Friday Blog Round-Up: Field Trip Edition

The best line of the entire article:

“For many low-income workers, the EITC is the only thing keeping them from abject poverty. For that reason, it’s certainly a good program. However, the real problem is that so many workers have such low wages in the first place. Wal-Mart, which pays its workers poverty-level wages and drives down wages throughout the retail sector, is at the heart of this problem. If companies like Wal-Mart paid their employees a living wage in the first place, the EITC would not be necessary.”

These poor people however really need a union to represent them so that they can be treated decently like they treat people over at Costco.

i hate poor people and having to pay them a wage.that sucks for wm and they deserve better than having to pay people to work or give them insurance!!i hate quality products and the chinese crap wm brings into this country makes wm money so that is the best thing that could ever happen and who gives a crap about american workers i sure dont you are all stupid and full of bs for trying to protect your family or jobs hah ha you wm hating hypocrites.wm wins and america wage slaves lose!!i cant wait for the 4th of july.

NEW REPORT: McCain Would Give America’s 200 Largest Corporations $45 Billion In Tax Breaks------------------
If you’re a CEO of one of America’s largest corporations and have enjoyed the Presidency of George W. Bush, a contribution to the McCain campaign is looking like a pretty good investment.

A new report from the Center For American Progress Action Fund finds that a key piece of John McCain’s tax plan — cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% — would cut taxes by almost $45 billion every year for America’s 200 largest corporations as identified by Fortune Magazine.

Eight companies — Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Bank ƒƒof America Corp., AT&T;, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Microsoft Corp. — would each receive over $1 billion a year.

These giveaways are just one part of McCain’s doubling of the Bush tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy which would create the largest deficits in 25 years and drive the United States into the deepest deficits since World War II.

A recent analysis by the Public Campaign Action Fund found that John McCain’s campaign has received $5.6 million from the PACs and executives of the Fortune 200.

Over the past eight years, under George W. Bush, American workers have seen their wages stagnate as corporate profits have skyrocketed. John McCain’s misguided priorities show he’s more of the same: the same $45 billion in tax cuts for America’s 200 largest companies could be used to lift over 9 million Americans out of poverty.~~~~~~~~~~~(Think Progress)

“Change”

Thats all you’ll have left after Obama is done!

“There are seasons, in human affairs, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for.”

There are periods when to dare, is the highest wisdom.

--William Ellery Channing

“would each receive over $1 billion a year.”

For those of you out there with some intelligence, the government giving a tax break, is not the same as giving them money!!  A tax break means not ‘taking’ AS MUCH MONEY from someone!!  If you get a tax break for mortgage interest, does the government SEND you some money or do they just not take as much from you?

Saying that those companies will be GETTING $1 billion from the government is just a ploy the Liberals use to get you to be mad at the Conservatives, the government won’t be GIVING them a dime!!

...the government won’t be GIVING them a dime!!

Right wing hair-splitting, RDS. Relieving a corporation’s tax debt, or refunding taxes paid. What’s the diff?

“Change” Thats all you’ll have left after Obama is done!

Yeah, KMS, Democratic presidents have a way of ruining this country with peace and prosperity. Personally, I’d rather have some ‘change’ of my own jingling in my pocket then a handful of loans from Red China.

tim the ufcw union grocery stores and all the other retail stores and fast food joints you favor pay poverty level wages.how come we never hear any bitching and whining from you and your wm hater buddies those other places poverty level wages?

off course ken will not piss and moan about all his favorite stores getting the same tax breaks and incentives walmart will get

For those of you out there with some intelligence, the government giving a tax break, is not the same as giving them money!! 

