Republican Senators Dumped Millions in Stock After Secret Coronavirus Briefing
Senators Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler should go to jail.
Randy Rainbow - A Very Stable Genius
Sondheim is genuinely crazy about @RandyRainbow, last time I saw him he told me: “he’s good as anyone writing lyrics right now. And what he’s doing is harder.”
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) May 30, 2019
Or, as my dad @Vegalteno said between screams of laughter at the “Stable Genius” video:
“this guy’s a f***ing genius.” https://t.co/cFlt6EMyyk
Why Obama Failed to Prosecute Wall Street
FRONTLINE investigates why Wall Street’s leaders have escaped prosecution for any fraud related to the sale of bad mortgages.
Glenn Greenwald ("The Real Story Of How 'Untouchable' Wall Street Execs Avoided Prosecution") writes for The Guardian UK:
PBS' Frontline program on Tuesday night broadcast a new one-hour report on one of the greatest and most shameful failings of the Obama administration: the lack of even a single arrest or prosecution of any senior Wall Street banker for the systemic fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis — a crisis from which millions of people around the world are still suffering.
What this program particularly demonstrated was that the Obama justice department, in particular the Chief of its Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer, never even tried to hold the high-level criminals accountable.
What Obama justice officials did instead is exactly what they did in the face of high-level Bush era crimes of torture and warrantless eavesdropping: Namely, acted to protect the most powerful factions in the society in the face of overwhelming evidence of serious criminality. Indeed, financial elites were not only vested with impunity for their fraud, but thrived as a result of it, even as ordinary Americans continue to suffer the effects of that crisis.
Elizabeth Warren on Debt Crisis, Fair Taxation & the Social Contract
“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.Steve Benen writes for Washington Monthly:
“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.
“Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
"If more Democrats were able to make the case for the underlying social contract as effectively, our discourse would be vastly less mind-numbing."
George Carlin on "The Owners"
"The owners want more for themselves and less for everybody else. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. Now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street."
"Zeitgeist: Moving Forward"
From zeitgeistmovingforward.com:
"Zeitgeist: Moving Forward," by director Peter Joseph, is a feature length documentary work which will present a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society.You can now watch the entire film on YouTube.
This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical "life ground" attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a "Resource-Based Economy".
Michael Moore: "America is NOT Broke"
The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. Saying that the country is broke is repeating a Big Lie. It's one of the three biggest lies of the decade: 1) America is broke, 2) Iraq has WMD, and 3) The Packers can't win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.
The truth is, there's lots of money to go around. LOTS. It's just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn't work, they've got their gated communities, and the luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they hope never comes.
The "Bar Stool Economics," or "How Taxes Work" Email
Today I received, for the first time in probably five years, the "Bar Stool Economics" email. Maybe you've seen it before. It goes something like this:
The parable itself is fallacious for the simple reason that not everyone consumes the same quantity of beer, i.e. receives equal benefits from government-provided goods and services. To quote Martin at Balloon Juice:
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:The "Bar Stool Economics," or "How Taxes Work" email has been attributed to various people, professors and pundits, over the last eight years or so, none of which are accurate.
The first four men — the poorest — would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1, the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and the tenth man — the richest — would pay $59.
That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement — until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language a tax cut).
"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six — the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"
The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being PAID to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free.
But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man who pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only saved a dollar, too . . . It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!".
"That's true!" shouted the seventh man, "why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was very important. They were FIFTY-TWO DOLLARS short of paying the bill! Imagine that!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
The parable itself is fallacious for the simple reason that not everyone consumes the same quantity of beer, i.e. receives equal benefits from government-provided goods and services. To quote Martin at Balloon Juice:
The richest [tenth] guy is consuming much, much more [than one beer]. He’s really drinking 8 beers all by himself.For lengthier, and funnier, responses to the "Bar Stool Economics" email, go to balloon-juice.com.
The commerce department provided grants to his company to be more competitive.
The state department helped his company deal with a trade dispute with China.
The military ensured that the goods his company sells can get to foreign countries without being pirated.
When some other companies tried to infringe on his company’s intellectual property, the US judiciary was there to hear the case and take action.
The federal government has worked for two centuries to ensure that we have secure borders, low crime, good infrastructure, fair court systems, a large pool of highly educated workers – and all of those things benefit the guys at the top far more than the folks at the bottom. They’re all profit and success magnifiers.
So yeah, [the tenth guy] makes more, but he’s gotten more help to get there. He just needs to pay for what he’s gotten.
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