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Subject: "Robert F. Smith" Previous topic | Next topic
Cam
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13286 posts
Sun May-19-19 11:13 AM

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"Robert F. Smith"


  

          

“Billionaire Robert F. Smith, who received an honorary doctorate at Morehouse College’s Sunday morning graduation exercises, had already announced a $1.5 million gift to the school.”

“But during his remarks in front of the nearly 400 graduating seniors, the billionaire technology investor and philanthropist surprised some by announcing that his family was providing a grant to eliminate the student debt of the entire Class of 2019. “This is my class,” he said, “and I know my class will pay this forward.”

https://www.ajc.com/news/just-morehouse-commencement-speaker-pay-off-class-2019-student-loans/XvMHlS1SVyJiG3mRp1WOWL/

  

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Topic Outline
Subject Author Message Date ID
Real tears.
May 19th 2019
1
I know
May 20th 2019
17
WOW
May 19th 2019
2
fuck yes.
May 19th 2019
3
guess they go together now
May 19th 2019
4
Is it me or is every headline leaving his name out
May 19th 2019
5
Didn’t look but that’s odd if true.
May 19th 2019
7
when's the last time you googled Robert Smith?
May 20th 2019
12
Nobody knows him/ it’s a generic ass name.
May 20th 2019
48
The new Bill/Camille Cosby, I love it.
May 19th 2019
6
Camille
May 19th 2019
8
Beautiful
May 19th 2019
9
incredible
May 19th 2019
10
He juat shifted things at Morehouse forever.
May 20th 2019
11
How, you foresee alumni classes matching the example gift
May 20th 2019
13
this surprised me and i'm fam
May 20th 2019
14
this kinfolk?
May 21st 2019
69
I would vote for this guy
May 20th 2019
15
I wonder what trump thinks about it
May 20th 2019
16
He’s an actual billionaire, with 2 Ivy degrees, and a recent playmate ...
May 20th 2019
19
I wouldn't run if I were him, his life is great without all that drama.
May 20th 2019
21
this is good shit.
May 20th 2019
18
he put that pressure on Oprah for her next commencement address lol
May 20th 2019
20
Awesome news and a pretty wise business move as well
May 20th 2019
22
400 students. Estimated $40mil gift. Why is the avg loan debt $100k?
May 20th 2019
23
it's more affordable compared to other schools
May 20th 2019
24
      How is that affordable when the loan debt is $37k for typical graduate?
May 20th 2019
26
           i see what you're saying
May 20th 2019
28
                Private college. Check out these rates
May 20th 2019
41
hypothetical...
May 20th 2019
25
This really is a great thing he did, but...
May 20th 2019
27
exactly, it is what it is...
May 20th 2019
30
...
May 20th 2019
32
It's the lottery, only way to think about it.
May 20th 2019
36
Imagine f you failed one class or decided to switch majors?
May 20th 2019
43
smh
May 20th 2019
47
You’d be pissed cause you didn’t get a free thing?
May 20th 2019
49
      It's not free, that's the point.
May 20th 2019
50
           Oh I see. We’re done here based off this.
May 21st 2019
51
           No it's not
May 21st 2019
52
                funny I hardly ever hear this about Bezos, Gates, and Buffett...
May 21st 2019
54
                     Really? I hear it about them every day, and rightly so.
May 21st 2019
55
                     to me its better than "building schools in Africa"...
May 21st 2019
58
                     Walleye has been consistent about hating Billionaires
May 21st 2019
56
                     I'm not running for discourse cop
May 21st 2019
59
                          On a lot of levels I actually agree with you but in this case I feel...
May 21st 2019
60
                               Let's tax the holy shit out of him (and his pals) and help *way more* pe...
May 21st 2019
61
                                    do they not pay more taxes?
May 21st 2019
62
                                         ProPublica: Audits of wealthiest Americans fell 52% since 2011
May 21st 2019
63
                                              I realize the "tax higher" thing is more of a theory and doesn't always....
May 21st 2019
66
                                                   Yes, I am
May 21st 2019
67
                                                        okayplayer. n/m
May 21st 2019
68
           This is literally not your business. Or Robert Smith's.
May 21st 2019
53
                I can't believe that folks are actually taking exception to this matter
May 21st 2019
65
cool
May 20th 2019
29
Word!
May 20th 2019
31
RE: Robert F. Smith
May 20th 2019
33
Amazing.
May 20th 2019
34
I like the gesture
May 20th 2019
35
oh
May 20th 2019
37
Shoot, I thought OKP would have been on top of that quick fast... n/m
May 20th 2019
38
i'm late
May 20th 2019
40
56yo man w/ a 34yo former playboy playmate wife
May 20th 2019
39
      He’s a billionaire. He isn’t going broke.
May 20th 2019
42
           Folks care about the wrong things.
May 22nd 2019
72
                What folks?
May 22nd 2019
73
I'm happy for my little Morehouse bros.
May 20th 2019
44
Jamilah Lemieux's IG post was hilarious.
May 20th 2019
45
There word BUT has not place in this. Robert F. Smith is GREAT!
May 20th 2019
46
Unless you want to think critically
May 21st 2019
57
      Think critically about what in this matter?
May 21st 2019
64
           All billionaires suck. Even the Black ones.
May 21st 2019
70
                Man Stop being bitter and sucking in someone else bitterness
May 22nd 2019
71
                So you don't want to think critically? Got it.
May 22nd 2019
74
                     You still haven't offered an argument that
May 22nd 2019
76
                          Yeah, it's right in the tweet.
May 22nd 2019
77
                               I'm doing plenty of critical thinking - about the 400 Students
May 22nd 2019
81
                it's all capitalism
May 22nd 2019
78
Boo this man
May 22nd 2019
75
Doesn’t want to pay more taxes? Oh, the horror.
Jul 03rd 2019
85
The bottom line:
May 22nd 2019
79
^
May 22nd 2019
80
This will be like Scott's Tots
May 24th 2019
82
Robert Smith Did More Than Just Pay Off Some Student Loans
Jul 03rd 2019
83
Robert F. Smith Announces New Paid Internship Program For Minorities
Jul 03rd 2019
84
Billionaire Widens Morehouse College-Debt Gift to Parents(link)
Sep 20th 2019
86

legsdiamond
Member since May 05th 2011
79560 posts
Sun May-19-19 11:33 AM

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1. "Real tears. "
In response to Reply # 0


          

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

  

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Cam
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13286 posts
Mon May-20-19 07:55 AM

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17. "I know"
In response to Reply # 1


  

          

Watching CNN this AM, they interviewed President Thomas, one of the grads and his mother. First, Thomas said he had no idea about Smith’s plan. The mother was so excited and kept mentioning her family’s proud ‘SpelHouse’ legacy. But the kid, he explained his loans were about $70K, that he had no job lined up and as an Visual Arts major just wants to be an illustrator. Without this, the kid would have never been able to afford a career path in his intended industry, and would have regretfully been paying the price, virtually forever, to keep up with his family’s imposed tradition. What a spectacular lift of compounded burdens.

  

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soulpsychodelicyde
Member since Nov 18th 2003
12147 posts
Sun May-19-19 11:52 AM

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2. "WOW"
In response to Reply # 0


          

  

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shygurl
Member since Oct 08th 2002
13361 posts
Sun May-19-19 12:25 PM

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3. "fuck yes."
In response to Reply # 0


          

What a great gift.

__________________________________________

I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

  

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FLUIDJ
Member since Sep 18th 2002
44614 posts
Sun May-19-19 01:45 PM

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4. "guess they go together now"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

dope

  

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Riot
Member since May 25th 2005
14614 posts
Sun May-19-19 03:15 PM

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5. "Is it me or is every headline leaving his name out"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

Tens of millions dollar donation and u can't even put my name in the headline 🤔🤔


Odd?

Or just odd that it's bothering me?



)))--####---###--(((

bunda
<-.-> ^_^ \^0^/
get busy living, or get busy dying.

