The IMF, Rio, and the UN’s Tax-Exempt Elite
The problem is not just the lavish salaries and benefits these multilateral “diplomats” enjoy, though these do tend to be plush. The deeper problem is that diplomatic immunity means that international civil servants are shielded from the effects of the endless rules and guidelines they love to crank out. Staff of the IMF dispense tax prescriptions hither and yon, but they themselves are exempt from the pinch. Lagarde has a point, that a great many Greeks have been ducking their responsibilities. But the IMF has a long record of favoring “austerity” policies, including tax hikes, which too often further damage the economies they are meant to fix, and inflict the most pain on the people who can least afford it. The collapse of the Indonesian economy, in 1997-1998, comes to mind.
Likewise, UN legions of international planners have made stock practice of enjoying privileges they keep trying to deny to the common folk. It is by now a classic of the genre that UN climate-crats jet around the globe for conferences in Bali, Durban, and — coming up, again, next month — Rio, at which they prescribe a lot less travel, to be enforced by de facto taxes, for everyone else.
Systems in which rule-makers are exempt from the rules have a built-in problem for those who live under them. In a democracy, there is the vital feedback of elections, in which the mightiest can be held to account. But the UN, and its affiliates, are not democracies; they are collectives, populated by governments and staffed by diplomatically immune bureaucrats who are increasingly in the business of inventing rules, taxes, and costly self-serving programs for people who have no clear way to vote them out. That is the real cost of the UN elite, exempt from taxes but chronically seeking ways these days to tax the rest of us — Lagarde and the IMF being the least of it, as Fox’s George Russell recently chronicled in his article on the potential multi-trillion-dollar tab for the UN’s imminent Rio summit.
Do the OECD employees get the same tax free treatment? I have also been chronicling the horrific education policies their bureaucrats are pushing on us in an effort to shift us all to a Green Economy, whether we want it or not. Regardless of the its absurd foundations.
I wrote a story yesterday about the UN’s Education for All and Education for Sustainable Development that the accreditors ensure get enacted in your school and classroom. Again without any electoral veto or even open acknowledgment of what is being put in place. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/if-facts-wont-cooperate-there-is-always-pedagogy/
I believe that one of the reasons there is less organized pressure for the President to go to Rio vs Bush twenty years ago is this desire not to call attention to how much of the Rio agenda is being quietly implemented whether there’s a new treaty or not.
As the UN said recently no other entity has the local, regional, national, and supranational arrangements and institutions in place that it has. Therefore it needs to direct the Green Economy of the future.
Not unless we want freedom, liberty, and widespread prosperity to be relics of a past vision.
Ms. Rosett has contributed more on the U.N. to PJM than anyone else, in Nobody Important’s estimation anyway. I estimate that because I have featured her articles more than anyone else’s (at least from PJM) on Another Slow New’s Day’s U.N. page.
http://anotherslownewsday.wordpress.com/united-nations/
The many thousands of people who have read your work here (perhaps hundreds of thousands, I don’t know) and the many hundreds of people who have read your work linked from ASND (I do know that number because WordPress tracks the link “clicks” on every blog) thank you for your ongoing research and reporting.
The point CNBC is missing is that LaGarde is not in a good position to criticize anyone for avoiding taxes; she is clearly open to charges of hypocrisy. Second, UN officials being exempt from their own rules is reminiscent of our own Congress – both are wrong. Finally, there is the issue of government policies creating unintended consequences and then the government officials criticize the people rather than their own policies. Oppressive taxation leads to tax evasion; excessive control of free markets leads to black markets. Most competent economists know this.
“Lagarde has a point, that a great many Greeks have been ducking their responsibilities. But the IMF has a long record of favoring “austerity” policies, including tax hikes, which too often further damage the economies they are meant to fix, and inflict the most pain on the people who can least afford it.”
And this is the same formula that Obama and the Democrats want to embrace for this country. Worse, they have no intention of even reducing spending. Oh, excuse me, they don’t call it spending anymore. They call it “investments.” So Obama wants to increase “investments” while increasing “revenues” (i.e., increasing taxes) and he doesn’t see anything wrong with that. Why should he? The Europeans have been doing it for decades and things were moving along just fine. That is, of course, until they all went broke. Then things didn’t work out that well, especially in countries like Greece and Spain, which are about to fall to pieces.
