political and science rhymes

Saturday, July 27, 2019

9/11:Google Part Of Israeli Military,Defrauds  U.S. Tapayers Who Funded It


With nearly 6 million Americans unemployed and regular bouts of layoffs in the U.S. tech industry, major American tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Intel Corporation are nonetheless moving key operations, billions in investments, and thousands of jobs to Israel — a trend that has largely escaped media attention or concern from even “America first” politicians. The fact that this massive transfer of investment and jobs has been so overlooked is particularly striking given that it is largely the work of a single leading neoconservative Republican donor who has given millions of dollars to President Donald Trump.
To make matters worse, many of these top tech companies shifting investment and jobs to Israel at record rates continue to collect sizable U.S. government subsidies for their operations while they move critical aspects of their business abroad, continue to layoff thousands of American workers, and struggle to house their growing company branches in Israel. This is particularly troubling in light of the importance of the tech sector to the overall U.S. economy, as it accounts for 7.1 percent of total GDP and 11.6 percent of total private-sector payroll.
Furthermore, many of these companies are hiring members of controversial Israeli companies — known to have spied on Americans, American companies, and U.S. federal agencies — as well as numerous members of Israeli military intelligence as top managers and executives. -  Whitney Webb


Note the IT or Internet tech company Carbyne 9/11 is an investment of Russian-American-Israeli Google billionaire  Sergey Brin's pedophile pal Jeffrey Epstein and is controlled by ex Israeli PM and apartheidist and murderer of innocent Palestinians Ehud Barak who has also been photographed sneaking into Epstein's NY apartment. Google and Sergey Brin's support of his company will make him many millions of dollars and further support Israeli illegal occupation of and terrorism on Palestinian lands while increasing IT JOBS IN  ISRAEL while Ameruicans lose their jobs and internet technology skills.Note also below the Carbyne news link Google is generously offering American taxpayer money it has stolen as well as money from selling Google and youtube shares to Americans that it uses to censor them to invest in 'UP TO 6000 ISRAELI STARTUPS' ! And on top of it all most new immigrants and Jewish occupiers of Palestinian lands are from Russia so Trump and Congess is in effect forcing looted Americans to subsidize Russian immigrants-occupiers in Israel ! After Israeli involvement in 9/11 on September 11,2001 by way of their control of Logan Airport as well as crucial IT companies involved in failed security on that day an Israeli company such as Carbyne should certainly be banned fromoperating in the U.S..


Google's true origin partly lies in CIA and NSA research grants for ...



https://qz.com/.../googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-ma...


Dec 8, 2017 - ... and explains what Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page set ... the CIA and the NSA by large military and intelligence contractors.



Story image for google israel from ISRAEL21c

Google and Israel's Carbyne improve 911 service in Mexico

ISRAEL21c-23 minutes ago
Carbyne, an Israeli public-safety co
mmunications pioneer, has partnered with Google to offer advanced mobile location to emergency ...
Story image for google israel from Algemeiner

Google Wants in on 6000 Israeli Startups Within the Next Three Years ...

Algemeiner-Jul 24, 2019
CTech – Google's goal for Israel in the next three years is to play a meaningful role in the “lives” of 6,000 local startups, according to Matthew ..

To say Russian Israeli Jew Sergey Brin,Larry Page,,et.al. invented Google and thus deserve to be owners is a lie.U.S. CIA etc. money from U.S.taxpayers funded it and Sergey Brin made no great contribution except to get his name on the Jewish ZIONIST CONTROLLED U.S. STOCK MARKET IPO AND BECOME AN OVERNIGHT BILLIONAIRE LIKE THE JEWISH FACEBOOK THIEF MARK ZUCKERBERG.MICROSOFT'S  AND INTEL AND ALL THE OTHERS LAYING OFF AMERICANS AND SENDING THEIR JOBS TO ISRAEL AND ITS MILITARY ARE ALL TRAITORS TO THE U.S.AS IS DONALD TRUMP WHO IS INDEBTED NOT ONLY TO RUSSIA'S JEWISH OLIGARCHS BUT AMERIICAN JEWISH OLIGARCHS SUCH AS NEVADA AND CHINA GAMBLING TSAR ADELSON AND HIS ISRAELI WIFE AND VULTURE FUND HEDGE FUNDER PAUL SINGER  WITH THEIR ALLEGIANCE TO THE ZIONIST STATE OF ISRAEL BUT ALSO A GREATER ALLEGIANCE TO RUSSIA'S PUTIN THAN TO THE PETTY PROSTITUTE TRUMP.ALL OF THESE MONSTERS ARE PART OF THE JEWISH ZIONIST TAKEOVER OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND U.S. MILITARY THAT LED TO 9/11:
TRUMP ATTORNEY AND EX 9/11 NYC MAYOR RUDI GIULIANI IS OWNED BY THIS INTERNATIONAL JEWISH BANKING FINANCIAL MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AS WELL AS SOO MANY OTHERS WHO HAVE INFILTRATED U.S. GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS AND NEED TO BE  ARRESTED AS FOREIGN AGENTS.


http://toresays.com/2019/07/07/exclusive-photos-epstein-who-was-blocking-the-unsealing/

On February 23, 2002 Epstein’s Jet flew out of Monterey, CA (MRY) for Van Nuys, CA (VNY) just outside Los Angeles. According to our source Silicon Valley entertainment was on the menu after they dropped off the Zagats.
The flight logs show that Jefferey Epstein, SK (Sean Koo?) Kelly Bovino, Nina & Tim Zagat along with 6 unnamed passengers were on board. According to our exclusive source who was 14 at the time the 6 unnamed passengers are listed below. Our source said she was waiting for the “guests to arrive” and told us other’s came with a Sony Pictures jet too for the “party”.
  • Cindy Lopez – Minor Female on flight manifests since 1996 Steven
  • Sarah Kellen – Epstein’s assistant
  • Jeff Bezos-Amazon
  • Sergey Brin- Google
  • Steve Riggio-Barnes and Noble
  • Nathan Myhrvold -Former Microsoft Executive
Jeffrey Epstein's procurer and trainer  of underage girls,(suspect Israeli Mossad agent) Ghislaine Maxwell and Sergey Brin:

https://www.insider.com/ghislaine-maxwell-jeffrey-epstein-alleged-madame-2019-7#after-fleeing-to-new-york-maxwell-rubbed-elbows-with-some-of-the-citys-highfliers-including-the-real-estate-developer-donald-trump-2

However, her father's sudden death in 1991 while on his yacht, which was named "Lady Ghislaine" in her honor, cast a shadow on the family. His cause of death was long contested, as it came amid his company's financial troubles, which rocked the British tabloids and sparked conspiracy theories.

After her father's death, Maxwell moved to the US and dove into her new life as an American socialite, settling down on Manhattan's Upper East Side and leveraging her connections to the rich and powerful to start working in real estate.

