Money Talks — We Walk
Don’t think for a minute that all the Big Money is just over on the Republican side of the aisle. Plenty of it is, for sure. But ProPublica todqy has published the financial disclosures of Obama’s White House staff and these folks aren’t exactly “the little guys.”
Take a full gander for yourself at the full documentation for the 179 top staffers, but there are some real ringers that pop to the top.
Obama’s UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, lists 10 separate stock holdings –mostly in foreign companies– which value a minimum of $4 million. Not bad for a people’s diplomat.’
Here’s another little ironic twist. Thanks to ten right-wing Democrats in the Senate (and that’s what they are — not moderates or centrists but right-wingers), an amendment was passed last night to cut the estate tax for jillionaires like Rice. With a whopping $250 billion price tag, the minimum amount of taxable inheritance was increased 100% from $3.5m to $7m and the tax rate for these uber-rich heirs was cut from 45% to 35%. Much needed tax relief for the richest .2% (two-tenths of one percent) of the population.
Sorry to be so upset about this, but I just came back from seeing my own tax accountant and, frankly, I am resentful of the special treatment handed the super-rich with Democratic help. Don’t know about you, but I’d like to see half of my income exempted from tax and the tax on the other half cut by a third. But I’d have to inherit $7million to enjoy such benefits. Woe is me. And you.
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April 8th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
3 Great Reasons to Pay Your Taxes (or Else)! Plus, as Biden says, it’s “patriotic!”
April 8th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
How is Rice doing her job ? Is there any evidence that she has anything to do with the estate tax gambit, or even supports it ?
This is silly…there’s real stuff out there.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
From a Josh Marshall piece on Ralph Nader in 2000:
“Nader was clearly eager to preempt any criticism that there is anything inconsistent or hypocritical about his being worth some 4 million dollars. “The question should almost be, ‘Why is it so little?’ “
April 9th, 2009 at 4:27 am
Off topic, but only because it’s worth it…. Barack the Barbarian vs. Sarah the Palin
April 9th, 2009 at 5:22 am
# reg Says:
April 8th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
From a Josh Marshall piece on Ralph Nader in 2000:
“Nader was clearly eager to preempt any criticism that there is anything inconsistent or hypocritical about his being worth some 4 million dollars. “The question should almost be, ‘Why is it so little?’ “
Ay Carumba! From what I understand Ralph rations his living expenses to something like 10,000 a year and the monies he EARNED through his work and books I believe feed the work he does.
The man is known to live like a monk.
God save us from the Josh Marshall’s and “Erik the Environmentalist” who insists Edward Abbey is a’ bad role model for the way people should think about nature. ‘
These people are dangerous. ( Erik and Josh)
April 9th, 2009 at 5:28 am
Reg et al here is quote from Josh Marshall article–which actually exonerates Nader…supports what I wrote.
Shame on you, Reg, for being misleading!
” So is Nader a hypocrite for amassing a personal fortune while advocating consumer rights and railing against corporate power?
In a word, no. To think otherwise would be to buy into the common but thoroughly fallacious argument that pursuing public service and advocacy is somehow incompatible with making a good living. Under this reasoning, someone with no social conscience can make millions upon millions of dollars and still be in the clear, but someone with a social conscience is a hypocrite unless he or she lives like a monk. That’s a ridiculous standard. Nader has made countless enemies over the years and the strong and uncompromising stand he has taken on many issues has made many of those enemies eager to catch him out in some instance of hypocrisy.
But even with the fortune Nader has managed to accumulate, he also appears to have donated enough of his personal wealth to the various public advocacy organizations he’s founded to get around any charge of hoarding. Nader told the Post he gives away more than 80 percent of his after-tax income and noted, as an example, the fact that he used $500,000 of his own money to fund the Congress Project in 1972. “
April 9th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Your link to the alleged inheritance tax amendment is 404, and a search of google news turns up nothing.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:18 am
AC – I actually agree with Nader that he probably should have been worth more, via book sales, etc. You miss my point – simply stating that someone has $4 million in investments or accrued savings doesn’t impugn their character or mean that they are eager to grab more tax breaks for rich people. That Ralph Nader falls in this category pretty much proves the point. I don’t understand what Susan Rice’s $4 mil means in terms of her fitness to serve as a UN ambassador or her character. I don’t believe we should only hire ascetics or monks or folks who have been salaried at the level of high school teachers for key posts in any administration. If there’s some evidence that Rice got her money through dubious deals, let’s see it. Frankly, owning a bunch of Canadian stocks – which is what she’s predominantly invested in – seems about as benign as any such “fortunes” get – even more so than Nader’s stock picks. I’m not particularly shocked by the money Larry Summers piled up for being seen with Wall Street types and addressing their meetings or whatever, but it seems like the kind of thing that at least deserves a second look and some serious questions. Rice, not so much.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:25 am
I also have to say that your notion that we need to be saved from the likes of Josh Marshall does, indeed, strike me as misdirected hysteria and impugning of a person who does excellent work. On the question of Erik, I’ll let others judge why you drag him into this. You even acknowledge that Marshall didn’t run with the fact that Nader was worth a “whopping” $4 million to suggest that because even the nation’s top consumer advocate had earned considerably more than the “little people” it was a cause for alarm.
April 9th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Maybe we should go easy on Woody today (ducks).
The Braves lost, badly, last night.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:00 am
I’m going to stick to the points made my Marc in his two las twp boil postings and my reaction:
We are being ripped off by Obama and his corporate fascist (without health care!) militarist minions.
Our futures are sold, our hopes disdained, our homes surveilled.
Hey, at least he can spell and speak better than Bush, suckers.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Heaven forbid we choose bright, energetic, creative, people that get paid according to the ‘free market demand’ for their efforts and talent, and have accumulated wealth.
