wealth – mackaycartoons

Friday November 17, 2017

November 16, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 17, 2017

Da Vinci painting sells for $450 million, shattering auction records

After 19 minutes of dueling, with four bidders on the telephone and one in the room, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” sold Wednesday night for $450.3 million U.S., or $575 million Canadian, with fees, shattering the high for any work of art sold at auction. It far surpassed Picasso’s “Women of Algiers,” which fetched $179.4 million (U.S.) at Christie’s in May 2015.

August 25, 2012

The buyer was not immediately disclosed.

There were gasps throughout the sale, as the bids climbed by 10s up to $225 million, then by 5s up to $260 million, then by 2s. As the bidding slowed, and a buyer pondered the next multimillion-dollar increment, Jussi Pylkkanen, the auctioneer, said, “It’s a historic moment: We’ll wait.”

There were two big jumps toward the end to shake off the competition by Alex Rotter, Christie’s chairman of postwar and contemporary art for the Americas, who represented a buyer on the phone.

The price is all the more remarkable at a time when the old masters market is contracting, because of limited supply and collectors’ penchant for contemporary art.

And to critics, the astronomical sale attests to something else — the degree to which salesmanship has come to drive and dominate the conversation about art and its value. Some art experts pointed to the painting’s damaged condition and its questionable authenticity. (Source: Toronto Star)

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Tuesday November 7, 2017

November 6, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 7, 2017

Paradise Papers Are Another Hit to Justin Trudeau’s ‘Middle Class’ Agenda

There is a storm blowing in from Paradise. Documents leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reaffirmed what most of us already at least suspected: that the wealthiest among us have an elaborate shadow network of financial infrastructure in offshore tax havens to skimp taxes in their home countries. In short, rich people are playing by different rules.

September 22, 2017

The Paradise Papers are noteworthy for two reasons. The first is the magnitude. The leaked documents come from offshore tax firm Appleby, corporate service providers Estera and Asiaciti Trust, and business registries of 19 tax jurisdictions. They concern about $10 trillion (USD) overall, which is quite a lot of money considering that total gross world production for 2014 was about $78 trillion. We are talking about the global high rollers table here.

The second is that they meet CanCon requirements. Over 3,000 Canadians were named in the leaks, and some of them have connections to the commanding heights of the House of Commons. Even our beloved head of state Elizabeth II was named in the papers. Her Majesty’s estate has millions of pounds tied up in a rent-to-buy retailer accused of preying on the poor, which is a shock because the hyperexploitation of unlanded labourers is not something you associate with a feudal monarch.

April 6, 2016

The real meat of the report is how many of our former prime ministers are enmeshed in the financial heart of darkness. Leaked memos reveal Paul Martin’s former company Canada Steamship Lines is one of Appleby’s biggest clients, and Jean Chretien is listed as the owner of 100,000 stock options in an East African oil company ever having a bank account outside of Canada, and says he doesn’t know about the stock options.) And lest anyone suggest this was a Liberal family affair, it turns out that Brian Mulroney sat on the board of the company that facilitated the largest arms deal in British history to Saudi Arabia.

Juicier still than the has-beens on the list is the revelation that Liberal fundraising bigwig Stephen Bronfman has not only amassed nearly $60 million in a shadowy offshore tax haven, and that the law firm representing Bronfman had been instrumental in lobbying the Canadian government against cracking down on overseas tax evasion. Coming on the heels of two months of a taxation trainwreck—and a grueling few weeks exposing just how comfortable Justin Trudeau is with plutocracy—this is not a good look for the prime minister. Again, we reiterate: the optics certainly make it look like the extremely rich people around the federal cabinet table don’t actually have the best interests of the “middle class” at heart. (Source: Vice)

Saturday October 21, 2017

October 20, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 21, 2017

Bill Morneau bristles at questions about personal finances

Finance Minister Bill Morneau dodged questions about his use of numbered companies to hold investments Friday, suggesting he does not have to defend his personal financial choices to journalists.

September 22, 2017

After a week of questions about his own fortune, Morneau showed signs of exasperation during an event in Waterloo, Ont., where he was pitching the government’s “step back” on proposed changes to the small business tax regime.

Morneau batted away a question about why he held some of his investments in an Alberta company rather than one domiciled in Ontario, where he lives.

“So, is the question why are they numbered companies and they don’t have names?” he said with a shrug.