It was around this time that, according to an interview with the journalist Vicky Ward in Democracy Now, she met and began dating Epstein, who vacationed with the prince and was mentioned in the press for holding dinner parties that counted Trump, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and the fashion titan Leslie Wexner among the guests and were organized by Maxwell........

Israeli agent Dominik Otto Sutter who  fled U.S. and New York immediately after 9/11 has since  been employed by both Google and Microsoft in California.: 

https://www.mintpressnews.com/newly-released-fbi-docs-shed-light-on-apparent-mossad-foreknowledge-of-9-11-attacks/258581/

“Tourists” with cash-stuffed socks, box cutters, and explosives?

Beyond the photos and observed activities of the so-called “Dancing Israelis,” it is worth revisiting several other suspicious circumstances linked to their arrest that clearly show that the men in question were hardly the “tourists” they had claimed to be. One often cited example is the fact that one of the men, Oded Ellner, had a “white sock-like sack filled with $4,700 in cash,” as well as maps of the city with certain places highlighted, and box cutters. In addition, the van in which the Israelis were arrested was “oddly” lacking “equipment typically used in a moving company’s daily duties,” according to the FBI, and residue of explosives was found in the van.........
In addition to the strange nature of some of the Israelis’ possessions in the van and on their person, the company that employed them — Urban Moving Systems — was of special interest to the FBI, which concluded that the company was likely a “fraudulent operation.” Upon a search of the company’s premises, the FBI noted that “little evidence of a legitimate business operation was found.” The FBI report also noted that there were an “unusually large number of computers relative to the number of employees for such a fairly small business” and that “further investigation identified several pseudo-names or aliases associated with Urban Moving Systems and its operations.”
The FBI presence at the Urban Moving Systems search site drew the attention of the local media and was later reported on both television and in the local press. A former Urban Moving Systems employee later contacted the Newark Division with information indicating that he had quit his employment with Urban Moving Systems as a result of the high amount of anti-American sentiment present among Urban’s employees. The former employee stated that an Israeli employee of Urban had even once remarked, “Give us twenty years and we’ll take over your media and destroy your country” (page 37 of the FBI report)............
The company’s owner — Dominik Otto Suter, an Israeli citizen — had fled to Israel on September 14, 2001, two days after he had been questioned by the FBI. The FBI told ABC News that “Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation.” Surprisingly, since at least 2016, Suter has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works for a contractor for major tech companies like Google and Microsoft. According to the public records database Intelius, in 2006 and 2007 Suter also worked for a telecommunications company — Granite Telecommunications — that works for the U.S. military and several other U.S. government agencies.....


https://www.mintpressnews.com/neocon-billionaire-paul-singer-driving-outsourcing-us-tech-jobs-israel/259147/


How NeoCon Billionaire Paul Singer Is Driving the Outsourcing of US Tech Jobs to Israel
Several U.S. tech giants including Google, Microsoft and Intel Corporation have filled top positions with former members of Israeli military intelligence and are heavily investing in their Israeli branches while laying off thousands of American employees, all while receiving millions of dollars in U.S. government subsidies funded by American taxpayers.

by Whitney Webb



WASHINGTON — With nearly 6 million Americans unemployed and regular bouts of layoffs in the U.S. tech industry, major American tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Intel Corporation are nonetheless moving key operations, billions in investments, and thousands of jobs to Israel — a trend that has largely escaped media attention or concern from even “America first” politicians. The fact that this massive transfer of investment and jobs has been so overlooked is particularly striking given that it is largely the work of a single leading neoconservative Republican donor who has given millions of dollars to President Donald Trump.
To make matters worse, many of these top tech companies shifting investment and jobs to Israel at record rates continue to collect sizable U.S. government subsidies for their operations while they move critical aspects of their business abroad, continue to layoff thousands of American workers, and struggle to house their growing company branches in Israel. This is particularly troubling in light of the importance of the tech sector to the overall U.S. economy, as it accounts for 7.1 percent of total GDP and 11.6 percent of total private-sector payroll.
Furthermore, many of these companies are hiring members of controversial Israeli companies — known to have spied on Americans, American companies, and U.S. federal agencies — as well as numerous members of Israeli military intelligence as top managers and executives.




This massive transfer of the American tech industry has largely been the work of one leading Republican donor — billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who also funds the neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Islamophobic and hawkish think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), and also funded the now-defunct Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).
Singer’s project to bolster Israel’s tech economy at the U.S.’ expense is known as Start-Up Nation Central, which he founded in response to the global Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use nonviolent means to pressure Israel to comply with international law in relation to its treatment of Palestinians.
This project is directly linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in recent years has publicly mentioned that it has been his “deliberate policy” to have former members of Israel’s “military and intelligence units … merge into companies with local partners and foreign partners” in order to make it all but impossible for major corporations and foreign governments to boycott Israel.
In this report, MintPress identifies dozens of former members of an elite Israeli military intelligence unit who now hold top positions at Microsoft, Google and Facebook.
Singer’s nonprofit organization has acted as the vehicle through which Netanyahu’s policy has been realized, via the group’s close connections to the Israeli PM and Singer’s long-time support for Netanyahu and the Likud Party. With deep ties to Netanyahu, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and controversial tech companies — like Amdocs — that spied on the American government, this Singer-funded organization has formed a nexus of connections between the public and private sectors of both the American and Israeli economies with the single goal of making Israel the new technology superpower, largely at the expense of the American economy and government, which currently gives $3.2 billion in aid to Israel annually.

Researched and developed in Israel

In recent years, the top U.S. tech companies have been shifting many of their most critical operations, particularly research and development, to one country: Israel. A 2016 report in Business Insider noted that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple had all opened up research and development (R&D) centers in recent years, with some of them having as many as three such centers in Israel, a country roughly the size of New Jersey. Other major tech companies that have also opened key operation and research centers in Israel include Sandisk, Nvidia, PayPal, Palantir and Dell. Forbes noted last year that the world’s top 10 tech companies were now “doing mission-critical work in Israel that’s core to their businesses back at HQ.”
Yet, some of these tech giants, particularly those based in the U.S., are heavily investing in their Israeli branches while laying off thousands of American employees, all while receiving millions of dollars in U.S. government subsidies funded by American taxpayers.
For example, Intel Corporation, which is the world’s second largest manufacturer of semiconductor computer chips and is headquartered in California, has long been a major employer in Israel, with over 10,000 employees in the Jewish state. However, earlier this year, Intel announced that it would be investing $11 billion in a new factory in Israel and would receive around $1 billion in an Israeli government grant for that investment. Just a matter of months after Intel announced its major new investment in Israel, it announced a new round of layoffs in the United States.
Yet this is just one recent example of what has become a trend for Intel. In 2018, Intel made public its plan to invest $5 billion in one of its Israeli factories and had invested an additional $15 billion in Israeli-created autonomous driving technology a year prior, creating thousands of Intel jobs in Israel. Notably, over that same time frame, Intel has cut nearly 12,000 jobs in the United States. While this great transfer of investment and jobs was undermining the U.S. economy and hurting American workers, particularly in the tech sector, Intel received over $25 million dollars in subsidies from the U.S. federal government.
A similar phenomenon has been occurring at another U.S.-based tech giant, Microsoft. Beginning in 2014 and continuing into 2018, Microsoft has laid off well over 20,000 employees, most of them Americans, in several different rounds of staff cuts. Over that same time period, Microsoft has been on a hiring spree in Israel, building new campuses and investing billions of dollars annually in its Israel-based research and development center and in other Israeli start-up companies, creating thousands of jobs abroad. In addition, Microsoft has been pumping millions of dollars into technology programs at Israeli universities and institutes, such as the Technion Institute. Over this same time frame, Microsoft has received nearly $197 million in subsidies from the state governments of Washington, Iowa and Virginia.
Though Israeli politicians and tech company executives have praised this dramatic shift as the result of Israel’s tech prowess and growing reputation as a technological innovation hub, much of this dramatic shift has been the work of the Netanyahu-tied Singer’s effort to counter a global movement aimed at boycotting Israel and to make Israel a global “cyber power.”

