The Congressional Oversight Committee – Michael Cohen Testimony

It’s Friday and time for a little weekend rest and relaxation. This week has been particularly interesting. We had a President overseas meeting with Mini-Me to negotiate denuclearization of North Korea concurrent with a completely tasteless session of the Congressional Oversight Committee taking testimony from Michael Cohen. Talk about a circus! If you sat through Cohen’s testimony, you need a good shoot the shit to get that out of your system. The guy just isn’t a liar but he has to be the most inept lawyer on the  planet; fortunately, he was disbarred so he won’t be practicing law anytime soon. The convicts at his assigned facility won’t even ask him for legal advice. Keep in mind that a shoot the shits is far better than paying a jackass who studied psychology to understand himself or herself. Okay, here we go…

The Democratic party which once had a love of country and its citizens is gone! Over the years they’ve been irradiated by weapon’s grade plutonium and slid into schizophrenia producing luminaries like Beto O’Roke, Ocasio-Cortez, etc., etc. Their objective is to transition the country to socialism (1st step to communism) where it can then be guided by luminaries like Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. Their strategy is precisely what I used to do in grade school and that is make wet toilet paper balls and throw them at the wall to see if they stick. In this case the wall is an uniformed voter that gets their information from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. That’s their objective.

Take for example Ocasio-Cortez’s questioning of Michael Cohen. First, I’ll bet you $5 that someone wrote those questions for her and that she rehearsed the presentation for at least a week before. But, so be it. Her questions are designed to paint a corrupt picture of the President. I want you all to keep in mind what I’m going to say below so that you’re equipped to draw your own informed conclusions.

1. In the United States of America tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion (what Cohen was charged with) is not. This means that you as an individual or business entity can use any legal means to reduce your tax liability.
2. Asset valuation. This is a complex discussion for a number of reasons but the most common approach is FMV (Fair Market Value). Let’s say that you purchase a building that you subsequently rent out deriving a monthly revenue stream. For internal bookkeeping you record the purchase along with direct expenses related to the purchase (e.g. realtor fees, attorney’s fees and accountant’s fees) so on your books that building is shown at $1,000,000. In order to match current period income with expenses we depreciate the building using a number of formulas) but let’s say that over two years your depreciation is $30,000 that building is now recorded on the books at $970,000.  The building also generates $200,000 a month in rents, which is recorded on the books as income. Life is good.
1. You now decide to open a restaurant, so you want to borrow money. You go the bank and ask for the loan. In the loan application you’re asked to list assets, so you list your building at $3,000,000 if you’re Ocasio-Cortez you call that fraud. What you as the building owner are doing is showing the building’s fair market value. Fair Market Values are estimates that reflect the value of the physical property along with its revenue generating potential. Not fraud! What the bank does is evaluate the quality of the asset and its suitability as the source of repayment (among other things) and makes the load on the basis of its analysis.
3. Over valuation of an asset to an insurance company. Assume that you have a factory producing widgets generating $5,000,000 a year in income but the building costs you $500,000 and all of the equipment cost you $1,000,000. If that facility burns down to the ground are you out $1,500,000? No,  you are also out of an annual revenue stream of $5,000,000 so that asset is worth much more than $1.5 million. And the insurance company would underwrite that risk at the appropriate premium. Business as usual folks!

I hope that I’ve been able to shed some light on the Cohen testimony, as questionable and ambiguous as it was, but look, going forward I suggest that you clean your derriere with anything relating to The President that comes out of the Democratic Party. It’s not just a national embarrassment, it has a global fragrance that would violate anyone’s olfactory senses.

Have a great weekend, be safe and get a little range time in. Last, but not least, remember that you can make any unsupported statement, use uncensored profanity, insult anyone you wish or change the subject during a shoot the shit!