“Seriously, what I’ve done is expose all my assets to the ethics commissioner. The process we have in our country isn’t that I report to journalists on my personal situation. It’s that I report to the ethics commissioner and I make sure she fully understands my situation so we can get to the recommendations.”

Owning investments in a personal holding company can provide various tax and non-tax benefits. Income in an operating company can face a lower tax rate by using small business deductions, for example.

Morneau said he has now agreed to do more than what the commissioner, Mary Dawson, recommended he do when he took office.

Morneau did not place his considerable holdings in a family company — the publicly traded human resources firm Morneau Shepell — in a blind trust because Dawson had only recommended the creation of an “ethical screen” to ensure he wasn’t making policy decisions to his own financial benefit. The screen was to be administered by Morneau’s chief of staff. (Source: CBC News)

Letter to the Editor

One-sided cartoon unfair to Morneau

RE: Oct. editorial cartoon

This amusing cartoon, portraying our finance minister doing hoops for his salvation from not putting his family business in trust, is surely very one sided.

He originally sought the advice of our ethics commissioner, who told him that it was not a necessity for him to do so. Now that he is trying to rectify his “mistake” he is subjected to much scorn by the opposition parties.

A cheering Justin Trudeau reminds me that it is hard to recall one MacKay cartoon with something positive about our PM.

A bigger concern is the lack of media support for left-wing Canada. It is easy to list six families/corporations who own the majority of our major print and broadcast media and are all supporters of the Conservatives. Even the CBC, with its president and eight Harper-appointed directors, too often follows suit.

The Star and Spectator used to provide regular support but these days, I find that to be hit and miss. All issues should be subject to scrutiny but it would be refreshing to have more balance.

Richard Ring, Grimsby

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Friday September 22, 2017

September 21, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 22, 2017

Bill Morneau, Justin Trudeau left untouched by proposed new tax rules

The proposed new small business tax changes do not impact family trusts or numbered companies, used by Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to shield their family’s vast fortunes.

April 6, 2016

Trudeau’s personal wealth, which was inherited from his father, is held in numbered corporations. And Morneau has money in a family trust and numbered corporations.

The NDP took direct aim at Morneau who argued that the Liberals are going after wealthy people who try to use small-business structures to avoid paying taxes, but would not respond to questions about his family businesses and why the new rules leave out the sheltering of funds for both Trudeau and himself.

April 5, 2016

Morneau is the beneficiary of a number of Canadian companies on one hand, and on the other states “we also want to make sure that we do not have a situation where some people that are, frankly, very well compensated, pay a lower tax rate than others,” said Trudeau. (Source: Global News)

Framing Canadian tax reform: https://t.co/1pkIaAjt6f #cdnpoli #TaxFairness pic.twitter.com/MyWwihtqMX

— Graeme MacKay (@mackaycartoons) September 21, 2017

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Saturday October 29, 2016

October 28, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 29, 2016

‘Pretty Good Rich Kids’: Reaching the OHL takes more than talent

What does it take to make it to the Ontario Hockey League?

Skill? Certainly. Speed? Sure. Strength? No question.

November 28, 2007

But it also takes something else — something over and above raw talent and physicality. To make it to the OHL, you also need a winning ticket in the lottery of birth.

A year-long Spectator investigation finds a highly significant number of the league’s Ontario-raised players are from suburban neighbourhoods where most people are well-educated, earn high incomes and live in expensive homes.

The odds of them crossing paths with someone living in poverty are extremely low.

For anyone familiar with the extraordinary cost of playing hockey in Ontario — $15,000-or-so annually for an elite AAA player and getting higher — this won’t come as a shock. If you want to be the next Sidney Crosby, says Wilfrid Laurier University’s William McTeer, “the first question you have to ask is how much money do your parents have and are they prepared to invest in your future as an athlete.”

But cost isn’t the only thing keeping children in Hamilton and across Ontario out of the game.

Several factors, including geography, public policy and the funding mechanisms of non-profits, are making it increasingly difficult for low- and middle-income families to access the sport, particularly at competitive levels.

“I think it’s tragic,” says Philip White, a sport sociologist at McMaster University. “You live in a culture where everybody is supposed to have an opportunity to advance and kids are simply shut out.”

Our analysis is grounded in data. Stick with us while we get the heavy stuff out of the way. (Continued: Hamilton Spectator)