Paying 0.0% in corporate taxes

Rachel Maddow had a nice segment last week about taxes. In the first minute or so she talks about a middle class tax cut no one knows they have. Interesting.

Then she lays into the "high corporate tax rate" hypocrisy (starting about 1:40 in the clip). This theme is everywhere these days, almost part of the water supply, and always disguised as concern for "jobs". (Jobs? What they really mean is "profits" — make that substitution and their words start to make sense.)

Though both discussions are interesting, it's the second one I draw your attention to. Note especially the run of politicians (first at 3:10, then 5:00) pleading for lower corporate taxes — it's quite a display.

And as these people speak their obfuscations, keep in mind the notion of "political retainers". You really are watching retainers in action, earning their daily bread, just as you and I do when we go to work.



One quibble — big corporations don't "find loopholes" (as she says at 2:50 in the clip), they purchase them. But that said, good on her for pointing this out, and also for including GE (her boss's boss's soon-to-be ex-boss) in the list.

GP Read the rest of this post...

French Senate confirms pension reform bill

This ought to go over like a lead balloon. BBC:

The French Senate has passed a controversial pension reform bill, which has caused a series of strikes and protests around France.

The senators approved President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, and it could become law as early as next week.

Mr Sarkozy says the measure is necessary to reduce the deficit.

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Horton on Holder and DADT

Scott Horton, a lawyer known for his work in human rights law (as well as the law of armed conflict), is well-placed to discuss Attorney General Eric Holder's position on defending DADT. In a brief post at Harpers, "Why Holder Defends DADT", Horton gives the "lawyerly" reason for Holder's defense — then eviscerates it.

First the lawyerly defense, from Bush-era Solicitor General Paul Clement as quoted in the Associated Press:

President Barack Obama opposes the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military, so why are Obama administration lawyers in court fighting to save it? The answer is one that perhaps only a lawyer could love: There is a long tradition that the Justice Department defends laws adopted by Congress and signed by a president, regardless of whether the president in office likes them. This practice cuts across party lines. And it has caused serious heartburn for more than one attorney general.

The tradition flows directly from the president’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, says Paul Clement, who served four years in President George W. Bush’s administration as solicitor general, the executive branch’s top lawyer at the Supreme Court. Otherwise, Clement says, the nation would be subjected to “the spectacle of the executive branch defending only laws it likes, with Congress intervening to defend others.”

A nice, concise statement of the Obama administration's argument, and reasonable on its surface. But this is the Bush II Solicitor General talking, which counts as low-hanging fruit. Horton sarcastically comments:

Of course this perfectly explains the performance of the Justice Department while Mr. Clement was near its helm. For instance, the Justice Department didn’t like the Anti-Torture Statute, but it enforced the statute anyway, which is why so many senior officials of the Bush era were prosecuted and sent to prison for their programmatic endorsement of torture and official cruelty, which are felonies. And, even though the Justice Department did not approve of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and its felony counts for warrantless surveillance by federal agents, it faithfully implemented the statute, which again explains a slew of very unpleasant prosecutions of senior government officials

Sadly, we're left with the impression that Holder is defending DADT in part because Bush II officials are arguing that he should. At the very least, Holder is arguing the same case that Bush II lawyers are making, a case they never followed when they were in charge. Horton calls this position "schizophrenic."

He ends by quoting Ted Olson, himself a former Solicitor General, in defense of Holder letting the lower court ruling stand. Can't get much more Republican than that.

All in all, an excellent take-down from Horton.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Another Facebook privacy issue?

It would be nice if everyone could see more privacy protection.

Online advertising offers marketers the chance to aim ads at very specific groups of people — say, golf players in Illinois who make more than $150,000 a year and vacation in Hawaii.

But two recent academic papers show some potential pitfalls of such precise tailoring.

Both papers focus on Facebook ads and show that in certain circumstances, advertisers — or snoops posing as advertisers — may be able to learn sensitive profile information, like a person’s sexual orientation or religion, even if the person is sharing that information only with a small circle of friends. Facebook does not share such information with advertisers.

The papers come amid an intense focus on vulnerabilities in Facebook’s privacy safeguards.

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G20 to allow more developing countries to join

What a great idea and this is positive change.

Group of 20 finance leaders struck a landmark deal on Saturday to boost developing countries' power in the International Monetary Fund even as they failed to set targets for a wide-ranging global economic rebalancing.

The IMF deal was hailed by fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn as a "historical" moment that will see Europeans give up two seats on its 24-strong board to powerful developing countries and transfer 6 percent of votes to them.

"This makes for the biggest reform ever in the governance of the institution," Strauss-Kahn, who heads the 187 country body, told reporters.

And as a side note, Strauss-Kahn could likely be the Socialist candidate in France to run against Sarkozy in 2012. Recent polls have shown him to be very popular. Read the rest of this post...

Elvis - Good Year for the Roses

It's a chilly autumn day here in Boston where I am at the moment. The city is filling up for the regatta on the Charles River and thankfully it's not raining, because that would have to be miserable for everyone. I watched some boats capsize the other day and could only imagine how cold that had to be in the river. Yikes. Read the rest of this post...