The Beeb turns away from right-wing financial wankjobs for one day. Listen:
Jeffrey Sachs explains how a tax on bank transactions can work
Leading economist, Jeffrey Sachs, believes governments need to start now recouping revenues from banks and other financial institutions.
There’s nothing tax cuts for the rich can’t solve:
The percentage of workers who said they have less than $10,000 in savings grew to 43% in 2010, from 39% in 2009, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s annual Retirement Confidence Survey.
Workers who said they had less than $1,000 jumped to 27%, from 20% in 2009.
But, why be such a debbie downer:
A new study shows that, while the job market may be flat, the number of millionaires in the U.S. is on the rise, with the number of households worth at least $1 million up 16% from last year.
According to a Spectrem Group study, there are now 7.8 million millionaire households in the U.S., a big increase from last year’s total of 6.7 million households. This is a total net worth of the household that includes the value of all assets except their primary residence.
Which reminds me, those millionaires need a tax break.
Capitalism, bitches:
The incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars and as a share of all income in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low.
Not bad for an economy that is being led to socialism and bankruptcy.
Is it time to raise taxes on the rich? Not if the chamber of commerce can help it!
Polling among the 25 to 30 million wealthy Americans whose incomes are high enough to justify the ownership of tax-free bonds confirms this view. Almost all of them believe that income-tax rates will be higher two years from now than they are today. Virtually none believe they will be lower. There are only a few who think tax rates will be unchanged.
Dems are leading us on a socialistic, fascist path that’ll bankrupt the country. That’s why we need GOPers who’ll cut taxes and hand out guns.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is building a large-scale grass-roots political operation that has begun to rival those of the major political parties, funded by record-setting amounts of money raised from corporations and wealthy individuals.
….What makes the initiative possible is a swelling tide of money. The chamber spent more than $144 million on lobbying and grass-roots organizing last year, a 60% increase over 2008, and well beyond the spending of individual labor unions or the Democratic or Republican national committees. The chamber is expected to substantially exceed that spending level in 2010.
….The recent Supreme Court ruling that corporations have a free-speech right to spend money to help elect or defeat candidates not only struck down a century of laws limiting such spending, but it also made many business executives feel more comfortable about using corporate money for political purposes.
This is good news for Giuliani:
Republican leaders who endorsed Crist months ago—when he was considered a lock to be the next senator from Florida—are now walking back their endorsements in light of the challenge mounted to Crist by rightwinger Marco Rubio.
This is good news for Sarah Palin:
The Eric Massa show is quickly turning into a field day for Republicans, as the disgraced Democratic congressman continues to take pot shots at his own party. Over the weekend, he slammed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, whom he called “son of the devil’s spawn.” But Massa isn’t done yet. Glenn Beck has him booked for the full hour on Tuesday because, Beck tweeted, “all Americans need to hear him.” Rush Limbaugh has also promised to make a “national story” out of Massa’s claim that he was set up by his own party.
Son of devil’s spawn made him drink, hit on a bride and bridegroom, and made him want to “frack” someone. Awesomeness for the GOP!
Sounds like a natural born teabagger.
Jon Stewart previews the $2 trillion success story:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Mission accomplished?
The war against unemployment benefits continues. On CNN:
Crowley: People are unemployed because they want to be?
Delay: well, it is the truth. and people in the real world know it. And they have friends and they know it. Sure, we ought to be helping people that are unemployed find a job, but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don’t have.
Irony alert: DeLay is talking about the “real world”. Isn’t it great that every little GOP criminal, GOP racist and ex-VP’s daughter’s wankery will go unchallenged and unnoticed by CNN? The best place for politics.
Last week, Senate Minority Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate’s #2 Republican, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting “because people are being paid even though they’re not working.” And this, of course, coincided with Sen. Jim Bunning’s (R-Ky.) crusade against extending benefits.
Last week, Rep. Dean Heller (R) of Nevada expressed concern that the government is “creating hobos” by extending unemployment benefits. Around the same time, Rep. Steve King, a right-wing Republican from Iowa, explained his opposition to extended unemployment benefits: “We shouldn’t turn the ’safety net’ into a hammock.”
Never you mind that these unemployment benefits are keeping housing from falling off the cliff:
Imagine if there were no unemployment benefits. As Mark Thoma noted yesterday, Unemployment Compensation has Broad Based Benefits, but one benefit he didn’t mention is that it keeps households in place. Even though there is a relationship between the unemployment rate and the delinquency rate, I suspect the trend line would be steeper without unemployment benefits (so there would be even more delinquencies as the unemployment rate rises without benefits).
