posted on November 10, 2008 03:51:23 PM new
Do the folks at AIG have no shame? They are getting more money from the government and are out blowing more money on retreats. They should be in jail!
posted on November 11, 2008 03:30:59 AM new
I agree. This just makes me sick. With so many people unemployed it shouldn't be that hard to fill those fat boys' shoes with someone who would appreciate the opportunity to turn that company around. In the very least they should be required to take those spa trips as income and be taxed (at Obama's new rate). Companies in trouble should be holding their business meetings in the conference room at the local Holiday Inn - maybe they can splurge and get donuts and coffee and deli platters for lunch.
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posted on November 11, 2008 06:32:24 AM new
For the first time I emailed my senators last night. This whole AIG thing has me all fired up. It just isn't right.
On another note my wife works for an automotive supplier makes good coin but it is a train wreck waiting to happen. Now GM is asking for money and has informed her company that half of their production has to be moved to Mexico. Isn't that rich. What the heck is going on?
Folks at the top are living it up while the rest of us are paying for it. God Bless America!
posted on November 11, 2008 08:26:27 AM new
Your wife's problem is that the people "at the top" lost 7.5 trillion and there is no money being invested, causing a credit crunch. Companies cannot finance inventories, etc. Apparently the "tax the rich" theories don't work when the rich have less money.
From the Washington Post:
For years, we've debated rising economic inequality. On one side, liberals
denounce it as unjust. Redistribute wealth to the poor and middle class, they
say. On the other, conservatives minimize its importance. What matters most is
overall economic growth, they retort. Well, the conjunction of the
presidential campaign and the financial crisis is giving the debate a curious
twist. Liberals have triumphed politically; soaking the rich has become more
acceptable. But conservatives may have won the intellectual argument; making
the rich poorer doesn't make everyone else richer.
If Barack Obama and John McCain agreed on anything, it was this: Greed is bad.
They competed in denunciations of reckless investment bankers and avaricious CEOs.
Obama proposed raising taxes on higher incomes (couples above $250,000);
though McCain didn't, he suggested that much recent accumulation was ill-gotten.
Unintentionally, perhaps, he buttressed the moral case for more redistribution.
Let's tap the gold mine of the rich.
Unfortunately, the mine has less gold. All the financial turmoil has left the
wealthy — however defined, much less wealthy. Stock ownership is highly
concentrated. In 2001, the richest 1 percent owned 34 percent of stocks and
mutual funds, estimates economist Edward Wolff of New York University.
Let's see. Since the market's high in October 2007, stocks are down
(through Oct. 31) 38 percent, or $7.5 trillion, reports Wilshire Associates.
That will mean lower capital gains taxes because capital gains —profits on the
sale of stocks and other assets — will plunge. In recent years, capital gains
taxes have been running at $100 billion or more. That amount could drop sharply,
even if the top rate on capital gains were raised from 15 percent to its
pre-2003 level 20 percent.
Thousands of well-paid investment bankers, traders, portfolio managers and
security analysts are losing their jobs. Though Wall Street bonuses' will
continue, their total is likely to decrease. Gains in executive compensation
may be similarly squeezed. Profits are down; the political climate is hostile.
In 2005, the richest 1 percent of Americans had 18 percent of total income and
Paid 28 percent of all federal taxes, says the Congressional Budget Office.
Their income won't grow much. Even if higher tax rates increase government
revenues, the ect will be leas than before.
Judged only by economic inequality; the financial crisis is a godsend. It will
probably narrow the gap - though still vast — between the rich and everybody
else. But what good will that do? Economic inequality also declined in the
Great Depression. The country wasn't better off. By and large, the poor aren't
poor because the rich are rich. They're usually poor for their own reasons:
family breakdown, low skills, destructive personal habits and plain bad luck.
The presumption implicit in the criticism of growing economic inequality is
that society's income is a given and, if the rich have less, others will have
more. Up to a point, that's trine. The government already redistributes much
income, often for the good. During the boom years, companies might have been
less lavish with top executives and slightly more generous to other workers
or shareholders. Some new fortunes stem from self-dealing and financial
razzle-dazzle, not the creation of real economic value. It's just desserts
that some of this wealth has evaporated.
But the redistributionist argument is at best a half-truth. The larger truth
is that much of the income of the rich and well-to-do comes from what they do.
If they stop doing it, the income and wealth vanish. No one gets it. It can't be
redistributed because it doesn't exist. Everyone's poorer.
