Monthly Archives: May 2013

linkedpeter

logo

A damn hipstery video explaining the role of Linked Finance, a facilitator and playa in the growing Irish crowd-funding sector.

The Dublin-based firm holds online auctions that allow people to “register their interest, pledge the amount of money they want to lend and the rate of interest they expect in return”.

There’s got to be a catch.

Peter O’Mahony of Linked Finance writes

Our technology offers a new and painless way for businesses to borrow money from a large group of real people, including their own customers.. Lenders can invest as little as €50 or as much as €2000 in any one project so everyone can get involved and help get funding back into businesses in ireland, while making themselves a return of between 5-15%’.

Hmm.

Crowd Funding provides complete transparency to both the lender and borrower and it brings lending back to basics where a lender simply deposits funds and when there are enough funds available loans can be made to credit worthy borrowers.

OK.

There are no complicated financial instruments or subprime lending. LinkedFinance takes no part in the funding and does not leverage the debt. We are simply a facilitator who puts people with disposable funds in contact with people in need of funds to run or develop their business. At its heart is the community.

There MUST be a catch.

Anyone??

LinkedFinance

00127288This time?

Business folk.

Former taoiseach John Bruton (above), chairman of the IFSC, co-authored an article in today’s Wall Street Journal defending Ireland’s loosey goosey corporate tax arrangements.

It’s had them laughing in trading floors and offices from here to Bermuda (via the Netherlands).

A flava:

…global tax principles are very clear. If there are no profits in a country on which to pay tax, you do not have to pay. In the same way, if an American had bought a product 30 years ago by mail order from Ireland, the Irish company would not have incurred U.S. corporate tax on the profit from that sale.
The same principles apply in almost every developed country: The profits lie where the activities, functions, risks and assets are located, and that profit must be commensurate with those activities. This is an accepted global concept.
Another problem is the complexity of the 74,000-page, four-million-word U.S. tax code. According to the PwC/World Bank’s “Doing Business 2013” report, the U.S. ranks 69th in the world in ease of paying taxes, while Ireland ranks sixth.
…Multinational companies typically set up in Ireland for a number of reasons. Granted, the tax certainty around Ireland’s 12.5% corporate tax rate is a consideration.
But Ireland’s young, adaptable and well-educated workforce is probably its single biggest attraction.

 

Adaptable, eh?

Don’t Blame Ireland for America’s Tax Blunders (John Bruton and Kevin Murphy, Wall Street Journal)

(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)

machete

What you may need to know:

1. The first Machete (2010) was a movie based upon a fake trailer inserted between ill-fated Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez mash-up Grindhouse (2007).

2. Guess what? Machete the movie wasn’t half as good as the trailer, to say the least. That said, Don Johnson was pretty awesome.

3. Rodriguez only co-directed the first Machete (2010) – wisely, he’s solo in the driving seat for the sequel. He’s also done a Sin City (2005) sequel, due later this year. Hopefully he’s got his mojo back after that horrible Spy Kids reboot.

4. Danny Trejo, who plays Machete, is 69 years old. We still wouldn’t mess with him.

5. Steven Seagal was the baddie last time out. This time, they’ve got downmarket and hired Mel ‘Sugar Tits’ Gibson. Lady Gaga makes her ‘acting’ debut. Charlie Sheen plays the US president. What is this? TMZ: The Movie?

Release Date: September