The Final Word October 20, 2008
Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Humor, Life, News & Events, Politics.comments closed
This will be my last entry until the election, and perhaps a little R&R will be required afterwards. This lengthy, bitter, and truly bizarre campaign season has taken a toll on my health and my sanity, or what’s left of both I should say. And anyhow, everything I could possibly say about who to vote for on November 4th was said with superlative precision and brilliance by Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.) on Meet the Press this past weekend.
If you haven’t seen the video, go to YouTube and find it. With his trademark poise and charm, Gen. Powell went through the process by which he arrived at his eventual decision to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for President, while maintaining a great respect for Sen. John McCain — his friend of more than 25 years. But he did far, far more than just announce his endorsement.
In ten minutes Gen. Powell managed to voice the most even-handed evisceration of a political philosophy in modern times. He calmly went through his misgivings with the McCain campaign and the Republican Party in general, layout out point by point exactly how he feels about the sleaze factor, the intimidation tactics, and McCain’s choice for running mate. It was the most graceful kick in the balls I have ever witnessed, but a kick in the balls it was nonetheless. By the time it was over I’m sure McCain’s campaign staff was limping to the freezer to get some ice for their swollen gonads.
The video does far more justice to the presentation than I ever could in print, so I will leave you to find and view it for yourself. But first, a warning. If you had planned on voting for John McCain this election, this is going to be hard to view. Gen. Powell is one of the most widely respected members of the Republican Party: decorated Viet Nam war legend, four-star general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under Bush 41, architect of the first Gulf War, Secretary of State under Bush 43. He’s not going to vote for your guy. My opinion is, neither should you. But know this: if you can honestly watch Colin Powell’s Meet the Press appearance and still vote for John McCain, you will be spitting in the face of one of America’s few remaining genuine heroes.
I hope you’re proud of yourself pulling that lever, punching that card, or touching that screen.
I’ll be back when things settle down. You know, when lame-duck Republicans will try attaching gay marriage bans and English-as-the-official-language riders on to financial bailout bills, when President Bush (the LAST, we can only pray) tries to save his legacy with some ill-conceived hail-Mary pass concerning China or North Korea or Israel or some other fool-idiot thing, and on inauguration day — the first one held indoors, I will predict, at the insistence of the Secret Service following more than a dozen credible threats of assassination. We are about to face three months of every red-neck racist puke who can stand erect waving his shotgun in front of anyone who will listen at the trailer park and saying he “ain’t gonna live in no country with no f***in’ n****r as Prez’dent.” But those aren’t the ones that worry me. The ex-Recon Marine turned Arayan Nation disciple with a Swiss-made sniper rifle and counterintelligence training does. One can only hope our brave men and women of the Secret Service can flush out and neutralize these lunatics before any damage is done.
Happy Holidays, everybody!
The Great Escape October 15, 2008
Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Humor, Life, News & Events, Politics.comments closed
We all know about Dick Cheney’s antics as Vice President, essentially spitting on the Constitution in more ways than can be counted — including but not limited to abuse of power, circumventing checks and balances, denial of due process, etc., etc. His Evilness is setting himself up for indictment in the worst way once a Democratic government is sworn in, so how does he avoid that?
Obviously President Bush can pardon him, as he likely will, and as he likely will for nearly everyone in a policy position within his government. But since Cheney’s antics reach far past the borders of the United States, there’s always the outside possibility that the new President will quietly imply to the International Criminal Court in The Hague that if Bush administration cronies are brought up on war crimes charges, the U.S. will extradite. A pardon doesn’t apply there, so Mr. Cheney would be looking at the inside of the Slobodan Milosovic Suite at the Hague Hilton for the rest of his days.
How is he going to avoid that? Trust me, he has a plan. Cheney laid the groundwork for the last chapter in his Tretus of Treason today with what the press described as “an outpatient procedure to restore a normal heart rhythm.” You will see more of these events in the days leading up to the inauguration. Why?
Dick Cheney is going to fake his own death.
In order to avoid any responsibility for the acts he committed while in office, Dick Cheney is now beginning a long and exquisitely-planned series of fake health scares and false alarms, leading up to a “fatal heart attack” between December 20th and January 10th. The non-event will take place in private, no autopsy will be conducted, and there will be a closed-casket funeral. The entire thing will be a lavish and flawlessly-orchestrated piece of theater, with the cooperation of several doctors close to the administration, the FBI, the Secret Service, and numerous unwitting dupes in the press.