Obama adores organizations like the IMF and he’s very sympathetic to how they do, “business.” I’m just surprised that Obama hasn’t personally come to Lagarde’s defense. They are, after all, soulmates.
If the gang of thieves currently in the White House loses in Nov. What do you want to bet Obama and Hillary end up at the UN where they can continue their power grab with impunity.
U.N. Me Official Theatrical Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIzDt5NPYfI&feature=player_embedded
The UN building is old and needs expensive repairs. Most delegations suffer by being in New York becuase it is hideously expensive and full of poeple with a horrible alien culture. It would be cheaper to build a new UN HQ closer to where most delegations live and in a place where most delegations would feel more culturally relaxed, such as Sanaa or Djibouti.
Great idea!
Unfortunately Ms Rosett doesn’t seem to have done her homework. IMF salaries are paid NET of tax. Who does she think the IMF employees should pay tax to? The US, France? It is an international institution and that is why taxes are not levied on the salaries of non-Americans; US citizens who work for the IMF are paid a gross salary upon which they pay US taxes, set at a level to provide the same NET salary. As for the “profligrate” salary she receives, do you really think that her net salary is excessively high given the responsibilities of the job? If you do you are probably living in Kansas. It is also worth pointing out that the NET salaries of the IMF are established on the basis of a set of comparators established under the aegis of the member nations for comparable jobs. The staff have no say over these. Of course if she had bothered to do a little checking she could have found out all this.
The salary seems high to me, but that is really irrelevant. The point is that changes in income tax rates do not seem to influence the salaries of those advocating raising them. Unless this woman’s salary will be reduced whenever tax rates in France or where-ever increase she will not be affected by the things her organization supports which affect ordinary people.
(It was even worse with Al Gore; apparently most of his wife’s funds were in tax exempt bonds, whose value goes up when income taxes go up.)
I have long thought that a U N relocation to an area that did not have the enormous distractions of a cosmopolitan city would greatly boost the seriousness of the whole operation. For openers consider St. Helens or Pitcairn Island, isolated from entertainment attractions, international monetary centers and virtually impervious to spys.
Anyone willing to travel to and from either of these locations would demonstrate the seriousness of their mission.
About time, way past in fact, for someone to have in headlines placed this information before whatever public is interested in these particular royal immunities, e.g. Albert Gore and his ilk..
No longer possible for that “we didn’t know” for politicians who permit and support one supposes profitably from accepted immunities for members of international agencies unanswerable, unaccountable, except through the politicians to the populations that underwrite these royal privileges.
The American population, for example, as the primary underwriter (I think it’s 17% for the IMF – and only God knows what for the UN) of their privileges, their eliteness, their superiority. That American population which is habitually by these international “representatives”, with full support and huzzahs from Americans who identify themselves as emininces/elite, insult, denigrate and abuse as were the peasants and serfs in the old Empires.
How, when, and with what persons/experts/politicians did this occur that the ethics and Law of independence from international, and most importantly, unaccountable to Americans, international bodies happen. And why is it being allowed now to continue.
This ceding of the fundamentatal identity of America in her independence is not only sad, but in all probability criminal. Somehow un-American, no?
Doesn’t America exist only after brave men and women fought a bitter hot war against just such royal prerogatives at the expense of the common people, the royals’ subjects, the royals’ serfs. SERF from the Latin, a slave.
And isn’t America the worldwide model for the value and dignity of the common people, formerly known as serfs?
This joke is so old, it’s no longer funny.
When Obama loses in November, I’d like to see him become Secretary General of the UN. And, then, I’d like to see the UN thrown out of the United States.
What benefit is the United Nations to the United States?
Anybody hear about Environmental Justice? Obama’s Executive Order implementing this abomination in every corner of Americana? Yes! Read it and weep. (Sorry, a bit long but worth the read)
When most people talk about President Obama’s influence on America, reforming health care, repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” or ending the war in Iraq enter the conversation.But a nearly unknown Executive Order, could have a greater impact on Americas future than all of those things combined, potentially giving the federal government power to control every project in the country.The obscure memorandum of understanding, based on a long-forgotten executive order signed by President Clinton in 1994, marries: 1) the issues of environmentalism and 2)social justice. The federal government can use laws from one to control the other.
