Quid Pro Quo as Detroit Swirls the Bowl

As the "leaders" of the most pathetic example of modern day liberalism meet to discuss the method for  blaming someone else for their stupidity, this moron distinguishes herself by her proposed solution.

She claims that "leadership" demands begging for bacon (as she puts it) from Obama because she and the overwhelming majority of other non-thinkers voted for him. It's payback time.

She claims it worked before. Who can argue with logic like that? How long before this comes to Illinois?

Fox 2 News Headlines

This Thanksgiving, Eat the Rich

Cartoons compliments of the irrepressible Dan Mitchell. See a few more here. 

Who's on the Menu?

Recently I watched a sports analyst respond to a question from a worried looking reporter concerning the NBA labor/management "crisis" that threatens to delay or cancel the professional basketball season. His comment was that he didn't get too worked up about who would prevail in an argument over money between super rich team owners and multimillionaire athletes.

So with all the recent news coverage of the OWS protests/camp outs - and the fussing over them by everyone on every side of every issue who think they can advance themselves or their cause by doing so - I thought it might be time to look at the whole thing from a so far under-explored  perspective. A world wide perspective, if you will.

Leaving aside the drunk, drug addled or otherwise mentally impaired contingent of the progressive/populist "movement", I think it's time to examine the thinking of the so called "99 percenters" who might actually be able to think about why they are there.

From the perspective of most of the world's population, it must be amusing on some level to see these people agitating to "eat the rich", since compared to the vast majority of the world the protesters are themselves relatively rich.

For most of the world, getting the next meal and staying warm and dry are the primary activities even when not engaging in protest movements. The really blessed among them spend the rest of their time trying to figure out how to save whatever piddling amount they might have left over so they can exist if they ever need a day off from those activities. To the extent that they have the time to observe the US follies, they have to be on the same page as the above mentioned sports commentator.

Among those who, via capitalism in even tiny doses, have escaped somewhat from the grinding poverty that is historically typical in the world, it must seem queer that people with i-pods, i-pads and i-phones would sleep in tents and pound drums to try to discredit or dismantle that system.

So in looking at the motives of those who have bought into the progressives' class warfare rhetoric, let's be clear that the "greed" under attack is basically the same as the "envy" of the attackers. The so called rich are greedy to keep what they have and the self proclaimed 99 percenters are greedy to get what others have.

The difference between the Tea Party and the OWS is that the former are opposed to government bailing out anyone, while the latter just want their cut of the action when it comes to student loans and the like.

In my mind, all of us should be angry with anyone who games the system. That includes bankers and brokers and agribusiness and any other businesses who get rich from associations with politicians and government programs. But it also includes favored solar businesses, double dipping union "teacher for a day" pensioners, recipients of government largesse in the form of student loan subsidies, "affordable housing" loans to people who never could or will not repay as well as bailed out auto unionists. But to be angry with those who game the system without being angry at the system itself is ludicrous. 


So when the OWS crowd demands that the not so rich eat the relatively rich they better hope the whole world doesn't show up for the banquet.  They should keep in mind, if the whole world decides to eat the rich, the vast majority of the OWS people are on the menu too.

A Fair Share of Greed

Having lit the fuse of the class warfare bomb only to see it fizzle out any number of times since he hit the world stage a few years back, President Obama seems to have finally got it to spark up at least a little bit recently.

The incoherent "Occupy" demonstrations that have sprung up among the intellectually challenged and morally bankrupt crowd have given the country's leftists some of  the Obama promised  "hope" they have been pining for since some political slickster came up with that slogan to lure the useful idiots * into electing him in 2008. But it seems their hope will be dashed once again even though the dominant media refuses to interview the demonstrators in (or show the video results of) any depth about what precisely they are trying to accomplish.

Thankfully, now-a-days we have the internet where some semblance of the truth can be sorted out from the nonsense if one gives it some time and thought. It's a darn sight better than letting the main media filter it for us like they used to before they had some good old fashioned competition.

The main theme of the demonstrators, if there is one, is that rich people are greedy because they have more money than some other people and something should be done about it. It's not entirely clear what they think that should be, but since they appear to be supporters of the Democratic party, it's safe to speculate that they think more big government laws and regulations are one answer.

It all brings up some interesting questions about greed. Who is greedy anyway? Milton Friedman summed it up succinctly when he said, "It's only the other fellow who is greedy."