No it means instead of giving the goverment a thousand you only have to give them a hunderd so you save 900

Naked Truth Investing: Wal-Mart customers ‘save money’ and ‘live better’ while Wal-Mart employees pay more for their 401(k) plan and retire broke
By Daniel Solin , Blogging Stocks
June 24th, 2008~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) is the world’s largest company with over $380 billion in revenues. It’s success is based on it ability to squeeze vendors to the breaking point. The largest manufacturers are no match for this retail giant.
Wal-Mart’s 401(k) plan has over $9.5 billion in assets. Its modestly paid employees count on this plan to fund their retirement.
A recent class action lawsuit makes allegations which, if true, will cause many of these employees to be great disappointed.
The suit alleges that Wal-Mart’s 401(k) plan pays “retail” for its mutual funds, instead of the institutional rate for the same funds. Institutional funds require a minimum investment ranging from $100,000 up to $1 million. Clearly, not a big hurdle for Wal-Mart’s mega 401(k) plan.
The difference in cost between retail and institutional funds is significant. The average annual expense ratio for retail equity mutual funds is around 1.50%. The same expense ratio for an institutional fund is around 0.50%.
A 1% difference in costs doesn’t seem like much but it can add up. On an initial investment of $50,000, it could cost investors as much as $19,000 over 20 years, assuming an 8% rate of return.
The failure to insist on lower cost institutional funds is not the only problem with Wal-Mart’s 401(k) plan. It is populated with high expense ratio, actively managed funds, despite the fact that lower cost, actively manged funds, with similar benchmarks and better performance, are available from fund families like Vanguard.
Yet even these obvious deficiencies still don’t address the primary problem with the plan. Why are actively managed funds included at all? The plan should consist solely of low-cost, broadly diversified, domestic and international stock and bond index funds, and target retirement funds, made up of low-cost index funds. The complaint alleges that, if Wal-Mart had followed this practice, the plan would have increased in value by an additional $140 million for the six-year period ending January 31, 2007.
Has Wal-Mart lost its negotiating mojo? Or has it succumbed to a flawed 401(k) system that places the interests of employers, brokers, consultants and the mutual fund industry above those of its employees?~~~~~~~~~~~Note: Not ALL vendors are bargained down.

“For those of you out there with some intelligence...”

I guess that rules you out RDS!

That’s the one thing that’s constant here...we can always count on you to bend, twist, hammer, distort, and obfuscate the facts so they conform to you cock-eyed views of the world!

“A tax break means not ‘taking’ AS MUCH MONEY from <i>someone!!” ~RDS

From “someone”?  You need to distinguish between the terms “someone” and “something,” RDS.  Corporations would be “somethings,” are they not? 

But then again, in your cockamamie world, corporations like Wal-Mart are “good corporate citizens,” so that makes them a “someone.”

I want to puke everytime I hear the phrase “good corporate citizen.” Perhaps you or your “esteemed and knowledgeable” right wing-nut posting buddy “Constitutionalist,” could reference the place in the Constitution that defines the rights of “corporate citizens.”

RDS: Didn’t somebody once refer to RDS as “Mister Twister?”

...the government giving a tax break, is not the same as giving them money!!

Like I said, right wingnut hair-splitting. You owe me $10. I know things are tough for you so I’ll settle for $8.....or.... You pay me the $10 and I give you $2 back. Either way you walk away with $2.

....with some intelligence...

I missed you at the Mensa picnic, Wallstreet.

“Didn’t somebody once refer to RDS as “Mister Twister?”

I don’t recall that… but I like it!  Unless somebody else takes the credit, we’ll give you this one, ddrb!

Then there are my two personal favorites… RDS=Real Dumb Shit or RDS=Ridiculous Daily Spin

“Democratic presidents have a way of ruining this country with peace and prosperity.”

Yeah, we sure had peace and prosperity under JFK, Johnson and Carter, didn’t we?

“No it means instead of giving the goverment a thousand you only have to give them a hunderd so you save 900”

That is an example of the mindset, that that $1,000.00 belonged to the government in the first place!!  Just like with YOUR paycheck, the government TAKES X dollars each week from you and then decides how much they will allow you to have back, but, it was YOUR money to begin with, you were the one who earned it!!

“You need to distinguish between the terms “someone” and “something,” RDS.  Corporations would be “somethings,” are they not?”

But, the corporations are still owned and run by people, which are “someones”!!  You can twist things, but, the stockholders are the ones who end up paying the taxes for a corporation, from their profits!!  Just pretending that a corporation is independant of people, does not make it so!!  That would be like saying you have TWO lives, your private life and your work life and don’t affect each other!!

