How To Ruin The Job Creators

The President-elect ran a campaign determined to mine enthusiasm for raising the top marginal tax rate from 35% to 39%.  The GOP has assured us that such behavior will mean economic Armageddon through the ruination of the people who "create" jobs.  Some sort of magic occurs at 35%.

I do not and no one I know hires a fourth person to do three people's work, that is just stupid.  Everyone I know of that hires people hires someone because three people can't do four people's work, which means that there is that much demand for the product.  If you're going to follow along on this "job creators" theme you're either telling people that rich people having some more money means they will gratuitously hire or that they spend enough money in the market place to drive that kind of demand.  I think we've dealt with the gratuitous hiring part but the demand part is ought to be as easy, 2% of the taxpayers do not buy all that much of anything (well, most yachts).

So what is the real impact?  Let's start with what marginal rate means - anything above an amount.  So, $250,000, after deductions, is taxed at the previous rates and anything above gets hit.  This would mean that of $260,000 after deductions $10,000 would be taxed at 39%.  Follow along, 10,000 x 0.39 is 3,900 and 10,000 x 0.35 is 3500 which is a grand total of another $400.  Holy shit, your taxes on Adjusted Gross Income of $260,000 will go up $400 and with that you will buy... what?  OK, sure we all know this is more about millionaires than than that 250K bunch so here's that number (assuming - ridiculously - that you somehow have $1M in ordinary income) $750,000.  Alrighty, more simple damn math: 750,000 x 0.39 is 292,500 and 750,000 x 0.35 is 262,500 so your 750K costs you $30,000 more.  That will buy one car that these people won't be seen driving or at the Federal Minimum Wage of $7.25 earning you $1580 at 40 hours for 52 weeks a whole $15,080, just less than two jobs washing the cars they actually would buy.  (no, we're not talking take-home pay)  Why does that millionaire need two additional minimum workers?  Nobody will tell you, they just squeal "job creators."

If people don't have goddam money they don't spend it on products and services.  Those people are called consumers and they produce jobs by consuming.  If 80% of the consumers are competing for 7% of the wealth there isn't going to be a lot of consuming going on out of that share.  What is actually the case is that the "job creators" are destroying jobs by sucking every last cent out of the economy.  It isn't the conservatives' bug-a-boo government that is sucking the life out of the economy, it is their protected class that is doing it.  It is real damn simple - the money is not moving around in the economy.

You can feel free to call it socialism, communism, or "punishing success" to advocate using the one tool the governement has at hand to change economic behavior, taxation, to address this concentration of wealth - but real simply, capitalism can't survive under the current conditions.  Most of the country can do pretty well under capitalism, those who can't can be addressed with an adequate safety-net, but we have today the Reaganism version of capitalism to live with and it ain't working.  Welcome to The Gilded Age aka Robber Baron Era.

People have serious doubts that the President can stick to his 39% rate which will do spit to address the problem and are worried about the safety-net...  Christ on a pogo stick.  Liberals seem to think this recent election did more than stave off absolute disaster.  Can this nation get any stupider about its plutocrat enabling?

The short answer, of course, is - Yes.

Mitt Ain't Like Most Of Us - Fortunately

Mitt leaves the podium after speaking about the Consulate killings in Benghazi

I'd say there is something wrong with the expression on the face of a man who'd just finished lying about the deaths of Americans in the service of their country - whatever political advantage he figured he'd just gotten over... that black guy in his White House.  I've read all sorts of reactions that involve all kinds of pyscho-babble trying to establish just what kind of... asshole he is.

I've said it before and I'll repeat myself - The Deal is all that counts; truth, honor, and decency toward your fellows are immaterial in service to The Deal.  You little people don't get it - YOU DO NOT COUNT, you are simply the capital to be accrued and spent in service to the ends of The Deal.  There is no need for complicated analysis of the man's psyche - he figures he's a shark in a pool of minnows that don't even qualify as bait.  Anne supposedly asked him if he could save the nation - no such thing is going on; this is the BIG DEAL.  He's made more money than Daddy, he's made and broken more companies than Daddy, now he wants the big prize that Daddy couldn't get (and Daddy couldn't get it because he counted those things called truth, honor, and decency).  r-Money learned the lesson and the rest of us may just get to find out what that means if he can play enough marked cards.

Small Minded Tax Thing

Mitt just told you today that not only is it none of you people's business what is in his tax returns but that you're small minded to be concerned with it in the face of millions unemployed, nuclear Iran, and one out of six in poverty.  Now it may have escaped somebody's notice that R-money has stated unequivocally that the fix to this broken economy is the tax code.

His solution involves slashing corporate tax rates, capital gains taxes, and taxes on "the job creators."  These would all be R-money.  How odd that any one of you small minded little people would think that R-money's experience with the IRS has validity.  This is a matter that should be sorted out in quiet rooms with serious important people.  He'll do something about tax deductions, but not in front of any of you and certainly you have no real interest in knowing how People Like Him deal with a tax burden and deductions.

Now he did state that he'd never paid less than 13% in taxes because he'd gone back and looked at them.  Gone back and looked at them, so you should just trust him.  If that stretches your credibility a bit you could be forgiven.  You could especially be forgiven in light of the blatant lies the R-money campaign has promoted like, "you didn't build that," or maybe "just collect your welfare check," or "cut $716B from Medicare," or "appologized for America," or "Churchill bust."  No, you should just trust him because as Ann noted the more they give the more they're attacked.  You could ask how they could be attacked if there's nothing to be attacked for... well, unless the other side is as big a liar as they are.  The evidence seems to be thin on that.

