From Unleashed

It's always amusing when someone unexpectedly tells the truth. Surely that's the reason for the viral popularity of the BBC's recent interview with Alessio Rastani, a self-styled "independent trader".

If you haven't seen the clip, do yourself a favour and see it now.

Among the many gems from this riveting performance include pearls of wisdom such as "Goldman Sachs rules the world", "the market is toast" and "I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession, I dream of another moment like this".

The arresting honesty of Rastani's remarks have made him an internet sensation, with video of his interview whizzing round the world in a million tweets, shares and emails. It hasn't taken long for other media outlets to dig a little deeper into Rastani's affairs, discovering that he lives in a cheap house in Bexleyheath and appears to have little in the way of personal assets or financial markets expertise. Some have even speculated he was a hoaxer from the Yes Men, but the BBC has denied this.

read more at http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3193538.html

FLORENCE, S.C. — Under new pressure to release his tax returns, Mitt Romney on Tuesday acknowledged that he pays an effective tax rate of about 15 percent because so much of his fortune comes from past investments.

“It’s probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything,” Mr. Romney said. “Because my last 10 years, I’ve — my income comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past, rather than ordinary income, or rather than earned annual income.”

The vast majority of the income Mr. Romney reported over 12 months in 2010 and ‘11 was dividends from investments, capital gains on mutual funds and his post-retirement share of profits and investment returns from Bain Capital, the firm he once led. And Mr. Romney also noted that he made hundreds of thousands of dollars from speaking engagements.

“I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away,” Mr. Romney told reporters after an event here. “And then I get speakers’ fees from time to time, but not very much.”

Financial disclosure forms that candidates are required to file annually shows that Mr. Romney earned $374,327.62 in speakers’ fees from February of 2010 to February of 2011, at an average of $41,592 per speech. President Obama paid an effective federal tax rate of just over 26 percent on his 2010 returns, the most recent available.

The disclosure is likely to cement Mr. Romney’s place as an unwilling figurehead in the intensifying national debate over taxation and income inequality

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/us/politics/facing-pointed-attacks-romney-urges-focus-on-obama.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

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