Tinned-Ear Obama

I got so steamed with this double shot of recent news,

(1) multinational behemoth General Electric paid 0 taxes on its 2010 $14.2 billion profits, nearly $5 billion of which was on U.S. operations and salt-in-the-wound rubbingly gets a $3.2 billion U.S. tax benefit (damn! gag! retch!!!), and

(2) President Barack Obama rewards GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt for this kind of unbelievably baldfaced, unpatriotic and unAmerican chicanery--legal or otherwise--by appointing him chairman of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness,

that I sent Obama an email. (Ha! For whatever good THAT will do, delusional girl that I am.)

Here's what I wrote:  Dear President Obama:

You know, it's bad enough that corporations like GE pay no U.S. taxes and even get tax credits while poor, working middle- and lower-income schmucks not only pay taxes, but have to shoulder the tax burden of tax skaters like GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt. But when you rub our noses in that kind of affront by appointing freeloading Immelt to a council that's related to JOBS and advises you on a competitive business strategy, you are not only doing average Americans a disservice, you are shedding past and what otherwise might be prospective voters like the Titanic shed passengers. Your ear for listening to Americans--loyal, patriotic, taxpaying Americans, not unpatriotic, unAmerican, leeches like Immelt--has turned to tin.

Want to boycott GE products? They're listed here:  http://www.ge.com/products_services/

And if you don't want to stop watching NBC, CNBC or MSNBC which NBC owns, you can stop buying goods and services advertised on those networks, and send a letter to Corporate Public Relations Director for any product advertised on NBC or CNBC or MSNBC telling them you will not buy THEIR products until GE starts ponying up its fair share.

Indiana Governor Profile Does Disservice

What a disservice the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did to its readers, other Wisconsinites and residents of other states with the Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels fluff piece “Blueprint for cuts” the newspaper ran on its Sunday, March 27, front page.

We got a personality profile of a folksy, fun-loving, good ol’ boy Daniels, eviscerator of public employee unions and champion of privatizing government functions. Good ol' Mitch Daniels whom Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker yearns to emulate.

But this nearly full-page story offered nothing of substance. I read the article, which seemed like a great “Mitch Daniels for president” promo, twice looking for answers to such questions as:

(1) Did Indiana’s economy improve in the three years between Daniels eliminating collective bargaining in 2005 and the 2008 onset of the Great Recession?

(2) Before Daniels took office, how did Indiana’s economy compare with other states that had collective bargaining and those that didn’t?

(3) How does Indiana's economy compare now with bargaining-rights and non-bargaining states?

(4) Does the number of new private jobs in the six years Daniels has been governor exceed the 6,300 state jobs he cut?

(5) How much tax revenue has Indiana lost because 6,300 people became unemployed?

(6) How does Indiana’s budget deficit compare to right-to-bargain states?

(7) How does Indiana’s standard of living compare to collective-bargaining and non-bargaining states?

Only at the end of this lengthy story do we learn that the thousands of jobs promised in Daniels’ public-private partnership never materialized and that an analyst with the Cato Institute -- the supposedly free-markeets, privatize-government-happy Cato Insitute -- has dubbed the partnership “news-release economics.”

As a former newspaper reporter and editor, I'm truly conservative about using a barrel of ink and a full page news hole on an ad nauseum press-release about a possible presidential contender that is pretending to be a news story. 

Here’s the link to the JS story: http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/118719549.html

The REAL "Best and Brightest"

While thousands of Americans lost their jobs this past year and millions more took pay cuts, some in the form of forced unpaid days off, Glen Tellock got a 141% pay raise.