Now, if you're not insulted that your SS/FICA taxes total higher than Mitt's federal income tax, maybe you'd be a bit more insulted that Ryan's plan would move R-money's effective tax rate down to ... you'll love this... 0.82%.  Yes, that is Zero Point Eight Two Percent, not quite One Percent.  It has been supposed that your taxes would go up with the deductions being messed about with but they say that's not the case even though they won't tell you what deductions get messed with. (I refuse to deal with the deficit explosion that would ensue)

Now all that resistance from R-money could make sense in light of one thing - awhile ago a tax amensty was instituted that let people who'd hidden money overseas amend their tax forms and pay the tax and penalty without being charged for the felony that the IRS had forced the foreign banks to reveal.  The amended form shows as just that and if R-money hid money overseas and got himself an amnesty that uncharged felony would be immediately obvious.  That could be a real problem, a bigger problem than not showing the tax returns.

So Mitt, what is the problem with those tax returns?

The Fire People Are Together Now

The Donald and the Mittens are on the same team now. The Mittens gratefully accepted The Donald's endorsement saying he also knows how to create jobs. Funny, The Donald is most famous for "You're Fired," though Mittens is gaining some ground on that one. We do know Mittens is RICH and that The Donald is supposed to be supposed to be REALLY RICH (analysis vairies) and they do share bankruptcies in their background - other people's in Mitt's case.

It has been pretty obvious from the outcomes of Citizen's United that RICH people really like to spend their money on Mittens. I'm a bit "Free Market" dubious that the money is getting spent out of altruism, in regard to the welfare of the general punlic. The plutocrats and their enablers have been informing us for years now that greed is good, that using money to get a lot more money is why the system works. That would cause some doubt about Mitt's claims that the poor and the rich are doing OK and he's concentrated on the Middle Class. If that were the actual case, you'd have to wonder why those RICH people are throwing money at Mittens to the degree they are. (sure at that income level a few millions is chump change)

Maybe the spectacle of two RICH guys making out on stage will get something across to the public. Don't bet your house on it (bet the bank might work).

See that liberal bastion Christian Science Monitor for analysis of Mitten's tax plan and the RICH.

What do you get when you combine two of the emptiest suits in the world on stage? The Donald's Mittens - possibly suitable for a hairpiece in some (one) circles.

Rah, Rah, Mitt... oh sure...uhuh

This morning I watched a TV clip from a Romney rally, and considering the time difference it must have been mid-morning or so in South Carolina. The crowd started chanting, "We need Mitt," and MultipleMitt responded, "You're going to get me." OK, so far pretty standard election morning stirp the team stuff, right? Wellllll...

I didn't listen to the volume because I don't trust audio levels or mic placement. What I did listen to and for was the mix of voices, the varying tones and sexes and differences in volume. What my ear told me was that this chant involved very few people, I don't mean around a hundred - I'd say not much more than twenty. There's a point to this...

What is there about Mitt Romney beyond Mormon and wealthy that would inspire you to jump up and chant? Well, that or even jump up and smack you hands together and holler, "Yahoo," or whatever? Maybe repeating applause lines like, "apologize for America," or some such... well... other actual lie. I'm not even sure, "let GM die," would work in a Mitsubishi assembly plant.

It is to be sure, true that I don't like MultipleMitt, that I think, by evidence, that he is a two faced lying sack of ... poo; who will say anything to anyone in order to further his own ends and that there isn't anyone outside his immediate family and immediate friends he wouldn't throw in front of a train for extreme profit or his political desires. You have to look at the Bain profits to understand exactly how disconnected this guy is from anything other than himself. Bain wrecked companies to make 200-300% profits, keeping a company alive and people working might have meant returns like ordinary investors salivate for... 15%. Bain was not in the business of creating or salvaging businesses - it was in the business of making great whacking piles of money for a couple people, anything else that happened was entirely secondary. In that world humans are no more than an integer on a spreadsheet and long term considerations are entirely trumped by short term profit taking. If you think you count to that guy, just watch him around "regular" people. What? You thought that picture was just some prank sort of thing, a damned joke?

Oh hell, in a General Election straight up tribalism and hate will get him that good old 27% plus another nearly 15% of who'd hold their noses just for the (R).

Dividing America

Mitt thinks the President is dividing America and that the alternative to the current plutocracy is ... North Korea??? Can we please harken back to the GOP mantra of class warfare? And, maybe, just who is actually waging it?

Regarding taxes, SS/FICA on median income is nearly 16% total employee/employer and 15% as the bracket which would be 31% and if you want to get picky and dismiss the employer end you'd still get to over 22% on every bit of wage. Without any monkey business Mittens pays 15% and no SS/FICA on the immaterial at his wealth cut-off because that income is not wage/salary and is exempt from SS/FICA. (this neglects the temporary cut)

We could get into the division between income gains by the top 1% versus the bottom 20% would be somewhat informing and you will please note that whether or not the bottom 1/5th pays a nickle of Fed Tax, every cent of wage is subject to SS/FICA.

One could point out to Mitt that while the vast majority of us were growing up in families that had to pay real attention to finances his Daddy was CEO of AMC and later Gov of MI. Maybe there are divides that you were insulated from, maybe there are outcomes of performance that you flatly never had to worry about. Maybe while you were busy raping companies the warfare aspect didn't dawn on you, something like that awareness might have cut into your returns, obscene returns by the standards of most investments.

Mr Romney, it is not the President and the Democratic Party that are using falsehoods and dog-whistles and code words to stir hate and resentment. Mr Romney, the President may be one of the best friends your particular version of wealth has. He may be the guy offering you a really good deal compared to what almost all Americans get. But then, anything other than the bootlicking you're used to is class warfare.

