Former Vanguard Supervisor Guilty of $2 Million Scam

From Birch Gold Group

vanguard scam

Few names ring as many bells among domestic investors as Vanguard, an investment fund with over $5.3 trillion of assets under management. The company’s size, age and resume of reputability has led many investors to believe that entrusting the fund with their money is tantamount to placing it in a foolproof safe.

Yet according to a report from money.com, a recent incident involving a Vanguard employee showed that this is far from the case. The report states that in order for money to remain in an investment account, the account’s holder needs to display at least some activity on a semi-regular basis. In Philadelphia’s case, funds from accounts that haven’t been accessed for three years are transferred to the State Treasury, where they are held until an heir reclaims them. This most often happens with accounts belonging to the sick or elderly.

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LIES, LIES & OMG MORE LIES

“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” – Benjamin Disraeli

Every month the government apparatchiks at the Bureau of Lies and Scams (BLS) dutifully announces inflation is still running below 2%. Janet Yellen then gives a speech where she notes her concern inflation is too low and she needs to keep interest rates near zero to save humanity from the scourge of too low inflation. I don’t know how I could survive without 2% inflation reducing my purchasing power.

This week they reported year over year inflation of 1.9%. Just right to keep Janet from raising rates and keeping the stock market on track for new record highs. According to our beloved bureaucrats, after they have sliced, diced, massaged and manipulated the data, you’ve experienced annual inflation of 2.1% since 2000. If you believe that, I’ve got a great real estate deal for you in North Korea on the border with South Korea.

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Southern Poverty Law Center Transfers Millions in Cash to Offshore Entities

Via The Washington Free Beacon

Left-wing nonprofit pays lucrative six-figure salaries to top management

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a liberal, Alabama-based 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization that has gained prominence on the left for its “hate group” designations, pushes millions of dollars to offshore entities as part of its business dealings, records show.

Additionally, the nonprofit pays lucrative six-figure salaries to its top directors and key employees while spending little on legal services despite its stated intent of “fighting hate and bigotry” using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is perhaps best known for its “hate map,” a collection of organizations the nonprofit deems “domestic hate groups” that lists mainstream conservative organizations alongside racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and is often referenced in the media. A gunman opened fire at the Washington, D.C., offices of the conservative Family Research Council in 2012 after seeing it listed as an “anti-gay” group on SPLC’s website.

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“Shrinkflation” – How Food Companies Implement Massive Price Hikes Without You Ever Noticing

Tyler Durden's picture

Do you ever get the sense that your favorite steak at that Quick Service Restaurant of your choice keeps getting thinner and thinner all while your check size at the end of the night continues getting larger and larger.  Well, it is.  How else are publicly traded chains going to continue to deliver margin growth to wall street in the midst of rising labor costs, rising commodity costs and shrinking customer traffic?

As a new study in the U.K. just revealed, shrinking portion sizes among food manufacturers is actually way more common than you might think and you probably never even noticed it.  In fact, according to data from the Office for National Statistics, over 2,500 consumer products in the U.K. shrunk in size over the past five years despite being sold for the same price.

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More Signs Of The “Strong US Consumer” Emerge As Auto Repossessions Soar

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A quick glance at recent U.S. auto sales would imply that all is well in autoworld.  Sure, sales have stagnated for about a year but they’re still near all-time highs, right?

Auto Sales

 

That said, a look just beneath the surface reveals a slightly different take on the U.S. auto industry.  As the Financial Times recently pointed out, auto repossessions in the US are soaring and, with the exception of the “great recession” in 2008 and 2009, stand at the highest levels recorded in 20 years.

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HOW ABOUT THEM APPLES – $14.5 BILLION OF THEM

Concluding a two-year long investigation, the European Commission has ordered Apple to pay up to €13 billion ($14.5 billion) in back taxes for its subsidiaries in Ireland. The Commission argues that Apple received “undue tax benefits” between 2003 and 2014, violating EU state aid rules.