This isn't just theory. Last week, Gov. David Paterson of New York pleaded with
Congress to provide emergency aid to states. Heavily dependent on Wall Street
for taxes, he testified, New York faces a $12.5 billion budget deficit next
year and expects joblessness to rise by 160,000. Wall Street bonuses will drop
by 43 percent and capital gains income by 35 percent, he estimated. People in
New York would be better off if the securities industry were still booming,
even if there were more economic inequality.
Americans legitimately resent Wall Street types who profited from dubious
investment strategies that aggravated today's crisis. And government properly
redistributes income to reduce hardship and poverty. But that's different from
attempting to alter some statistical distribution of income as unfair or
undesirable. That's something government should avoid. Scapegoating and
punishing all of the rich won't do us any good if the resulting taxes dull
investment and risk-taking, discouraging economic growth that benefits everyone.
posted on November 11, 2008 01:28:00 PM new
Robert Samuelson states, "They're usually poor for their own reasons:
family breakdown, low skills, destructive personal habits and plain bad luck."
That's the most outrageous understatement that I've read in a long time. Has Samuelson been wallowing in the luxury of Bethesda so long that he's out of touch with the plight of the poor and middle class citizens of this country?
Does Samuelson realize that in the last two months, the unemployment rate has risen to the highest in fourteen years? Over
the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 2.8 million!
How can an economist attribute such job loss and resultant poverty to lack of skill, personal circumstance or luck?
And is he aware that health care is unaffordable to an increasing number of working people in the United States? Is he aware that the cost of living has risen beyond the average workers ability to manage?
posted on November 11, 2008 02:53:28 PM new
"They're usually poor for their own reasons:
family breakdown, low skills, destructive personal habits and plain bad luck."
Yes, like the bad luck to get ill or injured. Granted that some people get ill because of bad choices/habits (smoking, drinking, etc.); I don't know the percentage, but I'm sure it's a minority.
"February 3, 2005
Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies
in 2001, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs.
Harvard Study Finds
The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually -- counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.
Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance
. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.
Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56 percent owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work -- losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most.
Families in bankruptcy suffered many privations -- 30 percent had a utility cut off and 61 percent went without needed medical care.
The research, carried out jointly by researchers at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School, is the first in-depth study of medical causes of bankruptcy. With the cooperation of bankruptcy judges in five Federal districts (in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas) they administered questionnaires to bankruptcy filers and reviewed their court records.
Dr. David Himmelstein, the lead author of the study and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard commented: "Unless you're Bill Gates you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy. Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick."
Today's health insurance policies -- with high deductibles, co-pays, and many exclusions -- offer little protection during a serious illness. Uncovered medical bills averaged $13,460 for those with private insurance at the start of their illness. People with cancer had average medical debts of $35,878.
"The paradox is that the costliest health system in the world performs so poorly. We waste one-third of every health care dollar on insurance bureaucracy and profits while two million people go bankrupt annually and we leave 45 million uninsured" said Dr. Quentin Young, national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program.
"With national health insurance ('Medicare for All'), we could provide comprehensive, lifelong coverage to all Americans for the same amount we are spending now and end the cruelty of ruining families financially when they get sick."
posted on November 11, 2008 03:01:18 PM new
Further to the AIG shamelessness:
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.
``The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that's a big problem,'' said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles & Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. ``In a liquid market, this wouldn't matter, but we're not. The market is very nervous and very thin.''
Bloomberg News has requested details of the Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure.
The Fed made the loans under terms of 11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
``It's your money; it's not the Fed's money,'' said billionaire Ted Forstmann, senior partner of Forstmann Little & Co. in New York. ``Of course there should be transparency.''
posted on November 11, 2008 09:08:27 PM new
I think it's time for some tough love here. Let them bottom out. Then step in, if needed, with funding and controlled leadership to benefit the economy and the country.
posted on November 15, 2008 04:38:21 AM new
controlled leadership-sounds like a budding politician .Keep talking,you have potentials.
*
Economic Reform act of Chairman Obama of the socialist States of America :
10 ounces of meat per month,half a yard of cotton per year per adult.
Hellilujah!
posted on November 16, 2008 05:30:23 AM new
From cashinyourcloset post:
""Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56 percent owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work -- losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most.""
Good reason to have Universal Health care!
Why should anyone lose health care because they're too sick to work??
Universal health care would help them get back on their feet, back in the work force...isn't that a good thing?
If they didn't get well at least they could die in peace knowing they haven't sent their family into the street...
posted on November 16, 2008 07:44:56 AM new
Mingo,
Universal Health Care is a must and sooner rather than later. I'll admit that government can be bureaucratic at times, but at least a single-payer system will reduce the bureaucracy from its current insane levels.