Newt, It Was Predictable

Going after another Republican was going to cause some heartburn in the GOP. Going after their presumptive nominee was going to cause some heartburn. Going after a Republican as a greed head plutocrat was going to cause apoplexy. The mental derangement has extended all the way to John Sununu making not so veiled economic threats to those funding the attacks and people fuming about Communism. Yes, really.

Now it is true that Ronnie Reagan made some references to some sort of Eleventh Commandment regarding fellow Republicans. That has been kept mostly in a theoretical sort of way as John McCain might note regarding a South Carolina Primary involving GW Bush. In fact, a bit more recently - like Iowa Caucuses - a certain Newt Gingrich got eviscerated by fellow GOPers without so much as a peep by anyone other than Newt.

You could be forgiven for scoffing at the idea that the GOP problem is with attacks on the front runner, especially since Newt was that guy in Iowa when he got whacked. You'd hurt yourself laughing trying to make the case that attacking Mitt hit the purity of the Party message.

Whew. That leaves the money issue. Not the personal money, money issue - the how I got my personal money issue. Outside of making big piles of money from Drugs and Hookers making big piles of money is the entire good for the GOP. (not so sure about the Hookers if it is Nevada) To the GOP it doesn't matter if you got your piles from gutting companies or making trades every two minutes or off taxpayers or from building an enterprise. The methodology is trumped completely by the big pile not the outcomes as long as it doesn't involve handcuffs. (you could make the case that if the handcuffs result from violating regulations... crickets chirping)

The sin being committed against Mitt is that somebody has the temerity to question the methodology from within the GOP. That is just not done. If you were to stop and think about it for even a moment it might raise questions regarding the "Job Creators" and some of the other themes. That cannot be done. Making big piles of money is the engine and it doesn't matter that those big piles of money are resulting in the impoverishment of our economy... or wrecking the environment or...

When You Listen To The GOP...

The latest stuff out of the GOP "elite" (names - not money) is that attacks on the MultipleMitt come from the left and worse are damaging to the "front runner". Now the really odd thing about that argument is that they weren't making it when Newt led in Iowa and Mittens' surrogates gutted him. Now I don't really care which one of these outfits nails the other to their reactionary right wing cross and I could care less if they hit them from the left or populist side.

The huge difficulty every one of these GOPers faces is that what they stand for has driven what they've done and exposed to the light of day, starts to rot - like the gutted fish they ought to be. You really have to ask why Confederate Ron Paul has racist tripe newsletters? You really have to ask why Silver Spoon Plutocrat Mitt has a Bain in his past? You have to ask why... oh hell.

Really?

Who Gets To Have Nice Things?

DAVID GREGORY: All right. We're gonna come back to the question of obstacles to the nomination, but let me get to policy, Governor Huntsman. This is, by all accounts, an age of austerity for this country. A jobs crisis. Also a spending crisis in Washington. I wonder what specifically you would do to say to Americans, "These are cuts I'm going to make in federal spending that cause pain, that will require sacrifice?"

From the MTP "debate" transcript.

By all accounts... Age Of Austerity... Jobs Crisis... Spending Crisis... Sacrifice.

Hmmm. You know, if you took all those themes and addressed them as regarding working and poor Americans you might really have something. They are not, of course, regarding working/poor Americans other than the SACRIFICE. Every one of the people this horseshit question was addressed to has a tax plan up that would cut the taxes on wealth and increase the taxes on work and cut programs designed to keep people out of abject poverty.

If you were to read the comments on the MTP Debate transcript you'd find a whole lot of them attacking Gregory for being a LIBERAL trying to stir up trouble and - by the way - shorting Ron Paul's time to be a Confederate.

You would think that from the time of St Ronnie the Raygun there'd be enough data laying around to make something like a coherent case for something in regard to tax policy and the state of the economy. Well - it happens there is. The really big problem is that it doesn't support Clinton era tax rates much less StRR or GWB. The case that gets made in regard to the overall economic health is that StRR screwed things up and pretty much everybody made things worse and Bill Clinton only managed to mildly stem the tide in some regards.

Working/poor Americans have been sacrificing every damn day from StRR on in one way or another. Some of them tried to avoid that sacrifice and used their houses as a credit card or profit center but most just kept working harder for less while watching their betters rake in more of the scraps that might have fallen off the banquet table.

Now you have - no shit - the kid of Geo Romney talking about being "unemployed" and having to worry "about getting a pink slip," as if he had a worry about falling into the lap of luxury instead of off the face of the freaking earth. This is the kind of crap that gets served up as a goddam question by the goddam liberal elite media by talking head that has about as much to worry about or goddam sacrifice as Willard Mitt Romney does.

Mittens seems to make about $15M per year for doing nothing for Bain Capital (numbers vary - mostly up) which sounds like a bit of money, but probably ought to get taken in the context of $43K/yr median income family of four which works out to be 349 of them. Yes you suckers, Mittens makes that much money being un-damned-employed. Taken another way, he virtually makes DAILY that median income.

How it could be made much clearer to the rubes that these guys want to give themselves and their pals a big break while cutting your throat is way the hell beyond me. I don't begrudge these bastards their wealth... but I'm not hot on the idea of being their human sacrifice.

OWS, I Appologize - Sort of

From the start OWS garnered my emotive support and my intellectual dismissal. I understood what OWS was unhappy about, in fact I figured it was about thirty years late in coming. What my intellect dismissed was its staying power and the reach it could have into political discourse.

