ALL MPs should be made to pay any profit made from their second homes back to the taxpayer, the Liberal Democrats said yesterday.

Party activists voted to adopt the sanction – already voluntarily accepted by Lib Dem front-benchers – at the party’s annual conference in Bournemouth.

Any MPs found to have broken the rules should be subject to criminal investigations, the party said.

Anger at the expenses scandal boiled over during the debate, with one MEP saying he was furious at the “dirty cheating b********” who had used taxpayers’ money to line their pockets.

Party leader Nick Clegg has argued that the Liberal Democrats have been less damaged from the scandal than other parties.

Some MPs were found to have “flipped” the designation of their Westminster and constituency properties to avoid paying capital gains tax, but no Lib Dem had done this, Mr Clegg said.

The Lib Dems are to outline plans for a tax on owners of £1m-plus homes, using the proceeds to help low-paid workers.

Treasury spokesman Vince Cable will announce plans for a 0.5% annual levy on the most expensive homes, raising £1bn, at the party conference later.

He will say it would help fund plans to get four million people earning less than £10,000 out of tax altogether.

He will warn of "unpopular" choices on tax and spending but attack the Tories for being "cynical and dishonest".

The new charge would mean additional tax of £2,500 a year on a home valued at £1.5m, or £15,000 a year on a property worth £4m.

Party leader Nick Clegg told the Independent: "That is not a big sacrifice. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask of people who have got properties of that value, and it's completely in line with how pretty well every tax system in the world works.

"I think people who live in properties worth over £1m feel it's fair; in this day and age, to pay about £2,000 or less to help people for whom the tax burden is much higher."

Lib Dem leaders have turned their fire on the Tories at their annual gathering in Bournemouth, arguing they cannot be trusted to tell the truth on spending and are posturing about planned cuts without being prepared to give details.

Mineral-rich African states have been deprived of huge sums of royalties and taxes by mining firms, a report says.

The report, by prominent development charities, blames a lack of legislative oversight and excessively generous tax concessions agreed with the firms.

It says some mining companies have also avoided paying tax through secret contracts with African governments.

The study covers South Africa, Sierra Leone, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia.

Commissioned by development charities including Christian Aid and ActionAid, the Breaking the Curse report calls for reform of the institutional framework that negotiates mining concessions and monitors the royalties paid.

Even in the boom times, African nations failed to profit as much as they should have done from natural resources thanks to inadequate tax rules and lack of ability to enforce the rules that did apply, the report says.

Ghana, a top African gold producer, is losing $68m (£46.7m) annually because it is receiving low royalties, the report's authors estimate.

They believe Tanzania, the continent's third largest producer of gold, could be losing $30m (£20.6m) a year in potential revenues.

And low royalty rates could be costing South Africa, the continent's biggest gold producer, up to $359m (£246m) a year, the report says.

However, in South Africa, where the government has decided to defer royalty payments this year to help secure jobs in the mining sector, finance minister Trevor Manuel questioned the researchers' figures.

Mr Manuel said his country would lose $195m (£133.9m) in deferred royalties this year.

The report says African countries have been encouraged by agencies such as the World Bank to offer more generous terms to attract mining investment.

Essentially, the BBC's business reporter Mark Gregory says, it argues the costs of this approach have outweighed the benefits.

Barack Obama's economic and business policies are, on paper, more conventionally left wing than those of Gordon Brown.

They include:

a) a windfall tax on the "excess" profits of oil companies;

b) a redistributive tax cut for those on middle and low incomes, funded by a claw back of tax cuts received by the wealthiest 2% during President Bush's two terms;

c) serious public spending on roads, bridges, transport and infrastructure;

d) subventions for renewable energy and for the development of green technologies, especially in the automotive industry;

e) tax penalties on US companies that relocate jobs overseas and tax breaks for companies that create jobs in America;

f) greater rights for trade unions to recruit;

g) curbs on what credit-card companies can charge and increased rights for homeowners struggling to pay their debts.

