Here It Comes

Grease up and bend over, America - the GOP's back in town.

The Hill:

The two committees will be working on the bills even though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has not completed its analysis; as a result, estimates of the plan’s cost and how many people could lose coverage will not be immediately available.

Sources said previous versions of the plan faced unfavorable coverage numbers from the CBO.

The tax credit under the GOP plan ranges from $2,000 to $4,000 a year per individual, increasing with someone’s age. That system would provide less financial assistance for low-income and older people than ­ObamaCare, but could give more assistance to younger people and those with somewhat higher incomes.

Democrats warn that between the phasing out of ­ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion and the smaller tax credit for poorer people, the 20 million people who gained coverage in recent years will be put at risk.

So let's see - the GOP has long contended that 47% of us don't pay federal taxes, so obviously, the best way to help us with this healthcare insurance thing is to give everybody a federal tax break.

Why do I always get the feeling that there's no vision or imagination in the GOP that isn't aimed at fucking us over in another attempt to advance a bogus economic theory, even when every one of those attempts turns out to be further proof that it doesn't fucking work?

And let's not lose sight of the high probability that guys like Ryan would engineer the "collapse" of Obamacare as a political maneuver just so they could use it to bully their way thru with this new bullshit plan (which is nothing new at all).

1. Fuck it up
2. Point at it and say, "Oh look - it's fucked up"
3. Sell your ideology-driven bullshit as the only solution that can possibly help
4. Collect campaign contributions from the cronies who get richer from that solution
5. Enjoy our re-election
6. Find something else you can "fix" and start again at step 1

Mr Agrievement

Some points to keep in mind:

• Every accusation is a confession
• Every time he warns of dire consequences, he's making a statement of his goals

It's become pretty much the Republican Way - they're installing this top-down Daddy State authoritarianism as their operating system.  They want the government to be run more like a business because rules are for chumps and losers and cucks. Eat or be eaten. Killers are the ones who prevail. Fuck your due process. Muscle, force, dominance - it's the only thing that matters. So don't worry your pretty little head, Daddy will protect you - even if he has to protect you to death.

He was complaining about - and warning about - organized crime. And gee golly, now it would seem he's pretty mobbed up.

Also, it looks a lot like he was trying to wield the power of government to beat down on his competition.  He tries to sell it as leveling the playing field, but the field has been tilted in his favor since forever, so we've got a guy in a position of privilege and power bitchin' about what a poor defenseless victim he is - as always - and blaming people who just want a square deal for everybody. Playing the Opposites Game.

Newsweek: (updated piece from Fall 2016)

Donald Trump was thundering about a minority group, linking its members to murderers and what he predicted would be an epic crime wave in America. His opponents raged in response—some slamming him as a racist—but Trump dismissed them as blind, ignorant of the real world.

No, this is not a scene from a recent rally in which the Republican nominee for president stoked fears of violence from immigrants or Muslims. The year was 1993, and his target was Native Americans, particularly those running casinos who, Trump was telling a congressional hearing, were sucking up to criminals.

- and -

As Trump was denigrating Native Americans before Congress, other casino magnates were striking management agreements with them. Trump knew the business was there even when he was testifying; despite denying under oath that he had ever tried to arrange deals with Indian casinos, he had done just that a few months earlier, according to an affidavit from Richard Milanovich, the official from the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians who met with Trump, letters from the Trump Organization and phone records. The deal for the Agua Caliente casino instead went to Caesars World. (In 2000, Trump won a contract to manage the casino for the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians, but after Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts declared bankruptcy in 2004, the tribe paid Trump $6 million to go away.) And in his purposeless, false and inflammatory statements before Congress, Trump alienated politicians from around the country, including some who had the power to influence construction contracts—problems that could have been avoided if he had simply read his prepared speech rather than ad-libbing.

Lost contracts, bankruptcies, defaults, deceptions and indifference to investors—Trump’s business career is a long, long list of such troubles, according to regulatory, corporate and court records, as well as sworn testimony and government investigative reports. Call it the art of the bad deal, one created by the arrogance and recklessness of a businessman whose main talent is self-promotion.

- and -

Trump boasted when he announced his candidacy last year that he had made his money “the old-fashioned way,” but he is no Bill Gates or Michael Bloomberg, self-made billionaires who were mavericks, innovators in their fields. Instead, the Republican nominee’s wealth is Daddy-made. Almost all of his best-known successes are attributable to family ties or money given to him by his father.

