The Financial Times reported that Merrill Lynch accelerated its normal time schedule for awarding bonuses and distributed $ 4 billion dollars on Dec 29, just 3 days before its takeover by Bank of America. At the same time Merrill posted $15 billion in losses for the fourth quarter. The total compensation for Merrill Lynch employees in 2008 was $15 billion.
That’s way more than just an outsized sense of entitlement, that’s flat-out stealing. And the money for this comes from, you guessed it, the US government. The Bank of America was prepared to back out of the deal once the size of the Merrill Lynch loss became apparent. The deal was completed only after guarantees of government money by the US Treasury.
What’s more, because Congress is so up close and personal with all their friends on Wall Street who donate so generously to their re-election campaigns, those bonuses are not subject to payroll tax and are treated as long term capital gains income, taxed at a mere 15%. Since the payroll tax is just over 15% (half paid by the employer), they essentially are paying less tax on their income than minimum income wage slaves.
I read another blogger who had compared the financial bailout to the incident of Colin Powell waving around the vial of anthrax. There was no anthrax, but boy, the fear of the anthrax made everyone forget commonsense and asking questions and taking things slowly. Same with the Wall Street “crisis”, waving around these “toxic securities” like anthrax, screaming that if we didn’t do something immediately there would be grave consequences, right now, no questions asked, give us money, no oversight!
Somebody at Obama HQ finally heard me (and millions others) screaming for someone to put “Current Wall Street Bailout” + “1980’s Keating S&L Financial Bailout” together.  Looks like we’re going to get a lesson in Keating Economics.  Finally!
To me it looks like the Obama campaign is far smarter than I am. Â (Good!) Â I was all over this Keating 5 thing, wondering why nobody else would go there with me (aside from us bloggy types).
Turns out, they were just keeping the powder dry. Â It’s as if they kept this one in the bag just in case the McCainiacs tried to play the Ayers / Wright / Rezko game again just shy of the election. Â Good call, people.
So now, please, let me hope you’ve got something in the bag to rebut the upcoming terror attack / terror alert / Osama tape / next distraction.
Also, the Dow dropping another loaf (below 10,000!) sure helps keep the focus on issues, doesn’t it? Â Tell me now this would be worse if we didn’t fork over $700B to these guys?
The bill to socialize and nationalize the financial crisis on Wall St. Failed today in the House. Â Democrats promised to deliver 120 votes; they delivered 140. Â John “Keating W. Five” McCain sorta didn’t suspend his campaign so he could sorta not fly immediately to Washington to put the weight of the GOP presidential nominee into the negotiations so the 100 votes promised by the Republican leadership would come through and we could avert the “worst American crisis since WWII.”
Senator Underdog only delivered 65 votes.
AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth
Dow on Bill Clinton’s last day in office: 10,587.59
Dow today: 10,365.4
That was your retirement. Seven years of it. Gone. Thanks to George Bush and John McCain. And if John McCain had his way, that would have been your Social Security money too. Gone. Seven years of growth, seven years of your life, wiped out.
Note from Joe: I’m monitoring CNBC. Looks like the final drop will be 777.68. MSNBC saying this is the largest number drop ever.
There are many reasons why the bailout deal failed, but regardless, how idiotic was it of John W. McCain to make a big deal out of suspending his campaign and flying in to save the deal? Â It’s not the kind of deal that can be “rescued” by one senator – had it passed, there would be little to no benefit for McCain in saying, “See, I rescued our economy!”, because all the heavy lifting was done by others and a successful bailout tied to McCain just sinks him further in the eyes of the base he’s already having trouble courting.
But by taking on the “Mighty Mouse” role on the bailout, and then to see it fail, and then to have the Dow drop the most points ever, and to see the Bush stock market whose decline you supported through your deregulation frenzy drop lower than Clinton, and to have the reminder that you wanted our Social Security in that Wall St. casino, breaking at the same time the NY Times prints a story over the weekend about your real casino gambling problems, and seeing everyone turn on you as the guy who messed up the bailout…
…well, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving senator at a more appropriate time.