In theory, it represents a significant shift of money and power from private sector to public sector and from the super-rich to those on middle and low incomes.

The Swiss government has reacted angrily to suggestions by the German finance minister that Switzerland ought to be put on a blacklist of tax havens.

During a meeting of European finance ministers in Paris, Peer Steinbrueck said Switzerland was helping German citizens to commit tax evasion.

He said this was depriving his own government of much-needed cash.

Switzerland knows very well that Germany is unhappy that wealthy German citizens may be saving their money in Switzerland, thus avoiding paying taxes.

Nevertheless, Peer Steinbrueck's suggestion that Switzerland should be on a blacklist of tax havens has angered the government here.

The amount of local authority cash at risk after being deposited in Icelandic banks has now risen to more than £600m.

Council leaders will meet ministers later on Thursday to push their case that the funds belonging to more than 80 authorities must be guaranteed.

The Treasury has said councils must be treated "fairly", but has so far declined to guarantee the money.

The Local Government Association insisted frontline council services were not at risk despite the crisis.

The total so far, with 82 councils declaring how much they have invested, is £607.4m.

If deposits from public bodies, including transport and police authorities, are included the figure rises to £696.2m.

The Conservatives said the total could reach £1bn once all investments are known. The Lib Dems said a third of councils may be affected.

BBC local government correspondent John Andrew said there was growing anger among local authorities, which said they had followed Treasury advice by investing surplus money in a way that would deliver the highest return for taxpayers.

He said the councils had been told by the government that the Icelandic banks had been given a "double A" rating.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) reports from the floor of the House that the Republicans have been cut out of the process and called unpatriotic for not blindly supporting the fraudulent bailout. He says the only debate has been about what talking points to use on the American people. The most ominous revelation is when he claims the Speaker has declared martial law.

“I have been thrown out of more meetings in this capital in the last 24 hours than I ever thought possible, as a duly elected representative of 825,000 citizens of north Texas.” Said Congressman Burgess.

Burgess asks the Speaker of the House to post the bailout bill on the internet for at least 24 hours instead of passing the largest piece of legislation in US financial history in the “dark of night.”

The most frightening part of Rep. Burgess’ one-minute floor speech is when he says, “Mr. Speaker I understand we are under Martial Law as declared by the speaker last night.”

The phrase “Martial Law” occurs no where in the Constitution, and as we can see from reading the site posted above, Martial Law basically breaks down to the suspension of the right of habeas corpus. The phrase “Habeas Corpus” does occur in the Constitution under Article I, Section 9,

(http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A1Sec1),

and further we see that only Congress has the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus — not the President, not the Speaker of the House and no one person in any place in any branch of the Government. Thus we see that only by a majority vote can Congress declare martial law.

Thousands of North Sea workers could be in line for large tax bills, BBC Scotland has learned.

It follows a ruling by Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officials that some vessels involved in offshore work should no longer be classed as ships.

As a result, workers on dive vessels and other vessels may no longer qualify for seafaring income tax concessions.

Unions have criticised the move, but the HMRC said it had a duty to ensure the law is applied correctly.

Jake Molloy, of the OILC/RMT union, said the new HMRC guidance on the law could cripple the dive support and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) industries.

He added: "It could be a damning blow for the ROV and dive support industry, in that they were able to attract people of a seafaring background to work in the industry because of this provision.

"Many of them now will see that attractiveness gone, and almost certainly we will see a move of many thousands of workers potentially moving back to other industries because they don't have to be away from home all this time to cover their tax."

Peter McEwen, deputy general secretary of the maritime union Nautilus UK, said the decision was "outrageous" and called for an urgent meeting with treasury officials.

Aberdeen South MP Anne Begg said she was seeking a meeting with the chancellor over the matter.

Ms Begg said she had been "taken aback" when she learned of the ruling that various vessels were no longer classified as being ships after being contacted by several concerned constituents who work offshore.