I didn't believe the plutocracy would allow its reporting or physically allow them to stay. I never thought the lack of a narrow political agenda was a problem, but I did dismiss their chances of pushing the economic dialogue anywhere in their direction.

I don't think the GOP is real impressed yet, they still see it as a target of convenience. I have an utter disbelief that Democratic outcomes will show any particular effect any time soon but I am actually impressed to see the President and a few other speaking in more openly populist terms. Lacking OWS I strongly doubt the President would have adopted his current ... confrontational? ... style.

I don't think it is so late that flaming mansions are required to get some sort of relief within the halls of government, though thinking something realistically effective is coming soon is pretty damn optimistic. It isn't as though we lack models that have demonstrated their utility through practice, it is true that those models are nowadays considered radical.

Facts are blatantly on the side of OWS, that has never proven a decisive factor in politics. People are actually starting to make a fight out of something that should have been settled business a half-century ago. No, I don't really expect the plutocracy to let much happen and they certainly own sufficient law-makers to ensure not much happens. Sides are being picked ... what that means is still an open question as are the consequences for being on the wrong side from the American people.

I cannot afford to do a damn thing to help keep OWS going beyond typing this handful of words but if you've got even a couple bucks with nothing to do there are ways to help out, even if it is just ordering a pizza to be delivered to their site, it would be something.

Oh yeah, about that appology ... sorry to be too quick to dismiss.

Say Hello To The 19th Century

I'm sorry to have to say it, the return of the Gilded Age (also known as Robber Baron Era) is upon us. Well, it is short of its denouement where the nation was starting to come apart in violent conflict. Oddly enough this mess is being Presided over by a Democrat rather than GOPers.

I don't know what the best the Democratic Party could do for elected officials and I don't short the quantity that exist that don't desire a return to those golden days but outcomes matter. That the GOP is hell bent on resurrecting the Robber Baron Era is scarcely a newsflash and that they want all of it back is pretty obvious by the theocratic anti-science stances they take along with the plutocrat sexual relations they have. (sorry for that mental image - heh)

You'd be hard put to find something in the government that directly affects economics that isn't run by one of the Masters Of The Universe other than those that aren't run by anybody since exceptions can't get confirmed. Now maybe a couple people are surprised that outcomes in any economic issues favor the plutocrats and those that don't just don't get anywhere. I can't think why that is so, other than some sort of blind stupid loyalty to personality/Party. The people who are surprised would tend to be liberal, the GOPers just plain don't see it at all and their blind stupid loyalty to personality/Party is awesome.

The risk the GOPers run in their drive to cut social safety nets is that what ended the Gilded Age was just that, starving homeless people aren't reasonable and enough of them is bad news for the plutocrats. Some of these cretins might bother to look at history that isn't millennial past and doesn't feature gods.

NYSE Is Soooooo Special

TPM just recently got slapped with a cease and desist letter from the NYSE claiming copywrite infringement for publishing a picture of the "Floor."

So how's this for a big "FU" to the ratbastards who've shit canned the economy for decades and are making fortunes off this current disaster? Let me make myself clear to you insufferable plutocratic ****s; you put yourselves and images all over the media real regularly touting what an economic dynamo you are and you simply could not be a more public figure if you were Barak Obama.

Go ahead and send me a letter asserting the same crap you put forward to TPM.

M-O-N-E-Y Spells Respect, ummm

Last night I admitted to left wing Democratic tendencies to a couple people I knew perfectly good and well wouldn't like anything about that. This resulted in the usual stupid and false GOP/Libertarian talking points. I've certainly heard all that stuff better phrased and better presented but I went ahead and poked the bull just for giggles. It was an exercise in pointlessness because whatever fact I presented was going to be ignored in pursuit of the stupid emotional appeals crafted by their ... 'betters.'

Neither of these individuals is ever going to make enough money to matter in the scheme of wealth, taxation, or power. Not ever, not going to happen and not even in their dreams. Their concerns were all theoretical, entirely outside their experiences or possible experiences and somehow addressed 'fairness.' The mantras were familiar to anyone acquainted with Libertarianism, high marginal tax brackets/tax rates punishing success, no civilization has ever taxed its way to success, the left trusts government, and on and on.

Neither person was stupid, they were quite capable of speaking in complete sentences and being, frankly, more lucid (even with alcohol involved) than Sarah Palin. No, that is not some joke, they were. Their points were not their own, they are manufactured by people with something to gain from selling them. Much of their birth as public discourse can be tracked to the economic abortion that was the St Ronnie Administration. Trickle down economics may be one of the most stupid commonly held beliefs in currency today and then and despite all evidence to the contrary it vampirically refuses to die. It is the corner stone of all the other horse ... pucky.

The real problem with trying to rebut this 'stuff' is that there is always the excuse that the failures are the result of insufficient application - ie Democrats messed it up. (h/t Michael B) You can point out to them the nearly steady decrease in top marginal rates from St Ronnie on to this historical low and it just simply doesn't matter. The dislocation of wealth simply is not of any concern - the fact that economic improvement, as economics is presently practiced in the US, is strictly a one way street upward demonstrates nothing. Well, it does represent the theft of their money by supporting the impoverished and disabled with their SS/FICA taxes... No matter that the Capital Gains rate is effectively lower, that one applies to everyone. Not that hardly anyone is actually concerned actually paying it...

There is one hope in this kind of discussion. The hope is that the GOP will continue to overstep the bounds of sense and insult the supposedly important and informed "middle."