Think about it: what’s stopping him? He’s broken nearly every tenet of the Constitution pertaining to separation of powers and the duties of the Vice President, and his involvement in the unjustified war in Iraq (and his de facto responsibility for crimes committed by troops and contractors there) make him ripe pickings for the ICC to charge him with war crimes along with Rumsfeld, Patreas and a host of other Bush administration officials. Cheney knows this, and he knows that a Democratic Congress might just decide to let him get what he deserves in the Netherlands. He’s got to find a way out.
Who else in this country would have the motive, the resources and the wherewithal to pull off faking his death? He’s in the perfect position to do it right now, so he’s getting things lined up for The Great Escape. A multi-million dollar numbered bank account in the Caymans awaits him (provided generously by the good folks at Exxon-Mobil), so all he has to do is hop a private jet with its transponder turned off and fly away. He can watch the funeral on TV while sipping a single-malt scotch and getting another sponge bath from his bikini-clad “nurse”.
It’s all as plain as day. Mark my words, you heard it here first.
A Crime Just Below Treason October 14, 2008
Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Humor, Money & Investing, News & Events, Politics, The Economy.comments closed
It seems every time we turn around we are hearing another Republican proposal to make the world a better place. And for some reason whether the subject of discussion is health care, the environment, immigration, or even foreign policy, the answer always — always! — includes a reduction in the capital gains tax.
This was elevated to near-idiotic status in the past month, with the Republican caucus in the House offering their own version of the financial sector bailout package that included a capital gains tax reduction, and even Sarah Palin during her interview with Katie Couric seemed to think that part of the solution for the health care crisis was a reduction in capital gains taxes.
Umm, hello? Let’s focus here, people. There’s important business to be done. Pay attention, or you’ll have to stay in at recess.
With the issue being raised so regularly and with such vehemence, it’s time to look at what the capital gains tax is, how to avoid it, and what the real reason is that the Republicans are so hell-bent to get the rate reduced.
Answering the question “what is the capital gains tax” requires answering the question “what is a capital gain” first. A capital gain is the profit realized by the sale of a non-inventory asset for a price higher than it was purchased for. Short version: you bought low and sold high, you owe a capital gains tax. This applies most frequently to sales of securities, other non-cash investments or real estate. The rate (glad you asked, because this is important) is currently 15%.
Everyone is always looking to avoid paying a tax, shameful though it is, and the capital gains tax is painfully easy to avoid. First of all, the sale of one’s primary residence is a special case, and generally is not subject to capital gains tax (or if it is, there is a sizable deduction of eligible profits). Apart from that, there are about a half-dozen ways to either hide, shelter, or reduce the amount of your profits significantly or entirely if you have a good accountant. Structured sales, charitable trusts, and 1031 exchanges are all legal (though in many cases morally reprehensible) ways to reduce or eliminate the amount of capital gains subject to taxation.
Additionally, since the tax code defines a capital gain, they also have defined a capital loss. Any losses incurred during the same year that you realized a capital gain work to cancel each other out. This puts a very strong incentive for taxpayers to fudge the paperwork on underperforming investments to conveniently realize losses only in years when capital gains are also realized. Again, another legal (but morally reprehensible) way of avoiding paying taxes.
As you can imagine, the list of dirty tricks cooked up by tax specialists — lawyer/accountant firms that spend their days and nights looking for new and less-detectable ways to cheat Uncle Sam out of his rightful nickel — is lengthy and growing every day. The more money you have, the more money you can save in taxes, because you can pay the tax specialist more to reduce your tax bill more. It’s an entire industry employing thousands of people all over the country, with its sole purpose being to avoid paying taxes. Isn’t that nice? Aren’t the super-rich wonderful people? And they wonder why we hold them in such low regard.
But this doesn’t explain why the Republican party is so bound and determined to get that tax rate reduced. Sure, the rich fund the Republican party. Sure, they use just as many dirty tricks in campaign finance as they do in tax dodging to make it look like their donations are coming from the average Joe. Sure, their entire legislative agenda is meant to serve the rich and the large corporations. But how does capital gains taxes fit into the mix? Because capital gains tax is, in itself, a tax dodge. Here’s how it works.