A funny thing happened in the drafting of the largest-ever U.S. government intervention in the financial system. Lawmakers of all stripes mostly fell in line, but many of the nation's brightest economic minds are warning that the Wall Street bailout's a dangerous rush job.

President Bush and his Treasury secretary, former Goldman Sachs chief executive Henry Paulson, have warned of imminent economic collapse and another Great Depression if their rescue plan isn't passed immediately.

Is that true?

"It's more hype than real risk," said James K. Galbraith, a University of Texas economist and son of the late economic historian John Kenneth Galbraith. "A nasty recession is possible, but the bailout will not cure that. So it's mainly relevant to the financial industry."

The Paulson plan will get some bad assets off the balance sheets of troubled Wall Street institutions and commercial banks. That may help thaw the lending freeze.

But it wouldn't reduce the crush of homes in or near foreclosure, said Simon Johnson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That's a problem that will surely grow worse if the U.S. economy enters recession, leading to greater job losses, which feed a vicious downward spiral of even more foreclosures and defaults on car loans and credit-card debt.

Americans are spooked by talk that financial Armageddon awaits.

The global financial system nearly melted down last week when investors pulled out en masse from money market funds and the short-term debt markets that help corporate America fund its day-to-day needs.

These traditionally have been viewed as safe investments for ordinary Americans, so the flight from them struck fear in the hearts of policymakers.

Few economists, including Galbraith, are willing to discount completely the chance of a financial collapse, given the turmoil in credit markets and banking.

"My sense is it will delay a disaster, given that you only have three months left in this administration. But it will not cure the problem in the (financial) industry or prevent the shakeout and downsizing of the industry," Galbraith said.

Many lawmakers also expressed skepticism.

Coming out of the White House on Thursday, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, Alabama's Richard Shelby, held up what he said was a five-page list of economists opposing the rescue plan.

"This is not me. This is economists at Harvard, Yale, MIT, University of Chicago, our leading universities," an exasperated Shelby told reporters. He called the administration plan "flawed from the beginning."

Jerry Howard, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders, said the Wall Street bailout is crucial, even though he doesn't believe it will solve the credit crunch that was hitting his members before the crisis started.

For this reason, Howard said as soon as Congress returns to work from its upcoming recess, his trade group will be asking for another package of between $40 billion and $90 billion directed towards the housing market.

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Language from Section 8
Treasury Financial Bail-out Proposal

Breathtaking in its scope and staggering in its dollar amount, the Treasury Financial Bail-out Proposal to Congress is a parting power punch from the Bush Administration.  Even as the American economy melts down, George W. Bush and his cronies are taking advantage of the emergency situation to turn over $700,000,000,000 of American tax payer's money to bail out the same greedy, corrupt corporations that got us into this mess; transfer most of the scant remaining congressional power into private hands and eviscerate judicial or administrative review of the process. 

"The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation," and so begins the Proposal that is perhaps the biggest peacetime (or anytime) transfers of power from Congress through the Administration to private corporations, in history.

Democrats, the American people and patriots of every partisan position, should not drink the $700,000,000,000 Power Punch.  There is no circumstance under which we should tolerate this open theft of public funds, and permanent transfer of Congressional and Judicial power through one man, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, directly to private sector corporations, without oversight, review or accountability. 

The upcoming Congressional elections and the fear inspired in the heart of every incumbent politician are certainly no excuse to capitulate to this brazen, corporate power grab.  Democrats, true-blooded Republicans and the American people should not be intimidated by the rushed, fear-mongering tactics of King Henry Paulson. 

While our economy is in historic trouble, it's simply impossible that more of the same power without oversight - the same unmitigated, unregulated nonsense that got us into this mess - is the cure to the precipitous plunge the American economy is taking. 

Call it extortion. Every American is told to ante up $2,000--an estimated $700 billion in all--to bail out the banks from their bad bets, or they'll bring down the entire economy.

In a speculative frenzy that allowed the Masters of the Universe to pocket millions personally, the banks filled their coffers with toxic paper that no one wants to buy. Now they sensibly don't want to lend money to each other, since no one knows if the other is solvent. So they go on strike, and threaten to trigger a global depression, if they don't get rescued.

