Comments on: Money Talks — We Walk

By: passing through

passing through — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:22:14 +0000

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.

By: robert herold

robert herold — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:20:27 +0000

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.

By: Rob Grocholski

Rob Grocholski — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 02:52:46 +0000

Feeling for a little late night Earl Gray?

By: reg

reg — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:36:08 +0000

If you’re teabagging, safety first:

http://tinyurl.com/3n7744

By: reg

reg — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:25:14 +0000

By: reg

reg — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:15:30 +0000

Teabagging sweeps the asylums:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30145811#30145811

By: Rob Grocholski

Rob Grocholski — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:21:05 +0000

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!

By: Mavis Beacon

Mavis Beacon — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:22:47 +0000

“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.

By: Bob Williams

Bob Williams — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:12:57 +0000

I’m shocked, marc.

By: bunkerbuster

bunkerbuster — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:35:13 +0000

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.

By: Anna Churchill

Anna Churchill — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:36:10 +0000

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.

By: Anna Churchill

Anna Churchill — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:32:11 +0000

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.

By: Anna Churchill

Anna Churchill — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:21:49 +0000

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.

By: Anna Churchill

Anna Churchill — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:15:47 +0000

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.

By: Anna Churchill

Anna Churchill — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:32:02 +0000

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?

By: Anna Churchill

Anna Churchill — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:09:59 +0000

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.

By: Woody

Woody — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:06:30 +0000

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.

By: Jim R

Jim R — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:20:41 +0000

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.

By: Sergio

Sergio — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:00:15 +0000

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.

By: jim hitchcock

jim hitchcock — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:39:23 +0000

Maybe we should go easy on Woody today (ducks).
The Braves lost, badly, last night.