Total compensation gifted to Tellock, the 40-something president, CEO and chairman of the crane and food services equipment manufacturer/supplier Manitowoc Company, is now a cool $4.9 million, according to a little item on the March 26, 2011, Milwaukee (WI) Journal Sentinel's business page. http://www.jsonline.com/business/118652089.html

A similar news tidbit surfaced just one day earlier about another flush corporate exec, the CEO of M&I bank in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin, you know, that "broke" state whose new (R) governor and (R)-dominated legislature are fixing with a "budget repair" still-bill or law (depending on which constitutional lawyers suit you) that eviscerates (i.e. the blood-and-guts part of dressing a deer) just about every service that benefits Wisconsin residents, i.e. babies, children, students, poverty-level folks, library users, the not-so-well-off oldsters, oh the list is long, but it includes nary an "I-got-mine-screw-you" grubber, like the paltry few who are benefiting from the $143 million no-strings attached business tax breaks said (R) governor and (R)-dominated legislature gifted to them just a couple of weeks before popping the cork on their "budget-repair" bill.

The $18 million lavished on M&I CEO Mark Furlong was just one of the "golden parachutes" totaling $70 million that have been slopped on M&I execs. Golden parachutes because M&I got sold, which pulled the ripcord on those 'chutes.

In a hand-washing re-enactment that would have done Pontius Pilate proud, M&I buyer Canadian-based Bank of Montreal eschewed any responsibility.

“It’s not our affair,” BOM President and CEO Bill Downe is quoted as saying. http://www.milwaukeenewsbuzz.com/?p=532394

How so? The reason is that 24k parachutes are part of the contract when execs are hired. What they'll get if and (much more likely) when they leave is determined before they ever set foot in their corner office or executive suite. Lucrative serverences are among the carrots along with obscenely high salaries, stock options and other "incentives" that are dangled in front of prospective execs in order to attract the "best and brightest."

The "best and brightest." I'm sure you've heard that expression before.

It's that red herring that gets dragged out whenever anyone dares criticize or question gaggingly high CEO compensation, particularly when most other Americans (you know, those who are not among the richest 1% among us) are "sharing the pain."

So, um, Mr. Tellock is among the "best and brightest," an absolute wunderkind who at the tender age of 47 or thereabouts is Chairman, President and CEO of a multibillion-dollar, multinational corporation, so much so that he deserves a 141% raise in an economy struggling to recover from the worse recession in 75 years in which 9% of its workforce -- or wannabe workforce -- nationally is unemployed.

You think so?

Buried down in the part of the Journal Sentinel news item that few readers would have gotten to is this: "In 2010, Manitowoc Co. narrowed its loss to $74.4 million, or 55 cents a share, from $704 million, or $5.41, in 2009."

'Scuse me, but wouldn't that be a losing performance?. And wouldn't a losing performance be more likely to result getting fired than rewarded with a nearly 50% raise?

But 24k parachutes guarantee easy street for life, no matter how incompetent the exec or how badly he takes down a company. Take former Chrysler Chairman and CEO and before that, before he wrecked it, Home Depot Chairman and CEO Bob Nardelli for instance. When Home Depot's board realized how close Nardelli was to killing that company and showed him the door, he waltzed away with $210,000 million -- that's right, nearly a quarter of a BILLION smackeroos -- thanks to the severance-pay provision in his pre-nup contract.

How he got a job doing anything getting fired from Home Deport that is a true mystery to me, much less be taken on as fearless leader of another corporation. But Chrylser did just that. Guess that helps explain the near demise of that company.

CNBC has named Nardelli one of the "Worst American CEOs of All Time" but he's still filthy rich -- unless he has managed screw up his personal business as abysmally as he did the corporations he headed.

So, could it be that the mega bucks that are thrown at corporate execs to ensure that companies get the "best and brightest" is just a crock? Might that be just a ruse so us regular folks don't catch on to the good ol' clubbers' incestuous game of sitting on each others' boards of directors and voting each other increasingly astronomical compensation packages?

Do you suppose it's possible that if you were to take a close look at all of those emperors, you would see that except for their trappings there really isn't anything a bit special about them?

Rather than the best and brightest, they are really just some of the privileged in this land of great and increasing inequality. You know, the ones with filthy rich daddies, those born or invited into the club or who were dealt hands with the "right" cards and whose real talents lay with just being able to swim with sharks and are slippery enough to keep from being eaten alive.

Does that mean that the whole idea of the "best and brightest" is a crock? I don't think so. I think this country is filled with the best and brightest. But rather than living and operating in ivory towers, they are living and walking amongst us. A lot of them are teaching our kids in public school classrooms.