Let’s hire angry, unhappy, ideological losers with a wealth of social injustice grievances, that have never actually created a job for anyone else in their pathetic lives, instead.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:06 am
In response to Jim Hitchcock…. That was about the worse loss that I’ve ever seen from the Braves. It looked as if they were going to sweep the world champions Phillies at their ballpark, as they had a 10-3 lead in the 7th. Then, the bullpen choked, they hit a batter, got behind in the counts, and walked in four runs in one inning. I must have received ten text messages about it while the game was in progress. You have to give the Phillie offense some credit, too, though. (So, don’t say that I never give the other side credit.)
I can’t waste any more time, even on a tax topic. I’m swamped and was up until 3:00 in the morning trying to help my clients keep everything that we could from Obama. It’s like a mission from God.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Ok Reg. Sorry. From the truncated version of the post I thought you were alluding to Nader as also somehow being culpable. It was only after I posted the response and tagged Josh Marshall a heretic that I then found the article.
It was an honest mistake and I was foolishly trusting your extrapolation of the article to have to expressed its ACTUAL intentions– which it did not.
Lets say it was perhaps a post that needed clarification on your part and my fault for not remembering to take Marshall off the pitard of my post.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Here is something much more interesting to chew on than business and legislation as usual:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/07/sexting.busts/index.html
Technology collides with midnight demons.
What would he have done just a few years ago…when middle of the night madness could not have been massaged by hitting the ‘send button’? Does technology now facilitate us crossing the line when we hit critical emotional mass? Think how much more pathological it would be to have to get copies developed, put them in envelopes, dig out addresses for all the people you want to send them to, address them, find some stamps and then put it all in the post. Not exactly the kind of stuff done in a middle of the night madness– nor satisfying. But…to do it would indicate a much more pathological desire to exact revenge.
What would he have done had he not been able to just hit the send button and let the havoc fall where it may? Because I think he would have had to do something (italics if I knew how to make them).
And look what technology has ushered in. A whole new world of puerile fun. There is something inherently dirty about dragging out a camera and snapping your partner (unless a polaroid, those photos have to be developed)– but fooling around with the camera phone can seem like just a little erotic play.
The case is fascinating. Is his punishment Draconian, Camusian, Sartrian or just deserts? It puts him in the unique position of having to become a very thoughtful person for the rest of his life.
Did it prevent him from perhaps doing something far more rash?
What do you guys think?
April 9th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Must acknowledge that above post was not meant to hijack Marc’s blog or the thread. I only put that up because I found it such a fascinating story. Raises so many issues.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:21 am
And then there is the unbearable Ian Tomlinson story. Could have been the subject of one of the great black and white neo realist films of the 50′s.
Godawful.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:32 am
The little man inadvertently caught in the maw of historical event.
great films are made of just this sort of story. only now life is imitating art. fiction can’t compete and technology has made us all filmmakers.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:36 am
And returning to the subject of journalism: it is now very curious to read officialdom’s quotes prefacing comments on cases where there are eyewitnesses and footage that leave no room for interpretation as “alleged”.
The use of language to deflect reality…and the truth.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
The anti-wealth instincts of some liberals/leftists reek unfortunately of the same resentment/paranoia that drives the conservative/rightist anti-intellectual instinct.
Getting rich is glorious to paraphrase the crucial Chinese despot/reformer Deng Xiaopeng.
April 9th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I’m shocked, marc.
April 9th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
“Let’s hire angry, unhappy, ideological losers with a wealth of social injustice grievances, that have never actually created a job for anyone else in their pathetic lives, instead.”
Jim R, I didn’t know you were worth $4 mil. I would have been nicer.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Totally appreciate the sentiment, Marc. How can we bare to let the wealthiest and best off amongst us pay those ever-so-burdensome estate taxes? Gosh, they really needed the relief, eh? Quite brave of those senators to ‘feel the pain.’
Meanwhile, if those grotesquely overpaid US workers would just get right with demands of the times…
http://tinyurl.com/bmz46c
and some more about this here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/08/someones-gotta-go-reality_n_184668.html
Shoot the fooking telly, dead!
April 10th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Teabagging sweeps the asylums:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30145811#30145811
April 10th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
More on teabagging here:
http://www.straferight.com/photopost/data/500/teabagging.jpg
April 10th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
If you’re teabagging, safety first:
http://tinyurl.com/3n7744
April 10th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Feeling for a little late night Earl Gray?
April 12th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Your inheritance scam report hit home. I’d like the same deal too. Could use it right now. Semi-retired, kid in college, still working part time, we really weren’t expecting to have to come up with an additional $3000 (wouldn’t mean much to Susan Rice, but to us?); but our accountant says that’s what we owe. I then got on Excel and began working the numbers. Get this—-because of the way the tax code is written, our 16% increase of previously untaxed gross income translates into a 60.8% increase in taxable income and then translates again into an actual 93.8% increase in taxes. Impossible you say? Nope, them’s the numbers. One of our deductions—-home interest—-dropped because we refinanced which highlights one irony: The president’s middle class tax stimulus—for us what we made on that refinance—is going dollar for dollar right back to the government! And then there are what amounts to double taxes on medical and our IRA, i.e. we have to take more retirement to help pay medical expenses which, because of the 2% rule, reduces what we can deduct while upping our taxable income. The college education expenses, the main reason we took more from our IRA is a joke. And now I learn that the tax code can easily be tweaked to make the rich richer. Some middle class stimulus package.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:22 am
To think otherwise would be to buy into the common but thoroughly fallacious argument that pursuing public service and advocacy is somehow incompatible with making a good living.
The very fallacy that Marc employs here.