January 2010

Senate Has One Standard for Wall Street and One Standard for Main Street

Ryan Grimm of Huffpost is reporting a double standard has formed in the Senate thanks to the Democratic leadership. Apparently when it comes to the confirmation of Wall Street favorite Ben Bernanke, Democratic leadership is fine with a 50 vote threshold to shut off debate (cloture) of the nomination but when it comes to something like REAL health care reform the vote threshold is 60 votes. What it comes down to is who is buttering your bread?

If it is good for Wall Street then its 50 votes. If it is bad for Wall Street (and private health insurance industry) then its 60 votes. So what is going on? Let's just say it isn't a Profile in Courage:

AIG Bombshell - Goldman Sachs was willing to take a hair cut on CDS payouts

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Wow. I'm getting more than a little CT (conspiracy theory) on this story it has so many twists and turns. Blackrock supposedly released documents which prove Goldman Sachs was willing to tear up contracts, in other words take a hair cut on the back door bail out.

Bloomberg:

A month before the September 2008 rescue, Goldman Sachs approached AIG about tearing up contracts protecting the bank against losses on collateralized debt obligations, or holdings backed by mortgages, according to a BlackRock Inc. presentation dated Nov. 5, 2008. Goldman Sachs was the only counterparty willing to cancel the credit-default swaps and bear the risk of further CDO losses, provided that AIG make payments based on the bank’s larger-than-average estimate of market declines.

Full Spectrum Inequality

The Plunder, Pillage and Destruction of the American Tax Base

We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes. – Leona Helmsley

PREAMBLE:
This brief blog is an attempt at a synthesis of the excellent and exemplary research of superior individuals who have sought out the ways and manner of tax evasion and tax avoidance.

When such avoidance and evasion becomes institutionalized, the impact on any society can be quite severe. Seldom do people understand the connection between massive and institutionalized tax loss and deficit (debt) spending and the existence of debt-financed billionaires (that is, debt-financed wealth).

These activities are extremely antithetical to all forms of progress, as I endeavor to illustrate here.

In the virtual economy, tax shelter design and securitized financial instrument creation rules the day. From the information presented below, one would not be remiss to believe that those with American citizenship who work to evade taxation are truly only citizens of transnationals and multinationals, not citizens of any country.


1913

The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community is not small. It is nil. – John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash

The year 1913 was fraught with momentous change. That was the year America saw the establishment of the oil depletion allowance, the Federal Reserve System, the federal income tax and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The federal income tax as we know it today was, not unexpectedly, introduced in Congress by a Republican, to be adopted as the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

What should be in Obama's State of the Union address, but isn't

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My, my, my. Today we have a preview of President Obama's State of the Union address. What is most offensive is the claim this administration is trying to help the middle class.

We are being bombarded with these misleading headlines:

  • Obama announces initiatives for middle class
  • Obama announces economic aid for struggling middle class families

Right. So, guess what policy initiatives are in the speech? Tax cuts.

A doubling of the child care tax credit for families earning under $85,000; a $1.6 billion increase in federal funding for child care programs and a program to cap student loan payments at 10 percent of income above "a basic living allowance."

His initiatives also include expanding tax credits to match retirement savings and increasing aid for families taking care of elderly relatives. That program would also require many employers to provide the option of a workplace-based retirement savings plan.

Are these people shitting me? I'm sorry but we have massive unemployment. What a sorry ass excuse to help for the middle class. U.S. workers need jobs and they need good jobs now. Who cares about tax cuts! When your income is zero, what do tax cuts matter?

What should be in Obama's State of the Union Address?

How about these?

  1. Demand China float their currency. 83% of the non-oil trade deficit is due to China and their mercentile trade practices. It's pretty obvious too. China's GDP was 10.7% for Q4 2009. China holds the most U.S. treasuries. Meanwhile U.S. manufacturing shrank from about 15% of the economy to 12%.

Historic anniversaries in labor history

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As a people we like to mark the anniversaries of important events in our lives. This is true for nations, individuals, corporations, and political groups.
The labor movement has been mostly left out of this tradition. This is my effort to change that. For instance, this Wednesday is the 160th Birthday of Samuel Gompers, founder of the AFL.

For this essay I would like to concentrate of events, such as this Tuesday is the anniversary of the very first worker's compensation agreement.

More Damning Evidence on AIG 100% payout - SEC involved

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The New York Times has posted more documentation on then New York Fed Chair, now U.S. Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner's cover up on the AIG 100% CDS payout, otherwise known as the real screw job.

Documents obtained by The New York Times on Sunday disclose correspondence between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, A.I.G. and the Securities and Exchange Commission over how to keep elements of the bailout from being publicly disclosed. Among them is a request by the New York Fed to the S.E.C. that essentially would have locked up most of the documents pending a confidentiality review.

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