  

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legsdiamond
Member since May 05th 2011
79560 posts
Sun May-19-19 04:02 PM

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7. "Didn’t look but that’s odd if true. "
In response to Reply # 5


          

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

  

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Rjcc
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94963 posts
Mon May-20-19 07:08 AM

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12. "when's the last time you googled Robert Smith?"
In response to Reply # 5
Mon May-20-19 07:08 AM by Rjcc

          

that's the answer for why it is or is not in the headline of a particular article.


the articles explaining who he is have his name in the headline.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

  

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Ryan M
Member since Oct 21st 2002
43737 posts
Mon May-20-19 08:13 PM

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48. "Nobody knows him/ it’s a generic ass name. "
In response to Reply # 5


  

          

Did the singer of the Cure pay off student loans?

------------------------------

17x NBA Champions

  

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isaaaa
Member since May 10th 2007
30565 posts
Sun May-19-19 03:59 PM

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6. "The new Bill/Camille Cosby, I love it."
In response to Reply # 0


          


Anti-gentrification, cheap alcohol & trying to look pretty in our twilight posting years (c) Big Reg
http://Tupreme.com

  

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Cam
Charter member
13286 posts
Sun May-19-19 04:25 PM

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8. "Camille"
In response to Reply # 6


  

          

https://bit.ly/2YElmpc

  

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shamus
Member since Oct 18th 2004
4465 posts
Sun May-19-19 07:26 PM

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9. "Beautiful"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          


--
the untold want by life and land ne'er granted
now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find

  

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Crash Bandacoot
Member since May 13th 2003
10118 posts
Sun May-19-19 08:26 PM

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10. "incredible"
In response to Reply # 0


          

he set the stage

  

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Castro
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50745 posts
Mon May-20-19 06:22 AM

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11. "He juat shifted things at Morehouse forever."
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

------------------
One Hundred.

  

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Cam
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Mon May-20-19 07:30 AM

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13. "How, you foresee alumni classes matching the example gift"
In response to Reply # 11
Mon May-20-19 07:39 AM by Cam

  

          

for new grads annually?
https://datausa.io/profile/university/morehouse-college

  

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MiracleRic
Member since Oct 21st 2002
45200 posts
Mon May-20-19 07:38 AM

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14. "this surprised me and i'm fam"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

he kept this under wraps

Let me sport my Air Hyperbole 2010s in peace. (c) ansomble

Building repetoires (c) spm since 1983

  

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infin8
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10401 posts
Tue May-21-19 04:04 PM

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69. "this kinfolk?"
In response to Reply # 14


  

          

hmph.

salute to the brother.

IG: amadu_me

"...Whateva, man..." (c) Redman

  

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Crash Bandacoot
Member since May 13th 2003
10118 posts
Mon May-20-19 07:39 AM

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15. "I would vote for this guy"
In response to Reply # 0


          

#
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"There is much temptation to use what has worked before,
even when it may exceed its effective scope."

"Roll me further bitch"

  

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Crash Bandacoot
Member since May 13th 2003
10118 posts
Mon May-20-19 07:42 AM

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16. "I wonder what trump thinks about it"
In response to Reply # 15


          

#
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"There is much temptation to use what has worked before,
even when it may exceed its effective sc

"Roll me further bitch"

  

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Cam
Charter member
13286 posts
Mon May-20-19 08:01 AM

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19. "He’s an actual billionaire, with 2 Ivy degrees, and a recent playmate ..."
In response to Reply # 16


  

          

Who’s committed to give at least half of his wealth to charitable causes—to benefit African Americans.
Jealousy, is the lone feeling anyone could deduce.

  

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ThaTruth
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Mon May-20-19 08:23 AM

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21. "I wouldn't run if I were him, his life is great without all that drama."
In response to Reply # 15


          

  

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tariqhu
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Mon May-20-19 07:56 AM

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18. "this is good shit."
In response to Reply # 0


          

sucks that we have to do our own reparations, but those students won't have that heavy ass weight slowing them down.

Y'all buy those labels, I was born supreme

  

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ThaTruth
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Mon May-20-19 08:22 AM

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20. "he put that pressure on Oprah for her next commencement address lol"
In response to Reply # 0


          

  

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Atillah Moor
Member since Sep 05th 2013
13825 posts
Mon May-20-19 08:59 AM

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22. "Awesome news and a pretty wise business move as well"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

I imagine his company will have easy access to the best candidates from that class to say the least

______________________________________

Everything looks like Oprah kissing Harvey Weinstein these days

  

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PimpTrickGangstaClik
Member since Oct 06th 2005
15894 posts
Mon May-20-19 09:04 AM

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23. "400 students. Estimated $40mil gift. Why is the avg loan debt $100k?"
In response to Reply # 0


          

The average student is leaving Morehouse owing $100,000? That is a big problem

_______________________________________

  

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Crash Bandacoot
Member since May 13th 2003
10118 posts
Mon May-20-19 09:09 AM

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24. "it's more affordable compared to other schools"
In response to Reply # 23


          

kids racing trying to get to hbcu's now. howard has already started.

  

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PimpTrickGangstaClik
Member since Oct 06th 2005
15894 posts
Mon May-20-19 09:18 AM

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26. "How is that affordable when the loan debt is $37k for typical graduate?"
In response to Reply # 24
Mon May-20-19 09:19 AM by PimpTrickGangstaClik

          

I'm hoping there was something wrong with their math when they came up with that $40 million dollar figure.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/heres-how-much-the-average-student-loan-borrower-owes-when-they-graduate.html

_______________________________________

  

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Crash Bandacoot
Member since May 13th 2003
10118 posts
Mon May-20-19 09:22 AM

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28. "i see what you're saying"
In response to Reply # 26
Mon May-20-19 09:36 AM by Crash Bandacoot

          

the numbers don't add up for the amount owed ($37k vs $100k). is that
$37k a misprint!? WTF.

i had on the today show this morning and they said that black
students owe the most in student loan debt. that stat just hit me.

  

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legsdiamond
Member since May 05th 2011
79560 posts
Mon May-20-19 11:56 AM

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41. "Private college. Check out these rates"
In response to Reply # 28


          

https://morehouse.edu/media/financialaid/18-19pdfforms/Cost%20of%20Attendance%202018-2019.docx

35 to 45k for one year?

Now if you don’t graduate in 4 years...

Do they have a grad program?

Law program?

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

  

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double negative
Member since Dec 14th 2007
22151 posts
Mon May-20-19 09:12 AM

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25. "hypothetical..."
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

how many classes and graduating years would this have to be done for black students to create a massive impact?

***********************************************************
https://soundcloud.com/swageyph/yph-die-with-me

  

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stravinskian
Member since Feb 24th 2003
12698 posts
Mon May-20-19 09:21 AM

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27. "This really is a great thing he did, but..."
In response to Reply # 0


          


I would have been PISSED if I'd been working extra jobs to minimize my loan debt. Or if I or my family had sold off major assets. I know a woman who owned a condo outright, after a 15 year mortgage, and she sold it to pay for her Master's degree.

Or if I'd graduated the year before, or the year after. Or if I'd rushed to graduate as a third-year in 2018, thinking I was reducing my loan debt. Or if I failed a class and had to retake it to graduate the next year.

Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing in any way, but these kids basically just won the lottery of a billionaire's good will.

The whole story makes me wish that as a society we could tax the billionaires into multi-millionaires and use the rest to pay for EVERYONE'S tuition (and health care, and infrastructure, ...).

  

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ThaTruth
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Mon May-20-19 09:27 AM

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30. "exactly, it is what it is..."
In response to Reply # 27


          


>Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing in any way, but
>these kids basically just won the lottery of a billionaire's
>good will.

you can't be crying about why didn't I pick the right numbers, well I guess you can but whatever. Why can't you just be happy for others good fortune instead of making it about you?

  

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Crash Bandacoot
Member since May 13th 2003
10118 posts
Mon May-20-19 09:51 AM

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32. "..."
In response to Reply # 27


          

EVERYONE didn't give these kids a chance OUT THE GATE. just heard a
stat that blacks owe the most in student loan debt, I don't
understand that.

