Archive for the ‘Fraud’ Category

by Leslie Hook
Suntech Power Holdings, which was until recently the world’s largest producer of solar panels, has said its main subsidiary in China is bankrupt, in a further stark illustration of the declining fortunes of the global solar industry.
Suntech’s Wuxi subsidiary is the first big Chinese solar group to declare insolvency and the world’s biggest such bankruptcy, following a string of failed western solar companies including Q-Cells in Germany and Solyndra in the US.
“What the Suntech case shows us is that the Chinese companies are not too big to fail,” said Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “We are entering a period of great difficulty for Chinese solar manufacturers.”
Turning to solar energy in Middle East
China is the world’s biggest producer of solar panels, but the sector is suffering from overcapacity after rapid expansion fuelled by cheap loans and preferential government policies. US-listed Suntech was the posterchild of the country’s swift entry into, and then dominance of, the market.
The solar suitcase
It announced on Wednesday that eight Chinese banks had filed a petition for insolvency and restructuring of Wuxi Suntech in a court in Jiangsu province. The bankruptcy is a milestone because, until now, China’s larger struggling solar companies have been kept afloat by cheap credit and indirect state support.
Suntech defaulted last week on a $541m convertible bond issued by its Cayman Islands subsidiary, which triggered cross-defaults on other loans outstanding. According to the company’s most recent reports, Suntech’s net debt stood at $1.6bn at the end of March 2012.
The case is set to be a big test of China’s new bankruptcy law, which came into effect in 2007 but has rarely been applied to overseas-listed companies with assets in China. It will be complicated by the fact that neither the US-listed entity, Suntech Power Holdings, nor any subsidiaries other than Wuxi are declaring insolvency.
“It’s going to be a test of what, exactly, do the US entities and the Cayman entities really own?” said one Singapore-based analyst who asked not to be named.
Under Chinese law, the courts will have six months to come up with a restructuring plan that is then presented to creditors, with the possibility of an additional three-month extension.
Bankruptcy specialist Han Chuanhua, a partner at the Zhongzi Law Office in Beijing, said: “It is rare for such a big company to get into bankruptcy proceedings, even though many companies cannot pay off their debts.” He cited local government bailouts, and creditor reluctance, as two main reasons why insolvent Chinese companies avoid bankruptcy.
The government of Wuxi, the city where Suntech is headquartered, has come to Suntech’s aid in the past — and appears to be taking an even more active role in the company with the appointment earlier this week of a new president, Zhou Weiping, who previously worked for the government-backed Wuxi Guolian Development Co.
Mr Han said the co-ordinated action of the eight banks suggested the local government had given its blessing to the proceedings. “Without government support, even if creditors file a petition, the court wouldn’t accept it,” he explained.
David King, Suntech’s chief executive, said: “While we evaluate restructuring initiatives and strategic alternatives, we are committed to continuing to provide high-quality solar products to our global customer base.”

Harry Reid, what a Joke
It’s politically fashionable now to say you’ve helped reduce the nation’s debt. And at nearly $1 trillion annually, there’s a lot of debt to be reduced.

But during a speech this week on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid claimed that over the past two years the government has reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion – almost double the amount the deficit is right now.

“In the last two years we have reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion,” he said. “The Senate budget continues this effort without jeopardizing our economic recovery or breaking our promises to seniors and veterans.”

The Congressional Budget Office, which does non-partisan economic analysis at the behest of Congress, estimates that the federal deficit will be $845 billion by the end of this year. Two years ago, in 2011, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. That’s hardly a reduction of the more than $2 trillion that Reid claimed.

In fact, CBO data shows that the deficit has only been reduced by about $450 billion over the last two years. That’s about 20 percent of what Reid claimed.

For mangling budget numbers in a way that gave Americans too rosy a picture of the federal decific, Harry Reid wins the Whopper of the Week, a distinction awarded by the Washington Guardian to inaccurate, false, or misleading statements made by political leaders.

Reid’s mistake was in making it sound like the budget deficits and their reductions over the next decade have already taken place, during 2011 and 2012. The Democrat’s current fiscal plan projects $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years, according to documents released by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the Senate Budget Committee chairwoman.

What Murray’s letter actually says is that the work in creating policy that will reduce the debt has been done over the past two years. It’s the planning and preparation that have been done over the past two years, the policy changes that will lead to deficit reduction. But most of the reductions are years off.

“This memo first lays out the bipartisan work we’ve already done over the last two years to reduce our deficit and debt by at least $2.4 trillion,” Murray’s letter reads.