The top tax bracket is currently 35%. It applies to anyone earning more than roughly $357,000 in a given year. Top executives are affected by this in a big way. Their multi-million dollar salaries are taxed heavily in terms of real dollars. So in order to reduce the amount of taxes a given CEO pays, the salary you hear about on the news is only a small part of his overall compensation.
First, CEO’s and similar top brass at major corporations get perks like nobody’s business. Large corporations own all kinds of executive playthings that are available to the big-wigs whenever they want. Houses, condos, apartments, vacation retreats, private jets, yachts, cars, etc. etc. None (NONE!) of this compensation is reported to the IRS at all, since there is no way to accurately value the use of somebody else’s (ha-ha-ha) property. Additionally, companies regularly offer multi-million dollar loans to their executives — loans that are never paid back, with the full knowledge of both parties. The executive takes the money but doesn’t have to declare it as income, since in the eyes of the IRS it is actually a loan; and the corporation can write off the loan that doesn’t get paid back as (TA-DAA!) a capital loss. Sweet, huh? But we haven’t gotten to the best part.
Since the (oh, let’s keep the math easy) $100 million a corporation wants to pay its CEO will result in Uncle Sam getting $35 million if they report the entire amount as salary, they structure the deal much differently. The CEO gets a salary of, for instance, $10 million, thus reducing the tax bill from $35 million to $3.5 million. To make up the difference the executive will receive $90 million in either stock options or warrants. These are securities that are essentially cash on demand. When the executive wants the money, he contacts the finance department at the corporation, they execute the transaction for him (instantaneous purchase and sale of the company’s stock at a fixed price) and put the proceeds from the sale into a pre-established account in his name.
Why do this? Seems like a lot of falderall to go through for the same result. What’s the benefit? Once you capitalize the compensation (turn it from income into an asset) any gains realized are considered capital gains and taxed at 15% instead of 35%. This reduces the CEO’s tax bill on the option/warrant compensation from $31.5 million down to $13.5 million. When the whole thing is said and done, instead of paying $35 million in taxes like he should, the lying thief gets away — all nice and legal-like — with paying only $17 million. This is how the super-rich screw you and me.
The next time your local school has to cut programs because federal funding has dried up to a trickle, think of the $100 million CEO’s and their nice fat tax dodge.
But let us return to our original question: why do the Republicans keep trying to get the rate reduced? Because under the plan introduced by John McCain today that cuts capital gains taxes in half, that same CEO would pay only $11.25 million. Less than a third of what he should be paying, and an effective tax rate lower than even the poorest Americans. Not only will it reduce the tax bills of the rich even further, it will make the practice more attractive to more corporations causing them to begin doing it for their executives. Net result: more rich people paying less taxes than ever before. Doesn’t that sound nice? And let me say also that this is the most publicly-criticized use of the capital gains tax to avoid paying taxes. There are doubtless thousands more, all borne of the same cheating philosophy, and all available only to large corporations and their fat cat executives.
The Republicans always try to make this out to be about you and me, the little guy, the small business. Will a capital gains tax cut help any of us? Not one bit. For 99% of the country the only investments they have are a primary residence, retirement account and tax-exempt college savings fund. Capital gains taxes apply to none of these, so any tax cut would help only the top 1% of the income scale. And no, this tax cut will not help most small businesses, that is unless their business is the buying and selling of securities or real estate — bottom-feeding speculators who helped get us into this sub-prime quagmire to begin with.
No, this tax cut is for the rich and only the rich. It won’t help you or me, it won’t create jobs, it won’t keep people in their homes, and it won’t stimulate the economy one bit. It is another clear signal that the Republican party is in the pockets of big business. Despite their attempts to cloak this ruse in a veil of small-town, down-home compassion for the little guy, that dog won’t hunt. This needs to be identified for what it is: a shameful way to help the rich avoid their responsibility as taxpayers, screwing the American public in the process.
I view tax evasion, in any form, as a crime just below treason. It would do us well to help ensure that we don’t give the traitors another tool to put in their bag of dirty tricks.
(NOTE: For you tax-monkeys and politicos who are howling about short-term capital gains right now, the corporations back-date the options to get around that rule. Illegal, yes. But just try and catch them at it.)