“You owe me $10.”

That makes the proposition, that the government is in charge of things, not the people!!  If the people were in charge, they would decide how much they are willing to pay, not the other way around!!  Just another example of how we are losing the principle of WE THE PEOPLE and are pushing the concept of “government control, cradle to grave”!!  Do you believe that you OWE money for the war in Iraq, or do you believe the government is taking money from you for the war, that you would choose NOT to pay?  In other words, if I came to your house and cut your lawn, without being asked and sent you a bill, would you think YOU ‘owed’ it, just because I did the work?

That is an example of the mindset, that that $1,000.00 belonged to the government in the first place!!

It’s a cost of doing business, known going in. Gee, just think how much profit Wal-Mart could make if they didn’t pay their suppliers, or their overhead, labor, or taxes. Why can’t the Beast keep all $400 billion?

You want to do business in this country? Pay your taxes! Quit trying to get a free ride.

Perhaps Wal-Mart should consider moving the Beast from Bentonville to Beijing.

The RDS School of Business

This is something we can be sure we’ll never see!

You really DO make things up as you bumble along don’t you, RDS?

“Just pretending that a corporation is independant of people, does not make it so!!”

This is precisely why there are things like LLC’s and corporations.  The intent is to make the corporation independent of the people running it and to limit personal libability in case things don’t work out according to plans.

That is an example of the mindset, that that $1,000.00 belonged to the government in the first place!!  Just like with YOUR paycheck, the government TAKES X dollars each week from you and then decides how much they will allow you to have back, but, it was YOUR money to begin with, you were the one who earned it!!

Any one that would make a statement like that definitely did not get pass the 6th grade in school

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Published on Thursday, August 23, 2007 by TruthDig.com
Only Little People Pay Taxes
by Marie Cocco
It’s odd, this urge I have to mark the passing of Leona Helmsley. The diva of a hotel empire whose abrasive arrogance was given a full public airing during her tabloid-terrific trial on tax-evasion charges in the late 1980s died earlier this week at 87. Her epitaph: the Queen of Mean.
Nostalgia for New York City is a common affliction among those of us who once made our homes there. It drives an entire industry built upon the memory of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and infuses people with the determined outlook that somehow life on the Lower East Side was better when it was an immigrant ghetto than it is today as a gentrified enclave for suburban college students in search of a cool nightclub.
There is an awful lot to legitimately miss about New York without resorting to a gauzy glance back at the 1980s, a time when the very rich -always a source of curiosity and perverse civic pride-held cultural sway. Wall Street rose up as a way of life instead of as a mere industry. Real estate barons such as Helmsley and her husband, Harry, were titans. Donald Trump was building his career as a developer, investor and political player-viewed as a savior of struggling municipal projects or as an instigator of self-enriching sweetheart deals, take your pick. This was before Trump became a caricature of himself for TV.
Average New Yorkers gained little from all this money sloshing up and down the avenues. The trickle-down economics of the Reagan era didn’t turn the aging subways around, fill the potholes or shore up the bridges. Public investment of all kinds was starved in part because of deep federal budget cuts.
So when a former housekeeper testified at the queen’s trial that Leona Helmsley once told her that “only the little people pay taxes,” something snapped. It was as though the decade had been unmasked for what it was: an era of individual rapaciousness, backed in good part by government itself.
How could we know that two decades later that sound bite of selfishness-”only the little people pay taxes”-would become public policy?
Recalling Helmsley has jogged another memory. It is of Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking to then-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill after the 2002 midterm elections. According to Ron Suskind’s 2004 book, “The Price of Loyalty,” O’Neill wanted the White House to abandon its plan for a second round of big tax cuts. The federal deficit already was rising, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, necessitated enormous new expenditures for security, and the war in Afghanistan created another big demand for funds. But, Cheney told O’Neill dismissively: “We won the midterms. This is our due.”
.....MORE......