Exact numbers are often difficult to come by and sometimes a guessing game, but politicians need to be accurate in their claims, especially when presenting a timeframe. Reid’s comments made it seem like the government has already cut the debt and should be operating at a surplus. But the reality is trillions in new deficits are on the horizon before those $2.4 trillion in savings are achieved.

And pedophiles everywhere rejoiced. Just sickening.

Sex OK at 9, says Saudi cleric
Age, or lack thereof, is no hindrance to marriage under Islam, according to Ahmad Al-Mu’bi, an officiant for marriages from Saudi Arabia who says sex at 9 is fine.

According to a video of the Saudi official recorded and translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, Al-Mu’bi has confirmed that marriage contracts are appropriate for girls as young as age 1.

And he said the model for marriage continues to be Muhammad, who married one of his wives when she was but 6.

The video comes from a broadcast on LBC Television on June 19, according to the MEMRI report.

Al-Mu’bi said, “Marriage is actually two things: First we are talking about the marriage contract itself. This is one thing, while consummating the marriage – having sex with the wife for the first time – is another thing.

“There is no minimal age for entering marriage. You can have a marriage contract even with a 1-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of 9, 7, or 8. This is merely a contract [indicating] consent. The guardian in such a case must be the father, because the father’s opinion is obligatory. Thus, the girl becomes a wife,” he said.

“But is the girl ready for sex or not? What is the appropriate age for having sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and traditions. In Yemen, girls are married off at 9, 10, 11, 8, or 13, while in other countries, they are married off at 16. Some countries have legislated laws forbidding having sex before the girl is 18,” he said.

He confirmed, “The Prophet Muhammad is the model we follow. He took ‘Aisha to be his wife when she was 6, but he had sex with her only when she was 9.”

Read the entire story onWND. There is a blurb about a Hamas leader bragging about using children, women and the elderly as human shields in its firefights with Israeli soldiers. And some commenters on this site wonder why I accuse islam of teaching hate.

The word’s out that he [Romney] hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years.”
— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Aug. 2, 2012
Reid has generated a lot of controversy with his claim that presumptive GOP nominee did not pay any taxes for 10 years. He originally told the Huffington Post that a person who had invested with Bain Capital had called his office and told him this. Then, he told reporters in Nevada that “I have had a number of people tell me that.”
Reid has refused to identify his source (or sources). Romney and his campaign aides have emphatically denied the charge but Reid has stood firm. “I don’t think the burden should be on me,” he said. “The burden should be on him. He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes.”
This whole exchange poses a fact-checking conundrum. Generally, we maintain that the person or the campaign making the charge must back it up. Reid has refused to provide any evidence, except for the (unproven) fact that someone called him up and told him something that may be true — or simply a rumor.
But we can still examine how credible this rumor might be.
The Facts
Romney has refused to release more than two years of tax returns, citing a precedent that is not very credible; he earned three Pinocchios for that claim. Most presidential candidates in recent years have released more than two years of returns, so Romney may be paying a political price for failing to release more.
But Romney’s 2010 return and his estimated 2011 return do show that he paid substantial taxes in those years. In 2010, he earned nearly $22 million, including $3 million in taxable interest, nearly $5 million in dividends and more than $12 million in capital gains. He reduced his taxes by giving $3 million in charitable contributions (much of it in appreciated stock, which shielded him from paying additional capital gains.)
In other words, this tax return shows a portfolio that is not structured to yield zero taxes. We spoke to a number of tax experts, all of whom said that, given Romney’s current portfolio, it was highly improbable for Romney to have had 10 years with tax-free returns — though there could have been one or two years with little or no taxes.
(We will lay aside the interesting question of Romney’s individual retirement account, valued at as much as $100 million, which may have benefited from Bain Capital’s practice of allowing employees to co-invest retirement funds in takeover deals.)
Charitable contributions, first of all, could only get Romney so far. Taxpayers cannot eliminate tax liability only through charitable contributions.
Still, Romney at one point could have invested all of his money in tax-exempt bonds, though that is not his investment strategy now. (IRS figures show that 61 percent of high-income returns with no tax liability stemmed from tax-exempt interest.)
Romney also could have timed the sale of stocks or made other investment decisions that would have yielded losses that offset capital gains. Len Burman, a professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, said IRS data show that 5.7 percent of the high-income returns had as a primary reason losses from partnerships and closely-held business. “We know that Governor Romney had a partnership, and it had losses in 2010,” he said. “It’s possible that those partnership losses were large enough to offset taxable income from compensation, rents, interest, dividends, and royalties.”
Romney also could have invested in tax shelters. Edward Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California and former chief of staff at the Joint Committee on Taxation, noted that Romney chaired the audit committee of Marriott International when it engaged in a highly aggressive tax shelter that was successfully challenged by the Internal Revenue Service.
But none of this appears to add up to 10 years of tax returns with no taxes paid. “It is theoretically possible, but it seems quite improbable in practice given the portfolio in 2010,” Kleinbard said. “It is improbable that a man of his wealth would have paid no taxes for 10 years.”
Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, said that Romney “probably reported income every year” but that he might have paid as low as a 2 percent tax rate in one year. “That’s close enough to zero for me,” he said.
Still, Reid claims that Romney did not pay taxes for 10 years. Moreover, he claims to base this on information from a Bain investor, without explaining how someone not intimately familiar with Romney’s tax situation would know details of his taxes.
We asked a Reid spokesman for more backup information and for the name of a tax expert who could back up Reid’s claim but did not receive a response.
The Pinocchio Test
We use a reasonable person standard here. Without seeing Romney’s taxes, we cannot definitively prove Reid incorrect. But tax experts say his claim is highly improbable. Reid also has made no effort to explain why his unnamed source would be credible. So, in the absence of more information, it appears he has no basis to make his incendiary claim.
Moreover, Reid holds a position of great authority in the U.S. Congress. He should hold himself to a high standard of accuracy when making claims about political opponents.