As our chart illustrates, Apple’s provisions for income taxes outside of the United States amounted to just $4.89 billion during said period. According to the European Commission’s statement, the company paid an effective tax rate ranging from 1 percent in 2003 to 0.005 percent in 2014 on its European profits during the time. To put that in perspective, Apple paid an effective tax rate of 26.1 percent in the United States in 2014, with income taxes adding up to almost $60 billion between 2003 and 2014.

Both Apple and Ireland have already denied the Commission’s allegations and announced that they are going to appeal against today’s ruling. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the end, as it may be the first case of a company being ordered to pay back taxes to a government that doesn’t even want the money.

Infographic: Apple's Foreign Tax Payments Since 2003 | Statista
You will find more statistics at Statista

DIPLOMA MILL ITT – AND IT’S GONE!!!

Five years ago ITT Educational Services had revenues of $1.5 billion and profits of $300 million. Of course, it was nothing but a scam diploma mill totally dependent upon Federal student loans. It’s stock traded for $77 per share. Yesterday the Feds said they would no longer fund federal loans to this diploma mill. It’s stock this morning is trading at 64 cents. And it’s gone!!!

Guess who will be picking up the tab for all the loans doled out to the brainless twits who enrolled at ITT during the reign of Obama? YOU!!!

I wonder who was writing articles about this diploma mill scam years ago? Who coulda knowed?

University of Phoenix is next.

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2012/06/01/seven-years-of-college-down-the-drain/

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2012/10/21/dysfunctional-dishonest-insane-intolerable/

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2013/02/06/all-is-well-3/

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/03/01/breaking-bad-debt-episode-three/

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/03/19/the-great-student-loan-scam/


The Tesla 3 … and “Shit Talkers” Like Me

Guest Post by Eric Peters

It’s depressing when even Jalopnik – a car site that’s supposed to be into cars – throws a bukakke party for the new Tesla 3.

Which is a car in the same way that this is an airplane:

Elon Musk’s latest four-wheeled exercise in rent-seeking will reportedly be “sold” (fundamentally dishonest word; I’ll explain) for about $35,000 to start. Which is a “deal” – sort of – when compared with the other Tesla, which has a starting price just under $70k.

Jalopnik writes (if it can be described as such):

“The entry-level Tesla Model 3 sedan is coming the month and it’s not just supposed to transform the future of the company, it’s supposed to transform the electric car into (sic) a bit player for the sybaritic and the techno-weirdos into a clean vehicle for the masses….”

The “writer” (sorry, I can’t help myself) then goes on to abuse the “shit talkers” (that’d be me) who “howl all day” about the electric Edsel’s range and recharge issues – which have not been solved.

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Shocking Statistic: Over 40% Of Student Borrowers Don’t Make Payments

It’s funny how the faux journalists at the WSJ do an article about this a month after I already ripped apart the Obama lies.

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/03/19/the-great-student-loan-scam/

 

Submitted by Mike “Mish” Shedlock of MishTalk

Department of Education Wonders “Why 40% of Student Borrowers Don’t Make Payments”; Blame Bush (Seriously)!

Over 40 percent of those in student loan programs have stopped making payments. Many borrowers have never made any payments.

The department of education (a useless body that I would eliminate in one second if given the chance), cannot figure out why this is happening.

“We obviously have not cracked that nut but we want to keep working on it,” said Ted Mitchell, the Education Department’s under secretary.

The Wall Street Journal reports More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments.

More than 40% of Americans who borrowed from the government’s main student-loan program aren’t making payments or are behind on more than $200 billion owed, raising worries that millions of them may never repay.

 

While most have since left school and joined the workforce, 43% of the roughly 22 million Americans with federal student loans weren’t making payments as of Jan. 1, according to a quarterly snapshot of the Education Department’s $1.2 trillion student-loan portfolio.

 

About 1 in 6 borrowers, or 3.6 million, were in default on $56 billion in student debt, meaning they had gone at least a year without making a payment. Three million more owing roughly $66 billion were at least a month behind.

