Tag: Citigroup

Yippee !  Wall Street is saved !

Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D OH)  amendment 3733 on the Financial Stability Act bill, to break up the Big 6 Banks into smaller ones that couldn’t take down the entire nation’s economy if they failed, itself did not pass the vote in the Senate this evening, failing by a spectacular 61 noes to 33 yeas, with 6 senators too timid to approach the subject.

http://www.senate.gov/legislat…

Not all bought and paid for yet:

YEAs — 33 votes

Begich (D-AK)

Bingaman (D-NM)

Boxer (D-CA)

Brown (D-OH)

Burris (D-IL)

Cantwell (D-WA)

Cardin (D-MD)

Casey (D-PA)

Coburn (R-OK)***** Republican

Dorgan (D-ND)

Durbin (D-IL)

Ensign (R-NV)

Feingold (D-WI)

Franken (D-MN)

Harkin (D-IA)

Kaufman (D-DE)

Leahy (D-VT)

Levin (D-MI)

Lincoln (D-AR)

Merkley (D-OR)

Mikulski (D-MD)

Murray (D-WA)

Pryor (D-AR)

Reid (D-NV)

Rockefeller (D-WV)

Sanders (I-VT)

Shelby (R-AL)*****   Republican

Specter (D-PA)*****  ex Republican

Stabenow (D-MI)

Udall (D-NM)

Webb (D-VA)

Whitehouse (D-RI)

Wyden (D-OR)

_______________________ end of people who don’t like Great Depressions and financial chaos

___________   Begin list of Senators who liked that Citizens United Ruling by the Supreme Court:

NAYs — 61

Akaka (D-HI)

Alexander (R-TN)

Barrasso (R-WY)

Baucus (D-MT)  a small, cold, scenic state of tiny population,  which votes with Utah.  wtf.

Bayh (D-IN)  does you wife get more insura/pharma stock options for this ?

Bennet (D-CO)

Bond (R-MO)

Brown (R-MA)

Brownback (R-KS)

Burr (R-NC)

Carper (D-DE)   meh. typical.

Chambliss (R-GA)

Cochran (R-MS)

Collins (R-ME)

Conrad (D-ND)

Corker (R-TN)

Cornyn (R-TX)

Crapo (R-ID)

Dodd (D-CT)  looking for that Golden Parachute……

Enzi (R-WY)

Feinstein (D-CA)  meh.

Gillibrand (D-NY)  really, Kirsten, how could you

Graham (R-SC)

Grassley (R-IA)

Gregg (R-NH)

Hagan (D-NC)

Hatch (R-UT)

Hutchison (R-TX)

Inhofe (R-OK)

Inouye (D-HI)

Isakson (R-GA)

Johanns (R-NE)

Johnson (D-SD)

Kerry (D-MA) meh. first no public option, an excise tax, and now this.   you still suck.

Klobuchar (D-MN)

Kohl (D-WI)

Kyl (R-AZ)

Landrieu (D-LA)  say, how’s the Gulf doing, Ms. Mary of Louisiana?

Lautenberg (D-NJ)

LeMieux (R-FL)

Lieberman (ID-CT)  suing Atty General Holder over the tragic Ft Hood shooting information release, too

McCain (R-AZ)

McCaskill (D-MO) midwestern Blew Dawg who thinks she’s a hot shot financial whiz.  ya huh. not.

McConnell (R-KY)

Menendez (D-NJ)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Nelson (D-FL)

Nelson (D-NE)  at least he’s consistently not on our side

Reed (D-RI)

Risch (R-ID)

Roberts (R-KS)

Schumer (D-NY)  wants to be next Majority Leader after making us all get biometric cards. Swell.

Sessions (R-AL)

Shaheen (D-NH)

Snowe (R-ME)

Tester (D-MT)  meh. These netroots Dems.

Thune (R-SD)

Udall (D-CO)

Voinovich (R-OH)

Warner (D-VA)

Wicker (R-MS)

__________________   chickenhearts

Not Voting – 6  

Bennett (R-UT)

Bunning (R-KY)

Byrd (D-WV)  okay, you’re old and frail.  pass. barely.

DeMint (R-SC)

Lugar (R-IN)

Vitter (R-LA)  you don’t have enough diapers to clean anything up

 

The Goverment Accountability Office (GAO) released a report (pdf) on Friday detailing how the biggest U.S. companies are using offshore tax havens to avoid being responsible corporate citizens. The GAO summary explains:

Many U.S. corporations operate globally and have foreign subsidiaries… In some cases they may be used to reduce taxes…

Eighty-three of the 100 largest publicly traded U.S. corporations in terms of 2007 revenue reported having subsidiaries in jurisdictions listed as tax havens or financial privacy jurisdictions. Sixty-three of the 100 largest publicly traded U.S. federal contractors…

Not only that, but many of these corporations have received billions in federal bailout money and Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Carl Levin (D-MI) estimate this corporate tax exploit shifts $100 billion tax responsibility to other taxpayers in the form of loss tax revenue.  

Congratulations fellow taxpayers!  The federal bailout of Citigroup comes with some perks you may have overlooked.  Citigroup has a contract for the naming rights to a new baseball stadium for the New York Mets.  A mere $400 million buys the name “Citi Field” for 20 years:

Under the naming-rights agreement, Citi pays the Mets $20 million a year. What is not known is if Citi could get out of the agreement through a buyout or escape clause. Citi officials insisted on Friday that baseball games would be played in 2009 with the Citi Field sign on the new stadium.

What perks do we get for our bailout of Citi?  Well, it only seems fair that if it’s our money paying for the naming rights, we should get to choose the name!  With so many taxpayers involved, however, agreeing on one name would be difficult.  So I propose a revolving name system for the Mets’ field, where all taxpayers get a chance to have the stadium named after them for one game.