispossessed, downtrodden, social ostracized, and oppressed peoples who are engaging in the only viable option to lash out at an increasingly militarized, bureaucratically regimented, and authoritarian society. It is clear that while the murder of Michael Brown was the catalyst for these events, it is not the cause. The cause is the decades long, the centuries long, daily oppression people experience at the hands of the capitalist state.

Historically, the police, and specifically the policing of minority communities in the United States can be traced to the epoch of chattel slavery. The modern police were developed from, at times directly so, the ranks of slave catchers. The racialized policing and subjugation of Afro-Americans and, later, of Amerindians, European immigrant communities, Latinos and others was born from the desire to maintain a white supremacist state. It does not seem as though much has changed in this regard since the defeat of Radical Reconstruction in 1877. The problem with the protestors’ violence in Ferguson is that it is unorganized. If the violence was to be organized, and the protestors armed-- more so than the few that sparingly are-- then the brunt of social pressures would not be laid onto middling proprietors, but unto those deserving the most virulent response of an enraged populace.

Calls for calm emanating from the upper strata of society are an attempt to mitigate the popular indignation that has long been bubbling under the surface of the society. The violence against property, that is destruction and theft, is only an unorganized form of something with the potential to be far more revolutionary and inspiring. To say that an all-out class war is on the horizon would be hyperbolic at this point, and maybe even myopic, but the undergirding social structures that position disenfranchised and working class peoples well below the dictatorship of capital are being pressured, the police being only one such institution. With increased organization, the Ferguson protests and riots do have the potential to transform from seemingly random attacks to ones that aim at puncturing the status quo. This is not a quixotic notion, it is within the realm of material possibilities, and activist-scholars should be lending their weight to this and other attendant struggles. The reliability and social productivity of voting for bourgeoisie parties is long dead. The demonstration turned riot, turned revolt, is the most effective means to bring about a new, more egalitarian social paradigm. While the current “unrest” in Ferguson and around the country is unlikely lead to any revolutionary impetus, it is a start. As people’s consciousness is transmuted from subservience to the prevailing ideologies of the elite to something related to their actual position in the society, drastic social change will become increasingly possible.

The death of Michael Brown has spurred this process and has fomented mass discontent with the government. Furthermore, the events in Ferguson have fomented the most visible resistance to the status quo in the United States. What is needed now is to take the next step from indiscriminate attacks to ones directly pointed at state power as well as at the lackeys and apologists who allow it to prosper. The transformative potential emanating from the protestors’ violence in Ferguson and elsewhere will not help recoup some “golden age” in the United States-- there never was one-- but can hopefully prove to be the kernel of radically altered social relations.

During the protests in New York City in the days after the decision to not indict Wilson, thousands took to the streets empathetically chanting “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” Some, however, went even further, shouting the slogan “Arms Up, Shoot Back!” The former statement represents an appeal to state authorities, namely the police, to cease its murderous rampage upon those living in this country. The latter, represents a challenge-- albeit prematurely and an incendiary one, given the balance of forces-- to those that currently wield power, and have the legal (fictitious) right to kill whom they see fit. Instead of attempting to demonize the rioters and looters by invoking the image and memory of Martin Luther King Jr., it would be more advantageous for those “progressives” in our society to understand the Ferguson protests as part of the same genealogy as the Deacons for Defense, Malcolm X, Robert F. Williams, and the Black Panthers. What is occurring in Ferguson is symptomatic of the social dislocation that has been ever present but has yet to ferment. When the state comes down on its citizenry violently, we must resist, with equitable violence if necessary. The attacks on property in Ferguson only need be redirected for a magnificent transformation of consciousness to come out of Michael Brown’s death. If not, then Brown’s death, the deaths of the aforementioned men, and the millions who suffered and died under the jackboot of state oppression in this country would have partially been lost in vain. Let us not protest the protestors, but express our solidarity, and our commitment to their struggle, which is invariably our own struggle. As we solidarize and join with the embattled communities in and around Ferguson, let us also remember to look beyond the provincial confines of our own state and express solidarity with others who struggle for a more just and equitable society, be they in Palestine, Mexico, or Burkina Faso. In the word of the late Burkinabé revolutionary Thomas Sankara, “It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future.”

Anecdotally, as this issue of the Advocate went to press, Eric Garner’s murderer, Daniel Pantaleo, has been cleared of any wrongdoing, a grand jury in Staten Island opting to refrain from indicting him on 3 December. On 17 July 2014, Pantaleo, and NYPD officer placed Garner in a chokehold (illegal even by the standards of the NYPD) which resulted in a fatal heart attack for Garner. Garner was not bellicose in his interactions with police and was unarmed. The video of his murder sparked wide spread protests in the New York City Metro area, and the grand jury decision is likely to do so as well.

Bob Fredericks covered Barnes' editorial, which he called "a screed" and a "jargon-filled diatribe," on Christmas Eve for the New York Post: "The editorial-- illustrated in the online version with the circled, capital A that symbolizes anarchy-- also urges rioters to emulate the Black Panthers and Malcolm X instead of Martin Luther King and other advocates of nonviolence-- and hopes the unrest will morph into a revolution... CUNY Grad Center President Chase F. Robinson condemned the editorial. 'While freedom of speech must be protected, and the views expressed by the editor in chief of this student newspaper are stated as sole views, we deplore calls of any kind for violence. As Martin Luther King’s birthday approaches, we should instead recommit ourselves to nonviolence as the true path to social justice,' Robinson said."

Yesterday Fredericks followed up with another attack on Barnes in the Post, this time calling the editorial "venomous."

“I still stand by what I said. I endorse an individual’s right to self-defense, even if it’s against a police officer-- by any means necessary,” Gordon Barnes told The Post.

Cops, he suggested, deserve anything they get because of what he called their aggressive tactics to control the protesters who’ve clogged streets in the weeks since a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict an NYPD cop in the death of Eric Garner.

“Self-defense is justified when people are attacked if the police are the aggressors, and most of the aggression in New York has come from the police. They’ve been too aggressive, with their batons and pepper spray,” Barnes said, adding that protesters have the right to bear arms and violently resist arrest.

Barnes, editor-in-chief of the graduate-student newspaper The Advocate, scoffed when asked if the murders of the two NYPD cops by a man out to avenge the deaths of Garner and Michael Brown made him reconsider his Dec. 3 editorial “In Support of Violence.”

“I think it should stay up” on the paper’s Web site, he said, insisting that he had nothing to apologize for.

A New Jersey native pursuing a doctorate in history, Barnes said the ultimate goal of the protests is revolution-- one that would necessarily be bloody.

“I advocate a social revolution, one in which people are equal, have equal access and equal means. History tells us violence would be necessary for there to be substantial and lasting social change,” he said.

Barnes’ editorial called for violent protests.

“The time for peace has passed,” he wrote, adding that protesters needed to be armed and better organized.

“The acts of looting, destruction of property and violence directed towards state representatives is not only warranted, it is necessary,” wrote Barnes, who once studied in Cuba and refers to the United States as a “white supremacist state.”

Another CUNY spokesman, Jay Hershenson, called Barnes’ views “deplorable.” Sounds like New York will soon have a scapegoat for the shortcomings in getting the authoritarian streak out of its police force.