The thing that sticks for me is that 45* has spent his whole life failing up. Because he was born into a network of the kind of people who are (eg) regular attendees at Davos, there's always somebody to bail him out, or the next bunch of suckers who can be talked into thinking he'll owe them something big if they prop him up, or some Coin-Operated Politician who can't resist the chance to play at a level he's only dreamed about - or whatever.

Anyway, he's acting like there's still some headroom for him - that he can bomb out in the White House, and get to another higher destination.

That one really scares me.

Now maybe it's just that he's Russkied up to the extent he seems to be, but if we don't get a good look at his tax and finance documents, we don't ever get to know.

PS) I wondered if a FISA warrant could've been aimed at some IRS records instead of signal surveillance, so I looked it up. Turns out the government can do that, but only if it's aimed at something owned or controlled entirely by a foreign entity, and I don't think even Obama's lawyers are clever enough to stretch it to 45*'s tax records. Damn.

And Now For Something Different

This whole campaign cycle is a freak show without the tent, and so the only thing that could possibly occur that would seem odd is if somebody actually came up with a policy idea on what we might try in order to make a few improvements - and wow, look at that, it's Hillary Clinton, trying to get us to talk about something other than what Donald Trump is doing with his tiny orange hands.

Vox:

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton unveiled what is arguably among the most important policies she’s announced during her entire presidential campaign. It is an ambitious but politically attainable plan that will lift huge numbers of families with children out of poverty. It is targeted exclusively at the poor, and the extreme poor in particular, with no money spent on the middle class or rich.

Specifically, Clinton is calling for a change in the refundability threshold of the child tax credit. Those sound like technical changes, but it has tremendous ramifications. Currently, the poorest American families can’t claim the credit, which is a mainstay of the tax returns of most middle-class families. That’s because households that make less than $3,000 a year — the truly, desperately poor — are excluded entirely, and households making under $9,666.67 can’t get the full credit.

Clinton would change the law so that families start getting the credit with the first dollar they earn. That would effectively increase the tax refunds of the poorest families with children. In addition, Clinton would double the credit for children 4 and under, something that helps both poor and middle-class families with young kids, and she’d make the credit phase in much faster for families with kids in that age range.

I make no claims to knowledge of such things beyond the single Econ course I barely muddled thru in one of my abortive attempts at going to college, but I managed to learn that the more people who can participate in an economy, the better that economy works; and that the best way to circulate money thru an economy is to pump it up through the roots instead of sprinkling it on the leaves.  It's basic Keanesian stuff and it's what works best - which seems like a fairly simple concept, but it's something that's proved to be a little elusive for the average "conservative".

I'm a Bernie guy - and I think Bernie'd be good with an initiative like this because it means his challenge for the nomination showed HRC that moving her agenda a little to the left is a good and appropriate and politically safe thing to do, plus it signals Hillary's willingness to fix one of the big problems created by the Welfare Reform thing in the mid-90s, which is something Bernie kept hammering her on. 

So - yays all around.

We Must Remember This

Think Progress

@BarackObama who wants to raise all our taxes, only pays 20.5% on $790k salary. http://t.co/bqF26mQf Do as I say not as I do.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2012

HALF of Americans don't pay income tax despite crippling govt debt...http://t.co/gDAUj0Kt

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2012

Facebook billionaire gives up his U.S. citizenship in order to save taxes. I guess 3.8 billion isn't enough for (cont) http://t.co/xaPBfxlm

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2012

"@conservativeJT: @bluejoni @realDonaldTrump Trump is an American that will pay more taxes in one year than you pay in your entire life.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2013

"@DenZen: Successful people work their asses off to make it, only to be punished by heavy taxes which are then squandered recklessly."

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 5, 2014

If @amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag. The @washingtonpost scam is saving it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2015

You know what is the worst part of @BarackObama's Tuesday speech playing class warfare--we paid for it with our tax dollars.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2011

What They Say

Repubs - the ones with most of the money and power - love to lead the bitch session about Dems and Libruls who're busy spending "Other People's Money".  What they always conveniently neglect to mention is that the reason it's "your money" is that they don't contribute much at all, and they're always busy pimping us into helping them pay even less while getting a bigger and bigger share of the benefits.

All the little grey areas and loopholes in our ridiculous Tax Code; an economy increasingly tilted in favor of wealthy people - none of this happens if we stop allowing guys like Donald Trump to play us for suckers.  

   

Blame Da Gubmint

Trump won't show us the tax returns because he's embarrassed - for the last several years, Putin's been claiming him as a dependent.