Are the wealthy greedy because they already have enough (however one defines "enough") but want more? Or are those who already get money and benefits provided by the wealthy greedy because what they get is never "enough" and they want more? In a country where the more well to do pay all the taxes and about 50% of the rest of the people pay nothing, what is the the latter's "fair share" as Barack Obama is fond of terming it?

The above cartoon explains that concept better than I could ever do it, but still there are many who don't (or refuse to) "get it."   The Merriam Webster dictionary definition of greed is: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed. 

So the question remains, who is greedy? Those who have their own money and desire to keep it? (perish the thought of actually desiring more) Those who have some OPM (other people's money) but want more because it's "fair"? Or politicians at every level of government who are flush with taxpayer money but never have enough to buy even more votes with? One thing is certain, all of those groups will define "needed" in a different way.

The video below was sent to me by one of my unpaid researchers and it shows a young greedy man at one of the demonstrations complaining that other men not in attendance are greedy because they won't forgive his student loans so he can spend his money on other things he wants but no one will give him. (So far you can't buy an i-Pad with food stamps)

The reason I don't pay my researchers is that this blog has no advertising and therefore no one makes any money from it, least of all me. And since I'm not starving, I don't really "need" the revenue, but if I ever put ads on here or ask for donations, you can assume I am greedy. And I'm okay with that.



* Not everyone who voted for Obama was an idiot. But the people who did so because they believed in the political rhetoric of "Hope and Change" and class warfare certainly qualify.

Warren Buffett Can't Count

I know it's hard to believe that the "Sage of Omaha" is mathematically challenged, particularly when many people have an image of him sitting at his kitchen table late at night poring over the giant stack of financial records of some huge corporation so he can decide whether he should spend a few billion to buy its stock or just write a check to the government to pay his "guilt tax."

We'll get to his math problem in a moment, but for now let's give him some well deserved credit for one correct calculation he made.

He correctly figured out a few years ago that people could spend their money more intelligently than the government could spend it. He had no use for his excess dough personally. After all, after twenty million or so, what could he spend it on that he didn't already have? The fun is in acquiring the money anyway.

So he knew he wasn't going to give it to the government to waste or pass around to their friends and he was too lazy or disinterested to pore over the books of charities to see which ones were more worthy than the others, so he passed it all along to Bill Gates to give away. I guess he figured that Bill Gates could spend it more wisely than the government even if he himself couldn't. He was correct about that.

I'm still puzzled about a few things though. If Buffett really thinks, as he claims, that he doesn't pay enough in taxes, why did he hire all those CPAs to find all the loopholes that allowed him to pay at the lower rate? I mean, couldn't he just have bought a copy of Turbo Tax, loaded it onto his laptop, entered what he earned, skipped all the deductions and paid the figure that appeared on the "Amount you owe" line at the bottom of the page? I'm confident that he wouldn't get a letter from the IRS threatening him for not taking all his rightful deductions.

The other way he could have paid more taxes was to just pony up the money that Berkshire Hathaway admits they owe from tax years 2002-2004.  Instead his company has been fighting with the IRS ever since then to avoid doing that. Toss in the taxes they are quibbling over concerning "issues" with tax years 2005-2009 and he could make some headway towards his goal. Remind me again why so many people think he is so bright.

Which brings us to his "fuzzy math" problem.

According to one paper Buffett recently said that "he paid only $6.9 million in taxes last year -- just 17.4 percent of his earnings, compared to an income tax rate of about 36 percent paid by his employees." (Perhaps they used Turbo Tax software.) With that admission he went to the top of the Barack Obama admiration list and got a chance to get everlasting fame as the only dope ever to get a tax named after him as his life's legacy.

Regardless, it seems he can't do the math because he didn't take into account that he already paid taxes on the money he used to invest with. The corporate rate is 35% on that money and he paid 15% in capital gains taxes when he earned a profit on those already taxed funds. So his rate is north of 40% in total depending on the calculations of what money goes where.

I'm not an accountant or tax expert so I'm sure someone will challenge the numbers just cited with their own facts and figures but I do know a few things for certain. One is that the same money shouldn't be taxed twice and the second is that we shouldn't need accountants and tax experts to pay our taxes.

Buffett may not know how to count, but Barack Obama does. At least he knows what he can count on. Buffett is a willing recruit in Obama's class war and it's one of the few things the President can count on.

Be sure to watch the new video on the right by Michael Tanner on the Buffett Tax.