Start-Up Nation Central and the Neocons


Paul Singer | AP photo archive
In 2009, a book titled Start Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, written by American neoconservative Dan Senor and Jerusalem Post journalist Saul Singer (unrelated to Paul), quickly rose to theNew York Times bestseller list for its depiction of Israel as the tech start-up capital of the world. The book — published by the Council on Foreign Relations, where Senor was then serving as Adjunct Senior Fellow —asserts that Israel’s success in producing so many start-up companies resulted from the combination of its liberal immigration laws and its “leverage of the business talents of young people with military experience.”
“The West needs innovation; Israel’s got it,” wrote Senor and Singer. In a post-publication interview with the blog Freakonomics, Senor asserted that service in the Israeli military was crucial to Israel’s tech sector success, stating that:
“Certain units have become technology boot camps, where 18- to 22-year-olds get thrown projects and missions that would make the heads spin of their counterparts in universities or the private sector anywhere else in the world. The Israelis come out of the military not just with hands-on exposure to next-gen technology, but with training in teamwork, mission orientation, leadership, and a desire to continue serving their country by contributing to its tech sector — a source of pride for just about every Israeli.”
The book, in addition to the many accolades it received from the mainstream press, left a lasting impact on top Republican donor Paul Singer, known for funding the most influential neoconservative think tanks in America, as noted above. Paul Singer was so inspired by Senor and Singer’s book that he decided to spend$20 million to fund and create an organization with a similar name. He created the Start-Up Nation Central (SUNC) just three years after the book’s release in 2012.
To achieve his vision, Singer – who is also a top donor to the Republican Party and Trump – tapped Israeli economist Eugene Kandel, who served as Netanyahu’s national economic adviser and chaired the Israeli National Economic Council from 2009 to 2015.
Senor was likely directly involved in the creation of SUNC, as he was then employed by Paul Singer and, with neoconservatives Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan, co-founded the FPI, which Singer had long funded before it closed in 2017. In addition, Dan Senor’s sister, Wendy Singer (unrelated to either Paul or Saul), long-time director of Israel’s AIPAC office, became the organization’s executive director.
SUNC’s management team, in addition to Eugene Kandel and Wendy Singer, includes Guy Hilton as the organization’s general manager. Hilton is a long-time marketing executive at Israeli telecommunications company Amdocs, where he “transformed” the company’s marketing organization. Amdocs was once highly controversial in the United States after it was revealed by a 2001 Fox News investigation that numerous federal agencies had investigated the company, which then had contracts with the 25 largest telephone companies in the country, for its alleged role in an aggressive espionage operation that targeted the U.S. government. Hilton worked at Microsoft prior to joining Amdocs.
Beyond the management team, SUNC’s board of directors includes Paul Singer, Dan Senor and Terry Kassel — who work for Singer at his hedge fund, Elliott Management — and Rapheal Ouzan. Ouzan was an officerin the elite foreign military intelligence unit of Israel, Unit 8200, who co-founded BillGuard the day after he left that unit, which is often compared to the U.S.’ National Security Agency (NSA). Within five months of its founding, BillGuard was backed by funding from PayPal founder Peter Thiel and former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt. Ouzan is also connected to U.S. tech companies that have greatly expanded their Israeli branches since SUNC’s founding — such as Microsoft, Google, PayPal and Intel, all of which support Ouzan’s non-profit Israel Tech Challenge.
According to reports from the time published in Haaretz and Bloomberg, SUNC was explicitly founded to serve as “a foreign ministry for Israel’s tech industry” and “to strength Israel’s economy” while also aiming to counter the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use a nonviolent boycott to end the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Israeli apartheid, as well as the growth of illegal Jewish-only settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.
Since its founding, SUNC has sought to transfer tech jobs from foreign companies to Israel by developing connections and influence with foreign governments and companies so that they “deepen their relationship with Israel’s tech industry.” Though SUNC has since expanded to include other sectors of the Israeli “start-up” economy, its focus has long remained on Israel’s tech, specifically its cybersecurity industry. Foreign investment in this single Israeli industry has grown from $227 million in 2014 to $815 million in 2018.
In addition to its own activities, SUNC appears to be closely linked to a similar organization, sponsored byCoca Cola and Daimler Mercedes Benz, called The Bridge, which also seeks to connect Israeli start-up companies with large international corporations. Indeed, SUNC, according to its website, was actually responsible for Daimler Mercedes Benz’s decision to join The Bridge, thanks to a delegation from the company that SUNC hosted in Israel and the connections made during that visit.

