If the Romney campaign thought that their Vice-Presidential selection would take the heat off their candidate’s refusal to release more than two years of tax returns, that was laid to rest when Bob Schieffer asked Paul Ryan last night on 60 Minutes how many years of tax returns he had to give to the campaign. “Several years” was the reply, followed by the statement that he would only release two years. And Mitt would pay less than 1% in taxes under Ryan’s tax plan.

We have plenty of evidence that governments are afraid of bond markets. In the US, fears of the retaliation of the bond market have driven the fiscal policy of both parties. And the amount of money traded in bond markets is enough to overwhelm weak governments and seriously affect even stronger ones.

Informed speculation suggests a whole lot of reasons to demand Romney’s tax returns for a number of years. Maybe his wife won’t let him?

There is a part of me that wishes that the drip drip drip of tales of Mitt Romney’s American Workers Trail of Tears for had started trickling out after the late August Republican nominating convention because . . .

You remember Christine Lagarde said she didn’t sympathize with Greeks as much as she did, say, African children, because Greeks got themselves into their own mess by not paying their taxes. That’s true more for the rich in Greece than the poor, who are bearing the brunt of the suffering during the depression, however. But it appeared to be an unnecessarily cruel thing to say, as evidenced by Lagarde walking back the comments on Facebook after making them. Turns out she doesn’t pay taxes.

In his continuing quest for intelligent life and hope, our intrepid reporter scans the universe for links to stories of interest, including Bank of America, David Brooks, Heartland Institute, fiscal cliff, gas prices, tax evasion, fracking regulations, Greece, marriage equality, underwear bombs, crazy Kansas or Sasha Boron Cohen and worse.

Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), a Hong Kong-based group, reports that Apple’s major manufacturing contractors in Asia routinely subject employees to forced overtime, wage theft and no breaks — and even unprotected exposure to toxins.

It takes the offer of amnesty to get rich people to reveal their offshore bank accounts. Finally, after years of neglect, the IRS has actually bothered to look into all this. But they had to assure the oligarchs that they wouldn’t be prosecuted for tax evasion, of course.

I agree that any serious deficit reduction plan should include an increase to the IRS budget. But there’s a way to get to this level of revenue without hoping that every tax cheat gets caught, and it’s pretty simple: let the Bush tax cuts expire.

Sarah Palin is a hypocrite? Say it ain’t so!