Be It Resolved

I've always had a tough time getting straight with some of the minutiae of Church-State Separation.

There's no doubt in my mind about making sure religious dogma is kept out of the law - that the law can only be about what's provably true, and so the magical mystery bunkum has to be put aside. I'm good on all that.

So, kinda cutting to the chase, my last item is taxation. I've been reluctant to advocate in favor of taxing churches because it seemed like an opening for Government to meddle where government doesn't belong.  But I've come to view that thinking as more of a rationalization. It's politically expedient, but mostly commercially prudent for churches to try to "protect" themselves from "government meddling"; it's not really a question of Separation so much as it's a question of a business interest lobbying for exemptions.

A church is a business. We have a reasonable expectation for every person and every business to pay a share of the taxes necessary to maintain a functioning society. If you enjoy the benefits of police and fire protection, and roads and snow plows, and all the other goodies, then you need to throw a few bucks in the hat for it.  Not to be too obvious, church guys, but it's not a lot different than somebody sitting thru the service and getting the "benefits" of your sermonizing, and then not kicking in when you pass the collection plate.

So why not churches?  We require all the other Mumbo-Jumbo Peddlers to pay and to be appropriately regulated.  The palm reader pays taxes. Crystal Gazers pay taxes. The Reiki Master pays taxes. Etc.

When we decide this "religious" organization is exempt from the law, but that one isn't - and we base the decision on the organization's "religious beliefs" - it just seems like we're doing exactly what the 1st amendment says we're not supposed to do.

We should stop doing that.

Today's Gubmint Stoopid

From AP via TPM:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's reigning Teacher of the Year says she has resigned after state officials told her she's unqualified to teach in her fifth-grade classroom because of certification issues.

Veteran teacher Ann Marie Corgill said Alabama Department of Education officials recently informed her that she was not qualified despite her well-documented accomplishments. She said she grew tired of trying to prove herself, prompting her to submit a letter of resignation, dated Tuesday and obtained by Al.com. In the letter, Corgill cites her confusion.

"After 21 years of teaching in grades 1-6, I have no answers as to why this is a problem now, so instead of paying more fees, taking more tests and proving once again that I am qualified to teach, I am resigning," Corgill wrote.

Corgill has Class A and B certifications to teach primary school through third grade, according to certification records provided by The Alabama Department of Education. Corgill said she started this school year at Birmingham's Oliver Elementary School teaching second grade, but shortly after the semester began, she was moved to a fifth-grade classroom.

In a news release Thursday, the state Department of Education said it "did not determine Ms. Corgill was not qualified. However, when an inquiry was made, the department reported that her current teaching certificate covers primary grades through Grade 3. This does not carry with it a requirement for resignation."

But Corgill — a 2015 National Teacher of the Year finalist — holds National Board Certification to teach children ages 7 to 12, a group that would include most fifth-graders. That certification is valid until November 2020, according to the National Board Certification directory.

Birmingham City Schools spokeswoman Chandra Temple said Thursday that the district is working on the matter and had no further comment.

Somebody like Ms Corgill should be pulling down 6 figures, and she should be working at a school that looks like a 5-star resort.  

If we're gonna demand layers of certification and years of continuing education - pretty much the same as we demand of various other professionals - then we can sure as fuck pay them like we pay those other professionals.  Cuz, btw, where do we think all those big-deal professionals get their start?  Anybody believe they just pop up outa the ground?  No - they all started out in some version of an elementary school where a Ms Corgill takes a room filled with potential future cell block slugs and turns them into solid citizens who might give us a shot at making this joint a slightly better world to live in if we can just get our national head out of our national ass long enough to think in terms of investment instead of always falling for the bullshit of "Gubmint's too big and costs too much".

Towards The Meritocracy

I have nothing against some good and healthy Intergenerational Wealth Transfer - it's an important tool in building strong communities.  And it's worked wonders for everybody who's been born into White Middle Class America because of course, our system is the perfect mechanism for separating the people who're smart and rich from the people who're lazy and stupid.

To paraphrase: Capitalism has not failed us; you have failed Capitalism.

But "good and healthy" is not what we're doing with the No-Taxes-For-Rich-People-Ever policy drift, and it should be really obvious that it's not what we're doing, now that we've been trying to do it that way for 35 years (rapidly accelerating for the last 15), and we've ended up having to spend billions of precious few tax dollars to subsidize millions of Americans who can't quite make it working their asses off at Wal-Mart just because we refuse to elect politicians who have the balls to tell Alice Walton she'll have to figure how to eke out a living on something less than the interest she "earns" on her personal fortune of more than THIRTY-FUCKING-BILLION-DOLLARS.