Teaming up with Israel’s Unit 8200

Unit 8200 | Israel
Members of Israel’s signals intelligence Unit 8200 work under a Saudi flag. Photo | Moti Milrod
Notably, SUNC has deep ties to Israel’s military intelligence unit known as Unit 8200 and, true to Start Up Nation’s praise of IDF service as key to Israel’s success, has been instrumental in connecting Unit 8200 alumni with key roles in foreign companies, particularly American tech companies. For instance, Maty Zwaig, a former lieutenant colonel in Unit 8200, is SUNC’s current director of human capital programs, and SUNC’s current manager of strategic programs, Tamar Weiss, is also a former member of the unit.
One particularly glaring connection between SUNC and Unit 8200 can be seen in Inbal Arieli, who served as SUNC’s Vice President of Strategic Partnerships from 2014 to 2017 and continues to serve as a senior adviser to the organization. Arieli, a former lieutenant in Unit 8200, is the founder and head of the 8200 Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Program (EISP), which was the first start-up accelerator in Israel aimed at harnessing “the vast network and entrepreneurial DNA of [Unit] 8200 alumni” and is currently one of the top company accelerators in Israel. Arieli was the top executive at 8200 EISP while working at SUNC.
Another key connection between SUNC and Unit 8200 is SUNC’s promotion of Team8, a company-creation platform whose CEO and co-founder is Nadav Zafrir, former commander of Unit 8200. In addition toprominently featuring Team8 and Zafrir on the cybersecurity section of its website, SUNC also sponsored a talk by Zafrir and an Israeli government economist at the World Economic Forum, often referred to as “Davos,” that was attended personally by Paul Singer.
Team8’s investors include Google’s Eric Schmidt, Microsoft, and Walmart — and it recently hired former head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, retired Admiral Mike Rogers. Team8 described the decision to hire Rogers as being “instrumental in helping strategize” Team8’s expansion in the United States. However, Jake Williams, a veteran of NSA’s Tailored Access Operations hacking unit, told CyberScoop:
“Rogers is not being brought into this role because of his technical experience. …It’s purely because of his knowledge of classified operations and his ability to influence many in the U.S. government and private-sector contractors.”
In addition to connections to Unit 8200-linked groups like Team8 and 8200 EISP, SUNC also directly collaborates with the IDF in an initiative aimed at preparing young Israeli women to serve in Unit 8200. That initiative, called the CyberGirlz Club, is jointly funded by Israel’s Defense Ministry, SUNC and the Rashi Foundation, the philanthropic organization set up by the Leven family of Perrier-brand water, which hasclose ties to the Israeli government and IDF.
“Our aim is to bring the girls to this process already skilled, with the knowledge needed to pass the exams for Unit 8200 and serve in the military as programmers,” Zwaig told Israel National News.

Seeding American tech

The connections between SUNC and Unit 8200 are troubling for more than a few reasons, one of which being that Unit 8200, often likened to the U.S.’ NSA, closely coordinates with Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, and is responsible for 90 percent of the intelligence material obtained by the Israeli government, according to its former commander Yair Cohen. Cohen told Forbes in 2016, that “there isn’t a major operation, from the Mossad or any intelligence security agency, that 8200 is not involved in.” For obvious reasons, the fact that an organization founded by an American billionaire is actively promoting the presence of former military intelligence officers in foreign companies, specifically American companies, while also promoting the transfer of jobs and investment to that same country, is very troubling indeed.
Particularly troubling is the fact that, since SUNC’s founding, the number of former Unit 8200 members in top positions in American tech companies has skyrocketed. Based on a non-exhaustive analysis conducted by Mintpress of over 200 LinkedIn accounts of former Israeli military intelligence and intelligence officers in three major tech companies, numerous former Unit 8200 alumni were found to currently hold top managerial or executive positions in Microsoft, Google and Facebook.
At Microsoft, managers for at least 15 of the company’s products and programs — including Microsoft’s lead managers for engineering, product strategy, threat analytics and cloud business intelligence — publicly listed their affiliation with Unit 8200 on their LinkedIn accounts. In addition, the general manager of Microsoft’s Israeli Research and Development Center is also a former member of Unit 8200. In total, of the 200 accounts analyzed, 50 of them currently worked for Microsoft.
Similarly, at Google, 28 former Unit 8200 members at the company were identified from their LinkedIn accounts. Among them are Google’s Engineering Director, its strategic partner manager, two growth marketing leads, its lead technical manager, and six product and program managers, including Google’s manager for trust and safety search.
Facebook also has several Unit 8200 members in prominent positions, though fewer than Google and Microsoft. MintPress identified at least 13 Unit 8200 alumni working for Facebook, including its director of engineering, lead manager for express wi-fi, and technical program manager. Notably, Facebook has spentthe last several years collaborating with Israel’s government to censor Israel’s critics.
Of course, there is likely much more influence of Unit 8200 on these companies than this non-exhaustive analysis revealed, given that many of these companies acquired several Israeli start-ups run by and staffed by many Unit 8200 alumni who subsequently went on to found new companies and start-ups a few years or shortly after acquisition. Furthermore, due to the limitations of LinkedIn’s set-up, MintPress was not able to access the complete list of Unit 8200 alumni at these three tech companies, meaning that the eye-opening numbers found were generated by a relatively small sample.
This jump in Unit 8200 members in top positions in tech companies of global importance is actually a policy long promoted by Netanyahu, whose long-time economic adviser is the chief executive at SUNC. During an interview with Fox News last year, Netanyahu was asked by Fox News host Mark Levin if the large growth seen in recent years in Israel’s technology sector was part of Netanyahu’s plan. Netanyahu responded, “That’s very much my plan … It’s a very deliberate policy.” He later added that “Israel had technology because the military, especially military intelligence, produced a lot of capabilities. These incredibly gifted young men and women who come out of the military or the Mossad, they want to start their start-ups.”
Netanyahu further outlined this policy at the 2019 Cybertech conference in Tel Aviv, where he stated that Israel’s emergence as one of the top five “cyber powers” had “required allowing this combination of military intelligence, academia and industry to converge in one place” and that this further required allowing “our graduates of our military and intelligence units to merge into companies with local partners and foreign partners.” The direct tie-ins of SUNC to Netanyahu and the fact that Paul Singer has also been a long-time political donor and backer of Netanyahu suggest that SUNC is a key part of Netanyahu’s policy of placing former military intelligence and intelligence operatives in strategic positions in major technology companies.
Notably, just as SUNC was founded to counter the BDS movement, Netanyahu has asserted that this policy of ensuring Israel’s role as a “cyber power” is aimed at increasing its diplomatic power and specifically undermining BDS as well as the United Nations, which has repeatedly condemned Israel’s government for war crimes and violations of international law in relation to the Palestinians.

Building the bi-national surveillance state

NSA Yahoo-Google
A Google data center in Hamina, Finland. (AP/Google)

Top U.S. tech companies have filled top positions with former members of Israeli military intelligence and moved strategic and critical operations to Israel, boosting Israel’s economy at the expense of America’s, and SUNC’s role in this marked shift merits scrutiny.
A powerful American billionaire has built an influential organization with deep connections to the U.S.-Israel lobby (AIPAC), an Israeli company that has been repeatedly investigated for spying on the U.S. government (Amdocs), and the elite Israeli military intelligence unit (Unit 8200) that has used its influential connections to the U.S. government and the U.S. private sector to dramatically shift the operations and make-up of major companies in a critical sector of the U.S. economy.
Further consider that U.S. government documents leaked by Edward Snowden have flagged Israel as “leading threat” to the infrastructure of U.S. financial and banking institutions, which use much of the software produced by these top tech companies, and have also flagged Israel as a top espionage threat. One U.S. government document cited Israel as the third most aggressive intelligence service against the U.S. behind Russia and China. Thus, Paul Singer’s pet project in Start-Up Nation Central has undermined not only the U.S. economy but arguably U.S. national security as well.
This concern is further exacerbated by the deep ties connecting top tech companies like Microsoft and Google to the U.S. military. Microsoft and Google are both key military contractors — Microsoft in particular, given that it is set to win a lucrative contract for the Pentagon’s cloud management and has partnered with the Department of Defense to produce a “secure” election system known as ElectionGuardthat is set to be implemented in some U.S. states for the 2020 general election.
Top Photo: Paul Singer | AP photo archive

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
Posted by Tony Ryals at 9:13 PM No comments:
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Sunday, July 21, 2019

9/11:Israel,Trump,ZAG/Sullivan International Law Steal Tech For China


China needs technology and Israel can provide it - here's how - Israel ...


https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/The-growing-Israel-China-tech-relationship-595969


3 days ago - Levi-Lati sat down with the Post to discuss the growing Israel-China tech ... ZAG/Sullivan is a unique international law firm with offices in Tel Aviv, Boston, New York, Washington and London, as well as a practice in China.




