Dirty Hippies » Upper Class

Some Persons More Equal Than Others

Tom Sullivan — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:31:56 +0000

As cities around the country trade notes on how to crack down on peaceful Occupy protesters, a chant goes up: ‘Who do you protect? Who do you serve?’ As the empire strikes back, Chris Hayes offers a plausible answer. It’s the reason for Occupy in the first place.

Citing UCLA corporate law professor (and Republican) Lynn Stout, David Kay Johnston writes [emphasis mine]:

Against $15 trillion of mortgage bonds, Stout said, Wall Street marketed credit default swaps in 2008 with a notional value of $67 trillion. Worldwide, traded swaps at their peak equaled $670 trillion or $100,000 for each person on the planet, vastly more than all the wealth in the world. Those numbers make it a mathematical certainty that the swaps were mostly speculation, not hedging.

There is a reason people have taken to the streets — in London, in Madrid, in Athens, in Dublin, in Reykjavik, in hundreds of cities across the planet. In Europe, see IMF austerity measures that require the public to cover the gambling losses of a financial industry unaccountable for committing massive fraud in derivatives. In the U.S., see the deal to immunize banks from prosecution: With few exceptions, state attorneys general want to hand the banks “get out of jail free” cards and sweep the crimes under the rug. See Kelo v. City of New London or Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In literature, see Orwell: All “persons” are equal but some “persons” are more equal than others.

#Occupy is asking the right question — a dangerous question — not only of police, but of the entire system: ‘Who do you protect? Who do you serve?’

The crowds chant,“WHO DO YOU PROTECT, WHO DO YOU SERVE?”

(Cross-posted from Scrutiny Hooligans.)

Taxing the Poor to Balance the Budget in Georgia

Paul Rosenberg — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:13:56 +0000

Yesterday, on the Ed Show, Ed Schultz did a segment on Georgia’s plan to raise taxes on Girl Scout cookies, at the same time as cutting corporate taxes. It’s not just Girl Scout cookies, of course, as it impacts sales taxes generally, and as Ed remarked, such taxes fall heaviest on low & middle families. This is particularly true in Georgia, as can be seen from the chart below, from the 2009 report, “Who Pays? from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:

Doing a bit of math with the table that accompanies this chart in the report, we find that sales and excise taxes account for 7.8% out of the total 11.7% that the lowest-income 20% of Georgians pay in state and local taxes, meaning that sales taxes make up 67% (or 2/3rds) of all taxes that they pay. This compares to 0.9% out of the total 6.9% that the richest 1% of Georgians pay in taxes, meaning sales taxes make up just 13% of all taxes that they pay. So sales taxes are 5.1 times as big a portion of the taxes paid by those on the bottom, compared to those on the top.

Now, it’s not actually THAT bad, since the sales and excise tax total includes general sales, others sales & excise taxes and sales & excise taxes on businesses. The general sales tax portion is “only” 4.4% on the bottom 20%, and 0.6% on the top 1%, which is 38% and 9% respectively of their tax totals. Still, general sales taxes are 4.3 times as big a portion of the taxes paid by those on the bottom, compared to those on the top. So raising those taxes will fall that much harder on the poor compared to the rich.

A Blueprint For Economic Disaster

Adam Lambert — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:46:27 +0000

Make no mistake – the demonization of public workers is just the latest in a long series of distractions by the right wing and economic elite as they pick the pockets of the “other 95% of Americans”. This coordinated approach is nothing new, but the agenda of wealth theft is taking on a new form – and is being replicated around the country on a state and federal level.

Anyone following the developments in Wisconsin knows that this is a result of a falsely created budget deficit and an excuse to eliminate the freedom to contract by public workers – something that has absolutely no impact on the current budget. Indiana is going through a similar assault on public employees with legislation targeting collective bargaining. And no sooner was Andrew Cuomo elected as Governor in New York that he attached public workers.

In New Jersey – a state whose public schools are consistently in the very top tier of the country, Governor Christie has attacked and demonized teachers unions, skipped out on the state’s pension plan payment in order to “balance” his budget last year, while cutting taxes for those earning over $400,000 and costing the state $1 billion in revenue. Most ironically here, Christie talked about “two classes of citizens” but instead of talking about those who can afford such things as heat, food and medicine all at the same time and those who can’t, he focused on health and pension benefits. Even more ironic is that these are the same people who either don’t think anyone should have “rich health benefits” or that you should only have if you can afford to pay for them. On top of this, while Christie is being hailed by those who don’t know any better, he too is looking to raise the estate tax exemption in NJ and give more tax breaks to the wealthy.

On the Federal and state level, “budget and spending cuts” merely translate to slashing of services that are needed most at this time – all in the laughable name of responsibility – coming from the same Republican Party that is directly responsible (maybe that is why they are using that term) for the economic ruin that many Americans face now. The key element of this “blueprint for disaster” is the job killing tax cuts (which clearly didn’t work for the Bush tax cuts) and the cutting of services.

Couple this with massive income tax breaks for the top 1-5%, a reduction in social security tax payments at the same time a manufactured “crisis” is trotted out (with the help of Obama administration), and the reality is that even if every single public worker is fired, the structural problems that directly relate to the lowest income and estate taxes in history on those who need it least while vital services to everyone else are drastically reduced will only lead to a widening of the already overwhelming wealth gap between the small number of “haves” and the huge and growing number of “have-nots”.

This is precisely what the Republicans want. This is precisely what they have done in the past – pick a scapegoat to distract from their real agenda of killing jobs and killing the middle class, all while lining the pockets of the super rich that keep them in power. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This time, hopefully Americans are on to this deadly game and will recognize this for what it is – a direct assault on the economy, since an economy can’t function without a robust middle class. When even Goldman Sachs sees danger in the Republican blueprint for disaster, you know it is serious.