I’ve often said that it was going to take some massive jolt to wake Americans up and get them involved in politics and wary of stupid culture war dustups. Â 9/11 could’ve been that, but of course Commander Codpiece just told us to keep on shoppin’ and told his base (the “have-mores”) to keep enjoying the tax cuts. Â Katrina opened a few eyes, but being a natural disaster and involving city, state, and federal officials diffused our concentration a bit.
But this? Â This oughtta do it. Â So long as everyone gets to vote and all the votes are counted (I know, big assumptions) this should be an Obama landslide.
Debate Is On – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com
11:52 a.m. | Updated: Senator John McCain’s campaign said Friday morning that he will attend tonight’s debate with Senator Barack Obama at the University of Mississippi, reversing his earlier call to postpone the debate so he could participate in the Congressional negotiations over the $700 billion bailout plan for financial firms.
He was facing the onslaught of the next Great Depression, even though “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”, so John “Keating Five” McCain patriotically suspended his campaign to go back to the Senate and fix the American economy. Â So diligent was McCain in his campaign suspension that he campaigned on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and campaigned by continuing to run ads. Â Then, his leadership was so strong on the issue that he sat there silently as everyone else discussed it. Â Now, with the economy solved, McCain will patriotically return to the debate tonight.
We are watching the Palin/McCain ticket self-destruct.
Marc Ambinder
(September 24, 2008) – McCain’s Bottom Line: No Deal = No Debate
A senior campaign official says that McCain will NOT debate — no matter what — if Congress hasn’t reached an agreement on a bailout package.
The aide did not know whether Gov. Palin would attend Oct. 2’s vice presidential debate if Congress, by that point, still hasn’t reached a deal.
Barack, if he doesn’t show up on Friday, you show up anyway. Â Give a one-hour speech or take the questions from the moderators, and INSIST that they leave the empty podium standing where McCain should be.
Let the grumpy old man hold his breath and turn blue.
From the Republican Party Platform, adopted just three weeks ago at their convention:
We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all.Â
Yeah, that attitude changes pretty quickly when the invisible hand of the marketplace isn’t just slapping around the poor and working class, huh?
Meanwhile, John “Keating Five” McCain wants to suspend his campaign and cancel the debate this Friday. Â Oooh, debate prep with Michael Steele standing in for Obama must’ve gone pretty poorly. Â And what’s with using Michael Steele to be Obama? Â Did you call GOP central casting and ask, “Hey, I need a black guy to stand in for Obama!” Â Nobody else could be a faux-bama foil for your debate practice. Â Lemme guess, it’s just coincidence that the party with no black elected officials at the federal level, the party dominated by white men of considerable debating experience, would just happen to pick a former Lt. Gov. no longer in the spotlight who happens to be black, right?
I understand the Obama campaign has called on the Cryptkeeper to stand in for debate practice with Barack Obama, and the Biden operation is using an actual pitbull in lipstick to stand in for Palin.
Can’t hide forever, No Talk Express. Â Friday’s comin’ and a reckoning for 28 years of discredited trickle-on economics will be brought to the attention of Senator Deregulatin’ John “Keating Five” McCain. Â I’ve been itching to see the two of them onstage together and I’m betting Obama opens up a double-digit lead following.
Oh, and for this whole $700 BILLION bailout? Â What is there, 200 million adult Americans? Â Leave out the Top 1% who’ve done OK for the last seven years, that’s 198 million. Â How about a check for $3,500 mailed out to each of us? Â You want to see the economy start chugging along, give working class people $3,500 free money.
As for the Wall Street fat cats, well, how much money did they make? Â I read about CEOs making $15, $20 million for a few weeks’ “work” while their companies fail and lay off workers and raid their pensions. Â Let ‘em have a yard sale. Â ”I got a 98-foot yacht here; who wants it cheap?” Â Let’s do a matching bail out – for every dollar ultra-rich CEOs put in, the American taxpayers will put in a dollar.
Oh, but they’re “too big to fail”, we gotta bail ‘em out quick! Â Uh-huh. Â Look, no company should be “too big to fail”. Â The United States, its Consititution and her people, should always be bigger than any company. Â If a company is “too big to fail”, it needs to be nationalized and run by the people with dividends for the people or broken up into tinier companies that are smalle enough to fail.