Seventeen federal agencies signed the Aug. 4, 2011, memorandum — a clear indication of its widespread implications. By signing it, “Each Federal agency agrees to the framework, procedures, and responsibilities” of integrating environmental justice into all of its “programs, policies, and activities.”
This integration was the topic of the State of Environmental Justice in 2012 Conference held April 5 in Crystal City, Va. The low-key conference featured speakers who are key players in the movement, offering a rare glimpse into how the federal government intends to use this new tool as an instrument of power and control over the lives of every American. Environmental justice has already stopped transportation projects in their tracks by using Title VI, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial “discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Mr. Obama explicitly suggests using Title VI to achieve environmental justice in his memorandum.
“This is all about integrating environmental justice into the transportation decision-making process,” said conference speaker Glenn Robinson, director of the Environmental Justice in Transportation Project at Morgan State University in Baltimore.The president had taken steps to integrate environmental justice into transportation even before he wrote the memo. In 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation to create the HUD-DOT-EPA Partnership for Sustainable Communities. This partnership, according to the “Environmental Justice and Sustainability Reference Deskbook,” “marks a fundamental shift in the way the federal government structures its transportation, housing, and environmental policies, programs and spending” to include environmental justice concerns.
James Cheatham, director of the Office of Planning at the Federal Highway Administration, is listed as an environmental justice contact in this book, which EPA published in December 2010. At the conference, he explained that the movement’s early focus on transportation was no accident. “Transportation is that vital link that moves our economy one way or another,” he said.
But what do civil rights have to do with transportation projects? When combined with environmentalism, they can stop almost anything.
Last year, an environmental justice claim prevented the state of Virginia from installing express toll lanes to help alleviate traffic congestion on Interstate 395 in Arlington County. The county alleged that the state had violated a series of laws that Mr. Obama suggested as enforcement tools for environmental justice. First, emissions from vehicles operating in the toll lanes would have violated the Clean Air Act. And, since the lanes would have run mostly through a low-income minority community, they also violated Title VI by discriminating against residents who live there. The lanes also would have violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), according to Arlington County Attorney Stephen A. MacIsaac.
“What NEPA requires is a study of traffic impacts, air quality impacts and impacts on disadvantaged and minority communities … and we felt like that wasn’t an adequate review,” Mr. MacIsaac said. Mr. MacIsaac insisted that the county’s lawsuit did not allege racial discrimination, even though traffic studies projected that mostly affluent white people would use the HOT lanes, which he referred to as “Lexus lanes.”But conference speaker Sharlene Reed, community planner at FHWA(Federal Highway Administration), suggested conferees adopt exactly that strategy for filing project-stopping lawsuits. “If environmental justice is looking at minorities and low income,” she asked, “can you actually afford to utilize this road, or are you being disadvantaged as a result of them having a price associated with it?”
Like Mr. Cheatham, Ms. Reed is listed as an environmental contact in the HUD-DOT-EPA Partnership. She helped develop “EPA’s Action Development Process: Interim Guidance on Considering Environmental Justice During the Development of an Action,” published in July 2010. All told, the HOT lanes lawsuit cost Arlington County taxpayers about $2 million, Mr. MacIsaac said. Fearing a long, expensive court battle, the Virginia Department of Transportation dropped Arlington from the project and began an intensive environmental review. Arlington County government considers this a victory, but James Corocan, head of the chamber of commerce in neighboring Fairfax County, has a different take on it.
“It’s businesses and citizens that are going to pay for this government’s decision not to move forward with the HOT lanes,” Mr. Corocan said. “It’s a shame for Arlington, because other areas are going to leave them behind when it comes to moving traffic around. … When businesses are looking at where do they want to locate, obviously access is key.”
He said he had talked to several Arlington business leaders who would have welcomed HOT lanes in their county.
