Maybe we’ll see him retroactively decline the nomination on or about October 29th…
You know, Sarah Palin is waiting in the wings for just this to happen.
Not even retroactively? 
maybe he turned himself in during the 2009 amnesty.
I personally think Krugman is a fool, and that Romney’s nondisclosure is based on the idea that it’s nobody else’s business what his finances are.
Good luck peddling that idea to the electorate. It’s none of our business until you start asking for our votes.
If anyone’s wondering what this means:
Romney is not necessarily hiding anything criminal or “immoral”, but more likely legal stuff that is nevertheless embarassing and puts him in a bad light.
Like for instance having it come out that some of his top campaign donors are from the poorly regulated supplement industry, who are facing the potential for more effective government regulation.*
Of course, the $4.5 million they’ve funneled his way has nothing to do with any quid pro quo.
*Having Romney on board, in addition to Senate allies like Orrin Hatch and Tom Harkin would be quite beneficial in blocking nasty new regulations aimed at showing “nutritional supplements” are safe and effective.
He can’t simultaneously argue “it’s none of the public’s business” and “we’ve released more information than we were required to.” Even if he believes deep down in his core that this is nobody’s business, he wants very badly to be president - as any candidate does - and it’s hard to imagine his commitment to that principle outweighs the damage this is is doing to his image. It’s more likely he thinks that there is some stuff in the tax returns that his campaign believes will look really bad, and that they think disclosing those things would be worse than this bad publicity and the attack ads present and future. I doubt he’s done anything flat-out illegal, although it does sound like he gamed the system with regard to his residency, and that might be exactly the problem: it’s not illegal but it probably looks bad for him and it looks bad that it’s legal. They’re trying hard to change the subject, but it’s not working, and this is going to be all over the place in September and October.
How quaint. I’m sure similar voices are lighting up the telegraph lines all around the US. You want to have the most powerful job in the world? Then you need to reveal just who is buttering your bread and who stands to gain from your election. You want to campaign on your career in business? Then you need to show us just how you made your money. You want to be in a position to propose changes to the tax code? Then we need to be able to see if you’re acting in your own self interest.
I think Krugman may also be saying that Romney is concerned that revealing his tax and other financial information may change the debate from “should taxes for high income earners be reduced” to “should loopholes for high earners be closed”.
Relevant here, and also further evidence that everything Rmoney says in this election he’s said the opposite in the past: In 1994, Romney called on Ted Kennedy to release his tax returns to show he had nothing to hide.
“FBAR Reports?” Heh. That’s too easy.
You can disagree with his politics, but there is no way you can call the man a fool, not without calling 99.99% of the human population fools.
Speaking of disagreeing with his politics, I took a class from him at one point and would have characterized him as a moderate conservative at the time. I think Bush changed him.
probably just immorality, since in an age (like most others) where the laws are written by immoral men for their own benefit and the benefit of them that brought them it’s not particularly hard to do immoral things while following the letter of the law. I’m sure the guy has done plenty of illegal things as anyone making that kind of money inevitably has done. But were talking corporate crime, the kind of crimes that don’t get prosecuted. You know, union suppression, price fixing, insider trading, industrial espionage, epa violations, fraud, failure to alert the public of imminent harm from products and practices you are responsible for ect.
Voluntary trade is usually defined as the mutual exchange of two things of equal value. The exchange value remains the same during the trade (barring extraneous variables), but an item’s use value changes depending on it’s possessor.
As I suspected, you’re ignorant of the subjunctive.
Whence private property?
This has probably been mentioned already, and Krugman in fact did mention how when Romney Senior ran for office he disclosed 12 years worth of returns.
I don’t think Romney is hiding anything illegal, but whatever he is hiding will make him look extremely bad and likely torpedo his Presidential ambitions. The more he denies it, the worse he looks. Furchrissakes, you don’t run for President if you’re worried about your privacy and being put under the microsope.
How likely is it that the Obama administration actually has seen Romney’s tax returns, and this is why they are pushing so hard? I mean how hard would it be for them to get ahold of?
I was thinking of asking the same thing. It’s not impossible, right?
If he doesn’t want his money-managing techniques to be any of my business, he doesn’t get to ask me to hire him for the job of managing the nation’s affairs.