Obama details capital gains, dividend tax plans

8:41 PM, August 14, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign on Thursday spelled out the details of the Democratic presidential candidate’s tax plan on his website and in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.

I just wanted to note the basic proposals for capital gains and dividend tax rates here:

--- Families with incomes below $250,000 would pay current capital gains rates (a maximum tax of 15% on gains on assets held more than one year). Those earning more than $250,000 would face an increase -- a top rate of 20%.

--- The top dividend tax rate would remain the current 15% for those earning less than $250,000, but would rise to 20% for those earning above that threshold.

--- For single people, the tax increases above would apply to those earning more than $200,000.

The presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, has endorsed keeping President Bush’s current tax rates as they are.

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Folks in "high rent areas" (read: LA NY, etc.) making 250,000 (pre-tax) per year are far from rich. In LA, merely for safety reasons, a family will need to shell out well over $5,000 per month in mortgage payments. Our property and city taxes are exhorbitant. We pay higher insurance premiums than folks elsewhere. And, if you want your kids to know how to read and write before they hit college, a private school tuition will set you back way more than what our parents paid for college tuition. Rich we're not . Just working 24/7 to live a slice of the American dream. BHO just doesn't get it.

Posted by: maggie

I have no personal animus towards any poster on this blog, however, I consider 'maggie's' remarks an absolute affront, an insult if you will, to any thinking reader of this blog.

To begin, less than 3% of Americans have incomes of $250,000 or more per year. By the relative standards of most Americans, maggie IS rich. Of course, by maggie's standards, compared to the one-hundredth of 1 percent of the population whose 2005 income averaged $29,700,000, maggie is struggling. Pity, but nobody ever said life is fair.

Though $60K in mortgage payments and about $30K in tuition sounds outrageous to average Americans, a great deal of these amounts are deductible, are they not? And aren't these payments of choice? It would seem to me for this kind of dough a family could live in, say, Pasadena, Glendale or hundreds of other highly suitable locations in LA County besides the West side, and construct a veritable fortress "merely for safety reasons." As to taxes, I can only imagine that she refers to ad valorem taxes which, considering rates in other states, is a flat out bargain. And her insurance is high because she has more expensive things, which her income affords, to insure.

Maggie, I know, with only perhaps $5K to $10K of monthly discretionary income, things are tough. But things are tough for the 133 million or so households with incomes less than 1/5th of yours. But, what the hell, they can always eat cake.

Posted by: martscan

Banks' credit-crisis write-downs top the half-trillion mark

Banks' credit-crisis write-downs top the half-trillion mark

2:20 PM, August 12, 2008

Now $500 billion -- and counting.

That's Bloomberg's tally of the credit write-downs that investment banks and commercial banks worldwide have taken since the subprime mortgage debacle began to unfold early in 2007.

The total reached $501 billion today after Swiss financial giant UBS said it wrote off another $5.1 billion tied to U.S. mortgage-backed securities and $900 million to cover its buyback of so-called auction-rate debt securities held by clients.

Bloomberg's tally includes losses the banks have recorded on their subprime-related bond holdings and on other securities that have been marked down in value as the credit crisis has deepened.

The total of write-downs has ballooned from $218 billion just since the end of last year. Citigroup Inc. ranks No. 1 with accumulated write-downs, at $55.1 billion, according to Bloomberg. Merrill Lynch & Co. is No. 2, with $51.8 billion. UBS is third with $44.2 billion.

And it doesn't look at all like we've peaked. Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. today plunged $3.97, or 9.5%, to $37.92, after the bank said in a regulatory filing that it has racked up $1.5 billion in additional losses on mortgage-backed bonds and other securities just since June 30, as market conditions "have substantially deteriorated."

Through June 30 JPMorgan's accumulated write-downs totaled $14.3 billion -- so it had been faring better than many of its major peers.

JPMorgan's warning helped drag most financial stocks lower today. The financial-sector index of the Standard & Poor's 500 index plunged 5.2%, its steepest loss since it dropped 6.7% on July 24. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 139.88 points, or 1.2%, to 11,642.47.