As though the media would collude in any such informing

Playing With Matches

It may not come as a news flash that the economy sucks and some people are getting hurt quite badly. It is also statistically males that are losing most jobs and that the hits are hardest in manufacturing, construction, and lower management - jobs primarily held by mid-aged white males. Here is a nasty statistic, non-family essentially random murders are primarily committed by ... white mid-aged males under stress, particularly economic stress buttressed by paranoiac conspiracy feelings regarding authority.

We have thrown into that mix a politically driven toxic waste, health care reform opposition. It was toxic enough when it involved just the term socialism, but it has advanced quite a ways since. National debt is no longer the talking point, it has become a Nazi program with euthanasia for the elderly, sick, and disabled promoted by people with the agenda of ruining the nation. This mantra is spouted by "respectable figures" like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the fake grassroots organizations of K St. It is said with authority and by people held in some esteem by a particular group. Sarah Palin refers to "Obama's death board" and Rush quite openly makes Nazi comparisons. The proposition being that the program is composed of truly vile actions taken by truly vile people against the defenseless by big government with an agenda.

The pictures and sound are everywhere as townhalls become increasingly chaotic and rage is showcased. There is the illusion of a mass movement of crushed citizenry in revolt against the faceless oppressors highlighted by the black face of Obama. People are being motivated by everything from racism to confusion with ignorance as the most common factor and rage as the result.

If one wished to mine very fertile ground for a couple people with serious issues that could end in murder these would be the tactics and the place for it. I would guess that it is a near certainty that someone or some will take these as their cues to commit a crime that is not only justified but that will have approval for having as its target someone not only deserving in this context but responsible in a larger sense for all that ails this nation - and the individual in action.

Rep Broun (R-GA) won't be packing the gun but his finger will be on the trigger, along with the rest of the irresponsible cretins playing at this political terrorism. Ginnning up imaginary devils to scare hell out of people is terrorism, the shouting isn't but when the shooting starts it will be. Some poor sick SOB will have had all his buttons pushed in this environment and an innocent will suffer. Yes, it will be a gun because bombs take way too much complicated preparation and time and the perpetrator will feel justified enough to desire to be present.

I can hope to be wrong and I do, but reason tells me that the outcome won't be happy. It can be hoped that such a person will be caught or otherwise short-circuited but that's a lot of wishing going on. The deliberate lies, hate speech, and fear mongering are going to have a result beyond the political inconvenience of some Democratic members of Congress. The really scary question is whether that is by design with some. Keep in mind that regardless of whether or how much blood is spilled these assholes will get re-elected, get their media salary, or get their corporate masters' wage without recrimination or consequences ... that'll be reserved for their accomplice and his victim.

I am scarcely the only one who sees this on any side of this debate and that should inform you as to their ethics and morality and the cost they're willing to make someone else pay. I don't have a broad enough range of expletives to tell you what I really think about these ... people.

Banks And Cram Downs

They may no longer be the Masters of the Universe but bankers proved they are the Masters of the Senate today. Legislation enabling bankruptcy judges to renegotiate the terms of mortgages went off the rails today with Democratic Senatorial help.

Now in case you buy into the idea that such a thing would create a situation of lessening personal responsibility you need to look at the reality is that second home mortgages and yachts and such are subject to cram downs, just not primary residence mortgages. You can see the justice in that, it should be obvious that those who can afford such things are morally superior to the proles who can only afford one house and no yachts. People like bankers, who can, certainly should not be subjected to the onus of just losing their second homes or yachts or...really anything.

Bankers didn't think much of the idea...



Ah well, Republicans are happy too, so all is not lost for everybody.

WSJ Gigs CEO Comps, What?

It seems that CEOs and corporate compensation boards didn't get the memo, you know, the one that says something to the effect that ordinary Americans are a bit ticked by the Masters Of The Universe scale compensation of CEOs. If the government isn't bailing out a company or buying the damn thing it can't really tell a company how much to pay its CEO, but there is a little issue of a great big chunk of a fixed amount of money going to one individual. There is an idea that huge compensation is required to keep the kind of talent needed to run a corporation, comparing these folks to athletic superstars. The Wall Street Journal has a report, For Some CEOs, the Perks Keep Flowing, that I wouldn't refer to as complimentary to the process.

The Toledo, Ohio, auto supplier, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2008, spent $2.3 million last year on chartered planes to fly its chairman and chief executive, John M. Devine, and its vice chairman and former CEO, Gary L. Convis, to and from their California homes, according to its latest proxy statement.

Dana makes pretty good products, they have a reputation within the auto community that is good. In relative terms some of their stuff is pretty expensive, but you could buy a lot of that for $2.3M and that buying would involve incomes for making it. Note that this is not salary, this is a perk - an add on to their income in value.

Dana sold its six corporate aircraft to cut costs before and after entering Chapter 11 in March 2006. Company spokesman Chuck Hartlage said directors agreed to pay for Messrs. Devine and Convis's commutes to lure the seasoned auto executives out of retirement.

He said the executives' total direct compensation last year, not including benefits, which is valued by the Journal at $8.5 million for Mr. Devine and $6.2 million for Mr. Convis, is "very much in line with similarly situated peers."

Dana also reimbursed the pair for more than $43,000 in taxes associated with the travel expenses, highlighting another controversial benefit: tax "gross-ups" on perks.

Dana isn't alone in the practice of "gross up" and isn't particularly egregious considering the median of 76 companies surveyed is $16,400 but you can consider this:

Oil-field services provider BJ Services Co. spent the most on gross-ups, reimbursing CEO J.W. Stewart $718,800 for the taxes on his bonus and certain equity awards. A BJ Services spokesman was unavailable for comment.

When you're paying the taxes on the things you probably ought to be able to present the stockholders with good reasons for them - or not.