The changes should enable Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to raise more funds by opening commercial banks.

The move - part of a huge restructuring effort on Wall Street - will also give them access to Federal Reserve support.

The US government has announced a $700bn (£382bn) package to tackle the worst financial crisis for decades.

Congress is considering the plan, drawn up by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, which would set up a fund to buy back much of the bad debt held by financial institutions, which had triggered the credit crisis.

Both presidential candidates have been having their say about the financial crisis.

Republican John McCain said President George W Bush should take the blame for the crisis along with both parties in Congress.

Mr McCain said he was enraged by the greed of Wall Street speculators and said the rescue plan should be funded by cutting government waste, rather than through taxation.

Meanwhile Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama suggested Mr Paulson could be asked to play a role in his administration should he win the presidency.

But Mr Obama criticised the bail-out proposal, calling for independent supervision of its implementation.

STAFF at Lehman’s New York office who helped to cause the world’s biggest corporate bankruptcy are to share in a $2.5 billion bonanza.

The bonus, which has been described by London staff as a “scandal” has been pledged by Barclays Capital, the British-based bank that last week acquired Lehman’s American operation and took on 10,000 staff.

The $2.5 billion (£1.4 billion) pot, which has been ring-fenced as part of the acquisition, has caused huge resentment among the 5,000 staff in the firm’s European and Middle Eastern operations who are not guaranteed to be paid after this month. There are, however, hopes that half the jobs in Lehman’s Canary Wharf office could be saved today by either Barclays or Nomura. Bids are being submitted for its UK equities and investment-banking business.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- "NO NO NO. Not just no, but HELL NO," writes Richard, a reader from Anchorage, Alaska.

Everything the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department are trying to do to stem the tide of the self-destructing U.S. financial system is a stopgap. They are locking the barn door after the horse—many horses—have already escaped, and they know it.

They also know the cause of the crisis is not subprime mortgage lending—that was just the trigger. Cries to re-regulate the failed financial industry are coming from Congress, the media, and investors around the world. But lax regulation is not the cause of the problem either.

For now, all the Federal Reserve can do is loan more “liquidity” into the system that must eventually be collateralized by Treasury debt—that is, debt incurred by taxpayers—to cover bad loans made previously with credit which the banking system created out of thin air.

The Federal Reserve and Treasury are trying to forestall and cover up the bankruptcy of the entire U.S. economy, which already is looming. But the injection of liquidity into the system only means more loans and more interest. With more foreclosures and bankruptcies, it also means that more assets pass into the bankers’ hands.

But even though all the attention has been focused on “Wall Street”; i.e., financial institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Washington Mutual, and AIG—with more to come—none of these would have gotten into so much trouble without the nation’s banks having acted to leverage speculative investments with money they themselves generated as electronic ledger entries.

And it’s the banks—or at least some of them—that may be the next to go.

Now, even more Treasury debt is needed to stopgap the bailouts, debt which will be added to the existing $9 trillion national debt. Some are saying this is socialism, but it is not socialism at all. Socialism is government ownership of the means of production. Building roads and operating public schools is socialism—of a benign and necessary form.

Today a lot of commentators want to wag their fingers and blame ordinary working people for living beyond their means. But people have to survive and take care of themselves and their families. If they have to borrow to live, then that is what they will do. Until the loans dry up, as is happening now. We are now seeing that the economic policies of the last generation have made us an increasingly impoverished nation.

There is no freedom without the freedom to say "no". Free people can say "no". Slaves cannot.

If we are free, or at least free enough that the terrorists hate us for it, then we have the right and ability and often the moral duty to say "no". We have the right to say "no" to being lied to. We have the right to say "no" to being lied into war. Certainly we have a right to say "no" when the government demands that we make do with less, so that the government and its favored cronies may have more.