Rather than being lured with big pay and other incentives, though, they are being denigrated, disrespected and rewarded with shrinking compensation because, we are told, everyone has to "share the pain."

Now saying that everyone must share the pain is a crock unless and until "everyone" includes the highly compensated corner-office, executive-suite club.

I am truly conservative about who should be called the "best and the brightest" and paying people what they are really  worth. And I'm even more conservative about demonizing those who really are the best and brightest, but instead in these topsy-turvey, inside-out times are treated like they're just selfish, greedy, lazy louts.

 Here's a short video of one of them. https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150099422543827&comments

 

My email to WI Sen. Chris Larson

... because I'm truly conservative about politicans who get bumped into a position of what is supposed to be leadership thinking he's the boss of everyone.

Dear Sen. Larson,

On what authority does one Wisconsin senator order the arrest of another senator for not attending a senate session even if the first senator is senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald? You, Sen. Larson, are MY senator. I and other voters who live in your senatorial district elected you to represent US. You don't work for Fitzgerald or the governor. You work for your constituents, which is what you are doing.

On what authority does one Wisconsin senator withhold the pay of other senators? Sen. Erpenbach and his 13 fellow DemocratIC WI senators work for their constituents, not for Sen. Scott Fitzgerald. Sen. Scott Fitzgerald is not Sen. Jon Erpenbach's or your employer, Sen. Larson. We, The People, are. Sen. Fitzgerald does not represent your or any of the other 13 DemocratIC senators' constituents.

 

I salute you all and congratulate Sen. Erpenbach's action: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_077a4972-4609-11e0-aa20-001cc4c03286.html 

Corporations Don't Create Wealth

A pro-Walkerite who called in to Kathleen Dunn's Wisconsin Public Radio program recently said people should support corporations because corporations create wealth.

Wrong!

Corporations do not create wealth. Corporations are inert fabrications of a legal process.

PEOPLE create wealth. People amass capital to form the structure in which they -- people -- hire other people to do the work. People buy the goods/services produced/offered by the people who do the work, which enables the people running the company to stay in business -- that, and government subsidies/tax breaks which are funded by people, which means capitalism-U.S. style is anything but "free market."

The profit, or lack thereof, depends on how well or poorly people operate the business.

The 'corporation' people form is nothing but a piece of paper. It's a legal procedure enabled by a government.

I'm truly conservative about who or what I think should be called a person or people.

In this context, I might also be considered a birther. If a corporation really is a person, as the SCOTUS 5 says, then show me the birth certificate -- the orginal authentic one, not some gerry-rigged proxy, show me its proof of citizenship.

What Wisconsin Didn't Elect

Billionaire Brothers’ Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/us/22koch.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha24

Koch heads David and Charles: Who's in their wallets?

David Koch (AP)                                                                  Charles Koch (AP)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker complained the other day about people from other states joining rallies of demonstrators in Madison who oppose Walker's consolidation-of-power and union-busting bill, saying these "outsiders" should stay out of Wisconsin's business.

Yet, I have heard not a word of protest out of him about outsiders, like multi-billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, neither of whom live in Wisconsin and whose Koch Industries is based in Kansas, who poured mega-bucks in campaign contributions to get him elected Wisconsin governor, and are funding pro-Walker demonstrations in Wisconsin, Wisconsin union-busting efforts, and tea party and other partisan organizations that are active in Wisconsin politics.

I am truly conservative when it comes to what's good for one goose should be equally applied to another.

Where Has All The Money Gone?

You might ask what this has to do with being truly conservative.

Maybe nothing, but I've got to ask anyway.

Where has all the money gone?

Cities are broke.

Counties are broke.

States are broke.

People are broke.

Corporations are ... oh.

Corporations are flush with money.

Corporations are enjoying record profits.

This, as the rest of the country tries to claw back from the worst recession we have suffered through since the Great Depression.

Maybe that's where all the money has gone.

Maybe that's is why everyone else is broke.