Something about facts and liberal bias. Effing know-nothings. But, Paul Krugman is wrong: How Little They Know the World. It’s really how little they care about the world, the country or for reality. I submit this as a more appropriate quote to describe these morons:
“The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.”
Kudos to commenter HAHAHAH in Bruce Bartlett’s blog.
TNR spells out how Malpassonomics works:
If the economy seems to be thriving under Republican governance or struggling under Democratic governance, attribute the economy to policy changes. If the opposite is happening, attribute the economy entirely to outside factors. If there’s divided government, attribute all good results to Republican efforts and bad results to Democrats.
Barrons via Romensko via Wonkette via Balloon Juice:
The Department of Education “has been conducting a ‘Program Review’ of Kaplan University’s main offices in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., since September.
Kaplan is the college loan-shark/test prep death company that makes all of the Washington Post Company’s profits, and now Obama’s Education Department is investigating it for looting the federal government in order to make all of those profits, which are dropping anyway, so that’s kind of funny.
Boost your op-ed bs score to 11. Myabe Kaplan will go the way of ITT:
ITT Educational Services Inc. paid $20.8 million for debt-ridden Daniel Webster College in June. In return, the company obtained an academic credential that may generate a taxpayer-funded bonanza worth as much as $1 billion.
Key to tapping that money is Webster’s regional accreditation…. Daniel Webster’s accreditation was its “most attractive” feature to ITT Educational, said Michael Goldstein, an attorney at Dow Lohnes, a Washington law firm that has represented the company.
Barrons on Finra, the agency charged with regulating Madoff, lobbying for more regulatory authority:
The quasigovernmental body, which advertises itself as the white knight of 90 million investors, is lobbying Congress for the power to regulate 11,000 investment advisors who now fall under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission and state securities regulators. The states regulate those with less than $25 million in assets, but want Congress to bump that to $100 million. Why? The SEC does such a poor job, it visits an average of one advisor every nine to 11 years!
Dodd loves the idea.
Mary Schapiro, who led Finra then, received $7.3 million in salary and accumulated benefits when she left; now chairman of the SEC, Schapiro makes $158,500 a year.
That’s good pay for blowing bubbles and kissing banker ass.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a former Secretary of Education, had an op-ed in yesterday’s Washington Post complaining of the Obama administration’s attempted “Washington takeover … of the student loan system.”
That’s strange because:
In reality, getting a student loan through the Federal Direct Loan Program isn’t going be any different than it is for the millions of students who are already getting loans through the Federal Direct Loan Program, which involves filling out the same forms you use to get loans under the “give-banks-billions-of-free-taxpayer-dollars” program that Alexander is defending.
Oh, Wa Po op-ed, is there any rubbish from the right-wing that you won’t publish?
I bet Ben White is really concerned on how these regulations affect small businesses.
Chris Christie had no problem slashing pension funds, hiking public transport prices, but when it comes to taxing the super-rich, the deficit doesn’t seem to be that big a problem:
Governor supports letting surcharge expire on those making $400,000 or more
Campaign promises made to the rich must be kept!
Meanwhile, Ben White, asshat who blogs for BizBox is really concerned about the estate tax rising from the current 0% to 55% next year. Something that affects a thousand or so families in the entire country is a priority for Fred Hiatt’s spawn.
Bloomberg News notes something strange has occurred among the lobbying community that has long argued that the estate tax (which they call the “death tax”) should be abolished for good.
The lobbyists, including those who argue on behalf of small business owners, are now arguing for the reinstatement of a 35 percent estate tax year on inheritances of more than $10 million per couple.
Except, of course, it doesn’t affect any small business owners at all. Zero.
P.S. Note that the term “death tax” does not appear in the article. So, who calls it “death tax” other than the GOP?
Now, Bush is long gone, and the big business lobbies are quite worried about what may happen next.
Not that the middle-class tax cuts would expire. President Obama appears committed to keeping those. But those massive tax breaks to the superwealthy don’t quite have the same juice they used to.
Especially, the estate tax — levied on the inheritances of the wealthiest heirs in America.
This year, because of the Bush tax plan from his first term to gradually phase out the estate tax altogether, the estate tax is literally wiped off the books.
But in 2011, it returns! Inheritance income above the $2 million threshold would be subject to a 55% tax.
Because nothing cuts the deficit faster than tax cuts for the super-rich!
But thanks to the combination of their greed, and their exploitation of deficit hysteria, the superwealthy may actually have to pay their fair share on their inheritances after all.
Don’t count on it. I am sure Dodd will cave in.
