Joe Biden Just Promised America A Massive Tax Hike
Joe Biden says he will let Donald Trump's across-the-board $2 trillion tax cut expire. That would mean the biggest tax increase in history.Joe Biden says he will let Donald Trump's across-the-board $2 trillion tax cut expire. That would mean the biggest tax increase in history.Harvard president Larry Summers reportedly tried to get Jeffery Epstein to bankroll his wife's poetry project after the pedophile's conviction
Larry Summers, 68, served as former President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary and as former President Barack Obama's top economic advisor. He apparently also talked money with another former big wig in Washington, even when others refused to.
According to documents recently obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Summers — touted by Politico last year as a "Democratic hero" — tried hitting up notorious pedophile and child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein for cash after his conviction in 2008 for soliciting sex from little girls.
Harvard University reportedly took tens of millions of dollars from Epstein from 2001 to 2006 while Summers was president. However, when Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008, the university determined it wouldn't accept any more donations.
Summers, who appears on the flight log for Epstein's so-called Lolita Express numerous times, apparently made no such resolution.
Documents reportedly show that Summers scheduled dozens more meetings with the convicted pedophile from 2013 and 2016.
These were no mere boardroom meetings or chance encounters but dinners and other cozy rendezvous.
While a spokesman for Summers told the Journal that their interactions chiefly concerned "global economic issues," pet projects nevertheless came up on occasion.
Around 2014, Summers' current wife, Elisa New, an American literature professor at Harvard, reportedly wanted to hype her poetry coursework. Summers solicited Epstein — who by that time had been formally recognized as a sex offender for at least six years — for donations.
"I need small scale philanthropy advice. My life will be better if i raise $1m for Lisa," Summers said in an April 2014 email to the convicted pedophile. "Mostly it will go to make it a pbs series and for teacher training. Ideas?"
The duo decided to meet up for an intimate dinner.
Alan M. Dershowitz, also an Epstein friend, told the Harvard Crimson in 2003 that the yet-to-be-convicted pedophile "likes Larry Summers a lot. ... He speaks well of Larry."
It appears that fondness went a long way.
Epstein reportedly went in turn to Barnaby Marsh, then an executive at the charitable fund John Templeton Foundation. The foundation didn't cough up any cash for New's poetry project.
Despite this setback, $110,000 made its way from a nonprofit linked to Epstein over to New's nonprofit.
Summer's spokesman confirmed previous reports that Epstein ultimately funded a nonprofit that produced New's "Poetry in America" TV show.
The Harvard couple's spokesman indicated that the former university president "deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction" and his wife "regrets accepting funding from Epstein."
Summers is not the only "Democratic hero" or leftist icon revealed to have stayed close with Epstein after he was exposed as a child-trafficking pedophile.
TheBlaze previously reported that former CIA director William Burns, leftist linguist Noam Chomsky, Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, Bard College President Leon Botstein, and others hobnobbed with Epstein after his 2008 conviction.
The Journal indicated that actor Woody Allen, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and Israeli politician Ehud Barak were also among those in Epstein's post-conviction orbit.
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Biden threatens oil companies with new tax over 'war profiteering.' But top Dem economist says it will backfire.
President Joe Biden threatened oil and gas companies with a "windfall tax" on Monday, accusing them of "war profiteering."
What did Biden say?
Speaking at the White House, Biden accused oil companies of netting "outrageous" profits, which he attributed to the exploitation of the war in Ukraine.
Biden said oil companies need to reinvest their profits and reduce the cost of oil — or else.
"If they don’t, they’re going to pay a higher tax on their excess profits and face other restrictions," Biden said. "It’s time for these companies to stop war profiteering, meet their responsibilities to this country, and give the American people a break and still do very well."
The U.S. is not, in fact, at war.
Moreover, Biden claimed that if oil companies were not profiteering, then Americans would be paying, on average, at least 50 cents less per gallon of gas. He did not provide evidence to back that claim.
What was the response?
Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, predicted Biden's windfall tax will backfire.
"I’m not sure understand the argument for a windfall profits tax on energy companies. If you reduce profitability, you will discourage investment which is the opposite of our objective," Summers pointed out.
"If it is a fairness argument, I don’t quite follow the logic since even with the windfalls Exxon has underperformed the overall market over the last 5 years," he noted.
\u201cIf it is a fairness argument, I don\u2019t quite follow the logic since even with the windfalls Exxon has underperformed the overall market over the last 5 years.\u201d— Lawrence H. Summers (@Lawrence H. Summers) 1667297192
As Summers observed, the oil business is highly volatile.
For instance, while Biden emphasizes the industry's current profits, the five biggest oil companies — ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, and TotalEnergies – lost $76 billion in 2020. Biden, however, made no mention of that.
Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute also pointed out in a response to Biden that the oil industry does not control the price at the pump.
"Oil companies do not set prices—global commodities markets do," API president and CEO Mike Sommers said.
Economists at the Federal Reserve of Dallas have explained why oil companies are not responsible for the high prices of gas at the pump. According to their calculations, less than 60% of the price of gas is directly related to the price of oil. Other costs associated with the price of gas include oil refining, distribution, and taxes.
The truth is that gas stations control the price of gas at the pump.
"Since only 1% of service stations in the U.S. are owned by companies that also produce oil, U.S. oil producers are in no position to control retail gasoline prices," the Dallas Fed explained.
Keystone Pipeline cancellation was 'mistake,' economist under Obama, Clinton admits — and slowing oil permits, 'being hostile' toward natural gas were errors, too
Larry Summers — who served as treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton and was the director of the National Economic Council under former President Barack Obama — admitted during a Friday interview on Wall Street Week that cancelling the Keystone Pipeline was a "mistake" and that slowing oil permits and "being hostile as a country" toward natural gas were errors as well.
What are the details?
During the interview, Summers was asked about the OPEC+ move to slash oil production by 2 million barrels a day in order to control prices — a move that was a blow to President Joe Biden, who made a trip to Saudi Arabia over the summer to implore oil kingpins there to increase production in order to lower gas prices.
Specifically, Summers was asked if the oil production downturn will have "larger macroeconomic effects" and possibly speed us into a global recession.
"There's nothing good in this," Summers replied.
Later he added that "we made a mistake by canceling the Keystone pipeline. We made a mistake by slowing down all kinds of permitting activity. We made a mistake by being hostile as a country to natural gas."
He also said that "we made a mistake in the Congress a few weeks ago when we didn’t pass" the program from Democrat U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to expand permitting.
"We crucially need regulatory relief, or we’re not gonna get renewables online fast, and we’re not going to get the transmission lines that are necessary for renewables to become a large part of our energy fast," Summers added. "So, the real lesson [of] this is we need a different kind of energy strategy than the one that we’ve had. We need a strategy that is balanced rather than an unbalanced strategy of total hostility to fossil fuels, or God knows the kind of total strategy of favoring fossil fuels that we had ... even egregious favoritism toward Saudi Arabia that we saw during the Trump administration. We need to find a balance. And I think we’re making our way in that direction.”
Wall Street Week - Full Show 10/07/2022youtu.be
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