>

  

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Buddy_Gilapagos
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49394 posts
Mon May-20-19 11:30 AM

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36. "It's the lottery, only way to think about it. "
In response to Reply # 27


  

          


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

  

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legsdiamond
Member since May 05th 2011
79560 posts
Mon May-20-19 12:00 PM

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43. "Imagine f you failed one class or decided to switch majors? "
In response to Reply # 27


          

or took a year off to pay down tuition?

So many kids writing letters to this dude today.

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

  

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Lurkmode
Member since May 07th 2011
5186 posts
Mon May-20-19 07:09 PM

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47. "smh"
In response to Reply # 27


  

          

"PISSED" smh again


>
>I would have been PISSED if I'd been working extra jobs to
>minimize my loan debt. Or if I or my family had sold off major
>assets. I know a woman who owned a condo outright, after a 15
>year mortgage, and she sold it to pay for her Master's degree.
>
>
>Or if I'd graduated the year before, or the year after. Or if
>I'd rushed to graduate as a third-year in 2018, thinking I was
>reducing my loan debt. Or if I failed a class and had to
>retake it to graduate the next year.
>
>Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing in any way, but
>these kids basically just won the lottery of a billionaire's
>good will.
>
>The whole story makes me wish that as a society we could tax
>the billionaires into multi-millionaires and use the rest to
>pay for EVERYONE'S tuition (and health care, and
>infrastructure, ...).
>

---------------------------
Signature

  

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Ryan M
Member since Oct 21st 2002
43737 posts
Mon May-20-19 08:14 PM

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49. "You’d be pissed cause you didn’t get a free thing?"
In response to Reply # 27


  

          

Weird.

------------------------------

17x NBA Champions

  

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stravinskian
Member since Feb 24th 2003
12698 posts
Mon May-20-19 08:45 PM

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50. "It's not free, that's the point. "
In response to Reply # 49


          

People are playing dumb here.

I'm not saying that he shouldn't be clearing people's student debt. That's incredibly noble (though again, I have a problem with anyone having enough money to be able to do that in the first place). What I'm saying is that he should structure it in a way that doesn't reward people for having taken out *more* loans.

If he'd instead just reimbursed people's accumulated tuition, I'd be cheering more strongly than anyone around here.

You mean to tell me that if you worked an extra job, your parents worked an extra job, maybe sold a car, maybe took out another mortgage, all to reduce your student loan debt, and your roommate just said "fuck it, something'll work out," and then somebody comes along and pays off your roommate's debt but does nothing for you, just because you sacrificed more and did the thing that society considers to be *more responsible*, you'd be okay with that?

This is tens of thousands of dollars.

I guarantee you people are digging around right now trying to find grounds for a lawsuit. I don't think they'll find it, but they have every reason to be furious.

  

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Ryan M
Member since Oct 21st 2002
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Tue May-21-19 01:57 AM

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51. "Oh I see. We’re done here based off this. "
In response to Reply # 50


  

          

> (though again, I have a problem
>with anyone having enough money to be able to do that in the
>first place).

Guess I missed that the first time.

That’s...weird.

------------------------------

17x NBA Champions

  

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Walleye
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Tue May-21-19 06:38 AM

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52. "No it's not"
In response to Reply # 51


          

A billion dollars is too much money. Nobody should have that much.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

  

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ThaTruth
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Tue May-21-19 09:20 AM

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54. "funny I hardly ever hear this about Bezos, Gates, and Buffett..."
In response to Reply # 52
Tue May-21-19 09:22 AM by ThaTruth

          

>A billion dollars is too much money. Nobody should have that
>much.
>

  

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stravinskian
Member since Feb 24th 2003
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Tue May-21-19 09:54 AM

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55. "Really? I hear it about them every day, and rightly so. "
In response to Reply # 54


          


Because it's just as true of them.

This is an argument over a side remark. Let's not pretend I'm not on a mission to redistribute from each according to his means to each according to his needs. But I do find it odd that this view is so controversial on a board where so many claim to be socialists.

I'm also not gonna revere some hedge funder for donating 1% of his net worth. Yeah, it is great that he was willing to completely change the lives of 400 people. But I stand by my view that it's a little creepy that someone can do this by spending 1% of his net worth.

  

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ThaTruth
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Tue May-21-19 10:17 AM

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58. "to me its better than "building schools in Africa"..."
In response to Reply # 55


          

>
>Because it's just as true of them.
>
>This is an argument over a side remark. Let's not pretend I'm
>not on a mission to redistribute from each according to his
>means to each according to his needs. But I do find it odd
>that this view is so controversial on a board where so many
>claim to be socialists.
>
>I'm also not gonna revere some hedge funder for donating 1% of
>his net worth. Yeah, it is great that he was willing to
>completely change the lives of 400 people. But I stand by my
>view that it's a little creepy that someone can do this by


btw do you donate 1% or your net work to anything?

  

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legsdiamond
Member since May 05th 2011
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Tue May-21-19 09:59 AM

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56. "Walleye has been consistent about hating Billionaires "
In response to Reply # 54


          

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

  

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Walleye
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Tue May-21-19 10:40 AM

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59. "I'm not running for discourse cop"
In response to Reply # 54


          

Meet some more socialists, I guess. None of us are saying anything nice about billionaires.

Given the choice between grinding you or me into meat and feeding us to their pet tigers or paying higher taxes, billionaires - every single last one of them - would take door number one. Their wealth is built on our labor and then used as a big, brutal club to insulate them from our collective political power.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

  

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ThaTruth
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Tue May-21-19 11:03 AM

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60. "On a lot of levels I actually agree with you but in this case I feel..."
In response to Reply # 59


          

differently because its a black billionaire using his money to help out some black kids no matter how small a percentage if his net worth it may be.

  

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Walleye
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Tue May-21-19 11:06 AM

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61. "Let's tax the holy shit out of him (and his pals) and help *way more* pe..."
In response to Reply # 60
Tue May-21-19 11:11 AM by Walleye

          

It's not his money anymore if we take it from him.

edit: to be clear, if helping black students is what gets you up for a mass wealth transfer then that works for me. pretty much anything that takes money out the pockets of ghoulish billionaires and gives it to large amounts of regular people is an excellent start and I'm not going to argue about priorities.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

  

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ThaTruth
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Tue May-21-19 11:27 AM

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62. "do they not pay more taxes?"
In response to Reply # 61


          

  

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Walleye
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Tue May-21-19 11:42 AM

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63. "ProPublica: Audits of wealthiest Americans fell 52% since 2011"
In response to Reply # 62


          

Even when they pay a higher tax rate than you or me, they're hiding *huge* amounts of money from the view of the IRS. They're stealing from us and demanding that they more (and more and more and more and more) in taxes is the polite way to resolve this problem. We've got prisons full of people who haven't done even a fraction of the harm and received a much less agreeable bargain from the American public.

https://www.propublica.org/article/ultrawealthy-taxes-irs-internal-revenue-service-global-high-wealth-audits

GUTTING THE IRS

The IRS Tried to Take on the Ultrawealthy. It Didn’t Go Well.
Ten years ago, the tax agency formed a special team to unravel the complex tax-lowering strategies of the nation’s wealthiest people. But with big money — and Congress — arrayed against the team, it never had a chance.
by Jesse Eisinger and Paul Kiel April 5, 5 a.m. EDT


ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom based in New York. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

On June 30, 2016, an auto-parts magnate received the kind of news anyone would dread: The Internal Revenue Service had determined he had engaged in abusive tax maneuvers. He stood accused of masking about $5 billion in income. The IRS wanted over $1.2 billion in back taxes and penalties.

The magnate, Georg Schaeffler, was the billionaire scion of a family-owned German manufacturer and was quietly working as a corporate lawyer in Dallas. Schaeffler had extra reason to fear the IRS, it seemed. He wasn’t in the sights of just any division of the agency but the equivalent of its SEAL Team 6.