Ferro Corp., a Cleveland maker of industrial coatings, reimbursed CEO James F. Kirsch for a $100,000 initiation fee at the Pepper Pike Country Club. The board had suggested he join "to enhance networking opportunities with other Cleveland area CEOs," according to Ferro's proxy statement.

Ummm, Ok...?

One company trimmed perks after an unusual shareholder revolt. InfoGroup Inc., an Omaha, Neb., database concern, sold its corporate yacht for $1.5 million in October 2008 after a shareholder suit alleged abusive personal spending by founder Vinod Gupta, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Mr. Gupta resigned as CEO last August and agreed to repay $9 million. But he received a $10 million severance package and remains on the company's board, according to the filings. Mr. Gupta couldn't be immediately reached.

Go ahead and figure that one out.

I really don't have any real objection to people making money, even a lot of money but there is an issue of how much goes into one place and how much gets spread around the company. There is also an issue as to what the actual value of any given CEO amounts to. It would seem that if the CEO took some level of personal responsibility for the performance of the company, in other words risk, there would be a justification for this kind of compensation.

I'm pretty sure this is a matter of an artificial market price.

How Do You Limit Greed

Greed. There it is, the word that has come to define the building blocks of this current economic debacle. I have been holding forth for years that there is something obscene going on it this country with the economic structure as is. We have allowed a situation to exist where our allocation of wealth toward the top has surpassed third rate third world dictatorships. It takes the bottom half of the economic strata to make what the top one percent do, and that is, for god's sake, what the tax form says they make. Not only is the game fixed, the measuring stick that says it's this bad is fixed.

If ethical sense or the government isn't driving the compensation rates how to approach it? Be under no delusion that I have a problem with people getting rich or that I am jealous of them. What I object to is the crushing of everyone downstream in that pursuit. I am quite comfortable asserting that ethical sense has played absolutely no part in the accumulation of wealth over the last thirty years. I have no problem with the idea that government setting compensation rates is socialism and not really applicable to our system. That does not mean that we're helpless in this regard.

We have used taxes to both encourage and to discourage behavior for a very long time. What we have done for the last thirty years is encourage the accumulation of extravagant amounts of wealth, there is absolutely no downside to it. Thirty Six percent marginal rates may sound discouraging and fifteen percent capital gains may seem stiff, but we levy much more discouraging taxes on those who will never see one hundred thousand dollar incomes. Reality is a bitch and it's damn real to be not rich in this country. Sales taxes eat you on virtually all your income, FICA/SS gets you for 15.7% of all your income, state income tax eats some more, sin taxes and necessity taxes pile up and pile on, unemployment and workman's comp slide by your notice but you're paying for it. You should certainly feel for wealth and do all in your power to enable them, they'll ship your job overseas or insource it if it can't move. But you buy the game sold you, the creators of wealth, the masters of the universe need not be accountable.

There is a tool that discourages the non-disbursement of wealth and it is called taxes. With progressive rates you don't discourage creation, not unless you set the sky high marginal rates too low. You avoid that by tying them to the median income and at certain multiples you make it unreasonable to try for more. That is simply behavior modification - don't go on about targeted goals, not in the face of tobacco taxes and alcohol taxes. Don't even go there in the face of 15% capital gains taxes.

So, you think maybe now you know how you do limit greed? Now just try to get somebody to pay attention to you...

Outrage? That's A BIt Mild

How'll it be if we do a little mathematics on Chuck for... today? I don't propose to start trouble...but I sure don't mind stoking some, I will gleefully throw gasoline on this fire. Here's some numbers we'll be working with:
AIG Bonus Payments - $179,000,000
Oregon Median Income - $43,000

Now what we'll do is this 179,000,000/43,000 and we'll know how many Oregonians could have made a year's wages. 4,162.8 Oregonians would have made wages of the median sort, that's 4,162.8 Oregonians buying cars, houses, college educations, you know - stuff. Stuff that other people make money creating. Creating is the word - not toilet paper securities, not the ruin of a company and a run on the US taxpayer.

The Titans Of Finance don't get those numbers, it is flat out meaningless to those cretins. They deserve it for all the hours spent wrecking an economy. Now these people are held up as experts, the ones that haven't already quit, and they are important. They deserved it, they're important, they earned it. What they earned and what they deserve and what is important about them is that they should be burnt out of house and home and beaten within an inch of their lives if not a bullet to the brains (except I disapprove of capital punishment). If you think this is the first of their bonuses over the past 8 years and some you also probably think the Moon is green cheese.

You might be excused for thinking that they've sucked forty one hundred jobs out of the economy with their greed for a fair number of years. You might be forgiven for noticing that what they were doing was leveraging assets to an unprecedented degree, an obvious catastrophe in waiting to anyone with economic knowledge. You needn't concern yourself with how complicated these instruments were, that's damn immaterial - they created over ten times the money out of thin air...imaginary, and they goddamn good and well knew that was the upshot of what they were doing. If you leverage $1.25 on a $1.00 and lose that $1.00 you're out $1.25, if you do it to the tune of a ten spot on a dollar - you've got one hell of a hole. Everybody knows that and that is why it isn't done. Well, except my the Titans Of Finance, it isn't. Which of these bankers would lend you a million dollars with your one hundred thousand dollar house as collateral? What? You don't think they would? You mean the rules are different for the masses?