Tax the fuck outa the estates of the UberRich and we won't get any more Legacy-Fuck-Pukes like George W Bush as "president". 

Call it the Paris Hilton Prevention Act, and make sure it never sunsets.

Today's Charlie Pierce

I hope this one's been on everybody's radar the last coupla days:

A rich donor to Tulsa police mistakenly pulled out his gun instead of his Taser and blasted a fleeing suspect.

The volunteer cop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who killed an unarmed black man was forking over thousands in donations and equipment after becoming an unpaid sheriff’s deputy.

Robert Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive-turned-deputy, accidentally fired his gun instead of a Taser—costing Eric Harris, 44, his life and adding to the tally of deadly police shootings against minorities nationwide.

Recent update via Daily Beast:

The Tulsa deputy charged with manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed black man was the sheriff’s sugar daddy—treating him to exotic cruises and fishing trips—former officers with the sheriff’s department told The Daily Beast.

--and--

“Bob Bates came on board because he had all this money,” one former reserve deputy said, adding that the sheriff and other higher-ups would “go on these cruises in the Bahamas and in Mexico all the time.”

"[Bates] foots the bill,” the deputy added. “The sheriff just gave him free rein because he was treating him right. He bought his way into this position.”

Another former full-time deputy said Bates was “getting glad-handed” around the office because of his wealth.

“This is your typical Southern good ol’ boys system,” he said, adding that before the shooting Bates planned to take Glanz on a fishing trip to Florida.

In case anybody may still harbor the soul-crushingly stoopid notion that "Pay-To-Play-Citizen-Goon" is a good idea, here's Charlie Pierce:

Something has gone permanently squirrelly with law-enforcement in this country. There is the change in attitude by which police increasingly feel and behave like an occupying army in American cities. There is the preposterous increase in available armament. On a wider scale, there is the triumph at all levels of government of an attitude that we will not tax ourselves, ever, for anything, even our own safety. So we wind up with traffic cops who look on, ahem, certain citizens as resources to be pillaged, or we wind up with septuagenarian insurance salesmen empowered to shoot people in the street under color of law, because they were willing to buy guns and ammo privately for a public purpose. This is Kafka rewritten by Grover Norquist and Bozo The Clown. You get what you pay for, and we're not willing to pay for anything any more.

What Bill Said

I'm not much of a Bill Clinton fan anymore, but here's a good one from a few years ago:

"It's arithmetic.  The top 25 Hedge Fund Managers made $14.14 Billion in 2012. They pay a 15% tax rate.  That's equivalent to 314,222 workers earning $45,000 a year.  And they pay a 35% tax rate.

It takes all of the income tax paid by 180,000 of these workers just to pay for the tax loophole for these 25 Hedge Fund Managers.

And that, my friends is only $2.8 Billion of the approximate $660 Billion in tax cuts that go each year to make the wealthy wealthier.

 Get up on your hind legs and push back - vote against this shit.

Today's Smartest Thing

I'm generally not a fan of DailyKOS - just "a little too lefty" for me - but when I think they get something right, I gotta say I think they got it right.

From Phoebe Loosinhouse:

Whenever things make absolutely no sense, I think it can be said that while it may make no sense to you, it may make sense to someone. And nine times out of ten, what has previously appeared nonsensical may be sensical, especially if someone somewhere is making money from the nonsense.

When the whole Michael Brown episode appeared out of nowhere, I am sure that I am not alone when I wondered, how is it remotely possible that a young man could end up dead for jaywalking? But perhaps part of the riddle has been solved by Newsweek, in an exemplary story displaying actual curiosity, investigation and journalism:

Driving While Black In Ferguson

Very simply, a town that bankrolls itself through racial profiling and harassment of minority citizens in penny ante driving violations which are then ratcheted up in both costs and ramifications through manipulative measures, is EXACTLY the kind of place where a jaywalking offense would spiral out of control. There really is something very systemically awful going on in that town and it is tragic that it took the death of a black teenager to draw one's eyes to it.

So if we can manage to see past the race-baiting and the militarized cops and all the charges and counter-charges and the extreme Press Poodling, it starts to get a bit clearer.

