Reprinted from Smirking Chimp
Ever wonder what the best investment you can make is?
I'm not in the business of giving financial advice -- but I wanted to share with you this secret that every billionaire and large corporation in this country knows.
The best investment you can make isn't gold or some revolutionary technology.
The best investment you can make is to buy a politician!
Investing in a politician can yield more returns than any stock or other commodity ever could.
Take the case of what Montana's fossil-fuel companies invested in Representative Ryan Zinke.
If the Obama administration closes a massive tax loophole that allows the companies to rip off the state, Montana's coal companies would be looking at a $19 million hit to their bottom lines.
You see, for years, Montana's coal producers have had to pay royalties to the state of Montana for coal mined on federal land.
But Montana's coal producers found a way get around paying the royalties for coal they took from public lands.
It's been really easy so far.
Take Peabody Energy. All it had to do is create shell subsidiaries to buy Peabody's coal at a lower-than-market rate.
The state would only collect royalties on Peabody selling coal to its own subsidiary basically at cost, so there's no profit and no royalty payments.
Then the subsidiary would simply turn around and sell the coal again to an actual coal user, like China or a power plant, this time at the much higher and very profitable market rate.
A rule proposed by Obama's Department of the Interior would change that so that Peabody and the other coal companies would have to pay their royalties based exclusively on sales made to an independent, third-party buyer. No more tax-free insider trading.
A report last month from Headwaters Economics showed that the proposed rule could make up to $19 million for the state of Montana every year.
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