New York Times columnist David Brooks said the other day to, "Make Everybody Hurt."

I agree, should that become necessary. But it might not be.

First, let's exempt those who are already hurting.

Let's start inflicting pain at the top.

Let's start with the CEOs whose corporations are rolling in dough and whose bonuses suffered no recession. Here are bonuses gifted to the top three CEOs in 2010, a decidedly bad economic year for the rest of the U.S.

     1.  H.J. Heinz top exec William R. Johnson, $8.6 million. That's just his bonus, and it's 17.6% higher than the year before. His total income for last year? More than $882 million.

     2.  Oracle CEO Lawrence J. Ellison, $6.5 million, up nearly 80%.

     3.  Cisco CEO John T. Chambers, $4.6 million, up 126%.

Let's start with Messers Johnson, Ellison, Chambers and their fellow elites in the country's top 1% income bracket who got their Bush tax cuts extended.

Let's start with the hedge-fund billionaires -- the top 13 of whom earned an average of $1 BILLION each last year -- but get to claim their income as capital gains. I say "get to" because the capital-gains tax rate is 15% rate, instead of in the top income bracket at 35%.

Taxing their intake as regular income within the same income tax rate structure as the rest of us, would create enough revenue to pay for 300,000 teachers. Three-hundred thousand! Maybe forcing those in the top income tax to actually pay income taxes instead of a 20% lower capital gains tax would mean classroom-sizes in Detroit could be reduced from the 62 students necessary because the education budget there has been decimated. Maybe then Detroit teachers could get back to actually teaching and helping kids learn instead of just being adult supervisors in holding pens for adolescents.

American capitalism advocates say, hey, the rich have earned it. Maybe so. But that shouldn't give them special privileges and special ways that enable their money to be taxed at a lower rate than the income of the rest of us get.

Here are some more stats:

     *  The income of the richest 5% in 1979 was 10 times of that of the poorest 20% (US News and World Report, Feb. 21, 2000)

     *  Twenty years later that gap had grown to 19 times.

     *  In 1992, income of top executives of the largest US companies was about 100 times more than that of their workers

     *  In 2000 -- just 8 years later -- that difference had grown to 475 times more.

     *  Income of the richest 20% in Silicon Valley grew 29% during the 1990s while income of the poorest 20% fell, with those at the lowest level earning 10% less than they had a decade earlier.

That begs the question: What happened between 1990 and now that accounts for such astounding financial gains for the very rich, while the fortunes of the not-so-filthy rich and middle- and lower-income groups stagnated or fell? Did the mega rich work harder? Work longer hours? Get second jobs? Or, perhaps, were laws changed to their economic advantage?

I know even mentioning such things evokes cries from the priviledged elite that the have-nots and have-not-so-muches are engaging in "class warfare" on the rich.

I posit that class warfare began long before this, and it was declared and is being waged by the rich on the rest of us. How else can such fast-tracked disparities be explained?

The simple fact is that with more and more of the nation's money being concentrated among a very small percentage of the population, that makes a few people richer and richer and everyone else broke. People who are broke don't have anything to spend on the goods and services that fuel a robust middle class.

The mega-rich just buy another exotic island resort or salt their gains in off-shore tax shelters and Swiss banks. Not one drip from Ronald Reaganesque trickle-down policies trickles down to anyone else.

So instead of "making everybody hurt" -- especially those who already are hurting -- let's start by equalizing the playing field in this country that prides itself on a Declaration of Independence that proclaims that we are all created equal. Maybe then it wouldn't be necessary to make anyone hurt.

A friend who read this post alerted me to the charts at the bottom of this article that shows very graphically where the money has gone:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110223/ts_yblog_thelookout/separate-but-unequal-charts-show-growing-rich-poor-gap

Robert Reich concurs! =>
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/5133-how-democrats-can-become-relevant-again

"Democrats have become irrelevant. If they want to be relevant again they have to connect the dots: The explosion of income and wealth among America's super-rich, the dramatic drop in their tax rates, the consequential devastating budget squeezes in Washington and in state capitals, and the slashing of public services for the middle class and the poor."