 

Meantime, another three million owing almost $110 billion were in “forbearance” or “deferment,” meaning they had received permission to temporarily halt payments due to a financial emergency, such as unemployment. The figures exclude borrowers still in school and those with government-guaranteed private loans.

 

Navient Corp. , which services student loans and offers payment plans tied to income, says it attempts to reach each borrower on average 230 to 300 times—through letters, emails, calls and text messages—in the year leading up to his or her default. Ninety percent of those borrowers, which include federal borrowers as well as those who hold private loans, never respond and more than half never make a single payment before they default, the company says.

Crisis Easy to Explain

Continue reading “Shocking Statistic: Over 40% Of Student Borrowers Don’t Make Payments”

THE GREAT STUDENT LOAN SCAM

Doug Short quantifies the amount owed to the government for student loans, but he doesn’t discuss the absolute fact that hundreds of billions will never be repaid. The Obama administration is solely responsible for this disaster and they don’t give a shit. Keeping millions of morons in school artificially lowers the already fake unemployment figures. Doling out billions in loans to functionally illiterate dumbasses is a perfectly acceptable liberal solution.

The government is hiding the true disaster in plain sight. Obama has the balls to declare that “only” 11.6% of student loans are in default. Now that’s funny. Here are the facts:

  • Total student loan debt outstanding of $1.32 trillion.
  • The Federal government is owed $972 billion, up from the $945.6 billion in Doug’s article.
  • Loans in official default of $51 billion.
  • Loans officially in repayment of $400 billion – the other $500 billion isn’t due because the students are still in school or the government says they don’t have to pay because they have a good excuse (like the dog ate their homework).

According to the government that makes the default rate a high, but reasonable 11.6%. One problem. The total amount of debt that should be in repayment is $600 billion, not $400 billion. There is $200 billion of student loan deb that should be being paid back, but the government has either allowed forbearance or deferment. The reasons allowed for these categories are unemployment, non-full time job, or the ever popular financial hardship.

So in layman terms, that means that $200 billion is in DEFAULT. They aren’t paying because they can’t pay. Therefore, the true default rate is 38%, not 11.6%. Obama and his minions prefer the BIG LIE when reporting any statistic. And what’s worse, this is after shifting $200 billion of debt to their new and improved repayment programs with Orwellian names like: Income-contingent plan, Income-based plan, Pay As You Earn. 

Obama and his Keynesian acolytes are doing everything in their power to shift hundreds of billions in bad loans onto the backs of taxpayers. Every time one of these fraudulent for profit diploma mills goes bankrupt or is charged with fraud by the government, they relieve the debt of the morons who were stupid enough to enroll in these criminal institutions. Relieving their debt means you pay. Easy peasy. Who could have possibly figured out the University of Phoenix, Corinthian, Devry, ITT, and the rest of the for profits were a fraud? 

Obama continues to dole out over $100 billion per year in future bad debt to people intellectually incapable of succeeding in college, with no oversight, no realistic chance of getting repaid, and no concern for the massive budget implications. The losses to taxpayers will be in excess of $300 billion. So it goes. 

 

Guest Post by Doug Short


Pop Quiz! Without recourse to your text, your notes or a Google search, what line item is the largest asset in Uncle Sam’s financial accounts?

  • A) U.S. Official Reserve Assets
  • B) Total Mortgages
  • C)Taxes Receivable
  • D) Student Loans

The correct answer, as of the latest quarterly data, is … Student Loans.

Continue reading “THE GREAT STUDENT LOAN SCAM”

A First-Hand Account Of What’s Really Happening In Subprime Auto

Tyler Durden's picture

How the Global Warming Scare Began

A great scientist named Roger Revelle had Al Gore in his class at Harvard and the Global Warming campaign was born. Revelle tried to calm things down years later, but Gore said Revelle was Senile and refused to debate. John Coleman documents the entire story and shows how our tax dollars are perpetuating the Global Warming alarmist campaign even though temperatures have not risen in years and years.