Story image for israel google from Forbes

Israeli Spyware Firm Accused Of Hacking Apple, Facebook And ...

Forbes-Jul 19, 2019
Israeli spyware from NSO has made plenty of headlines this year, ... all of an individual's data from the servers of Apple, Google, Facebook, ...
Israeli security company reportedly has tool that spies on Apple ...
CNBC-Jul 19, 2019
Israel's NSO Group: Our malware? Slurp your cloud backups plus ...
The Register-Jul 19, 2019
Report: NSO Group's Pegasus Spyware Can Break Into Cloud ...
Gizmodo-Jul 20, 2019
Israeli tech firm 'develops ability to access smartphone personal data'
Jewish Chronicle-Jul 19, 2019
The Israeli firm behind software used to hack WhatsApp reportedly ...
Highly Cited-Business Insider-Jul 19, 2019



"9-11/Israel did it" - Wikispooks


https://wikispooks.com/wiki/9-11/Israel_did_it



4.1 U.S. Army Study: On Mossad; 4.2 Israeli espionage around 9/11; 4.3 After 9/11 – More ..... Odigowas later acquired by another Israeli company called Comverse. ... 60 detained suspects worked for the Israeli company AMDOCS which .... Under Goff, Ptech software - loaded with trapdoors and Trojan horses - was sold ..

Even though Google has allowed Israel to stealpersonal data of Americans through its own collusion and to censor searches unfavorable or truthful about Israeli activities in the U.S. and even though its youtube also removes videos of investigative reporting about Israel it invests more American shareholder money to support Israerli companies rather than investing in American Israel free alternatives.Thus it also invests in and supports Israel's anti-Palestinian apartheid and terrorism.
Story image for israel google from CTech

Google Wants In on 6000 Israeli Startups Within the Next 3 Years ...

CTech-Jul 24, 2019
Google's goal for Israel in the next three years is to play a meaningful role in the “lives” of 6,000 local startups, according to Matthew John Brittin ..


CONSIDER THE CHUTZPA,EVEN THOUGH  ZAG/Sullivan International Law Firm. HAS OFFICES IN THE U.S.  AND OF COURSE ISRAEL AND THE ZIONIST CONTROLLED CITY OF LONDON AND JEW YORK,THEY USE THE JERUSALEM POST TO FLAUNT U.S. LAW AND CONTRADICT ISRAELI PUPPET TRUMP AND HINT THAT CHINESE CAN GO AROUND THE U.S.  GOVERNMENT AND TRUMP'S TRADE BLOCKADE AND MAKE  DIRECT DEALS THROUGH THEMSELVES WHO REPRESENT THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT AND U.S. TECH STOLEN AND HOUSED IN ISAEL SUCH AS THE TRAITORS OF INTEL,GOOGLE,AND SO MANY  MORE WHO  SHPULD DEMANDED TO LEAVE AND RE INCORPOATE IN THE U.S. OR HAVE ALL THEIR BANK ACCOUNTS FROZEN AND ASSETTS AND INFRASTRUCTURE CONFICATED AROUND THE WORLD IN THE NAME OF THE U.S. TAXPAYERS THAT TRUMP SEEING AS HE ISN'`T ONE CERTAINLY DOESN'T REPRESENT !


It should no longer be a secet that Israel and international financial elites are the owner4s of the traitor Donald Trump who lied about getting to who did 9/11 during his election campaign and then began lieing about Arabs doing it and celebrating in New Jersey and New York when it is already known it was Israelis using a moving company as a cover and after they were freed  by the U.S. and
Michael Chertoff actually bragged about it in Hebrew on Israeli TV !
AND BESIDES THE NERANYAHUCONNECTED  MOSSAD OR SHIN BEIT OFFICERS AND CONVICTED IN ISRAEL CONVICTED FELON MENACHEM ATZMON WHO ALLOWED THE PLANES 11 AND 175 TO TAKE OFF AND ACCORDING TO W BUSH DICK CHENEY OFFICIAL CONSPIRACY STORY HIT THE WTC IN NYC AND EVEN SOMEHOW MAGICALLY BRING DOWN BUILDING 7 AS WELL,THYIS GROUP THAT CLAIMED GREAT ISRAELI AIRPORT 'TECH' WAS INCORPORATED IN JOE BIDEN'S DELAWARE AND WERE  FUNDED BY DEFRAUDING AMERICAN NASDAQ INVESTORS AND HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE GENIUSES BUT BECAUSE AMERICA HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT BY THEM ! THE OWNER OF  THE MOVING COMPANY EVEN RETURNED TO THE U.S. BUT INSTEAD OF
STAYING THERE HE WENT TO CALIFORNIA WHERE HE IS EMPLOYED IN PART BY GOOGLE ! AND GOOGLE CENSORS US NOT BECAUSE WE ARE RIGHT WING OR EVEN ANGTI-JEWISH BUT BECAUSE WE LOVED OUR COUNTRY WHICH THEY DESTROYED !
SME OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE VERY SUSPECT ISRAELI TECH OR 'IT' COMPANIES THAT PULLED OFF 9/11 ARE ACTUALLY LAST TIME I HEARD EMPLOYED BY THE NSA TO SPY  ON US !AND THE FACT THAT JEWISH ZIONISTS OWN AND CONTROL THE U.S.STOCK MARKET IS THE SIMPLE HOW AND WHY THEY CAN  PENETRATE AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF U.S. GOVERNMENT AND PUT ISRAELI TERRORISTS INTO POWER
WITHIN WHAT IS NOW THEIR GOVERNMENT AND NOT OURS !

.



9/11: Israel's Masterpiece - ASCERTAIN the TRUTH


www.ascertainthetruth.com/att/index.php/911...911.../932-9-11-israel-s-masterpiece


Sep 27, 2013 - On 9/11, Israeli politicians and “terror exports” like Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu ... Has capability to target US forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act ... Odigo: Forewarned Israelis to stay away hours before the attack. ... Comverse, the biggest of many Israeli spying companies embedded .