So the second installment went forward, part of a tax-cut tab from the still- unfinished Bush era that amounts to a 10-year, $2 trillion drain on the public treasury. By any measure, the cuts flow disproportionately not to the “little people” but to those who already are living large.
The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, says the combined effect of the Bush tax cuts was to raise the after-tax incomes of those taxpayers with more than $1 million in annual income by 6 percent-more than twice the benefit for those with incomes between $20,000 and $75,000.
Looked at another way, those with incomes of more than $1 million got an average tax cut of $118,477. That compares with $1,205 for a taxpayer whose income falls between $50,000 and $75,000.
As the Bush presidency limps to a close, the country is frantic about Iraq and weighed down by concerns over terrorism. The central theme among Democrats running for president is undoing President Bush’s catastrophic foreign policy mistakes. Republican candidates, by and large, solemnly swear to stay the course in Iraq.
There’s been little discussion of how to repair the damage from a fiscal policy based on the premise that only the little people pay taxes. Some Democrats have pledged to repeal the tax cuts for those with the highest incomes-say, people earning $200,000 or more a year. No attention has been paid to the inevitable future program cuts to bring the federal budget into line. These will almost certainly fall upon the public at large-whether they are drivers or hospital patients or students or retirees.
Such is the legacy of this particular decade of greed. At least back in the 1980s, we were appalled by it.
Marie Cocco’s e-mail address is mariecocco(at)washpost.com.
© 2007, Washington Post Writers Group

“You want to do business in this country? Pay your taxes! Quit trying to get a free ride.”

But, if the government GIVES you a ‘tax break’, aren’t you still paying the taxes that the government asks you to pay?  Wal-Mart isn’t giving themselves the ‘tax break’, are they?

“Any one that would make a statement like that definitely did not get pass the 6th grade in school”

So, are you saying that when you get your paycheck, you DIDN’T earn that money and the government DOESN’T take part of it?

Here is the great part, if you made gross wages of say $500.00, first, the Federal government taxes a percent of theat $500.00, then, the Social Security Adm. taxes that same $500.00, then they tax for Medicaid on that same $500.00, and along comes the state, who taxes that same $500.00!!  So, before you even get your check, that $500.00 has been taxed 4 times!!  In other words, you have been taxed on TAX 3 times!!  Then, if you buy gas with $30.00 of you net pay, you are taxed by the Federal and State governments, so on that $30.00, you have been taxed 6 times on the SAME money!!

Want to know what keeps people in poverty, look at taxes!!  When you add it all up, almost 50% of your earnings ends up going to taxes!!

And, guess what, my real estate gets taxed, but, somhow, my house never pays that tax, in the end, I do!!  Same thing with a corporation, it is an inanimate object, a building and a piece of paper, it is the stockholders (or owners), who actually pay the taxes for the coporation, out of their profits!!

“You need to distinguish between the terms “someone” and “something,””

When did you ever see SOME ‘THING’ pay taxes?  Does a building ever pay taxes?  Does a shopping cart ever pay taxes?  No, only PEOPLE pay taxes!!  Things don’t have money to pay taxes with!!  And, if you don’t believe that, next time you gas up your car, ask your car to pay the bill and see what happens!!

“Do you believe that you OWE money for the war in Iraq, or do you believe the government is taking money from you for the war, that you would choose NOT to pay?  In other words, if I came to your house and cut your lawn, without being asked and sent you a bill, would you think YOU ‘owed’ it, just because I did the work?”

RDS in
Saturday, June 28 at 11:28 AM

Equating the war in Iraq to having your lawn mowed pretty much sums up your mentality RDS. This is what happens when you listen to the Rev. Limbaugh preach libertarianism. Next you will suggest that the American ‘people’ went into the Iraq war willfully and without basic deception from conservative whorehouse corporatism. It is now known as ‘Bush’s War’.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/

Maybe one of remaining yet near to being unemployed conservative corporate junkies can get George to come over and mow my yard.

“By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.”
Adolf Hitler

Here’s the thing about RDS, SDV...

“By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda...”

Although there’s no denying that RDS’ penchant for churning out bull shit is sustained, it is anything but skillful!

The more RDS talks the less sense he makes!