Marty's Note:

During a similarly lousy period for bank stocks, between 1988 and 1993, banks' chargeoffs and loan loss provisions kept rising from 1988 and did not peak until 1991, then steadily declined through 1993. However, bank stock prices bottomed out, hit their trough, a full year before the writeoffs peaked...and by the time the chargeoffs peaked, the recovery in stock prices was fully half over and prices had doubled. Its difficult to buck trends, defy current news and pull the trigger, without confirmation of an ending crisis and light at the end of the tunnel. In this scenario, I think the light at the end of the tunnel is the train pulling out of the station...and I'm going to be on it.

I suppose its human nature to vent, to get some personal satisfaction by placing blame on someone, a group or an organization, when things go badly for a great many people. As the owner of thousands of shares of IMB stock, worth about seven cents a share, I think I'm entitled to gripe with the best of them. However, I can't do anything about it and griping gets me nowhere, save perhaps lowering my blood pressure. I can though, as Kipling so beautifully put it, keep my head about me... and make the best of a bad situation. Ergo, I'm buying financials.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BREAKS THE BACK OF FLORIDA HOSPITAL(S)

June 16, 2008

Martin Memorial Medical Center in Stuart Florida is indicative of 51 other Florida community hospitals who are also financially struggling or failing and who are facing bankruptcy due to the high cost of treating illegal immigrants (and paying ludicrous illegal alien lawsuit financial settlements) - that vast majority of which never pay for the medical treatment they or their family receives.

Stuart Florida geographical area has many typical red flags that hospital and city administrators should have seen as a reason for the hospital's pending bankruptcy.

1) Nearby Jupiter Florida is considered a "sanctuary city" whose pro illegal anti law enforcement policies were recently exposed by a Florida lawman.

2)The local St. Peter Catholic Church encourages and supports illegal immigration into the area.

3) A taxpayer funded "hiring hall" was opened in Jupiter Florida - with the encouragement of the Catholic Charities & against the wishes of local citizens (video here) . Thus they city provided a taxpayer funded site for lawbreakers - (that the community would likely never consider or fund for their own American teenagers) and produced a draw for even more illegals to move into the Martin Memorial Hospital area:

"The El Sol Neighborhood Resource Center was the town's solution for stopping ''migrant workers'' from lining the streets each day to wait for employers to drive by and hire them. Sometimes as many as 100 ''day laborers'' gathered each morning. Neighborhood residents complained they blocked traffic, scared people and created a public nuisance. So, backed by legal opinions that said the center did not violate any laws, the town of Jupiter bought a building next to town hall and the police station for $1.9 million and encouraged Catholic Charities, along with the migrant advocacy group Corn Maya and community volunteers, to lease it for $1 a year, reports the South Florida Sun-Sentinel."

4) Florida (an other US states) agricultural businesses, such as citrus and sugar growers, balk at having to go through the steps for legal immigrant "guest worker" labor and providing transportation, housing, etc for legal laborers. Thus they seem to prefer to continue attracting and hiring cheap illegal immigrant labor. But they also feel increasingly compelled to go the "legal" route since illegal immigration has become a "hot button issue".

Goldstein estimated that U.S. Agriculture companies have 2.5 million foreign workers, about 60 percent of whom are illegal....Local (FL) citrus growers who have recently begun using H-2A agreed that, despite the burden of red tape, the program is the only viable alternative (from using illegal immigrants) for recruiting a stable labor force....

5) According to CBS news - across the USA there are at least 300,000 "anchor babies" born each year - clearly many of these babies are born - without payment to hospitals - and ultimately at taxpayer's expense. Florida hospitals undoubtedly are affected. Also "the latest estimated costs of educating the children of illegal aliens, many of whom were anchor babies, is out and it is set at an astounding $28.6 billion per year to the taxpayers of the United States. - Floridian taxpayers are undoubtedly paying their "fair" share.

A recent Rasmussen survey shows that American's opinion, toward illegal immigration, has little changed since last year's overwhelming public rejection of the proposed McCain Kennedy (amnesty) legislation. "63% believe that border security is more important than amnesty". Americans still overwhelmingly welcome LEGAL immigrants. Yet, there is plenty of outrage at illegal immigrants who flagrantly break US laws as well as many produce anchor babies who allow them to tap into taxpayer paid welfare benefits.