"9-11/Israel did it" - Wikispooks


https://wikispooks.com/wiki/9-11/Israel_did_it


4.1 U.S. Army Study: On Mossad; 4.2 Israeli espionage around 9/11; 4.3 After 9/11 – More ..... Odigowas later acquired by another Israeli company called Comverse. ... 60 detained suspects worked for the Israeli company AMDOCS which .... Under Goff, Ptech software - loaded with trapdoors and Trojan horses - was sold ...


China Needes Tech,Thanks To Trump Israel Can Steal It From U.S.:ZAG/Sullivan International Law





ZAG/Sullivan Israeli-American law firm - Sullivan & Worcester LLP


https://www.sullivanlaw.com/global-israel.html


Sullivan manages a substantial amount of legal work for Israeli companies and U.S. companies with Israeli interests through ZAG/Sullivan — the world's only 


ZAG-S&W | Global Law Firm | International Corporate Law Firm

https://www.zag-sw.com/

With offices throughout the world, Global law firm ZAG-S&W wants your company to succeed in ... As the only global law firm with a significant presence in the US and Israel, we give clients an edge .... AND SULLIVAN & WORCESTER 2019


Many of these Israeli companies with global ambitions currently operate in the US. When asked if this presented a problem, given the ongoing trade war between the US and China, Levi-Lati explained that while the US-China relationship is complicated, Israeli companies have so far not been negatively affected.

“Because of the trade war, you see less Chinese investment in the US, but we are seeing more and more interest in China toward Israeli companies,” she said. “China sees Israel as a country of innovation.”

She added that recent years have also seen more and more direct flights from China to Israel. 

“You might not think this is a big deal, but you see a lot more Chinese delegations coming to Israel. Many come to Israel to window-shop, but you also see more and more Chinese investments in Israel as a result,” she said.

As such, she explained that while Israeli companies traditionally received funding from the US, today the trend is to go to China for funds....... -
Jerusalem Post



China needs technology and Israel can provide it - here's how - Israel ...


https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/The-growing-Israel-China-tech-relationship-595969


3 days ago - Levi-Lati sat down with the Post to discuss the growing Israel-China tech ... ZAG/Sullivan is a unique international law firm with offices in Tel Aviv, Boston, New York, Washington and London, as well as a practice in China.

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/The-growing-Israel-China-tech-relationship-595969

CHINA NEEDS TECHNOLOGY AND ISRAEL CAN PROVIDE IT - HERE'S HOW


Levi-Lati sat down with the Post to discuss the growing Israel-China tech relationship, Chinese investment in Israeli start-ups, and challenges facing Israeli companies doing business with China.


BY LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI
 
 JULY 18, 2019 10:25



Any Israeli company that wants to go global will have to penetrate China, Tehila Levi-Lati, partner and head of the China and East Asia practice at ZAG/Sullivan International Law Firm recently told The Jerusalem Post.

Levi-Lati recently sat down with the Post to discuss the growing 
Israel-China tech relationship, Chinese investment in Israeli start-ups, 
and the challenges facing Israeli companies doing business with China.

ZAG/Sullivan is a unique international law firm with offices in Tel Aviv, Boston, New York, Washington and London, as well as a practice in China. The firm is a powerhouse when it comes to advising hi-tech and life 
sciences start-ups doing business in Israel, the US and China.

“We started our activity in China 17 years ago, when the business relationship between Israel and China wasn’t so clear, but even then we 
saw the major potential in the economic partnership between the two countries – one that today is quite clear,” Levi-Lati said. “There are more 
and more Israeli companies doing business in China, and vice versa as 
well, with Chinese investing in Israeli companies.”

As such, the firm is ideally situated to help Israeli start-ups and businesses break into the hard-to-penetrate Chinese market as well as secure Chinese investment for Israeli companies.

According to Levi-Lati, a decade ago the relationship was mostly one-directional, with Israeli companies trying to enter the Chinese market, so 
that money was only going into China via foreign direct investment.

“Today, the world is different and, with the launch of China’s Go Global reform, we’ve seen money coming out of China, with Chinese companies investing in Israel and bringing back Israeli tech to China,” she said.


Still, she added, there are a lot of limitations and restrictions for Israeli companies working within China. 

“In 2016, the Chinese tightened regulation, making it more difficult to do outbound investment; but China needs new technology, and so they began forming joint ventures – the new trend between Israel and China.”

According to Levi-Lati, joint ventures are a means for China to attract Israeli companies – the Chinese bring the money, and the Israeli companies bring the technology. 

“It’s the favorite structure for Chinese companies because the Chinese are able to bring tech back into China, and the money still stays in China. For the Israeli companies, it is more challenging, especially if they cannot secure also direct investment in their company, but they have an opening into the Chinese market,” she said. 

THE CHINESE market is notoriously difficult to penetrate, Levi-Lati explained. There are lots of barriers, and if companies want to enter the market independently, they need “deep pockets” and patience. “In the last few years, we have assisted a few Israeli biomedical companies to open their activity independently in China, and with the right guidance and with a long-term plan, it is successful.”

“Finding the right partner is very difficult, and one of the main problems in China is transparency, as is maintaining control in the business and dealing with cultural differences,” she said. “Partners are also customers, distributors or companies you cooperate with. This is where our law firm can assist, because we understand the culture and we can do due diligence, which is the most important thing in China.”

This past year alone, ZAG/Sullivan helped nearly a dozen Israeli companies penetrate the challenging Chinese market.
“We see big potential in China-Israel business relationships, and sometimes Israeli companies are hesitant to enter the Chinese market and to cooperate with Chinese investors; but China is a huge market, and even now, a company that wants to be global won’t be global unless they are in China,” she said. 

Many of these Israeli companies with global ambitions currently operate in the US. When asked if this presented a problem, given the ongoing trade war between the US and China, Levi-Lati explained that while the US-China relationship is complicated, Israeli companies have so far not been negatively affected.

“Because of the trade war, you see less Chinese investment in the US, but we are seeing more and more interest in China toward Israeli companies,” she said. “China sees Israel as a country of innovation.”

She added that recent years have also seen more and more direct flights from China to Israel. 

“You might not think this is a big deal, but you see a lot more Chinese delegations coming to Israel. Many come to Israel to window-shop, but you also see more and more Chinese investments in Israel as a result,” she said.

As such, she explained that while Israeli companies traditionally received funding from the US, today the trend is to go to China for funds.

“If you look at our clients alone, six years ago none had a Chinese investor, and today around 50% have Chinese investments,” she said. “The only problem is that Chinese investors prefer to invest in more mature companies and not in seed investments.”
Still, she said that while Israel has seen Chinese investments in a number of areas, including in infrastructure, there is currently great interest in big data, artificial intelligence and the biomedical industries. 

“China is always thinking long term. Sometimes you don’t understand their short-term aim, but it always makes sense in the long term,” she said.

“We see major potential for the Israel-China relationship, and it’s important that companies know how to take advantage of this growing partnership, using the right advisers to help them break into the country and to seek investments.”

This article was written in cooperation with ZAG/Sullivan International Law Firm.
........................................