“Want to know what keeps people in poverty, look at taxes!!  When you add it all up, almost 50% of your earnings ends up going to taxes!!” ~RDS

I always get a little fidgety or skeptical when I see you spewing out numbers, “Mr. Twister.” (thanks ddrb)

“The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.” ~Warren Buffett

This is something we’d never hear RDS utter.

Dangers of an Underreported CPI
By: Dr. John Fisher
June 23, 2008

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the average price of consumer goods and services purchased by households. The government uses the CPI to “calculate inflation.” Changes over the past 40 years to the CPI “to better reflect the actual costs” of goods and services in this country have not only provided a poorer reflection of the true costs but have actually harmed our economy.

While price inflation has been reported at only four percent over the past year, the real increase (as we shall see) is much higher than that. This distortion might not be serious except that the Treasury and the Federal Reserve use the CPI as one of the measures for establishing U.S. monetary policy. The Fed has kept interest rates low based on the underreporting of CPI, and those artificially low interest rates have fueled inflation to finance the loans and have caused malinvestments, both of which have been harmful to our economy.

Calculating the CPI
The CPI is based on a “consumer basket” of goods and services purchased for consumption by households in major urban areas across the country. User fees (such as water and sewer) and sales and excise taxes are included, while income taxes and investment items (like stocks, bonds, life insurance, and homes) are not included.

Kevin Phillips, writing in the May 2008 Harper’s Magazine, reports that changes to the CPI beginning in the 1960s have increasingly distorted official statistics so as “to create a false sense of economic achievement and rectitude, allowing us to maintain artificially low interest rates, massive government borrowing, and a dangerous reliance on mortgage and financial debt even as real economic growth has been slower than claimed.”

One of the first major changes in the CPI occurred under Richard Nixon when the core CPI was established. Incredibly, the “core” excludes goods with high price volatility — including food and energy even though they are essential items. In fact, these days the biggest cost increases are in food and energy. Economic commentator Barry Ritholtz describes core inflation as “inflation ex-inflation” — inflation after inflation has been excluded.

In 1983, the Reagan administration decided that rising real estate costs were causing the CPI to be overstated, so the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) substituted an “Owner Equivalent” measurement, basing housing costs on what homeowners might get if they were renting their houses. Homes were labeled an investment, and the cost of buying a home (like other investments) was no longer included in the CPI. By ignoring what was really occurring in the real estate world, the price monitors at BLS were able to lower the CPI.

“Because low inflation encourages low interest rates, which in turn make it much easier to borrow money,” wrote Phillips, the Reagan administration encouraged “the large and often speculative expansion in private debt.”

Much of this debt involved real estate and led to poor investments, which went bad between 1989 and 1992 in the savings-and-loan, real estate, and junk-bond scandals. Today, history is repeating itself as more and more homeowners who over-borrowed on their mortgages lose their homes.

The 1983 substitution of “owner equivalent rent” for real home-ownership costs, according to Phillips, “served to understate or reduce [price] inflation during the recent housing boom by 3 to 4 percentage points.”

Under the first President George Bush, Michael Boskin, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, proposed further changes to the CPI to further reduce the price increases it shows. According to Phillips, “His stated grand ambition was to move the calculus away from old industrial-era methodologies toward the emerging services economy and the expanding retail and financial sectors.” However, writes Phillips, the real reason may have been “worry over federal budget deficits.” The effect was “to reduce the inflation rate [as measured by the CPI] in order to reduce federal payments — from interest on the national debt to cost-of-living outlays for government employees, retirees, and Social Security recipients.” Boskin’s recommendations, promoted by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, were eventually implemented in 1996 under the Clinton administration.(continued)

Under Clinton three adjustments were made, “all downward and all dubious,” according to Phillips.

Product substitution allowed one product to be substituted for another if consumers would buy the other product if the original product rose in price. (For example, hamburger could be substituted for steak if steak became too costly.)

Geometric weighting permitted a lower weighting to goods and services that were seeing a rapid price rise because with the rise in price there is a presumed reduction in consumption.

Hedonic adjustment reduced price inflation on goods and services that have been improved because of added quality. For example, as the quality of cars or computers improves, their higher sticker prices are not included in the CPI. The increased costs of improved technology are unreported. (The reverse effect is ignored in cases where the consumer pays more for inferior-quality goods or services.)