Right now, the government is preparing to "fix" the economic mess by setting up a new Resolution Trust Corporation. For those too young to remember, this is a repeat of the same scam used to "fix" the S&L Debacle (remember the Keating Five?) back in the 1980s. And in short it was simply going around with a checkbook filled with taxpayer dollars and cleaning up the mess made by reckless deal making (and a little CIA drug money laundering) in a climate of relaxed regulation.

So, here we are, 20 years later, yet another Bush in the White House and a repeat of the same fiscal debacle stares us in the face. More than coincidence? Many think so.

The mere rumor of a new RTC sent the stock market soaring. Why not? The US Government is telling the investors that they can keep the profits from any trades, but any further losses will get transferred to the taxpayers. It's like being in Las Vegas at the Blackjack table, and every time you get 21 or beat the dealer, you get to keep the winnings, but if you bust, or the dealer wins, they take the money from the bus boy cleaning the table behind you. Such a deal! What's not to like?

Unless you are that bus boy, of course.

Wall Street executives are running around and saying that the taxpayer has to pick up the tab. "Has to"? Why? Why should we be on the hook for other peoples' bad judgments, especially when those people walked away form their bad judgments with $20 and $40 million dollar severance packages? Why is it our mess to clean up?

We cleaned up the last mess, back in the 80s. And the lesson we all learned is that no lessons were learned at all by the people whose assets we saved at great personal sacrifice. By protecting them from their mistakes, they just went on to make bigger mistakes. And now they are saying that We the people "have" to pick up the tab again.

This isn't going to stop the greedy bastards from trying to force the taxpayers to buy up all those worthless assets that Wall Street itself refuses to touch.

Probably the only reason they have not already set up this new RTC is they are trying to figure out how to sell it to you; choose which spin, which LIE will trick you into going along with this latest financial rape of the working class American. Last time, in the 80s, it was all about saving the poor widows and pensioners and orphans on fixed income. Then we found out (after it was too late) that most of those accounts refilled with our tax dollars were numbered and brokered corporate accounts.

If you stay silent and let the greedy bastards pull this off, it will be the end of the middle class. There will be the ultra-rich with their severance packages, and everyone else will be taxed into poverty to support them.

Thirty years we've had, of unfathomably wealthy bankers and dealers being justified as part of the free market.

So they boasted: "I've just got my summer bonus and spent part of it on a small African nation which I burnt down for a laugh," or went to restaurants that charged a thousand pounds for meals such as "asparagus boiled in panda's tears" or bought cars that ran on liquified diamonds, and it was all proof we lived in a free society in which we were paid what we were worth and couldn't rely on state handouts. Then the minute their scam falls apart, they're straight on to the Government squealing "Can we have a free state handout please, our bank's gone bust." They're like spoilt students who go back to their Dad for more money because they've blown a year's allowance in one week. But this soppy government will go "You already had fifty billion quid, what have you done with that? Well alright, here's another fifty billion we were saving for kidney machines, but this time be careful."

It's so obscene you get comments such as the one yesterday that went "The money men have made fools of us. In the years of their dominance they insisted the markets were the highest judges and must be left to rule. Now the markets are signalling their downfall, they're running sobbing to governments and taxpayers, begging for our money."

And that piece of class-hatred came from Max Hastings in the Daily Mail. Because the explanation for the current crash from people like that is they were right to demand an unregulated free market, as society could only be run efficiently if the world's finances were put in the hands of these bankers. But then it turned out these bankers were more interested in their private wealth than in the good of society as a whole – and fair's fair, no one could possibly have anticipated that.

Did Syron get paid millions of dollars to take orders from Congress? It's not clear why that should be such a high paying job. Nor is it clear why American taxpayers should pay the price for Syron's inability to manage Freddie. While $38 million -- .0048% of the bailout -- seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the magnitude of the problems, it looks like Syron made the decisions that created the need for the bailout.

I think he would be the right taxpayer to start bailing out Freddie's mistakes. Then we can move on to Freddie's board members. The idea of private profit and socialized losses has got to end. Let's kick off the beginning of that end with Syron.