The Israeli Spy Ring - Independence.NET


independence.net/amdocs/



"Israel does not spy on the United States of America." ... Prior to 9/11, the FBI had discovered the presence of a massive spy ring ... One of these companies is Amdocs, which provides billing and directory ... Two hours before the attacks on the World Trade Towers, Odigo employees ... Actually, burying it is a better word



Full text of "9-11 Cop Breaks Silence - Israeli Mossad Involvement in ...


https://archive.org/.../9-11CopBreaksSilence-IsraeliMossadInvolvementInAttacks/9-11...


Odigo was later bought up by another Israeli company called Comverse. ... 60 detained suspects worked for the Israeli company AMDOCS which provides ..... US government computer networks by a company called P- Tech, controlled by yet ..




Full text of "9-11 Cop Breaks Silence - Israeli Mossad Involvement in ...


https://archive.org/.../9-11CopBreaksSilence-IsraeliMossadInvolvementInAttacks/9-11...


Odigo was later bought up by another Israeli company called Comverse. ... 60 detained suspects worked for the Israeli company AMDOCS which provides ..... US government computer networks by a company called P- Tech, controlled by yet ..



Trump,Ivanka,Kushner,Mnuchin Treasury Use Opportunity Zone Law for poor communities to self deal and  enrich themselves



Trump, Kushner, LeFrak could potentially benefit from federal ...


https://www.nbcnews.com/...trump/trump-kushner-lefrak-could-potentially-benefit-fe...


Dec 12, 2018 - Trump, Kushner, LeFrak could potentially benefit from federal 'opportunity zones'. The “opportunity zone” program was meant to help “economically .... being generated by President Trump's economic policies," Mnuchin said.

Opportunity zone programs trigger controversy | McClatchy ...


https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/.../article223048210.html
Dec 14, 2018 - Republicans badly want to use Opportunity Zones to show voters they care about poor people. ... adviser Jared Kushner and Trump's close friend Richard LeFrak all had ... Ivanka Trump, another White House adviser and Kushner's wife, ... Hill meeting where Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was making ...

Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner could profit from Opportunity Zone tax ...


https://www.baltimoresun.com/.../bs-md-ivanka-trump-jared-kushner-opportunity-zon...


Dec 11, 2018 - The Opportunity Zone program promoted by Ivanka Trump and her husband ... Trumpand Kushner jointly own a big stake in a real estate investment .... but Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has estimated the zones would ...
Missing: LeFrak



LeFrak's Florida Solé Mia Is Headed for a Big Trump Tax Break ...


https://www.bloomberg.com/.../lefrak-s-florida-sol-mia-is-headed-for-a-big-trump-tax...


Apr 12, 2019 - A trailer park that helped the site qualify as an opportunity zone may gain ... Mnuchin, there to explain a key piece of President Donald Trump's ...


Steve Wynn Met With Treasury Officials About Opportunity Zones After ...


https://www.businessbreakingnews.net › Business


Mar 14, 2019 - Steve Wynn Met With Treasury Officials About Opportunity Zones After Stock Sale ... Mr. Mnuchin stopped by the meeting to greet Mr. Wynn, according to a copy of the ... Trump, Kushner, LeFrak could potentially benefit from federal 'opportunity ... Russia-born executive to testify about Trump Moscow project ..

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-kushner-lefrak-could-potentially-benefit-federal-opportunity-zones-n946821

Trump, Kushner, LeFrak could potentially benefit from federal 'opportunity zones'
The “opportunity zone” program was meant to help “economically distressed” areas — but some zones include affluent neighborhoods.















By Laura Strickler and Stephanie Ruhle

WASHINGTON — The Trump Organization, the family real estate interests of presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump friend Richard LeFrak, a New York developer, could all benefit from a new federal program that has designated "opportunity zones" in "economically distressed" areas around the country and offers tax benefits for developers.
Kushner's family already owned real estate on the Jersey Shore, but spent an extra $13.15 million in Long Branch after the area was deemed an opportunity zone by the Treasury Department in April according to Bloomberg News. The Trump Organization was already planning a hotel redevelopment in Greenville, Mississippi, with a partner, but that project is in an area that was declared an opportunity zone in April and could now be eligible for the tax break.
The Trump Organization's partner in Mississippi, Suresh Chawla, told NBC News his firm was unaware of the designation and not planning to participate.







00:00 /00:00

Financial disclosures and a critical judge raise new questions surrounding Trump hotel

JUNE 13, 201805:39

Kushner also has existing properties in two Maryland opportunity zones, while the Trump Organization owns a New Jersey golf course inside another. Kushner's family company and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.
Richard LeFrak has a $4 billion, 183-acre massive development called SoLe Mia in North Miami that is now right in the middle of a zone. As a new project it could also qualify. Lefrak's spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. LeFrak is a longtime associate of Trump's who has spent time with him at Mar-a-Lago. According to the New York Times, Trump asked LeFrak to build the border wall.
President Donald Trump will tout the program in an event to be held at the White House Wednesday.
The program, created by the 2017 tax bill and run by the Treasury Department, allowed state governors latitude to name 8,700 areas as opportunity zones. All the zones were certified by Treasury in April 2018. The excitement in the investor community has been balanced by a growing unease among housing and economic development experts that the program lacks government oversight.
A White House spokesperson told NBC News that reporting requirements are a work in progress. The spokesperson said a new council headed by HUD Secretary Ben Carson will determine “what data and by what means it can be collected and analyzed to measure the success of Opportunity Zones.”







Image: Donald Trump, Karen LeFrak, Melania Trump and Richard LeFrak attend an American Ballet Theatre event in New York in 2007.
Donald Trump, Karen LeFrak, Melania Trump and Richard LeFrak attend an American Ballet Theatre event in New York in 2007.Joe Schildhorn / Patrick McMullan via Getty Image

For its part, the Chamber of Commerce has been enthusiastic about the program, "This program is another way tax reform delivered on its promise to create jobs and improve lives for all Americans," said Chamber Vice President Caroline Harris in an emailed statement to NBC News. "The Chamber is strongly encouraged by recent regulatory guidance and looks forward to continue working with Treasury to maximize economic growth potential from this initiative."
Now that Treasury has certified the zones, developers are encouraged to plow their capital gains into those neighborhoods. Investors pay reduced rates on capital gains invested in the zones, and can qualify to have capital gains realized within the zones exempt from taxes altogether.
Real estate experts are already seeing a bump in some property values.