The cost of illegal immigration is high - see here and the cost of jailing illegal immigrants for both immigration status as well as crimes committed other than violation of immigration laws is astronomical - a quick search will produce countless states and cities that are buckling under the cost of illegal alien incarceration.

Why should more taxpayer be further penalized by having to provide their hard earned money to be used to bail out Florida hospitals? Especially when the crisis is directly caused by the clear dereliction of duty of the localities city officials who refused to demand that US immigration laws be enforced? Many like Marco Rubio, below, want to hide the deleterious effects of rampant illegal immigration. It should also be noted that the illegal immigrant is not faultless. The vast majority are adults who willingly and knowingly break US laws to sneak into the USA consistently do not want to take responsibility for their own bad choices. So again the question is asked - why should we?



Feds Ignore Hospital’s Illegal Immigrant Reports
Fri, 06/13/2008 - 11:50 — Judicial Watch Blog

A Florida hospital administrator whose facility is overwhelmed with the exorbitant cost of treating illegal immigrants told state lawmakers that federal authorities usually ignore when the hospital reports illegal immigrants.

Testifying before a state House committee, the frustrated Martin Memorial Medical Center official also told legislators that the hospital has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars to fight a lawsuit from an uninsured illegal immigrant returned to his native country after racking up a $1.5 million bill.

The lawsuit has further burdened the south Florida facility already overwhelmed with sick and uninsured illegal immigrants. It involves a Guatemalan Mayan farm worker who was hospitalized for 3 ½ years at the Stuart facility with severe brain injuries sustained in a car wash.

After receiving a judge’s permission, the hospital put him on a plane back to Guatemala in 2003 and it has been fighting a costly legal battle since. The case was appealed in 2006 and is still pending in south Florida’s Martin County. This means the hospital’s legal bills will continue mounting.

The facility has also spent a substantial amount of money treating a brain damaged illegal immigrant from Mexico for the past two years and officials estimate that half of the 2,170 births last year were to illegal immigrants. That, of course, means no insurance and no money to pay for the costly medical tab.

The recent House testimony got practically no media coverage and was attended by only a few people at the state capitol in Tallahassee. After all, Florida’s House Speaker, Marco Rubio, is an ardent defender of illegal immigrants who certainly doesn’t want to publicize the dark side of illegal immigration or the huge toll it’s having on his state.

source: http://theopinionator.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/06/illegal-immigra.html‏


Marty's Note:

What bullshit....they could begin saving money by firing this whiny, efficient cunt's (if Dr. Strangelove, McCain, can use the word in public, so can I) ass. $100M is just about what the Gators athletic department brings in..I'll bet a dime this efficient diabolical machine of an administrator couldn't tell me what fraction 100M of the State's $90BILLION in revenues represents... and we are talking about LIVES here, not some fucking carpeted weight room for a bunch of fucking goons that can't understand "see Spot run", like Ned and the First Reader. This kind of shit is appalling...especially for anyone contending they are Christians. That the wealthiest society in the history of civilization has assholes bitching about the cost of keeping a veritable handful of poor devils alive...while spending untold BILLIONS of dollars to effectively splatter kids' brains about like tapioca from 40,000' and 15 miles out of sight, is the most disgusting indictment of a fucked up hypocritical country's moral compass that I can imagine. Let's just teach our God fearing, starched and prim nurses to suffocate these fucking bastards...no injections, just a no-cost, quiet, pillow suffocation will do the trick...preferably on Sunday mornings when the hospitals are bereft of visitors and week day activity...everyone is in Church. Then simply wheel the bodies to the incinerator chute at the end of the hall...another savings, no cremation fees! God damn! That cost effective analysis class I took at Yale would be hooahing and buying me beer all night down at Morrie's. Is this a great country, or what?

Two Choices

What would you do?....you make the choice. Don't look for a punch line, there isn't one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection.

Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do.

Where is the natural order of things in my son?'

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. 'I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.'

Then he told the following story:

Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in20the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.'

Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.

In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again.

Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.

The first pitch came and=2 0Shay swung clumsily and missed.

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.

As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.

Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates.

Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first!

Run to first!'

Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.

He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!'

Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.

By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball . the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.

He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head.

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay'

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run to third!

Shay, run to third!'

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!'

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team.


'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world'.

Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

AND NOW A LITTLE FOOT NOTE TO THIS STORY:

We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people hesitate.

The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.



If you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you're probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren't the 'appropriate' ones to receive this type of message Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference.

We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the 'natural order of things.'

So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice:

Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst t hem.

You now have two choices:

1. Delete

2. Forward

May your day, be a Shay Day.




Marty's Note:

Years ago, I coached my parish's, Queen of the Holy Rosary in Overland Park, KS, 8th grade basketball and baseball teams. Had about 15 kids on the basketball team...the best was a feisty, cocky little natural named Matt Mulcahy...the worst was a physically impaired kid named Edwin Schwaller..small and frail, he was what we termed in those days, a spastic. He would make two dribbles with the ball and bounce it 20 feet out of bounds...you have the picture. Matt was a dream kid to coach...actually, he needed little athletic coaching but he needed a lot of life coaching..particularly discipline, respect for the rules, responsibility...as one of seven kids whose father apparently abandoned the family...Matt had all the tendencies one would expect of a "wild" kid and was a prime prospect of a hot dog begging for the proverbial "swift kick in the arse"...as my Irish immigrant father would so succinctly put it. Since I had been taught the subtle, but extremely painful, nuances of corporaI punishment by the Dominican's of Fenwick HS, I, like the Dominicans, considered myself an instrument of God's will and fulfilled my spiritual duty by kicking Matt's ass. Not only did the will of God work wonders with Matt Mulcahy, it also had positive ancillary effects on the other kids...including my own son, Mitch, who was about 6 at the time, who would dutifully watch God's will being administered in wide eyed wonder (in Mitch's 20 years of life, he was never spanked save once when he received a sharp slap on his rear, at about 2, leaving the yard for the street). Eddie was a different story altogether. Always early to practice, he would gather the basketballs, line them neatly courtside, have towels at the ready, a clip board with players in attendance, and eagerly asking "Mr. Scanlan, should I start the lay-up drill?" Gosh, I have a lump in my throat recalling this stuff. Well, you have the image I'm sure, of the two extremes I was faced with...one kid a gifted, wondrous athlete but an unruly, feral spirit...the other an imperfect specimen by some quirk of nature but gifted with genuine goodness. The season wore on...and we were perfect..we never won a game...Matt was the big star, deservedly so by dint of his scoring, hustle and leadership....Eddie, more the mascot than a player, always first on the bus in his freshly laundered and ironed uniform, always courtside on bended knee next to me, waiting for a nod that would have him rush to his position only to stand, immobile, as the game progressed around him. He never scored a point. At the awards banquet..a dinner held by the Kansas City Archdiocese for all the grammar school teams and a gala for the various team winners, MVPs, doting parents, priests and featuring lousy food and lousier speeches..naturally, our team had nothing to say except for my brief announcement of our team's most valuable player. You guessed it. Eddie Schwaller literally floated on air as he walked, in his pathetic gimpy way, to the dais where a short, fat Bishop handed him a cheap, 12 inch, plastic facsimile of Bob Cousy tensing for a jump shot. I can't begin to relate the look in Eddiie's parents eyes..I can't describe Mrs. Schwaller's tears and what her facial expression told me though she spoke not a word, nor can I convey the feeling of the two-handed vise that gripped my hand and Mr. Schwaller's unceasing stream of "thank you, thank you, thank you". Eddie, beaming, his whole body straining to be erect and imagining himself 7 feet tall kept repeating, "holy cow", to no one's amazement excepting his own. Talking to Mrs. Mulcahy later in the parking lot..everyone in the school, if not the entire league, knew Matt was MVP going away....I clumsily tried to explain why I chose Eddie..and not Matt...that Matt would have many athletic MVPs in his life and of course Eddie wouldn't, but Eddie genuinely was the MVP of that team because MVP to me, an athlete all my life, wasn't about athletics in 8th grade at all, it was about one's human worth to others. Eddie had that in spades. Mrs. Mulcahy, who had been trying to interrupt me..finally said, "Martin, I don't give a good god damn about any god damn trophy, all I know is Matt was a god damn little bastard until you came along and kicked his god damn little smart ass..for Christ sake, Martin, now he even takes the garbage out without me having to god damn yell at him." As is often said, God works in strange ways.