In 2009, the IRS had formed a crack team of specialists to unravel the tax dodges of the ultrawealthy. In an age of widening inequality, with a concentration of wealth not seen since the Gilded Age, the rich were evading taxes through ever more sophisticated maneuvers. The IRS commissioner aimed to stanch the country’s losses with what he proclaimed would be “a game-changing strategy.” In short order, Charles Rettig, then a high-powered tax lawyer and today President Donald Trump’s IRS commissioner, warned that the squad was conducting “the audits from hell.” If Trump were being audited, Rettig wrote during the presidential campaign, this is the elite team that would do it.

The wealth team embarked on a contentious audit of Schaeffler in 2012, eventually determining that he owed about $1.2 billion in unpaid taxes and penalties. But after seven years of grinding bureaucratic combat, the IRS abandoned its campaign. The agency informed Schaeffler’s lawyers it was willing to accept just tens of millions, according to a person familiar with the audit.

How did a case that consumed so many years of effort, with a team of its finest experts working on a signature mission, produce such a piddling result for the IRS? The Schaeffler case offers a rare window into just how challenging it is to take on the ultrawealthy. For starters, they can devote seemingly limitless resources to hiring the best legal and accounting talent. Such taxpayers tend not to steamroll tax laws; they employ complex, highly refined strategies that seek to stretch the tax code to their advantage. It can take years for IRS investigators just to understand a transaction and deem it to be a violation.

Once that happens, the IRS team has to contend with battalions of high-priced lawyers and accountants that often outnumber and outgun even the agency’s elite SWAT team. “We are nowhere near a circumstance where the IRS could launch the types of audits we need to tackle sophisticated taxpayers in a complicated world,” said Steven Rosenthal, who used to represent wealthy taxpayers and is now a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution.

Because the audits are private — IRS officials can go to prison if they divulge taxpayer information — details of the often epic paper battles between the rich and the tax collectors are sparse, with little in the public record. Attorneys are also loath to talk about their clients’ taxes, and most wealthy people strive to keep their financial affairs under wraps. Such disputes almost always settle out of court.

Have you been involved in a Global High Wealth audit?
If so, we’d like to hear about your experiences! Email jesse.eisinger@propublica.org or on Signal at 718-496-5233.

But ProPublica was able to reconstruct the key points in the Schaeffler case. The billionaire’s lawyers and accountants first crafted a transaction of unusual complexity, one so novel that they acknowledged, even as they planned it, that it was likely to be challenged by the IRS. Then Schaeffler deployed teams of professionals to battle the IRS on multiple fronts. They denied that he owed any money, arguing the agency fundamentally misunderstood the tax issues. Schaeffler’s representatives complained to top officials at the agency; they challenged document requests in court. At various times, IRS auditors felt Schaeffler’s side was purposely stalling. But in the end, Schaeffler’s team emerged almost completely victorious.

His experience was telling. The IRS’ new approach to taking on the superwealthy has been stymied. The wealthy’s lobbyists immediately pushed to defang the new team. And soon after the group was formed, Republicans in Congress began slashing the agency’s budget. As a result, the team didn’t receive the resources it was promised. Thousands of IRS employees left from every corner of the agency, especially ones with expertise in complex audits, the kinds of specialists the agency hoped would staff the new elite unit. The agency had planned to assign 242 examiners to the group by 2012, according to a report by the IRS’ inspector general. But by 2014, it had only 96 auditors. By last year, the number had fallen to 58.

The wealth squad never came close to having the impact its proponents envisaged. As Robert Gardner, a 39-year veteran of the IRS who often interacted with the team as a top official at the agency’s tax whistleblower office, put it, “From the minute it went live, it was dead on arrival.”

Most people picture IRS officials as all-knowing and fearsome. But when it comes to understanding how the superwealthy move their money around, IRS auditors historically have been more like high school physics teachers trying to operate the Large Hadron Collider.

Charles Rettig, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, said if any group were auditing Donald Trump, it would be the Global High Wealth team. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)
That began to change in the early 2000s, after Congress and the agency uncovered widespread use of abusive tax shelters by the rich. The discovery led to criminal charges, and settlements by major accounting firms. By the end of the decade, the IRS had determined that millions of Americans had secret bank accounts abroad. The agency managed to crack open Switzerland’s banking secrecy, and it recouped billions in lost tax revenue.

The IRS came to realize it was not properly auditing the ultrawealthy. Multimillionaires frequently don’t have easily visible income. They often have trusts, foundations, limited liability companies, complex partnerships and overseas operations, all woven together to lower their tax bills. When IRS auditors examined their finances, they typically looked narrowly. They might scrutinize just one return for one entity and examine, say, a year’s gifts or income.

Belatedly attempting to confront improper tax avoidance, the IRS formed what was officially called the Global High Wealth Industry Group in 2009. “The genesis was: If you think of an incredibly wealthy family, their web of entities somehow gives them a remarkably low effective tax rate,” said former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, who was one of those responsible for creating the wealth squad. “We hadn’t really been looking at it all together, and shame on us.”

The IRS located the group within the division that audits the biggest companies in recognition of the fact that the finances of the 1 percent resemble those of multinational corporations more than those of the average rich person.

Former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller tried to fix the agency’s approach to auditing the ultrawealthy. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)
The vision was clear, as Doug Shulman, a George W. Bush appointee who remained to helm the agency under the Obama administration, explained in a 2009 speech: “We want to better understand the entire economic picture of the enterprise controlled by the wealthy individual.”

It’s particularly important to audit the wealthy well, and not simply because that’s where the money is. That’s where the cheating is, too. Studies show that the wealthiest are more likely to avoid paying taxes. The top 0.5 percent in income account for fully a fifth of all the underreported income, according to a 2010 study by the IRS’ Andrew Johns and the University of Michigan’s Joel Slemrod. Adjusted for inflation, that’s more than $50 billion each year in unpaid taxes.

The plans for the wealth squad seemed like a step forward. In a few years, the group would be staffed with several hundred auditors. A team of examiners would tackle each audit, not just one or two agents, as was more typical in the past. The new group would draw from the IRS’ best of the best.

That was crucial because IRS auditors have a long-standing reputation, at least among the practitioners who represent deep-pocketed taxpayers, as hapless and overmatched. The agents can fritter away years, tax lawyers say, auditing transactions they don’t grasp. “In private practice, we played whack-a-mole,” said Rosenthal, of the Tax Policy Center. “The IRS felt a transaction was suspect but couldn’t figure out why, so it would raise an issue and we’d whack it and they would raise another and we’d whack it. The IRS was ill-equipped.”

The Global High Wealth Group was supposed to change that. Indeed, with all the fanfare at the outset, tax practitioners began to worry on behalf of their clientele. “The impression was it was all going to be specialists in fields, highly trained. The IRS would assemble teams with the exact right expertise to target these issues,” Chicago-based tax attorney Jenny Johnson said.

The new group’s first moves spurred resistance. The team sent wide-ranging requests for information seeking details about their targets’ entire empires. Taxpayers with more than $10 million in income or assets received a dozen pages of initial requests, with the promise of many more to follow. The agency sought years of details on every entity it could tie to the subject of the audits.

In past audits, that initial overture had been limited to one or two pages, with narrowly tailored requests. Here, a typical request sought information on a vast array of issues. One example: a list of any U.S. or foreign entity in which the taxpayer held an “at least a 20 percent” interest, including any “hybrid instruments” that could be turned into a 20 percent or more ownership share. The taxpayer would then have to identify “each and every current and former officer, trustee, and manager” from the entity’s inception.

Taxpayers who received such requests recoiled. Attacking the core idea that Shulman had said would animate the audits, their attorneys and accountants argued the examinations sought too much information, creating an onerous burden. The audits “proceeded into a proctology exam, unearthing every aspect of their lives,” said Mark Allison, a prominent tax attorney for Caplin & Drysdale who has represented taxpayers undergoing Global High Wealth audits. “It was extraordinarily intrusive. Not surprisingly, these people tend to be private and are not used to sharing.”