One goddamn percent of the economic scale makes as much as the entire bottom one half of the economic scale. Do you get that? You do realize that you pay a larger percentage tax on your pittance than they do? Now it might be reasonable to wait a bit and see what the politicians will make of it this time around. I don't mean something like the decades the St Ronnie mytholigizers have had, I'm thinking maybe the end of the year kind of patience. About that time if it is obvious that the game is going to stay that badly rigged it might be entirely reasonable to make it demonstrably dangerous to be these people.

That sounds pretty...extreme? Does it seem so in the face of a broken social contract? If that contract is broken and the legal system will not readdress it, then all bets are off. No allegiance is owed to such a system and while it may try to enforce it, it has no such power to do so. I am way past giving a good goddamn if these pricks get hurt. I only talk about patience for the sake of the decent people who will undoubtedly get hurt in the process. At a point it becomes meaningless to talk about their hurt in the face of what they will suffer anyhow.

If the ballot is proven meaningless in the face of the power of their wealth and their ability to blackmail or terrorize the political arm, what recourse remains? They have no power beyond their paper and the few thugs they can hire. They're starting to hire guards now, something is starting to leak into their greed soaked noggins. There is nothing to say that they can't be wealthy and left in peace, other than the extent of their greediness. They didn't need to put their foot on the neck of the populace to be rich, but rich wasn't enough. They could step off, but I'll bet you large the only reason they would do so would be naked fear.

If they start hearing serious rumblings that their time of unopposed rape is about to come to an excruciating end they might make some smart decisions. If not, that rape can be paid for in coin they've never seen minted and I'd not only not give a damn, I'd help out.

You'll hear concern for the working class called socialism by the Randian half wits that still stand with the Confederate Party of Republicanism and I'm ashamed to have to admit that Eastern Oregon has a member representing it, and you can call it a bribe to keep the above postulated action from happening. I'd call it smart thinking rather than names, but I'm not their lap dog lick spittle ass kisser. I know that I'm not alone in having faced a lot badder shit than anything they can bring to the table. Some of you real nice lefty types have histories...

Outrage? Kiss my ass.

Who Likes Investment Bankers, Now?

"I've got a system," is the sit-com or movie comedy line where the smart protagonist puts his wallet back in his pocket, it is that ubiquitously a stupid statement that it's a joke. Or is it? David X Li had one, and apparently it was a doozy since it has pretty much sunk the financial system of the world. Huh?

For five years, Li's formula, known as a Gaussian copula function, looked like an unambiguously positive breakthrough, a piece of financial technology that allowed hugely complex risks to be modeled with more ease and accuracy than ever before. With his brilliant spark of mathematical legerdemain, Li made it possible for traders to sell vast quantities of new securities, expanding financial markets to unimaginable levels.

His method was adopted by everybody from bond investors and Wall Street banks to ratings agencies and regulators. And it became so deeply entrenched—and was making people so much money—that warnings about its limitations were largely ignored.

The Lords of Finance, the Masters of the Universe had a system? Until it fell apart. Go ahead, you go tell your Uncle Joe you've got a system...

Bank of America and Merrill have received $45 Billion in Federal assistance and done a few things like pay $3.6 Billion in bonuses to Merrill employees and spend $10 Million on a Super Bowl party and $8.7 Million on lobbying in 2008. NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would like B of A President Ken Lewis to tell him about those bonuses and President Obama is done with Bankers flying around in corporate jets...think so?

On Thursday, Lewis refused to provide a list of bonus payments to the New York Attorney General, after arriving in New York in his $50 million corporate jet

Sorry to be rude, but that's a pretty major Fuck You.

You may remember Northern Trust threw a big bash for their employees and rich customers at a golf tournament and for some reason people objected to them taking $1.6 Billion in taxpayer money and having a big party. It seems they'd rather keep on partying without hearing about it from the peons.

Northern Trust has set a goal of repaying government funds "as quickly as prudently possible," Waddell said.(Pres & CEO)

Earlier this week, eighteen Democrats on the financial services panel, led by Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told Waddell in a scathing letter, "We insist that you immediately return to the federal government the equivalent of what Northern Trust frittered away on these lavish events."

Prudent? How about now, asshat?

I'm sorry to do this, but AIG should scare you spitless. The $160 Billion restructuring package is failing, AIG is expected to post (no kidding) $60 Billion 4th quarter losses - 3 damn months. Why should this bother you, other than the money spent?

"If the government lets AIG fail, I think you are going to see an enormous sort of shock wave across all industries because AIG had their finger in a lot of different areas," said Russell Walker, a risk management professor at Northwestern University in Chicago.

Actually, Walker is understating the extent of the damage, now are you spooked?

Citigroup has burned through their $36 Billion and now their hands are out for more, a lot more.

The U.S. government will exchange up to $25 billion in emergency bailout money it provided Citigroup Inc. for as much as a 36 percent equity stake in the struggling bank,

Maybe you don't have your hate on for this bunch quite yet. I can help you right along with that. UBS, yep Phil Gramm's employer, settled a tax evasion based case with the US Government that cost them a $780 Million deferred prosecution agreement that also included the release of the names of 52,000 American clients that DOJ suspects used them for tax avoidance. The kicker, UBS is being sued in Swiss courts to block that release.

The lawsuit accuses UBS and Switzerland’s financial regulator, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, or Finma, of violating Swiss bank secrecy laws and of conducting what Swiss law considers illegal activities with foreign authorities. It also named Peter Kurer, the chairman of UBS, and Eugen Haltiner, the chairman of Finma, as defendants.

The suit, filed by a lawyer in Zurich, Andreas Rued, on behalf of nearly a dozen American clients, underscores the growing clash between Swiss banking secrecy laws and those of the United States. Tax evasion is not considered a crime in Switzerland. Disclosing client names under Swiss law is a criminal offense and can expose bank executives and officers to fines, prison terms and other penalties.