Follow the money.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Pay Up Or Get Out

BIll Moyers, on a simple (sounding) tax reform idea:

The epidemic of tax inversions represents just one of many ways corporations are dodging their taxes by taking advantage of our outdated and rigged corporate tax system. It is time for a serious debate about corporate taxes, and on Monday a new report by District Economics Group economist Michael Udell offered a bold new alternative that is so radically simple that even the most clever corporate tax accountant would have a hard time finding a way around its fair and universal proposition: If a company sells products or services in the US, it must pay taxes on the US proportion of its worldwide sales.

But first, let’s explore how today’s complexity enables corporate tax avoidance.

Are We “Broke” or Just Not Collecting the Taxes We Are Owed?

“America is broke,” declared House Speaker John Boehner a few years ago. But clearly the country is not broke; we are just being robbed, as many corporations create ways of avoiding, dodging, shirking and generally not paying their taxes. The share of federal revenue coming from corporate taxes has dropped from around 32 percent in 1952 to 8.9 percent now. As a share of gross domestic product, it has fallen from about 6 percent of GDP then to less than 2 percent now. Meanwhile the rest of us — including small domestic companies that don’t have armies of tax consultants — have to make up that shortfall, either through increases in things like payroll taxes, or through cuts in the things government does to make our lives better.

hat tips = Facebooks buds VW and DR 

Death And Taxes

Wanna get a good close look at where all the money goes?

Here it is.

A few screen shots:

Today's Quote

"This is the question 'the right' has to answer:  Do you want smaller government with less handouts, or do you want a minimum wage?  Because you can't have both.  If Colonel Sanders isn't going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to, and I for one am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers."  --Bill Maher

The Cost Of Doing Nothing

My youngest was recently recruited for a study being done at UVa's Behavioral Sciences Dept - what the hell; somebody's gotta be able to figure this joker out - anyway, while I was there yesterday signing the waivers and various other forms, pretending to be a responsible adult who's able to understand the 5 pages of disclaimers and willing to abdicate any and all rights to any and all recourse if anything goes "wrong", what I remember most about the visit was getting the feeling that we were at some cut-rate "Med School" in the Caribbean or some such.  The offices weren't dirty and dingy, but they weren't spiffy and newly painted either.  And the furniture would have to be upgraded three or four levels to qualify for the discount section at the Goodwill Thrift Store.

And I remember thinking this is another in the string of daily reminders that we're getting dragged down by what I consider our National Allergy To Paying For The Shit That Matters.

And then this pops up at HuffPo, talking about what's happening to most of our once-great research infrastructure:

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- On the first floor of Jordan Hall at the University of Virginia School of Medicine is a 12-by-8 room that, at first glance, looks like a rundown storage space. The floor is a mix of white, teal and purple tiles, in a pattern reminiscent of the 1970s. Trash cans are without tops and half filled. There are rust stains on the tiles, and a loose air vent dangles a bit from the ceiling.

--and--

You wouldn't know from his giddy, optimistic tone that Dutta is currently navigating the biggest obstacle of his career. Five years after he received a $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to undertake this microRNA project, he's nearly out of cash. His proposal was placed in the 2nd percentile of all grants reviewed by NIH in 2007, meaning that it was deemed more promising than 98 percent of the proposed projects.

When he asked for the same amount of money in 2012, his proposal was scored in the 18th percentile. In years past that score may have been good enough, but in the age of sequestration, NIH is supporting a much smaller pool of applicants. Late last month he was told that there would be no funding. UVA has stepped in to help, but Dutta estimates that 40 of his colleagues are in the same boat.

"I am living off of fumes," he says.

A feeling of despair has taken hold within research communities like Dutta's, Top officials at academic and medical institutions have grown convinced that years of stagnant budgets and recent cuts have ushered in the dark ages of science in America.

--and--

For-profit companies can play a role too. But they are much more likely to support projects with a clear return on investment, leaving explorative research like that being done by Dr. William Jackson at the Medical College of Wisconsin in the lurch.

Since 2007, Jackson has studied how viruses create a pool of membranes inside a cell. He hypothesized that viruses went into these "acidic vessels" in order to turn the cell into a factory for other viruses, meaning that if he could stop the development of these membrane pools, he could stop the spread of the virus itself. Most promisingly, he found that chloroquine, which is used to fight malaria, could be used to disrupt this process.

Despite the potential ramifications of such a finding -- everything from the common cold to foot-and-mouth disease is thought to follow this pattern -- the private sector won't fund the work. "There is no money to be made from chloroquine," Jackson said. "Only if the drug companies found something they could copyright or patent would they do it."

