Tag: Wealthy

What the F**K is wrong with this country? Wait, never mind I’ve been watching it collapse for the last thirty of my comin on 62 years of my life, Questions Answered!

I just got finished watching Meet The Press and the way over the top extremely highly paid ‘experts?’ mumbling about the tax cuts and who hates who and why.

I didn’t hear One mention of these Wars our soldiers are still in nor the countries need to Finally not only ‘Sacrifice, after ten years, but Pay Back What Is Owed For Waging Them, not a mention as to the Veterans Of nor their Families, the Only Ones That Have Done Any Sacrificing as these tax cuts came with the start of these Wars of Choice.

It came on just as I was putting together a post for my site on a just released report on Family Care Givers of Veterans, and boy there is so much more then just this!

The main GOTP argument for keeping the Bush Tax Cuts in place for the Top 2% — pivots on how it will “hurt Small Businesses” if we don’t.

This simple slogan, fails to take into account one VERY SMALL stat.

[Mitch McConnell] says President Barack Obama’s plan to limit future tax breaks to couples earning less than $250,000 would subject 50 percent of small business income to a tax increase, stalling the job creation engine.

[…]

McConnell’s 50-%-of-income figure is based on a July 12 finding by the Joint Committee on Taxation, … that 1/2 of about $1 trillion of business income in 2011 will be reported on some 750,000 personal tax returns filed by people who pay the top marginal rates.

He calls those small businesses. Yet the report says the data “do not imply that all of the income is from entities that might be considered ‘small.’ ” Almost 20,000 of those businesses, for example, had receipts of more than $50 million, it says.

Would Ending Bush’s Tax Cuts Hurt Small Business?

Ryan J Donmoyer, BusinessWeek – 09/23/10

Behold the GOTP — Defenders of the $50 Million-aires!

This .org website gives a whole new meaning to Industry ‘Front Group’.

TeaPartyExpress.org

larger

It’s a page designed to solicit Donations — and little else.

The Home link — goes nowhere;  (ie. back to the Contribute Page)

The About link — goes nowhere;

The Media link — goes nowhere;

The Blog link goes to this blogspot page

TeaPartyExpressBlog.blogspot.com

where the lead story is

Don’t Raise Our Taxes – Don’t Repeal the Tax Cuts

and which has this emotive Scary Image:

let me guess, it’s designed to solicit Donations.

Why should you care?

Well it looks like Tea Party Express PAC, just may be breaking Federal Campaigns Laws …

Americans for Prosperity has worked closely with the Tea Party since the movement’s inception. In the weeks before the first Tax Day protests, in April, 2009, Americans for Prosperity hosted a Web site offering supporters “Tea Party Talking Points”.

Talking Points: Taxpayer Tea Party   [the Bullet point version, pdf]

Americans for Prosperity — April 2009

— Stop the handouts to Wall Street.

— Stop the Federal Reserve’s printing press

— Stop the federal bailouts that pick winners and losers in the marketplace.

— Stop exploding the national debt, which will crush our children and grandchildren.

— The grassroots MUST take action in order to achieve these goals.

Federal Spending

The Obama Budget

Endless Government Bailouts

IRS History and Horror Stories

Who’s behind the baggers?

Americans for Prosperity Foundation — an organization that David Koch started, in 2004

Koch who?

And you thought the Teabaggers were being “run” by the Beckster …

There is a crack daylight, that may topple the Republican’s Wall of Inaction.

Voinovich breaks with GOP to push for small-business incentives

Lori Montgomery, Washington Post Staff — Sept 10, 2010

Retiring Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) said he plans to help push a package of small-business incentives through the Senate next week, a move that would give President Obama and congressional Democrats a key victory on the economy in the final weeks before the November midterm elections.

In an interview, Voinovich said he could no longer support Republican efforts to delay the measure in hopes of winning the right to offer additional amendments. Most of the proposed GOP amendments “didn’t have anything to do with the bill” anyway, Voinovich said, and amounted merely to partisan “messaging.”

“We don’t have time for messaging,” Voinovich said. “We don’t have time anymore. This country is really hurting.”

Finally a Republican Senator with some Integrity, who is willing work for the folks, that Voted him into Office  (instead of working against their interests, for his own gain …)

As the old saying goes, “Read it and Weep!”

The People Speak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Finally a Representative body, that knows WHO they work for …

Class war breaks out in the U.K.

The Labor government announces a tax on exorbitantly-paid bankers. American populists gnash their teeth in envy

By Andrew Leonard, Dec 9, 2009

Unsurprising headline of the year: “U.S. Probably Will Avoid Matching U.K. 50 percent Bonus Tax.”

Alistair Darling, the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the tax — aimed squarely at overpaid bankers

[…]

From Bloomberg:

“There are some banks who still believe their priority is to pay substantial bonuses,” Darling said in Parliament. “I am giving them a choice. They can use their profits to build up their capital base. If they insist on paying substantial rewards, I am determined to claw money back for the taxpayer.”

Paul Krugman says the move is “entirely reasonable.” Justin Fox asks, “why the heck not?” Felix Salmon says “well done.”

But don’t expect a repeat across the pond.

http://www.salon.com/technolog…

Interesting … maybe the People CAN Fight back?

If you missed Dylan Ratigan’s interview today with Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) — well you missed a lot!

They spell out in stark relief the very REAL need for serious Wall Street Regulation — NOW!   (and still!)

Or we risk a repeat of the same Bubble-driven collapse of Trillion Dollar Derivative Bets, that occur in the dark, beyond the reach — or even the Watch — of any Govt Regulator, or even the Public scrutinity.

Nothing has changed, they can STILL Gamble Trillions in Derivatives, and let US the Taxpayers pick up the Tab, whenever their Bets GO Bad!

Link to MSNBC Clip to the Ratigan Cantwell Interview

Definitely a “Must See”, in my opinion.

So much so, I transcribed much of it, to help peak your interest …  

FRONTLINE INVESTIGATES THE ROOTS OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

FRONTLINE Presents

The Warning

Tuesday, October 20, 2009, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS

In the devastating aftermath of the economic meltdown, FRONTLINE sifts through the ashes for clues about why it happened and examines critical moments when it might have gone much differently.

In The Warning, airing Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (Inside the Meltdown, Breaking the Bank) unearths the hidden history of the nation’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. At the center of it all he finds Brooksley Born, who speaks for the first time on television about her failed campaign to regulate the secretive, multi-trillion-dollar derivatives market whose crash helped trigger the financial collapse in the fall of 2008.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/…

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities economists just confirmed the trends of the last 8 years — Most of the the Economic Gains went to the very Wealthy, while the rest of us struggled to just get by

TOP 1 PERCENT OF AMERICANS REAPED 2/3 OF INCOME GAINS In last Economic Expansion,

Income Concentration in 2007 Was at Highest Level Since 1928, New Analysis Shows

By Avi Feller and Chad Stone – September 9, 2009

Two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to the top 1 percent of U.S. households, and that top 1 percent held a larger share of income in 2007 than at any time since 1928, according to an analysis of newly released IRS data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.

During those years, the Piketty-Saez data also show, the inflation adjusted income of the top 1 percent of households grew more than ten times faster than the income of the bottom 90 percent of households.