Here, let me blow the whistle on these lazy rich folk!

Wonder why they don't want taxes raised? Well, it's because those blowhards on tee vee and radio, take all their income as wages! Thus, if their millions were taxed at pre 90's levels, they'd be hurt badly.

But, otherwise here's the truth:

High tax rates on the biggest earners, forces them to keep their money invested in their companies, because it cost too much for them to simply take money out as wages and bonuses.
That means, to get the money they want and need from the companies they own, they have to get it from "capital gains", better known as sales of stock and dividends. To get money that way, they have to keep the company in good shape, earning good profits, with good long term objectives. Otherwise the stock price falls and their method of collecting money gets hurt.
In short, high taxes on large incomes forces the rich to work hard.

Now, if you lower taxes on large incomes, then the rich company owners, can simply lay back and pay themselves huge salaries and bonuses. This means they can make bundles, regardless of what the companies share price is doing (tanking?), and therefore, what it's performance, has been. Which is why you see, after several seasons of losing money, company heads walk away with millions and millions of dollars in wages, severance pay and bonuses. They couldn't do that if personal income taxes were high, on ordinary income, they'd be forced to rely on stock sales, since each million dollars in severance and other pay, would only yield perhaps 100,000 dollars per million, in the clear.

Now, to keep their companies healthy, if corporate heads were reliant on the stock prices, they would champion gov't initiatives that put more money in the hands of workers, because they need more sales to keep their share prices up. Thus, under higher personal income taxes, the rich become the friend of the worker again. Under lower personal income taxes, they become your enemy, because they don't need you to help them support their stock price, they can simply raid the corporate treasury for money!

Obwon

California pulls out of 50-state foreclosure talks

By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press – Fri Sep 30, 7:44 pm ET

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California Attorney General Kamala Harris said Friday that she will not agree to a settlement over foreclosure abuses that federal officials and other state attorneys general are negotiating with major U.S. banks.

Her announcement is the latest to undermine a settlement that had been in the works between the banks and attorneys general in all 50 states. Other states including New York also have expressed reservations.

The agreement was supposed to settle claims of poor mortgage and foreclosure practices, including document fraud known as "robo-signing" — approving documents in foreclosures without actually reading them.

However, Harris said the pending deal is "inadequate for California homeowners" and gives bank officials too much legal immunity.

The state is being asked as part of the settlement "to excuse conduct that has not been properly investigated," she wrote, promising to continue her own investigation.

Without agreement from the nation's most populous state — and one of the hardest hit by foreclosures — the settlement could end up doing little to resolve the issue. Foreclosure fraud class-action lawsuits are also piling up against major banks across the country.READ MORE

Why Aren't Ayn Rand's Wealthy "Job Creators" ... Creating Jobs?

The myth of the wealthy "job creator" has been used for years to underscore a harmful vision of capitalism.
September 29, 2011

With the announcement last Monday of President Obama’s plan to pay for his jobs bill with, among other things, the so-called “Buffett Rule,” we’re going to be hearing a lot more about the “job creators.” Over the last year, Congressional Republicans have consistently invoked them as a hex of sorts against any proposal to raise new tax revenue. “I am not for raising taxes in a recession,” Eric Cantor declared last November, when the Bush tax cuts were a bargaining chip in the protracted budget debate, “especially when it comes to the job creators that we need so desperately to start creating jobs again.”
READ MORE

How Conservative Politicians Wait for God to Fix the Economy, With Frightening Results

The theology embraced by American religious conservatives may render them immune to evidence and reason when it comes to economic management.
September 26, 2011

Is it merely partisan politics and the misguided ideology of "austerity" that leads conservatives to reject commonsense fixes for this miserable economy? Or is something else going on?

It may well be the latter. A study released last fall suggests that the theology embraced by American religious conservatives may render them immune to evidence and reason when it comes to economic management. The study found that a sizable minority share a uniquely faith-based view of how the economy functions, believing that both good and bad outcomes are an expression of God's will, and are therefore beyond the reach of mere mortals.

This may help explain the disconnect between the gravity of our economic crisis and lawmakers' – especially conservative lawmakers' -- decided lack of a sense of urgency in addressing it. Consider for a moment three related facts that, taken together, cast what appears to be the sheer madness of our nation's economic stewardship in sharp relief.
READ MORE

Religious-Right Homophobes Whine That They're Being Oppressed

It's important to remember that we are talking about people opposing core civil rights for American citizens.
September 29, 2011

Maggie Gallagher, who has devoted much of her professional life to maintaining separate but decidedly unequal accomodations for gays and lesbians, is very concerned about Americans' individual rights. Mostly, she's worried about the “right” of religious conservatives dwelling on the wrong side of history to express their bigotry openly, without having to face the scorn of more enlightened citizens.

Gallagher, a syndicated columnist, is the former president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and current head of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (a group that lobbies against marriage equality). She is best known for writing favorably of the Bush administration's “Healthy Marriage Initiative” without disclosing that she was receiving tens of thousands of dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services to promote the policy at the time.READ MORE

Study: Majority Of Young Evangelicals Have Pre-Marital Sex, Exposing Flaws With Right-Wing Attacks On Sex Ed

The religious right has a heavy hand in conservative politics, particularly in an election year. Christian presidential candidates like Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) all tout their Christian credentials and signed the pro-life pledges to court the evangelical vote. But there is one traditional position that even young Christians are abandoning: the purity pledge. According to a recent study, 80 percent of unmarried evangelical young adults have had sex, only 8 percent less than the general unmarried adult population: Read more

How the Tea Party's Noxious Legacy Will Haunt Us for Years

The chaos unleashed by Fox and friends on the American political system during those two years of the Obama backlash is going to be with us for a long, long time. READ MORE