Under George W. Bush, the CPI has been tweaked further. Because the CPI didn’t account for the changes in the composition of goods bought by consumers, often in response to price changes, a chained CPI for all urban consumers (C-CPI-U) was established in 2001, cutting about 0.3 percent from the official CPI. The C-CPI-U employs a formula that reflects the effect of substitution that consumers make across item categories in response to changes in relative prices. Now decreased pork prices can be substituted for beef.

Effects of Underreporting
“Changes have been made in how we measure and account for inflation,” writes Ritholtz. “Not only do we understate inflation, but we do so in a systematic manner which has led to the current disconnect between government stats and reality.”

Economic analyst John Williams points out, “If you were to peel back changes that were made in the CPI going back to the Carter years, you’d see that the CPI would now be 3.5 percent to 4 percent higher.” That is, it would now show an annual 7.5 to 8 percent increase instead of 4 percent.

Had the real CPI increases been reported, Social Security recipients and other wage earners affected by cost-of-living adjustments would now be getting 70 percent more than they currently are.

Because core CPI excludes food and energy, government calculations often ignore these items when planning. Grains and dairy products have seen steep rises in the past few months, and oil is over $120 a barrel, affecting both the gasoline and heating costs.

Since 2002, the core rate dramatically misrepresented actual price inflation. The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates on this basis and has kept rates artificially low, spurring inflationary borrowing and harming the dollar.

According to Ritholtz, “The bottom line is that ultra low [interest] rates, and big increases in money, sent the U.S. dollar to 15 year lows, raised the costs of all goods denominated in dollars, and lowered the standard of living for many people — perhaps most — living in the U.S.”

Another area where government misreporting has completely eliminated “inflation” is from furnishings, apparel, and automobiles. According to consultant and researcher Tim Iacono, “The combination of inexpensive imported goods and relentless quality adjustments have squelched any BLS-reported price increases from these goods for many, many years now.”

“Undermeasurement of inflation,” according to Phillips, “hangs over our heads like a guillotine. To acknowledge it would send interest rates climbing and thereby would endanger the viability of the massive buildup of public and private debt that props up the American economy.” Combined public and private debt has increased from less than $11 trillion in 1987 to $49 trillion in 2007. If government were to report the real CPI, we would see increases in pensions, benefits, federal budget deficits, and interest payments. Government bailouts would overwhelm federal and state budgets and the financial sector would face greater crises.

According to Robert Hardaway, a University of Denver professor, the sub-prime lending crisis can be traced back to the 1983 decision to exclude the price of housing from CPI. Low-interest loans have tricked millions of buyers into purchasing homes they otherwise couldn’t afford.

John F. Wasik, writing in the Bloomberg Report, says: “The recently expired U.S. housing boom is continuing to strain household budgets, though little of this home-related inflation is measured by the consumer index.”

Banker and journalist Martin Hutchison, in April, reported real price inflation at close to an annual rate of 9 percent. “That is remarkably close to the inflation rate in China,” he wrote, “where the central bank is busy raising rates and squeezing financial institutions. It’s well above the rate in the eurozone, where the European Central Bank has held rates constant, without letting troubled banks run out of money. But the Fed has been cutting while prices rise.”

“The U.S. consumer price index continues to be a testament to the art of economic spin,” says Wasik. “Millions are falling behind inflation because wage increases aren’t keeping pace with the cost of medical care, lost employment benefits, homeownership expenses, energy and transportation.”

The prediction of economic doom is coming not only from conservative writers and economists, but liberals as well. Because of these negative trends, Council on Foreign Relations member and BYU professor Earl Fry predicts that by 2040 the United States will have lost its superpower status, replaced by emerging economies in China and India. Should we allow that to happen by failing to force a change in our governmental policies, the underreporting of the Consumer Price Index will have played a part in our downfall.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SDV,

“Next you will suggest that the American ‘people’ went into the Iraq war willfully”

But, you still are paying for it with your taxes!!