Tax practitioners took their concerns directly to the agency, at American Bar Association conferences and during the ABA’s regular private meetings with top IRS officials. “Part of our approach was to have private sit-downs to raise issues and concerns,” said Allison, who has served in top roles in the ABA’s tax division for years. We were “telling them this was too much, unwieldy and therefore unfair.” Allison said he told high-ranking IRS officials, “You need to rein in these audit teams.”

For years, politicians have hammered the IRS for its supposed abuse of taxpayers. Congress created a “Taxpayer Bill of Rights” in the mid-1990s. Today, the IRS often refers to its work as “customer service.” One result of constant congressional scrutiny is that senior IRS officials are willing to meet with top tax lawyers and address their concerns. “There was help there. They stuck their necks out for me,” Allison said.

The IRS publicly retreated. Speaking at a Washington, D.C., Bar Association event in February 2013, a top IRS official, James Fee, conceded the demands were too detailed and long, telling the gathering that the agency has “taken strides to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” The Global High Wealth group began to limit its initial document requests.

The lobbying campaign, combined with the lack of funding for the group, took its toll. One report estimated that the wealth team had audited only around a dozen wealthy taxpayers in its first two and a half years. In a September 2015 report, the IRS’ inspector general said the agency had failed to establish the team as a “standalone” group “capable of conducting all of its own examinations.” The group didn’t have steady leadership, with three directors in its first five years. When it did audit the ultrawealthy, more than 40 percent of the reviews resulted in no additional taxes.

The inspector general also criticized the IRS broadly — not just its high-wealth team — for not focusing enough on the richest taxpayers. In 2010, the IRS as a whole audited over 32,000 millionaires. By 2018, that number had fallen to just over 16,000, according to data compiled by Syracuse University. Audits of the wealthiest Americans have collapsed 52 percent since 2011, falling more substantially than audits of the middle class and the poor. Almost half of audits of the wealthy were of taxpayers making $200,000 to $399,000. Those audits brought in $605 per audit hour worked. Exams of those making over $5 million, by contrast, brought in more than $4,500 an hour.

The IRS didn’t even have the resources to pursue millionaires who had been hit with a hefty tax bill and simply stiffed Uncle Sam. It “appeared to no longer emphasize the collection of delinquent accounts of global high wealth taxpayers,” a 2017 inspector general report said.

In recent years, the number of Global High Wealth audits has been higher — it closed 149 audits in the last year — but tax lawyers and former IRS officials say even that improvement is deceptive. A major reason is that the audits are much less ambitious. “They were longer at the beginning and shorter as the process moved on,” Johnson, the tax attorney, said.

Inside the IRS, agents seethed. “The whole organization was very frustrated,” Gardner said. “They were just really not sure what the hell their mission was, what they were supposed to be accomplishing.”

Georg Schaeffler, 54, has flowing salt-and-pepper hair that makes him look like he could’ve been an actor on the 1980s TV show “Dynasty.” The impression is offset by the wire rim glasses he wears and by the bookish disposition of a person who, as a teenager, once asked for a copy of the German Constitution as a present.

As a younger man, Schaeffler tried to escape his legacy. He left Germany and the family company at a young age and lit out for the American West. He was trying to make it on his own “where people don’t know who you are,” as he would tell a reporter for a magazine profile years later. Some might escape to Texas to live a bit wild. Schaeffler became a corporate lawyer.

Schaeffler’s law firm colleagues didn’t know much more than that he spoke with an accent, and certainly not that he was vastly wealthy. That is, until he landed on the Forbes list of global billionaires. Rueful at the loss of his privacy, Schaeffler once declared: “I hate Forbes.”

The family’s riches stemmed from ball bearings and other automobile parts manufactured by the Schaeffler Group, which was founded by Schaeffler’s father and then passed to his mother after his father died. By 2006, Georg (pronounced GAY-org) owned 80 percent of the enterprise and his mother the remaining 20 percent. (As a Texas resident at that time, Schaeffler was required to pay U.S. income taxes.)

He very nearly lost it all. In 2008, Schaeffler Group made a big mistake. It offered to buy Continental AG, a tiremaker, just days before the stock and credit markets experienced their worst crisis since the Great Depression. Even as Continental’s stock price crashed, Schaeffler was legally obligated to go through with its purchase at the much higher pre-crash price.


Schaeffler and his mother, Maria-Elisabeth, ran into trouble after their family auto-parts company acquired tiremaker Continental AG in the middle of the financial crisis. (Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Schaeffler Group flirted with bankruptcy and pleaded for aid from the German government. The media began to pay closer attention to the private company and the low-profile family that ran it. German press accounts dismissed Schaeffler’s mother as the “billionaire beggar” for seeking a bailout and pilloried her for wearing a fur coat at a ski race while seeking government help.

No German government aid came. The Schaeffler Group teetered, and the family’s fortune plummeted from $9 billion to almost zero. Amid the crisis over Continental, Georg accepted his fate and took up a more prominent role at the company; he’s now the chairman of its supervisory board.

To pay for Continental, Schaeffler Group borrowed about 11 billion euros from a consortium of banks. At the time, Schaeffler’s lenders, including Royal Bank of Scotland, were desperate, too, having suffered enormous losses on home mortgages. They wanted to avoid any more write-downs that might result if the company defaulted on the loans. So in 2009 and 2010, Schaeffler’s lenders restructured the debt in a devilishly complex series of transactions.

By 2012, these maneuvers had caught the eye of the Global High Wealth group. Paul Doerr, an experienced revenue agent, would head the audit. Eventually, the IRS discerned what it came to believe was the transaction’s essence: The banks had effectively forgiven nearly half of Schaeffler’s debt.

To the IRS, that had significant tax implications. In the wealth team’s view, Georg Schaeffler had received billions of dollars of income — on which he owed taxes.

The auditors’ view reflects a core aspect of the U.S. tax system. Under American law, companies and individuals are liable for taxes on the forgiven portion of any loan.

This frequently comes up in the housing market. A homeowner borrows $100,000 from a bank to buy a house. Prices fall and the homeowner, under financial duress, unloads it for $80,000. If the bank forgives the $20,000 still owed on the original mortgage, the owner pays taxes on that amount as if it were ordinary income.

This levy can seem unfair since it often hits borrowers who have run into trouble paying back their debts. The problem was particularly acute during the housing crisis, so in late 2007, Congress passed a bill that protected most homeowners from being hit with a tax bill after foreclosure or otherwise getting a principal reduction from their lender.

Tax experts say the principle of taxing forgiven loans is crucial to preventing chicanery. Without it, people could arrange with their employers to borrow their salaries through the entire year interest-free and then have the employer forgive the loan at the very end. Voila, no taxable income.

The notion that forgiven debt is taxable applies to corporate transactions, too. That means concern about such a tax bill is rarely far from a distressed corporate debtor’s mind. “Any time you have a troubled situation, it’s a typical tax issue you have to address and the banks certainly understand it, too,” said Les Samuels, an attorney who spent decades advising corporations and wealthy individuals on tax matters.

But the efforts to avoid tax, in the case of Schaeffler and his lenders, took a particularly convoluted form. It involved several different instruments, each with multiple moving parts. The refinancing was “complicated and unusual,” said Samuels, who was not involved in the transaction. “If you were sitting in the government’s chair and reading press reports on the situation, your reaction might be that the company was on the verge of being insolvent. And when the refinancing was completed, the government might think that banks didn’t know whether they would be repaid.”

This account of the audit was drawn from conversations with people familiar with it, who were not authorized to speak on the record, as well as court and German securities filings. The IRS declined to comment for this story. Doerr did not respond to repeated calls and emails.