The Swiss have a bit of a problem going on, you see they hid Nazi loot and some agreements were made about the survivors and descendants of those looted and a part of that is tied into this action. Just try real hard to not remember this stuff as the Republicans accuse you of class warfare...

Maybe you don't have to smack the stupid off their faces, just spit on their boots. They've got a system... Let the bastards run wild because they're rich and we mustn't mess with that and free markets and government is the problem and class warfare and you're doody heads so we'll have a teabag rebellion socialist pig Democrats won't let them fail like a good Randian would and...and...rotten liberal media keeps making us look bad and...and...

Sure, sure, and that poll down below is just a joke.

Vitter's Whores?

You might be amused by UAW Shreveport Local Rep Morgan Johnson's
comment about Sen Vitter that

"He'd rather pay a prostitute than pay auto workers."

but there is all kinds of truth floating around in that statement. You need to take a look at his record on various topics to see exactly how true it is.

Try to keep a few real basic things in mind about economics, labor is a commodity like any other when it is not organized and ordinary commodity market outcomes happen. Illegal immigration happens almost entirely due to one factor, better paying jobs. It doesn't happen because English is such a wonderful language or because the US has universal health care or because we have such a great reputation for treatment of minorities, it happens because of money. Vitter is one of the proponents of fences, yes fences to keep those illegals out and - if you haven't noticed - to keep them illegal. A damn fence does nothing to address the problem other than make it somewhat inconvenient, so the flow will continue. That continuing flow feeds the flooding of the labor market so that the commodity labor like any other commodity becomes less valuable. Simply put wages decline.

Now the converse is true of organized labor. Unions raise wages, not only in the sector they have contracts but also in any nearby or related sectors. There is a reason for the concentration of foreign makers in Southern right to work states, there is a reason a right to work state like Idaho exports so many contractors across the Oregon border, contractors going broke in Idaho. There is a reason plutocrats and by extension Republicans detest unions and it ain't ideological, it's all about who gets how big a portion of the pie. There is in reality a limit to the size of the pie. At a point the plutocrats don't get incredibly wealthy if they pay labor much because there is a limit to what the consumer will pay for a particular item.

I liked Morgan's comment but it doesn't go nearly far enough, we are his whores - any of us who work with our hands for a living. The dirty skanky whores are the illegals, bottom of the barrel easily dismissed and derogated and truly subject to police action if they get uppity. A bit more difficult are the ordinary whores, the unorganized labor, not so easily denigrated and not nearly as subject to policing, the simplest method is to replace them with the skanks and by association drive down their appeal. The high class hookers are a real problem, they have connections and an exclusivity so targeting them is a matter of opportunity, such as when their owners are having problems and would like some help.

You find something unhappy in the comparison of labor to prostitutes? Why? The most common rationalization for falling incomes and failing prospects is that laborers made unfortunate life choices, they could all have gone to colleges and been billionaires if only they'd chosen properly. Just like those hookers, bad choices made and the derogation of society for doing something unattractive. You like that less? Labor sells its body for a dime, these jobs eat the physique for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and some of them eat the mind. Enough years of construction will destroy joints and beat the cardiac system to pieces, line work does most of that and further grinds with mindlessness and repetition. Then add in that what is done is not respectable, the hands get dirty and calloused rather than paper cuts and it isn't carpal tunnel syndrome it's blown knees and shoulders and backs. There is no on paper product that generates money on the back of other paper generated money, there is some distastefully concrete item. Bend over son, you're getting screwed.

Vitter is a whoremonger and tool of the pimps and his incidental connection to the DC Madame is only instructive, not definitive because you can replace his unfortunate self with Corker or McConnell or any other of Southern Republican Senators with Labor in their cross hairs. McCain was crucified by that bunch for proposing to do something counter to the plutocratic interest with illegal immigrants. You have some idea it was low class rednecks? It was the plutocratic power structure that sank him using its tools of racism and class fear. Certainly, they played the losing end of the bargain against illegal immigrants, they've done it for years with the same tools. They and everyone with two live brain cells that talk to each other knows that to do something meaningful to curb illegal immigration the job magnet has to be removed - but that involves the other end of the scale, employers, people with actual money who support the Republican corruption machine.

No this isn't the corruption of selling a Senate seat, this is the basic corruption of the fabric of American life and values. It is the permanent creation of an illegal disenfranchised serf class. It is the absolute devaluation of labor, the creation of the perception of a monkey class of knuckle draggers unworthy of real compensation and a chance at a stable life. It is part and parcel of the fiction of trickle down economics or more sinisterly mislabeled supply side economics. It is a deliberate return to the Robber Baron Era, the very best model for it. If it means the destruction of the economy for the foreseeable future it is worth it to break unions and let the plutocrats pick up the broken pieces at fire sale prices. Who exactly do you think will own the broken factories and foreclosed houses? People with money? Well, of course people with money and who exactly will that be? Certainly not Toyota line workers whose pay will go into the toilet the second there is no union to keep away from the doors.

Does Vitter have enough brainpower to figure out whose tune he's playing on the whorehouse piano? If you've listened to him it is very doubtful you believe it and I certainly don't. He's the nickle's worth whore monger playing for the real Madame. Most of these dolts are just dancing at the ends of the money strings of their Madames, they're almost pimps, wanna be's jerking around without a real cut of the graft and profits thinking they're somebodies because they can fool people into voting for something they don't even believe. Oh yeah, when wishes are fishes we'll all be billionaires and they'll be an honest bunch. When wishes are fishes.