Friday can’t get here quickly enough.
Daily Kos: Mid-afternoon thread
A picture is worth a thousand words. Â Or, perhaps ten cars, three scooters, a jet, and eight houses.
This post isn’t for me. Â My taxes will go down.
It’s not a post for my wife, my family, my friends, or anybody I know or have ever met. Â They’re taxes will go down.
It’s not even a post for my married couple friends who both make a six-figure income – each – own their home, and have no kids or major debts to think of… two people I consider to be the most “well-off” people I know, the kind of people who can just buy two first class plane tickets, a hotel room, a rental car, and two scalped tickets at Lambeau Field to see Green Bay play Seattle last year in the playoffs, on a whim, on the Wednesday before the game. Â Their taxes will stay the same.
In fact, I would love it if this post were for ANYONE who reads my blog or listens to my show, and I’d ask them to make a little PayPal donation in the box at the top left and help support this struggling liberal broadcaster. Â If the title of this post applies to you – if you make more than $603,403 per year, please leave a comment and let me know.
Otherwise, this crazy belief that Obama is going to raise YOUR taxes needs to stop right now.  This graphic comes from The Washington Post:
Under Obama, I’m looking at an extra $1,042, under McCain, about a third that ($319). Â But McCain’s wife, under Obama, has to pay an extra 11.5%, while her hubby’s plan cuts the hundred-millionairess’s taxes by 4.4%.
Democrats really need to learn how to talk about taxes.  Repugs have framed it with words like “tax burden”, the cure for which is “tax relief”.  Dems need to talk about “tax responsibility”, as in “our plan will reduce the average American’s tax responsibility while asking the fortunate top 1% in the country to return to paying their fair share of tax responsibility.”
“Asking” + “fair share” + “responsibility” casts those who would refuse such a reasonable request as not being fair, as shirking responsibility.  We need to turn the Top 1% into tax cheats who are irresponsible, as anti-American for not being fair.  They should be ashamed for buying their ninth home while children go without health care because the Top 1% won’t pay their fair share of tax responsibility.
Casting it as responsibility doesn’t make paying taxes any more fun, but it makes it a duty, a chore, a requirement of admittance to society.  It makes people think about doing their chores and becoming angry that others won’t do theirs.
Now, the Right will respond with junk about “The top 1% pays 40% of all taxes” or “Don’t punish the creators of jobs and wealth” or “They’ll just pass taxes on to the consumer”. Â Don’t get lost in the weeds with that crap, just return it to the issue. Â ”Being rich doesn’t mean you get to shirk your full tax responsibility”, “creating jobs and wealth doesn’t mean you get to avoid paying your fair share”, and “How they choose to price their products doesn’t change their responsibility to pay their fair share.”
Extend the irresponsible metaphor.  It’s irresponsible to write checks with no money in the bank – Wealthy irresponsible tax cheats want to spend your children’s inheritence because they don’t want to pay their fair share.  It’s irresponsible and reckless to send our children to war when the Top 1% wants to cheat taxpayers by avoiding paying their fair share.
Democrats need to learn that elections are not about facts and issues, they are about stories and frames. Â People don’t vote for the smartest guy with the best plan, they vote for someone who represents what they think is the best in themselves.
Representation Without Taxation: Study Says Most Corporations Avoid US Income Tax
WASHINGTON — Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.
The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.
Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO’s estimate.
More than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and 1.2 million U.S. companies paid no income tax, the GAO said. Combined, the companies had $2.5 trillion in sales. About 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts.
The GAO said it analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service, examining samples of corporate returns for the years 1998 through 2005. For 2005, for example, it reviewed 110,003 tax returns from among more than 1.2 million corporations doing business in the U.S.
I can already hear the wingnuts: But if you tax the corporations, they’ll just pass the costs on to the little guy! Well, hell, at least the taxes will get paid and we won’t have a deficit! Besides if corporations raise the cost of their goods and services too much, I won’t buy from them and they’ll lose money.
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