A spokesman for Schaeffler declined to make him available for an interview. “Mr. Schaeffler always strives to comply with the complex U.S. tax code,” the spokesman wrote in a statement, saying “the fact that the refinancing was with six independent, international banks in itself demonstrates that these were arm’s length, commercially driven transactions. The IRS professionally concluded the audit in 2018 without making adjustments to those transactions, and there is no continuing dispute — either administratively or in litigation — related to these matters.”

Schaeffler’s lenders never explicitly canceled the loan. The banks and Schaeffler maintained to the IRS that the loan was real and no debt had been forgiven.

The IRS came not to buy that. After years of trying to unravel the refinancing, the IRS homed in on what the agency contended was a disguise. The banks and Schaeffler “had a mutual interest in maintaining the appearance that the debt hadn’t gone away,” a person familiar with the transaction said. But the IRS believed the debt had, in fact, been canceled.

In the refinancing, the banks and Schaeffler had agreed to split the company’s debt, which had grown to 12 billion euros at that point, into two pieces: A senior loan, to be paid back first, worth about 7 billion euros and a junior piece worth about 5 billion euros.

Schaeffler’s income-producing assets were placed into the entity that held the senior debt. Schaeffler was required to repay the debt according to a schedule and to pay a meaningful interest rate: 4.25 percentage points above the rate his lenders charge each other to borrow money. In short, it appeared to be a relatively straightforward debt transaction.

The junior debt was another matter — and its provisions would raise the hackles of the IRS. To begin with, the entity that held the junior debt did not directly hold income-producing assets. There was no schedule of payments that Schaeffler had to make on the junior debt. He wasn’t obligated to make principal payments until the end of the loan’s term. And it carried a nearly nonexistent annual interest rate of 0.1 percentage points above prevailing interbank lending rates, plus an additional 7 percent per year, which Schaeffler could choose to defer and pay at the end of the term.

The banks attached two other provisions to the refinancing: A “Contingent Remuneration Payment” and a “Contingent Upside Instrument,” according to German securities filings. The two additions called for Schaeffler to make payments to the future performance of the company.

The IRS and Schaeffler’s team fought especially over the Contingent Upside Instrument. Its value was tied to the Schaeffler Group’s future profitability, just like a share of stock would be. The IRS argued that not only was this an equitylike sweetener to the banks, but that it tainted the entire junior portion of the debt. To the IRS, it looked like the banks had a claim on future payments from Schaeffler, but they didn’t know when they’d receive it — or even if they would ever get anything.

To the IRS, these steps all added up to the effective cancellation of about $5 billion worth of debt, for which the banks had received something in return. That something looked and acted very much like equity.

The Schaeffler audit was one of the biggest for the Global High Wealth group. The IRS assigned a larger than normal team to the exam. The agency would send 86 separate document requests to Schaeffler through July 2013.

But there were problems almost from the beginning, according to people familiar with the audit, who provided this account and chronology. The IRS examiners disagreed with one another over strategy. The debates sometimes spilled into the view of Schaeffler’s team. “I remember a tremendous amount of turnover from the exam team and infighting. They were not presenting a coherent message,” a person in the Schaeffler camp said.

By contrast, Schaeffler’s team of lawyers and accountants was large and unified. “These taxpayers aren’t exactly represented by H&R Block,” Gardner, the retired IRS official, said.

Schaeffler’s advisers threw as much as they could back at the agency. Document requests are typically voluntary at the outset. But at one point, an IRS auditor was frustrated at what the team saw as the Schaeffler team’s resistance and delays and demanded, “Would a summons help?” according to a person familiar with the exam. Schaeffler’s team complained about the perceived threat. The IRS scolded its employee, and Doerr, the lead auditor, apologized to the Schaeffler side, according to the person.

In another instance, the IRS could not get information it sought from Ernst & Young, the accounting firm, related to its advice to Schaeffler. So it sued the accounting firm in early 2014. Ernst & Young contended the material was privileged because it was prepared in anticipation of litigation. The IRS won in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, but Ernst & Young appealed.

In early November 2015, with the Ernst & Young appeal unresolved, top IRS officials gave the Schaeffler audit team the permission it was looking for. They allowed the auditors to notify Schaeffler that they believed he’d failed to disclose about $5 billion in income and that he could expect a $1.2 billion tax bill. That included some $200 million in penalties because the agency viewed the transaction as abusive.

Only days later, the IRS was dealt a defeat that would further hamstring its ability to press its case. On Nov. 10, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district judge, slapping down the IRS’ efforts to get the Ernst & Young documents, ruling they were in fact protected by privilege. The IRS had no choice. It would have to proceed without the documents.

The IRS took solace that despite the adverse ruling on the documents, the appeals court appeared to bolster the IRS’ view of the transaction. Describing it as a “complex and novel refinancing,” the court said the consortium of banks “essentially insured” Schaeffler “by extending credit and subordinating its debt.” The opinion found that Schaeffler’s team had known that litigation over the transaction was “virtually inevitable,” underscoring the sense that the billionaire’s lawyers and accountants knew they were pushing legal limits.

The two sides wrangled even over routine procedural matters. The statute of limitations was about to run out. Usually the taxpayer voluntarily agrees to extend the time limit rather than antagonize the agents doing an audit. But Schaeffler’s team raised the prospect of refusing an extension. They ultimately relented, but succeeded in amping up the pressure on the auditors.

Who’s More Likely to Be Audited: A Person Making $20,000 — or $400,000?
If you claim the earned income tax credit, whose average recipient makes less than $20,000 a year, you’re more likely to face IRS scrutiny than someone making twenty times as much. How a benefit for the working poor was turned against them.

Even as the antagonism built between the two sides, the IRS showed deference to the Schaeffler camp. Doerr gave Schaeffler’s attorneys a heads-up that the agency was going to deliver bad news, an action that was viewed as overly solicitous, according to one person. It gave an opening for Schaeffler’s lawyers to raise their concerns with the audit team’s bosses. They expressed how wrongheaded they thought the IRS’ position was and how inappropriate its actions had been.

In June 2016, the IRS sent Schaeffler the official notice that the agency would seek unpaid tax and penalties.

Schaeffler’s attorneys continued to argue, often above the heads of the audit team, that the auditors’ interpretation was incorrect. They held conference calls with top IRS officials, saying the audit team had given the Schaeffler side mixed messages. Some on the team had assured Schaeffler’s attorneys that he would not face a large tax bill or be subject to a penalty. Top officials then met with the Global High Wealth team to discuss the issues. “The pushback is incredible,” one knowledgeable person recalled.

The pushback worked — and here’s where an audit is radically different from a court case. Court cases are typically accompanied by publicly available decisions and rulings that explain them in detail. By contrast, audits are shielded by the secrecy of the IRS’ process. They can end with no scrap of publicly available paper to memorialize key decisions. In August 2016, in Schaeffler’s case, officials several rungs up the IRS hierarchy told the Global High Wealth team to withdraw the penalty from its request.

Even without a penalty portion, Schaeffler would still owe the original $1 billion in taxes if the IRS maintained its contention that the banks had cancelled his debt. Schaeffler’s team then went to work on that, too. It succeeded. By 2017, the IRS had abandoned its assertion that debt had been transformed into equity. After six years on a hard-fought case, the agency had effectively given up.

The IRS had a few stray quibbles, so the agency said it required a payment in the “tens of millions,” according to two people familiar with the audit. There the trail goes dark. Tax experts say Schaeffler’s team would likely have appealed even that offer, which in many instances leads to further reductions in money owed, but ProPublica could not ascertain that that occurred.

Thanks in part to the U.S. government’s bailout of the auto industry and the global economic recovery, the Schaeffler Group’s business rebounded. Despite a recent dip in the car market, things have turned out OK for Georg Schaeffler. Today, Forbes estimates his fortune at over $13 billion.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

  

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ThaTruth
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66. "I realize the "tax higher" thing is more of a theory and doesn't always...."
In response to Reply # 63


          

work because the smart guys figure out a way around that.

But big picture-wise are you totally against capitalism and entrepreneurism?

