Bill and Hillary Clinton have long supported an estate tax to prevent the U.S. from being dominated by inherited wealth. That doesn’t mean they want to pay it.
To reduce the tax pinch, the Clintons are using financial planning strategies befitting the top 1 percent of U.S. households in wealth. These moves, common among multimillionaires, will help shield some of their estate from the tax that now tops out at 40 percent of assets upon death.
[...] Without the estate tax, Hillary Clinton said, the country could become “dominated by inherited wealth.”
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton, said in an e-mail that the couple’s finances are an “open book.” He didn’t answer additional questions about their finances or her current views on the estate tax.
Two estate-planning advisers are listed on the Westchester County documents, Linda Hirschson of Greenberg Traurig LLP in New York and Rorrie Gregorio of Marcum LLP in New York. Both specialize in estate and tax planning for high net-worth families; neither returned a call for comment.
[...]
Open book? How about open transcripts, ya betcha? What do 1%ers tell muck-a-mucks at Goldman Sachs at two hundred grand per hour? And if transcripts were to prove innocuous, then why else would savvy investors so invest? It is sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't game, but still what was said to Goldman Sachs in private, vs pontifications in public, is newsworthy, and something that should be weighed in voting. As should reticence over such incisive fact questions.
Wikipedia, here. Like a listing of interlocking 1%ers all jolly well rich; and knowing one another.
To the best of my knowledge, Bernie Sanders and family do not have any fiscal foundation lurking in their backgrounds and lives. If the Sanders family make it to the 1% level, it would be barely; and likely not at all. Becoming filthy rich while being career politicians is a Clinton characteristic of note; and a concern. It appears to be such to State Department professionals, including the Inspector General. Two overlapping web searches, here and here. Wikipedka, here. This item, related to, Teneo, one of the multiple employment hats Abedin wore while a paid State Department employee. This websearch = Teneo. Reuters and HuffPo items in the search return list. Two online "Teneo" items, here and here, the latter item abstracting:
Our annual publication, Teneo Vision assesses many of the challenges our senior advisors believe will vie for CEO attention in 2014. The authors examine potential disruptors in three critical areas—financial markets, technological empowerment and social and political conflict. What is new is the interconnectedness of these issues and the speed of change. Information and unrest travel rapidly, expanded regulations complicate operational certainty and social media vastly increases the number of stakeholders who can influence business reputations.
Might that be the sort of information investment banking firms might weigh in setting tactics and strategy? Might it also be something where Department of State highly placed individuals might have unique perspectives and acquired information, while in office or after leaving office? Might such inside information be of monetary value to business CEOs? Teneo self touts:
Teneo is a global advisory firm that partners exclusively with the CEOs and senior leaders of many of the world’s largest and most complex companies and organizations. The firm is focused on working with clients to address a wide range of financial, reputational and transformational challenges and opportunities by combining the disciplines of strategic communications, investor relations, investment banking, financial analytics, executive recruiting, digital analytics, corporate governance, government affairs, business intelligence, management consulting and corporate restructuring on an integrated basis. Teneo’s clients include the CEOs of many Fortune 100 companies across a diverse range of industry sectors. The firm was founded in 2011 by Declan Kelly, Doug Band and Paul Keary.
Insider information often can lead to productive investment decisions, and avoidance of pitfalls.
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A dime for your thoughts.
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As a hypothetical, might who Cargill, Halliburton, or Bechtel should bribe in Egypt in order to obtain a favorable public works or supply contract or tax statute, or what was learned from tapping Angel Merkel's cellphone be a kind of information businessmen might value and pay to obtain? Might similar less or equally salacious insider knowledge also have trade value? Then, furthering the hypothetical, how high might you price an hour's download of such information, in private, and then would it come with a speech, generally innocuous in content and transcribed? Further, were such a hypothetical ever to be put into practice, what might be circumstantial evidence to weigh in the absence of direct admissions of participation in any such hypothetical drama? Might, again a hypothetical, forensic recovery of deleted content from a server hard drive by law enforcement authorities holding the hard drive in custody be helpful to an understanding of things, per such hypothetical deliberation? And if you cannot trust law enforcement integrity, impartiality and competence, who do you trust?
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The belief is this propublica.org link and excerpt were not posted previously, but much of the information online overlaps and a number of sources have previously been cited:
There’s no indication in Blumenthal’s emails whether Clinton read or replied to them before she left State on February 1, 2013, but he was clearly part of a select group with knowledge of the private clintonemail.com address, which was unknown to the public until
Gawker published it this year. They do suggest that she interacted with Blumenthal using the account after she stepped down. “H: got your message a few days ago,” reads the subject line of one email from Blumenthal to Clinton on February 8, 2013; “H: fyi, will continue to send relevant intel,” reads another.
The memos cover a wide array of subjects in extreme detail, from German Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s conversations with her finance minister about French president Francois Hollande–marked “THIS INFORMATION COMES FROM AN EXTREMELY SENSITIVE SOURCE”—to the composition of the newly elected South Korean president’s transition team. At least 10 of the memos deal in whole or in part with internal Libyan politics and the government’s fight against militants, including the status of the Libyan oil industry and the prospects for Western companies to participate.
[link in original, italics added] If, again a hypothetical, I were selling speeches to a savvy investment bank and my daughter's spouse ran a hedge fund after moving from that investment bank to do so, that kind of information might have a limited shelf life but for immediate transfer it could be of tactical/strategic value by permitting commercial or investment advantages to outsiders not previously privy to it.
If the Blumenthal intel was being privately paid for, it would not involve any compromise of State Department inside information if it alone, apart from any insider-only facts, were conveyed to third parties; however, if it was part of a larger painted picture permitting investment advantage, per weaving State and Blumenthal insights into a tapestry of truth, for sale, the conflict of interest situation would be murky, at best.