Posted on 09/01/2009 5:00:14 AM PDT by cll
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.
With little fanfare, a deal is moving forward to direct billions in U.S. tax dollars to an unlikely beneficiary -- the giant British liquor producer that makes Captain Morgan rum.
Under the agreement, London-based Diageo PLC will receive tax credits and other benefits worth $2.7 billion over 30 years, including the entire $165 million cost of building a state-of-the-art distillery on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Virgin Islands officials say the arrangement complies with the letter and spirit of tax law and will help the islands' sagging economy. The islands are a U.S. territory.
Captain Morgan is now produced in Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, and critics say the subsidy for the new distillery in the Virgin Islands, along with the other benefits, are so generous that they practically guarantee a profit on every gallon of rum produced there by Diageo, the biggest distilled spirits maker in the world.
~ snip ~
With the exception of Ellis and a handful of lawmakers, however, the deal has attracted little opposition in Congress or elsewhere. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said he does not have authority to block or investigate the project. Criticism on the Hill has been confined to a small group that includes Republican Reps. Dan Burton of Indiana and Darrell Issa of California, plus a handful of Democrats with large Puerto Rican constituencies.
The key to the deal is a special tax collected on every bottle of rum sold in the United States -- some $470 million a year. The tax was first imposed in 1917, and most of the money is funneled back to the governments of rum-producing U.S. territories in the Caribbean to help create jobs, pay for local government services and promote consumption of rum.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Finally a good waste of money.
“Virgin Islands officials say the arrangement complies with the letter and spirit of tax law and will help the islands’ sagging economy. The islands are a U.S. territory.”
So let me get this straight, the US government is acknowledging that tax credits (tax cuts, tax reductions) HELP the economy, and that they don’t really NEED that tax revenue?
Well, let the tax-cutting begin within our own borders.
Any word from Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi (an Obama supporter)?
He made a lame attempt to try and reverse the decision but by then it was too late.
This is no different from what we have on the mainland (ie states providing tax credits and facilities to snag away a large employer from another state). Since St. Croix is so close to PR, it will be easy to bring supervisory employees over.
Despite the fact that I used to get Captain Morgan for free, I much prefer Demerara from Guyana (which is very difficult to find, even in NYC), but use my Cuban-Puerto Rican buddy Ron Bacardi when I am mixing Cuba Libres (Caribbean Club works well too, but it is illegal).
“Derelict”
Robert Louis Stevenson and Young E. Allison
Verse 1.
Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
The mate was fixed by the bosun’s pike
The bosun brained with a marlinspike
And cookey’s throat was marked belike
It had been gripped by fingers ten;
And there they lay, all good dead men
Like break o’day in a boozing ken
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
Verse 2.
Fifteen men of the whole ship’s list
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Dead and bedamned and the rest gone whist!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
The skipper lay with his nob in gore
Where the scullion’s axe his cheek had shore
And the scullion he was stabbed four times four
And there they lay, and the soggy skies
Dripped down in up-staring eyes
In murk sunset and foul sunrise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
Verse 3.
Fifteen men of ‘em stiff and stark
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Ten of the crew had the murder mark!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers’ glut with a rotting red
And there they lay, aye, damn my eyes
All lookouts clapped on paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
Verse 4.
Fifteen men of ‘em good and true
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Ev’ry man jack could ha’ sailed with Old Pew,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
There was chest on chest of Spanish gold
With a ton of plate in the middle hold
And the cabins riot of stuff untold,
And they lay there that took the plum
With sightless glare and their lips struck dumb
While we shared all by the rule of thumb,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Verse 5.
More was seen through a sternlight screen...
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Chartings undoubt where a woman had been
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
‘Twas a flimsy shift on a bunker cot
With a dirk slit sheer through the bosom spot
And the lace stiff dry in a purplish blot
Oh was she wench or some shudderin’ maid
That dared the knife and took the blade
By God! she had stuff for a plucky jade
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
Verse 6.
Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
We wrapped ‘em all in a mains’l tight
With twice ten turns of a hawser’s bight
And we heaved ‘em over and out of sight,
With a Yo-Heave-Ho! and a fare-you-well
And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
No more Captain Morgan for me.
Don Q Cristal is the best rum by far.
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