  

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Walleye
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67. "Yes, I am"
In response to Reply # 66


          

Labor builds, creates, and provides. Capital seeks to warp all of these beautiful, extraordinarily human gestures, extracting and privatizing. It's our most intimate sin, working its way into how we view and understand the world and perversely seducing us into believing that giving away our leisure, our time with our family and friends and neighbors, and the product of our labor to some dipshit with an MBA is an actual moral good. It's not. Capitalism a lie we tell ourselves to keep living, and the people pushing it will dispose of any one of us the moment we can't enrich them.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

  

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ThaTruth
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68. "okayplayer. n/m"
In response to Reply # 67


          

  

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WarriorPoet415
Member since Sep 30th 2003
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Tue May-21-19 09:03 AM

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53. "This is literally not your business. Or Robert Smith's."
In response to Reply # 50


  

          

>You mean to tell me that if you worked an extra job, your
>parents worked an extra job, maybe sold a car, maybe took out
>another mortgage, all to reduce your student loan debt, and
>your roommate just said "fuck it, something'll work out," and
>then somebody comes along and pays off your roommate's debt
>but does nothing for you, just because you sacrificed more and
>did the thing that society considers to be *more responsible*,
>you'd be okay with that?

If you did what was best for you, then you did what was best for you. That's your job in life. Your roommate's affairs are his or hers, not yours.

Sure you can be pissed, but Robert Smith has no responsibility for that. He wants to pay off outstanding debt, he can do that. With 400 students, they're probably 400 different scenarios, with very few the exact same. Them folks hit the lottery and that's it and that's all.

______________________________________________________________________________

"To Each His Reach"

but.....

Fuck aliens.

  

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Case_One
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65. "I can't believe that folks are actually taking exception to this matter"
In response to Reply # 53


          


.
.

“It was the evidence from science and history that prompted me to abandon my atheism and become a Christian.” — Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ

  

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mista k5
Member since Feb 01st 2006
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Mon May-20-19 09:25 AM

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29. "cool"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

  

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flipnile
Member since Nov 05th 2003
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31. "Word!"
In response to Reply # 0


          

  

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Crash Bandacoot
Member since May 13th 2003
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Mon May-20-19 10:27 AM

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33. "RE: Robert F. Smith"
In response to Reply # 0


          

“Don’t sit around and wait for someone to anoint you ready for the next
challenge. Don’t wait your turn. Bet on yourself and have the
confidence to stand up and say, ‘my time is now.’”

  

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Brew
Member since Nov 23rd 2002
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34. "Amazing."
In response to Reply # 0


          

As I'm sure others have already said, it's a sad reflection of our shitty education system that someone has to do something like this to save a couple hundred students ... but either way this is such an incredible gesture by Smith and I hope each student takes full advantage of this incredible opportunity.

----------------------------------------

"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

  

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Dr Claw
Member since Jun 25th 2003
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35. "I like the gesture"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

dislike that we have a system where this is necessary for many (or billionaires in the first place)

that's where I'm with it.

there are some real doo-doo flake takes on this one, like the one where some Twitter bot was talking about who dude is married to

  

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Crash Bandacoot
Member since May 13th 2003
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37. "oh"
In response to Reply # 35


          


>there are some real doo-doo flake takes on this one, like the
>one where some Twitter bot was talking about who dude is
>married to
>

  

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Marbles
Member since Oct 19th 2004
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38. "Shoot, I thought OKP would have been on top of that quick fast... n/m"
In response to Reply # 35


  

          


>there are some real doo-doo flake takes on this one, like the
>one where some Twitter bot was talking about who dude is
>married to
>

  

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Crash Bandacoot
Member since May 13th 2003
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40. "i'm late"
In response to Reply # 38


          

i didn't know about the playmate thing. it's always something, LOL

>

  

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flipnile
Member since Nov 05th 2003
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39. "56yo man w/ a 34yo former playboy playmate wife"
In response to Reply # 35


          

Hope he got an iron-clad pre-nup. Enjoy it while it lasts, bruh.

  

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legsdiamond
Member since May 05th 2011
79560 posts
Mon May-20-19 11:58 AM

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42. "He’s a billionaire. He isn’t going broke. "
In response to Reply # 39


          

and what’s the point of being a billionaire if you can’t get some youngin to share it with?

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

  

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Case_One
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72. "Folks care about the wrong things. "
In response to Reply # 42


          


.
.

“It was the evidence from science and history that prompted me to abandon my atheism and become a Christian.” — Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ

  

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flipnile
Member since Nov 05th 2003
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73. "What folks?"
In response to Reply # 72


          

>Folks care about the wrong things.

  

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BlakStaar
Member since May 29th 2002
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44. "I'm happy for my little Morehouse bros. "
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

I went to Spelman ages ago and graduated with no loans because mama $$$.

Too bad I have credit card debt. LOL.

But seriously, this is epic. This just puts these young men a little bit closer to being on a level playing field.

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

  

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BlakStaar
Member since May 29th 2002
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45. "Jamilah Lemieux's IG post was hilarious."
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

"So proud to be a member of the Morehouse class of 2019! I wasn’t able to make the ceremony, can someone tell me where to find old boy so he can run me my check?"
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxsHlsbHq48/

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

  

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Case_One
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46. "There word BUT has not place in this. Robert F. Smith is GREAT! "
In response to Reply # 0


          

Anyone that has anything to say about what Smith should have done or could have done should put their money where their mouth is and start their own program.

I had to check this dude from Bangladesh today when he tried to tell me that Smith should have set up a trust instead. I had to shut that mess down.




.
.

“It was the evidence from science and history that prompted me to abandon my atheism and become a Christian.” — Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ

  

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bignick
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57. "Unless you want to think critically"
In response to Reply # 46


  

          

  

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Case_One
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64. "Think critically about what in this matter?"
In response to Reply # 57


          


.
.

“It was the evidence from science and history that prompted me to abandon my atheism and become a Christian.” — Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ

  

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bignick
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70. "All billionaires suck. Even the Black ones. "
In response to Reply # 64


  

          

https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1130269474140151808

Amid the worthy praise for Robert Smith’s gift, a bitter truth:

Smith has opposed closing the carried-interest loophole, which enriches his industry and may cost the government $18 billion a year. Closing it would raise enough to do 450 such gifts a year.

  

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Case_One
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71. "Man Stop being bitter and sucking in someone else bitterness "
In response to Reply # 70


          

>https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1130269474140151808
>
>Amid the worthy praise for Robert Smith’s gift, a bitter
>truth:
>
>Smith has opposed closing the carried-interest loophole, which
>enriches his industry and may cost the government $18 billion
>a year. Closing it would raise enough to do 450 such gifts a
>year.


I'd like to know how many students old Anand Giridharadas has put through college for free. I love clowns like this becaus they're the haters that eventually have to kiss the ring at some point.




.
.

“It was the evidence from science and history that prompted me to abandon my atheism and become a Christian.” — Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ

  

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bignick
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74. "So you don't want to think critically? Got it. "
In response to Reply # 71


  

          


  

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Case_One
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Wed May-22-19 10:19 AM

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76. "You still haven't offered an argument that "
In response to Reply # 74


          

justifies any rebuttal.


.
.

“It was the evidence from science and history that prompted me to abandon my atheism and become a Christian.” — Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ

  

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bignick
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77. "Yeah, it's right in the tweet. "
In response to Reply # 76


  

          

You're just being disingenuous and not thinking critically as usual.

  

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Case_One
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81. "I'm doing plenty of critical thinking - about the 400 Students "
In response to Reply # 77


          

that won't have to graduate and be saddled by the financial debt that comes with graduating from an institution fo Higher Learning.

And where did you get your Bachelor or Mater's degree from?


.
.

“It was the evidence from science and history that prompted me to abandon my atheism and become a Christian.” — Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ

  

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infin8
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Wed May-22-19 10:44 AM

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78. "it's all capitalism "
In response to Reply # 70


  

          


>
>Smith has opposed closing the carried-interest loophole, which
>enriches his industry and may cost the government $18 billion
>a year.
^^ of COURSE he does...and I won't even PRETEND to know what that means. I know this: Wealthy people like staying wealthy, so you can best believe that beneath the philanthropy there will be a bit of self-service.