Four Pinocchios

By: Skook

President Obama may have a more serious problem for reelection in Ohio than Mitt Romney. A 70 something private investigator has her ducks all in a row and it looks impressive.

Susan Daniels, filed suit on July 2 in the Geauga County, Ohio, Common Pleas Court demanding Jon Husted, Ohio Secretary of State, remove President Obama’s name from the ballot until the president can prove the legitimacy of his Social Security Number.

Daniels has run thousands of SSNs for former clients; she knows her business and has documented every detail. She insists:

Barack Obama has repeatedly, consistently, and with intent misrepresented himself by using a fraudulently obtained Social Security Number.

Daniels has become a valid write-candidate for president, thus she is eligible to make the challenge, according to Ohio Law.

Ms Daniels began her investigation in August of 2009. She has accessed a variety of proprietary databases, because of her Private Investigator’s licensure.

It is public knowledge the 042 prefix on a SSN designates the state of Connecticut for registery. President Obama has been using a 042 SSN since 1986. Ms Daniels ran ten sequential numbers in alignment with the president’s number and found they were all issued between 1977 and 1979 in CT. The numbers flanking the president’s SSN indicate the President’s number was issued during March of 1977.

In March of 1977, President Obama was 15-years old and living in Hawaii. There is no record of the President ever visiting Connecticut during this period of his life. To qualify for a SSN, an applicant must show up for a “mandatory in-person interview.” The president’s sister, Maya, has a legitimate Hawaii SSN, issued from the state of Hawaii.

From the database of the Massachusetts Department of Motor Vehicles, Ms Daniels discerned the president used the same SSN to obtain a driver’s license, while attending college and has used the same number for filing taxes for 2009.
During the research, Daniels kept coming into a “marked anomaly,” multiple birthdates for the same person. The 08/04/1961 and 04/08/1961 was reasonable, but the frequent appearance of the year 1890 seemed suspicious.

Daniels feels the anomaly arises from the fact that the president’s SSN was originally issued in March of 1977 to a person born in 1890.

This assertion can be verified; the Social Security Administration maintains on microfilm a copy of all original SS-5 applications and their appropriate numbers. Daniels has been denied access to those records.

Consequently, Daniels filed suit:

“Defendant Husted, through this filing,” she argues, “has been made aware that the Democratic Candidate has been using a fraudulent Social Security Number, which would render Barack Obama ineligible under both the Ohio and U.S. Constitutions.”

She has asked the court to issue an injunction to prevent President Obama’s appearing on the ballot, until it is determined he is using a legitimate SSN.

Judging from the response of other courts, it is unlikely Daniels will receive justice for her efforts in Geauga County or from the Republican Secretary of State, but she has established a legitimate paper trail, a matter of record that will be hard for even the Conservative media with RINO sympathies to ignore.

The MSM or the president’s propaganda bureau cannot be expected to acknowledge the research; since it so far beyond their job description, but the research has been done and it raises the legitimate question, “Who is this man and why is he an enigma?”

The questions will never go away, until they are answered. They only cause Americans to lose faith in the system and the politicians and bureaucrats running the system.
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