Image: Dumbo neighborhood, Brooklyn
A cashmere pop-up store in the Brooklyn DUMBO neighborhood designated as an "economically distressed" opportunity zone by the U.S. Treasury.Hannah Rappleye / NBC News

Critics have noted that some of the designated zones were already on the upswing, and they say a generous program meant to steer billions to low-income neighborhoods might instead concentrate investments in gentrifying communities like Brooklyn and Miami.
For example, a two-bedroom condo in Brooklyn Heights with a private garden selling for more than $700,000 is in a zone and — according to the Treasury — in an "economically distressed" community. The median home sale price in Brooklyn Heights, which is one subway stop from Manhattan's Financial District, is now more than $2.3 million, according to Trulia.
The tax legislation said that only census tracts with poverty rates at 20 percent or above could qualify. But almost a fifth of the zones were certified by the Treasury Department through provisions that allowed wealthier zones to be designated, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution.
As a result, some zones are in places not usually associated with the phrase "economically distressed," such as downtown Charleston, South Carolina, or a zone in West Palm Beach.
The latest figures show $15 billion in new investments is already anticipated.
"I think the whole thing is painting a picture of a program which will benefit areas that are already attracting investment capital," said Jim Costello, an economist for Real Capital Analytics, a firm that has run a baseline analysis on existing development in the zones.
The zones were chosen by state governors with wide discretion. Only 25 percent of eligible zones got the nod. For example, in Kentucky seven of the 18 poorest census tracts in Louisville were not chosen, according to Tim Weaver, an assistant professor at SUNY Albany who wrote a book on the effectiveness of Empowerment and Enterprise Zones.







Work continues on a new section of the Pier Village development in Long Branch, New Jersey, on March 5, 2018. The federal government has been advising on plans to start a ferry service that would take New Yorkers to a resort co-owned by Jared Kushner.,Seth Wenig / AP file

"If the key goal was to reduce poverty this was not the proper vehicle," said Weaver. "It's like opening a fancy restaurant and giving the leftovers to the poor."
The Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development shared a statement with NBC News saying to select their state's zones they used a mapping tool and formally invited input from local stakeholders for consideration.
In Maryland, a spokesperson for Gov. Larry Hogan said the governor's office received suggestions from 12 counties as well as local officials and developers. The spokesperson said all of the state's zones are low-income.
In New Jersey, "the selection of the zones was done through an objective, transparent and rigorous process based on a formula," said a spokesperson for Gov. Phil Murphy, adding that the governor's office weighed income, unemployment rates and existing neighborhood investments.







A street in downtown Greenville, Mississippi, where the Trump Organization is planning hotel redevelopment, on Sept. 25, 2017.Lee Powell / The Washington Post via Getty Images

Current property owners in zones might also see a boost in property values, "The owners of these assets might see a bit of a windfall even if they do not go through the whole process to redevelop and deploy capital from a qualified fund themselves," says Costello. "Suddenly the assets may look a little more valuable given the fact that there are more potential buyers looking at these areas."
The Kushner family and the Trump Organization can't take direct advantage of the tax break for the properties they owned in New Jersey and Maryland before the tax bill passed. However, if they had pre-existing permits to build a new development on the property, then they could start an opportunity zone fund to build and operate the building and that structure could qualify, according to tax experts.
For outside investors, property inside the zones may become more attractive.
For example, an investor could build a new restaurant on Trump's golf course as a separate business and that could qualify.
"This is a way to avoid having to ever recognize gain on an accretion of wealth," said Jay Darby, a tax expert from the Sullivan and Worcester law firm, at an investor forum. "It's a huge deal. It's not a big deal, it's a huge deal."
The legislation includes no guarantees that the investments will benefit the community. For example, Adam Looney, a senior fellow in economic studies at Brookings, says the rules would permit an investor to buy 500 acres that had an outhouse on it, double the value of the outhouse and thus qualify the investment as a tax shelter.







Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia in Pine Hill, New Jersey.Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia

Critics say program lacks reporting requirements


For their part, Trump administration officials are maintaining extreme optimism.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin expects $100 billion in new investments, according to an agency press release. "We want all Americans to experience the dynamic opportunities being generated by President Trump's economic policies," Mnuchin said.
HUD Secretary Carson is so confident he often raises the opportunity zone program as a solution to the affordable housing crisis.
At a March hearing, when Carson was asked about a lack of ongoing repairs to crumbling public housing, he responded by talking about the tax benefit. "You are able to actually pool this capital and that will work extremely well," he said. "And we will already be involved in HUD with many of these redevelopment programs and will be able to guide that funding."
But there's no indication the government will collect or publish who is investing, what kind of investments are taking place or who the program will impact, according to the Treasury Department, the legislation does not require it.







Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson stands in an empty apartment in a HUD funded complex in Aurora, Colorado, on July 30, 2018. Carson visited the area to discuss the opportunity zones created by a Trump administration tax bill to spur investment in the area.Philip B. Poston / AP file

"I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude," said Terry Beach, economic development director for St. Clair County, Illinois, which includes the economically depressed city of East St. Louis. Zones in his county will compete with zones in neighborhoods in Los Angeles and New York. Beach said he recently met with a White House staffer to pitch ideas as to how the program could benefit residents who live in the zones as well as the businesses who invest.
Some low-income housing advocates are doubtful, "Unless the Treasury Department quickly establishes regulatory guardrails, there is no guarantee that low-income people will benefit in any significant way — if at all — from opportunity zones," said Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Sen. Cory Booker, D.-N.J., says the bill was supposed to have reporting requirements.
Booker wrote the original bill with Sen. Tim Scott, R.-S.C., which called for annual data to be collected on the program starting five years after the bill passed.
"As a result of the rushed partisan process to pass the Republican tax bill last December, critical safeguards included in the underlying legislation were dropped," the senator said in a statement emailed to NBC News. "Now [the Treasury Department] must restore and expand upon those guardrails and transparency measures included in the underlying legislation. … [W]e need some basic levels of transparency and reporting."
Treasury is expected to propose a second set of regulations in the coming months.
A Treasury official tells NBC News that a regulatory hearing on the program is planned for Jan. 10. "We will carry out the same careful and expeditious process for the second set of proposed regulations," said the official.







An "economically distressed" neighborhood in Brooklyn according to the US Treasury where a 2-bedroom condo is $700,000.Hannah Rappleye / NBC News

But Booker is not confident Treasury will put the reporting requirement back in and if Treasury doesn't act, he says he will introduce legislation to fix the bill.
Tax lawyers have already found a workaround to one of the program's few restrictions.
The bill rules out "sin" businesses like liquor stores, massage parlors and tanning salons but according to tax experts, there's currently nothing to stop an investor from building or renovating a structure and renting to those businesses. That means a low-income neighborhood chosen as a zone could now be dotted with a new smattering of undesirable storefronts.
"These funds should be accountable for what happens in these communities," said Lori Chatman, senior executive vice president of Enterprise Community Investment, a developer of affordable housing. "We are giving up something as taxpayers — we feel like we should have the benefit of understanding how communities are benefiting from that and right now there is no reporting."
A White House spokesperson told NBC News, "Treasury and the White House are still working through all the implementing regulations for Opportunity Zones. We understand the intent of the legislation and will continue to work through these types of details."
The governor of Mississippi did not respond to requests for comment.

Posted by Tony Ryals at 9:07 PM No comments:
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Tony Ryals
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