August 8, 2012

I propose the 'Romney Nose Mars Clock'

A countdown to when Romney's outright lies in this campaign will have his Pinocchio nose catch up with the Curiosity probe.

His first TV ad used an Obama quote that editied out the fact that Obama was himself quoting the McCain campaign staff. His "You Built This" theme is based on taking an X-Acto knife to extract one sentence with a grammatical glitch from a talk nearly indistinguishable from speeches Romney himself has given. The "they just send you your welfare check" ad folds, spindles,and mutilates facts in order to push the "welfare queen" hot button, and there's a host of lower level comments.

His entire campaign is based on horseshit. And you can bet hell take a tax deduction for that too. I bet he outsources too: those guys who used to put out the Soviet Pravda need jobs. That would also explain why his foreign policy guy still talks about the Soviet Union.

Simply calling him liarliarliar gets old, because it's politics' big surprise that a politician lies, right?

But the scale of it is ... well, comparable to Romney's money compared to everyone else.

So to better call attention to the naked, sustained, fogbank-of-steam-rising-off-a-mountain-of-bullshit lying, let's take a cue from the Doomsday Clock or the Debt Clock and have the Romney Nose Mars Clock:

How close is Romney's Pinocchio-nose to reaching Mars?

Rachel Maddow, are you listening?

August 7, 2012

You know what one of the best things about the Curiosity landing is?

That these guys:

are not the only ones who are into it:

August 3, 2012

Hey, Mitt! Wasn't April 15th MONTHS ago? Where's your 2011 tax return?

I think a point brought up by progressivebydesign in another thread deserves an OP
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1068356

I understand there can be extensions to the tax deadline, but Jesus Christmas, how long does it take? It's August already! Aren't you done yet, for pete's sake?

Aren't you retired? Wouldn't that make things a little bit simpler? Or maybe be a job creator and hire a little more manpower to help the peons/////people who do the dirty work of figuring out your taxes?

Ordinary American rule of thumb: if it takes you over seven months to figure out your taxes, you are evading taxes. It may be legalized evasion, but it's still dirty money.

Stop skipping and pay your share of the damn tab.

August 2, 2012

The Mitt Method

July 29, 2012

How Uncle Sam Helped Mitt Romney Build His Fortune

Via Crooks and Liars
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/how-uncle-sam-helped-romney-build-his-fortune

Private equity owes its success in no small part to that uniquely American provision of the corporate tax code. The New York Times recently helped explain why:

Companies can finance investment from either debt or equity. Companies can finance investment from either debt or equity. But profit on an investment financed with equity -- stock issued by the company -- is taxed. In contrast, if the project is financed with debt, then only the profit after interest payments are made is taxed. This means debt-financed investments are cheaper than equity.

And not just a little cheaper. As the Treasury Department recently explained, "The effective corporate marginal tax rate on new equity-financed investment in equipment is 37 percent in the United States. At the same time, the effective marginal tax rate on the same investment made with debt financing is minus 60 percent--a gap of 97 percentage points." The result:

This creates a bias by corporations toward debt.

Or, for the likes of Mitt Romney, a business model.

For the leveraged buyout (LBO) kings of the 1970's and 1980's, that was the pot of the gold at the end of the rainbow. Because the same interest deduction applied whether debt was taken on for a new factory or just to pay investors, Josh Kosman detailed in The Buyout of America, the early corporate raiders and their private equity successors could almost mint money as they bought firms for a fraction of the overall deal size:

Kohlberg saw a way to make debt far less onerous for the company being acquired. He would have the company treat its debt the way businesses handle capital expenditures--as operating expenses deduced from profits through the depreciation tax schedules, thereby greatly reducing taxes. With far less to pay the government, his companies could use the money that formerly went to Uncle Sam to retire these huge loans at an unusually fast rate. Bear's equity would rise with every dollar the companies paid back in debt, even if the value of the businesses only remained the same. The final step in the plan was to sell these companies, usually within four to six years.

This isn't just about Mitt. Everything I've read about this sort of finanvial wheeling and dealing notes that much of it wouldn't have made financial sense without obscure provisions like this.

It's not "punishing success", and never was. It's about re-aligning incentives with desired outcomes, not incentivizing destructive ones. And exploiting a tax loophole, destroying good-paying jobs to free up enough money to make deductible payments on the debt you incurred, then cashing out for huge profit is not a desired outcome for anyone but the vultures taking the profits on it.

July 29, 2012

How Uncle Sam Helped Mitt Romney Build His Fortune

...or, "How I made millions and millions and millions by gaming the system (corporate debt interest tax deduction edition)".