Screwedby,

“Although there’s no denying that RDS’ penchant for churning out bull shit is sustained, it is anything but skillful!”

And, it is your tax money too, that is paying for the war, and that’s no Bull Shit!!  Doesn’t that just warm your heart, to know your tax dollars are going to pay for “Bush’s War”?

After all, “Only Little People Pay Taxes”, right?  And you are about as small as they get!!

“And, it is your tax money too, that is paying for the war, and that’s no Bull Shit!!”

If you’re this altruistic and indignant tax reform crusader RDS, how come you’re not at worked up about the tax payer’s money going to FAT corporations like Wal-Mart in the form of “subsidies” and “incentives?” That’s no Bull Shit either!

Speaking of tax dollars going to war:~~~~~~~"Bush administration ‘advised’ Iraq on no-bid oil contracts”
Posted June 30th, 2008 at 9:15 am

We learned a couple of weeks ago that several Western oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, Chevron, and BP — are putting the final touches on no-bid contracts with Iraq’s Oil Ministry to service Iraq’s largest fields. More than 35 years after Saddam Hussein rose to power and threw the companies out, the Oil Ministry completed these lucrative and “unusual” deals at a convenient time.

As Daniel Altman put it: “Imagine. At the precise moment when demand for oil was the highest in history, a recently democratized country with enormous reserves had the chance to sell extraction contracts to the highest bidder. This was a country that desperately needed the revenue to help rebuild its schools, power grid and water supply after a long internal conflict. So why did it hand out the contracts with no auction at all?”

And Andrew Sullivan answered the rhetorical question: “Because the US told them so.”

We didn’t know for sure, however, that this was the case. It certainly looked like the Bush administration had helped make the no-bid deals happen, but we didn’t have confirmation of the U.S. role. That is, until today.

A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.

The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts’ announcement, is the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq’s oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism.~Carpetbagger Report

“Next you will suggest that the American ‘people’ went into the Iraq war willfully and without basic deception from conservative whorehouse corporatism. It is now known as ‘Bush’s War’.”

As Screwed is noting, you (RDS) typically and willfully evade the public taxpayer issue and the hog trough subsidies in the billions going to WalMart. I have noted that you do not defend capitalism, only the abusive practices of it. The issue is not about taxes in and of themselves but rather about the personal responsibility and accountability of those in corporations (WalMart) and government (Bushco) who choose to defraud people. Something else you typically attempt to defend as libertarian business theology in the pro WalMart/conservative corporatism whorehouse ‘agentic shifting’ of accountability away from those officials who are ultimately responsible.

WalMart/Bushco/Edelman- Morality, responsibility and accountability are only disposable items of temporary convenience like labor, people, the law or America itself. What matters is only the public relations perception that people have as we defraud Americans in the ‘making’ of money.

So tell us RDS, in your world of moral relativism is responsibility and accountability ever worth your action against WalMart officials or Bushco for their policies, acts or attitudes?

SDV: Evidently Bushco and Walmart(among others) do not realize that people are a resource,NOT a commodity!

Screwedby,

“If you’re this altruistic and indignant tax reform crusader RDS, how come you’re not at worked up about the tax payer’s money going to FAT corporations like Wal-Mart in the form of “subsidies” and “incentives?””

Mainly, because you don’t seem to realize, that “Tax Breaks” “incentives” and “subsidies” mean LESS money GIVEN to the government and think instead, of it as the government GIVING YOUR money away!!  Giving a “BREAK”, is NOT giving a check or cash, it amounts to PAYING LESS!!

Government operates on the principle of “The more we get, the more we spend” known as “Tax and Spend”!!  I want the government to live within a budget, like “We the people” have to do, you want them to get MORE money than they need, so they have more to spend!!  Haven’t you noticed that the government is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and it’s getting “bigger’ every day?

If you would learn the tax terms and what they really mean, maybe you could understand what I’m saying, but as long as you buy into the liberal mindset of the government owns your money and can take as much as they choose, and support that concept, nothing will change, except taxes will keep rising!!

BTW:  The Federal budget is over $4 trillion, figure it out, if only ‘little
people’ pay it, how much would that be per person (every man, woman and child)?