Here's a guy named JJ Thompson:

In the 1890s, Thompson was first in proposing the existence of subatomic particles, and the first to show real evidence of what he called a 'corpuscle', which soon would become known as the electron - which was nothing but the birth of The Electronic Age which is exactly how I can post this shit here on my blog (and how you can read this shit here on my blog).

Oh yeah - the guy was on the royal payroll at the time - in fact he spent pretty much his entire career as a gubmint worker - and his research was funded by the British taxpayer.

So go ahead and build your simpleton's ideology around some stoopid precept like "Starve The Beast", but try to remember that the beast you're so busy starving might be the one leaving all these golden eggs all over the joint.

It's A Wonderment

From a bit in Forbes, by the leftie-ish Rick Ungar:

With Medicaid eligibility about to be expanded in some 30 states, as a result of the Affordable Care Act, Wal-Mart has responded by cutting employee hours—and thereby wages—even further in order to push more of their workers into state Medicaid programs and increase Wal-Mart profits. Good news for Wal-Mart shareholders and senior management earning the big bucks—not so good for the taxpayers who will now be expected to contribute even larger amounts of money to subsidize Wal-Mart’s burgeoning profits.

But, at long last and in a move gaining popularity around the nation, the State of California is attempting to say ‘enough’ to Wal-Mart and the other large retailers who are looking to the taxpayers to take on the responsibility for the company’s employees—a responsibility Wal-Mart has long refused to accept.

It’s about time.

--and--

Of course, the California Retailers Association, where Wal-Mart Stores WMT +1.14%, Inc. is listed as a board member company, is not quite so pleased with the legislation. According to Bill Dombrowski, chief executive of the Association, ”It’s one of the worst job-killer bills I’ve seen in my 20 years in Sacramento, and that says a lot. The unions are fixated on Wal-Mart, but that’s not the issue here. It’s a monster project to implement the Affordable Care Act, and having this thrown on top is not helpful.”

One wonders if we will ever see the day when Americans will stop falling for the hostage-taking narrative consistently put forward by those whose job it is to defend the indefensible. At the first suggestion of finally putting a chink in Wal-Mart’s policy of profiting at the taxpayers’ expense—a practice that should have every American thinking about what passes for free-enterprise in the United States today—the response is to always threaten to take away jobs if we dare to challenge their business practices, even if those practices cost us billions.

I'm not a regular visitor to their site, so I don't know how often they do this kinda thing, but seeing this under the flagship Forbes brand seems odd to me.  It feels encouraging tho', especially considering that Ungar is staking out what has traditionally been the conservative position when we approach the issue of government involvement in private business.

When Wal-Mart practically owns local and state politicians; when they dominate the retail sector of any portion of any economy; and as a result they get to use the power of government to enforce their business plan - isn't that almost exactly the kind of overly-powerful relationship we're all supposed to be against?

Be sure to browse the comments too - Ungar goes toe-to-toe with some of the more rabid knee-jerkers. 

Once Upon A Time

The Krugman

I don't like feeling I'm becoming kinda captured by a slanted narrative (just sayin' that one straight out), but I'll try to contain my discomfort (for a while anyway) because Paul Krugman seems always to be trying to talk some sense into us.

And he keeps coming up with real info about real events that we need to weigh against all the fantastic predictions of doom coming from the Austerity Freaks.

But what about the brief but nasty slump in 1927? That wasn’t caused by spiking interest rates; it was, instead, caused by fiscal austerity, by the measures taken to stabilize the franc.

So even when we look at the closest thing I can find to the scenario the deficit scolds want us to fear, it doesn’t play out at all as described.

It’s quite remarkable: our policy discourse remains largely dominated by fears of an event that the fear-mongers can’t explain in theory, and for which they can offer no historical examples in practice.

The Tax Thing

I've seen and heard some whining going on about what a bitch it'll be for hard-working white-collar Dems who'll have to pony up on the tax raise because they're busy making money north of the magic $250k level, living in a not-very-fancy neighborhood with a coupla kids etc - and now they have to get ready to pay up on Obama's promise to hike taxes, and it's so unfair because gee, $250k just doesn't buy what it used to buy blah blah blah.

Please - get a fuckin' grip.  You're supposed to be the "smart ones", remember?

Obama's basic plan is to boost the tax rate on income OVER $250k, which means you'll pay exactly the same rate on the FIRST $250k; paying the higher rate only on the amount you earn after $250K.

You sit down and do just a tiny bit of arithmetic, and wow - look at that - if you're pullin' down $300k, your total rate goes up by about 3/4 of 1%.  Think you can handle that one, Mr Super-Genius?