Via Crooks and Liars
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/how-uncle-sam-helped-romney-build-his-fortune

Private equity owes its success in no small part to that uniquely American provision of the corporate tax code. The New York Times recently helped explain why:

Companies can finance investment from either debt or equity. Companies can finance investment from either debt or equity. But profit on an investment financed with equity -- stock issued by the company -- is taxed. In contrast, if the project is financed with debt, then only the profit after interest payments are made is taxed. This means debt-financed investments are cheaper than equity.

And not just a little cheaper. As the Treasury Department recently explained, "The effective corporate marginal tax rate on new equity-financed investment in equipment is 37 percent in the United States. At the same time, the effective marginal tax rate on the same investment made with debt financing is minus 60 percent--a gap of 97 percentage points." The result:

This creates a bias by corporations toward debt.

Or, for the likes of Mitt Romney, a business model.

For the leveraged buyout (LBO) kings of the 1970's and 1980's, that was the pot of the gold at the end of the rainbow. Because the same interest deduction applied whether debt was taken on for a new factory or just to pay investors, Josh Kosman detailed in The Buyout of America, the early corporate raiders and their private equity successors could almost mint money as they bought firms for a fraction of the overall deal size:

Kohlberg saw a way to make debt far less onerous for the company being acquired. He would have the company treat its debt the way businesses handle capital expenditures--as operating expenses deduced from profits through the depreciation tax schedules, thereby greatly reducing taxes. With far less to pay the government, his companies could use the money that formerly went to Uncle Sam to retire these huge loans at an unusually fast rate. Bear's equity would rise with every dollar the companies paid back in debt, even if the value of the businesses only remained the same. The final step in the plan was to sell these companies, usually within four to six years.

This isn't just about Mitt. Everything I've read about this sort of financial wheeling and dealing notes that much of it wouldn't have made financial sense without obscure provisions like this. And it's not as if this problem was unrecognized: once upon a time ordinary could deduct for credit card debt. Once everyone started getting cards and people discovered that by maxing out their cards they could cut their taxes, that was ended. Not so for other (corporate) forms of the same rule-exploitation.

This isn't about "punishing success", and never was. It's about re-aligning incentives with desired outcomes.

July 27, 2012

Mitt's Salt Lake City Olympics pins: why does his chin...

...have a bustline?

Pics via Digby's Hullabaloo. Post on the pins (first executive to be on a pin!):
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/heroes-in-their-own-minds.html

July 26, 2012

Stay classy, Mitt

July 26, 2012

The man Mitt is running against (as rendered by the Daily Show)

Fella's been around for years. Reagan ran against him, Newt spent his career protecting Cobb Country Georgia from him, and he's the Rupert Murdoch of the left:

July 26, 2012

Thomas Jefferson proposed putting Anglo-Saxon brother-kings on the Great Seal of the United States

On July 6, 1776, the first committee for the production of the Great Seal of the United States convened. One of three members of the committee, Thomas Jefferson proposed that one side of the seal feature Hengist and Horsa, "the Saxon chiefs from whom we claim the honor of being descended, and whose political principles and form of government we assumed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hengist_and_Horsa

Obviously, Jefferson did not prevail, so we got the ol' Sam the Eagle here:

Now, if our Anglo-Saxon heritage is as strong as Mitt's people claim, where is Hengist Romney? Horsa Romney?
Why don't those names ever show up on "most popular baby name" lists? The only people I know of named Hengist are from Scandinavia. You know, the cesspit of socialism.

And would Horsa Romney get tax breaks for his dressage?

The Historia Brittonum records that, during the reign of Vortigern in Britain, three vessels that had been exiled from Germania arrived in Britain, commanded by Hengist and Horsa. The narrative then gives a genealogy of the two: Hengist and Horsa were sons of Guictglis, son of Guicta, son of Guechta, son of Vouden, son of Frealof, son of Fredulf, son of Finn, son of Foleguald, and Foleguald son of Geta. The Historia Brittonum details that Geta was said to be the son of a god, yet "not of the omnipotent God and our Lord Jesus Christ," but rather "the offspring of one of their idols, and whom, blinded by some demon, they worshipped according to the custom of the heathen."

Note that Jefferson proposed we be represented by the great (x9) grandsons of a pagan god. How's that for the "faith of our Founding Fathers" crowd?

JHB

I propose the 'Romney Nose Mars Clock'

You know what one of the best things about the Curiosity landing is?

Hey, Mitt! Wasn't April 15th MONTHS ago? Where's your 2011 tax return?

The Mitt Method

How Uncle Sam Helped Mitt Romney Build His Fortune

How Uncle Sam Helped Mitt Romney Build His Fortune

Mitt's Salt Lake City Olympics pins: why does his chin...

Stay classy, Mitt

The man Mitt is running against (as rendered by the Daily Show)

Thomas Jefferson proposed putting Anglo-Saxon brother-kings on the Great Seal of the United States

Profile Information