Closing it would raise enough to do 450 such gifts a
>year.
^^ the key word here is 'WOULD". there's possibility there, and there's potential there...but that's not gonna get this debt off them students' backs at the end of the day.

I'm not a Robert Smith 'stan'..I do see your point but the bigger picture here is our capitalist society.

Even if the funds were there, not everyone is gonna feel like 'oh lemme give these hardworking black kids some relief' <--that thread isn't woven into America's fabric. And realer than that is that SOME of these students will go on to be capitalists/oppressors THEMSELVES.

IG: amadu_me

"...Whateva, man..." (c) Redman

  

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bignick
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75. "Boo this man"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

https://boingboing.net/2019/05/20/noblesse-oblige-not-enough.html

Billionaire Goldman Sachs alum Robert F Smith made headlines when he donated enough cash to pay off the student loan debt of the entire Class of 2019 at Morehouse College; but Smith is also an ardent supporter of the carried interest tax loophole, which allows the richest people in America to pay little to no tax on the bulk of their earnings, while working Americans (like the Morehouse Class of 2019 will be, shortly) pay their fair share.

If people like Smith were taxed at a rate comparable to the little people, there would be ample funds for free universal post-secondary education. Merely closing the carried interest loophole would generate enough tax revenues to pay off the student debt of 450 Morehouse Classes of 2019.

Anand Giridharadas's latest book, Winners Take All, is a scorching critique of the way that gifts like Smith's are used to diffuse the political energy for real tax justice. In an excellent Twitter thread about Smith's gift, Giridharadas writes, "Generosity is great. But it‘s not a substitute for justice. Gifts like today’s distract us from what is really going on in our economy, and it can cover up the way in which the giver is fighting on both sides of a war. If plutes paid fair taxes, this gift might be unnecessary."

Elizabeth Warren has proposed debt forgiveness for all student loans and free tuition at all state colleges.

Despite his egalitarian streak, Mr. Smith is also every bit a private equity chieftain. He opposes increasing taxes on carried interest — the profits from private equity investments — and he believes the best way to lift up the poor is to create jobs.

A Private Equity Titan With a Narrow Focus and Broad Aims

(via Late Stage Capitalism)

  

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legsdiamond
Member since May 05th 2011
79560 posts
Wed Jul-03-19 02:57 PM

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85. "Doesn’t want to pay more taxes? Oh, the horror. "
In response to Reply # 75


          

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

  

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BlakStaar
Member since May 29th 2002
1261 posts
Wed May-22-19 10:52 AM

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79. "The bottom line:"
In response to Reply # 0
Wed May-22-19 10:53 AM by BlakStaar

  

          

Being a nice billionaire or at least appearing to be one, is like being a cool U.S. president.

Just by virtue of being a billionaire (or president) you’re going to suck.

Obama was “cool,” but he was still the president of the U S of A.

I didn’t bother digging into Mr. Smith’s background, but I’m not surprised there are unfavorable things out there about him.

Nonetheless, I’m still happy for my lil bros.

*shrugs*

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

  

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infin8
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80. "^"
In response to Reply # 79


  

          

IG: amadu_me

"...Whateva, man..." (c) Redman

  

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Scott Baio
Member since May 22nd 2002
193 posts
Fri May-24-19 08:22 AM

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82. "This will be like Scott's Tots"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

from the office.

I really do Love Joni!

  

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ThaTruth
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Wed Jul-03-19 01:15 PM

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83. "Robert Smith Did More Than Just Pay Off Some Student Loans"
In response to Reply # 0


          

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcowen/2019/06/24/robert-smith-did-more-than-just-pay-off-some-student-loans/#16b87ded1601

Robert Smith Did More Than Just Pay Off Some Student Loans
Jim Cowen


Graduates react after hearing billionaire technology investor and philanthropist Robert F. Smith say he will provide grants to wipe out the student debt of the entire 2019 graduating class at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Sunday, May 19, 2019.

In his commencement speech last month, Robert F. Smith, founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, made national headlines when he pledged to pay off the student loans of the entire graduating class at Morehouse College.

Students were understandably thrilled by that generous act, but Smith’s gift was more than just a financial one. He also provided some valuable guidance on the importance of college and career readiness and educational equity.

1. Technology is creating new “on-ramps” for today’s workforce. Smith rightly talked about a 21st century tech-based economy that graduates will encounter as they enter the workforce. His words ring true: “Technology is creating a whole new set of on-ramps to the 21st-century economy, and together we will help assure that African Americans will acquire the tech skills and be the beneficiaries in sectors that are being automated."In just under 30 years, technology has transformed nearly everything—from the way we get news, to the way we enjoy music and movies, to the way that we work. Today, nine-in-ten adults get their news from online sources. Compare this to 1990, when most Americans didn’t yet use the Internet, smartphones didn’t exist and more than 50% of people read a physical newspaper.


2. Those “on-ramps” will only be available to those with the right skills and education. Today’s students can only become employees of the future if they’re able to handle what they’ll face in life and the workplace after they graduate. The number of science, technology, engineering, and math-related (STEM) jobs has grown significantly over the last decade and is actually projected to continue growing faster than all non-STEM jobs in the future. But businesses are concerned about the lack of both technical and essential skills in job applicants to meet those needs.Preparing students to fill these good jobs requires that schools, educators, parents, and state policymakers actively hold students to a high educational bar and provide the quality instruction, tools and support to reach it.

3. Every single kid—regardless of where they live—deserves the same shot at that success. Implementing high academic standards also requires schools and teachers to make sure they are serving every child well so that they can reach those goals. Smith highlighted how quality education impacted his success, but also showed him the need for equal access to opportunity. He repeated a principle shared by many education advocates, “Where you live shouldn’t determine whether or not you get educated. And where you go to school shouldn’t determine whether you get textbooks.”


Reach Higher Will Host Annual Beating the Odds Summit For First-Generation College-Bound Students
Congratulations to the Morehouse College Class of 2019—and all graduates who are entering this next exciting phase of their lives. And most importantly, thank you to Mr. Smith, who so unselfishly demonstrates the value of mentorship and leadership for our nation’s future workforce.

  

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ThaTruth
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Wed Jul-03-19 01:36 PM

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84. "Robert F. Smith Announces New Paid Internship Program For Minorities"
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https://www.vibe.com/2019/06/robert-f-smith-internship-students-of-color

June 11, 2019 - 11:02 am by Shenequa Golding

The billionaire who made headlines for paying the student loan debt for Morehouse College's 2019 graduating class is paying it forward yet again.

Robert F. Smith announced a paid internship for students of color within the STEM field. Titled "Intern X," Smith has said the apprenticeship will cater to or 1,000 ethnically underrepresented students.

Rising sophomore with a GPA of 2.8 or higher are eligible to participate in Intern X. AT&T, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, and CitiGroup are three of the companies participating in the program.


Tomthunkit™
@TomthunkitsMind
Wow! Billionaire Robert F. Smith surprises Morehouse graduates by announcing his family will eliminate the student debt of the entire class of 2019 with a grant. #PayItForward #HBCU

Last month, Smith made headlines when during his commencement speech he revealed he'd pay off the student loan debt for the graduating class. The founder of New York investment firm Vista Equity Partners' gift was estimated at $40 million.

"This is my class, 2019, and my family is making a grant to eliminate their student loans. Now, I know my class will pay this forward. And I want my class to look at these alumnus. These beautiful Morehouse brothers and let's make sure that every class has the same opportunity going forward," Smith said.

Mr. Smith, whose estimated worth is $5 billion, continues to help those in need. Well done.

  

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ThaTruth
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Fri Sep-20-19 02:03 PM

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86. "Billionaire Widens Morehouse College-Debt Gift to Parents(link)"
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-20/smith-s-morehouse-34-million-student-debt-pledge-to-add-parents?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oxU84g8cC8

  

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