Paul Driessen, senior policy fellow at the Center for Defense of Free Enterprise, said one of the dangers of environmental justice is that it gives the federal government power to make decisions that should be made by the people affected by them. “There’s a huge element within the environmental community, … within the various government agencies and so forth, of desire to control what people can or can’t do,” Mr. Driessen said. Mr. Driessen said he lamented the fact that environmental regulations placed “so many controls” over “free markets that have advanced us in so many ways. We’re really holding back entrepreneurship. People are not investing because they don’t know what the next round of regulations is going to do.”
But conference speakers lauded the use of Title VI in this way. “File a complaint under the Title VI Administrative Enforcement Process if you cannot get the results that you want in other ways,” advised Marc Brenman, a former senior policy adviser to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Mr. Brenman recounted how he did just that to stop a train route from being extended from downtown Oakland, Calif., to Oakland International Airport. He alleged that the project violated Title VI because it better served whites than minorities since the trains would pass by so many low-income minority neighborhoods along the way. And, as environmental contractor Alexander Bond reminded the group, there are plenty of other laws people can use the same way as Title VI.
“The American Disabilities Act, the National Restorative Preservation Act for some visually impaired people, … [there is] lots of room built into this process for bringing environmental justice to the table,” said Mr. Bond, a senior associate at energy and environmental contractor ICF International in Fairfax.
Mr. Corocan disputed environmentalists’ claims that HOT lanes would worsen air quality in Arlington, since the same number of cars will be on the road anyway, only now they will travel at a slower pace. That, if anything, will increase pollution. David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research, did not find this surprising at all. Environmental justice claims very rarely have anything to do with actually helping anyone, he said. “They’re not thinking about economic consequences to the everyman, but they’re pushing environmental justice not in my opinion as a way to help a minority community but as a way to play the race card and make their arguments harder to fight,” Mr. Almasi said.
Another thing that makes environmental justice hard to fight is the vague terms EPA uses to define it, according to Mr. Driessen. “The EPA’s agenda is so broad, it’s used to advance any new regulation that they have conceived of over this little bit in the past administration,” he said. Conference speaker Eloisa Reynault, transportation, health and equity program manager at the American Public Health Association, described public health and transportation as issues married by environmental justice.
Ms. Reynault said the combined cost of four chronic problems — 1)traffic deaths and 2)injuries, 3)obesity, lack of physical activity, and 4)air pollution — cost taxpayers an estimated $478 billion per year. She assured conferees that environmental justice could offset those costs by addressing health and safety issues “connected to transportation.” She said that while “car travel is sedentary travel,” getting to the bus or train stop often requires walking. She also asserted that a lack of public transit in low-income communities causes greater air pollution and, in turn, more lung disease. Another example? Car accidents, since minorities are often “overrepresented” in traffic fatalities and injuries.
Under these definitions, members of a low-income or minority community could file a Title VI complaint by claiming that lack of access to public transportation made them fat and sick — and win. The wide scope of environmental justice also makes it easier for government offices to share funds to achieve it.
Just ask conference speaker Kim Lambert, environmental justice coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Because there’s no resources for most federal agencies, you’ve got to go to someone who has money,” Lambert told conferees. “I’ve got to beg for their resources, I’ve got to show there’s a nexus between environmental justice and the community.” If Ms. Lambert wants money from a well-funded project to go toward her cause, all she needs to do is show a relevant link to the admittedly broad category of environmental justice. She said she does this often with her department, the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife. “I work directly with the director of Fish and Wildlife,” she said. “At my level I shouldn’t be. But I make sure I am getting right to him. “Fish and Wildlife — which is one of the smaller bureaus — that’s the job that pays me. My passion, though, is civil rights.”
Remember, entrepreneurship,i.e., willingness to “risk equity” in any quasi-public or private sector endeavor, is seriously hampered “or stopped in its tracks” by environmental justice rules, regulations, policies and procedures. America could have: 1)cheap energy and 2) manufacturing start-ups. But with environmental justice, all bets are off. Gone forever, is American Exceptionalism. God Bless America. Amen.
Re relocation:
A powerful case can be made for the somewhat low-lying Ashmore and Cartier Archipelago, an uninhabited former bombing range that’s a bit tricky to pronounce, isolated in an ocean far, far away.
http://tinyurl.com/cec5l3b