BTW:  The Federal budget is over $4 trillion, figure it out, if only ‘little
people’ pay it, how much would that be per person (every man, woman and child)? RDS~~~~~~~~~~~~PAGING ROBERT D FEINMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mr. Feinman must have his pager turned off. Here is some info from Wikipedia in the meantime.---The United States total public debt, commonly called the national debt, or U.S. government debt, is the amount of money owed by the United States federal government to creditors who hold U.S. debt instruments. Debt held by the public is all federal debt held by states, corporations, individuals, and foreign governments, but does not include intragovernmental debt obligations or debt held for Social Security. Types of securities held by the public include, but are not limited to, Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, TIPS, United States Savings Bonds, and State and Local Government Series securities.[1]

As of April 2008, the total U.S. federal debt was approximately $9.5 trillion[2], about $31,100 per capita (that is, per U.S. resident). Of this amount, debt held by the public was roughly $5.3 trillion.[3] If, in addition, unfunded Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, etc. promises are added, this figure rises to a total of $59.1 trillion.[4] In 2007 the public debt was 36.8 percent of GDP ranking 26th in the world.[5] As of 2007, the total debt was 65% of GDP.

It is important to differentiate between public debt and external debt. The former is the amount owed by the government to its creditors, whether they are nationals or foreigners. The latter is the debt of all sectors of the economy (public and private), owed to foreigners. In the U.S., foreign ownership of the public debt is a significant part of the nation’s external debt (see also below). The Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the United States Department of the Treasury, calculates the amount of money owed by the national government on a daily basis.~~~~~~~~~~Not: According to this,#31,000 per person.

OOPS! That should say $31,000. per person.

ddrb,

“$31,000. per person”

So, if the budget is at $4 trillion, you would owe $13,500.00 for each person in your household, is that about what you paid in Federal Taxes this year?

ddrb,

And, don’t forget to send in your $186,000.00 per person in your household to cover that 59.1 trillion in total debt!!

RDS:  Still As Confused As Ever!

“Giving a “BREAK”, is NOT giving a check or cash, it amounts to PAYING LESS!!”

More of your circular bullshit, RDS?  As Ken likes to say, “I think the goal posts just moved again!”

“you want them to get MORE money than they need”

In case you haven’t noticed...the focus of this blog is Wal-Mart RDS.  We don’t care about your theories of government, taxation, or your views of The Constitution.

And just for the record, I want Wal-Mart to get LESS… which is still more than they deserve!

“Haven’t you noticed that the government is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and it’s getting “bigger’ every day?”

NO!  But I have noticed the 8,000 pound monster Wal-Mart, which you keep defending, and it’s getting bigger every day!

hey ass hole screwed by moron we know what the hell site this is so shut your piehole ass hole.rds has valid points unlike all your ufcw union b.s brainwashed to you by that union who you favor has more folks on food stamps,govt asistance and state aid programs than wm ever has.i dont expect you to refute what i am saying because you wm haters cant.put facts on here not more govt and ufcw union bullshit screwed or stay off here.

of course mr srewed never has any problem with any of the tax breaks and govt subsidies all his favorite stores gets,but has a problem with wm getting them.that proves what an arrogant,selfish,spoiled hypocrite screwed is and so are his wm hater buddies.screwed only pises and moans when wm gets these,but we never hear shit from mr screwed when qall his favorite stores get the same things wm gets,proving my point.

Screwedby,

Do you know what “Misdirection” means?  If you get people to focus on one thing, you can make them miss what is really the trick, illusionists use this all the time!!  While you are focusing on Wal-Mart, the government is picking your pocket!! 

With Wal-Mart, it’s like the Med Ads say, “The benefits outweigh the side effects”!!

Do you know what “Misdirection” means?  If you get people to focus on one thing, you can make them miss what is really the trick, illusionists use this all the time!! ----------So do P.R. Firms!

If you get people to focus on one thing, you can make them miss what is really the trick, illusionists use this all the time!!

As does you-know-who…

As does you-know-who…bbrd

You MUST be talking about RDS!