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Otherwords / Op-Ed
Published: Monday 31 October 2011
“It’s unfair, Paulson scolds, that protesters demonstrated in front of his 28,000-square-foot, $15-million mansion on New York's Upper East Side, targeting him as an example of plutocratic excess.”
Paulson’s Plaintive Plea
Who's the most befuddled Wall Streeter of all? The richest guy on the Street.
In assessing the spreading public protest against the rampaging greed of today's financial elite, John Paulson turns out to be as confused as a goat on Astroturf.
Oh, he gets that the people's anger is directed at hedge fund profiteers like him, but he claims they are simply confused on the virtue of accumulated wealth. Although he raked in nearly $5 billion in personal pay last year (the largest single haul in Wall Street history) from rigged Wall Street casino games, he asserts that the amassing of wealth itself serves the public good.
It's unfair, Paulson scolds, that protesters demonstrated in front of his 28,000-square-foot, $15-million mansion on New York's Upper East Side, targeting him as an example of plutocratic excess. Taxes from billionaires like him, he says, are "providing huge benefits to everyone in our city."
Besides, he points out that he's not merely a billionaire, but also a "job creator," as Republican leaders prefer to call corporate chieftains these days. Paulson brags that his hedge fund "has created over 100 high-paying jobs in New York City since its formation." Wow — 100 jobs in a city of over 8 million people.
Thanks, John. Our economy wouldn't be the same without you.
When it comes down to it, all that Paulson's clique really wants is a little love, a small show of gratitude for all that the richest 1 percent is doing for us 99 percent of Americans by making themselves ever-richer.
In a plaintive press release, he recently wrote that, "Instead of vilifying our most successful businesses, we should be supporting them and encouraging them."
Isn't it sad to hear John cry? But, then, he does have $15 billion in net worth to dry those tears.
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ABOUT Jim Hightower
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
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49 comments on "Paulson’s Plaintive Plea"
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It's much easier to undesrtnad when you put it that way!
November 01, 2011 2:44pm
At the end of the day, it's quite simple: no one likes playing poker when there's a stacked deck. And that's exactly what congress has given us - the Paulson's get all the Aces and the rest of us were left with trying to pull a full house. Unfortunately, the deck is now so stacked, those full houses have been and are being foreclosed on. At what point does congress finally pull their collective head out and see that no matter how they package the whole "trickle down" nonsense, it just isn't economically feasible. Basically all the "other 99%" - myself included, just want a fair shake. A level playing field. The Paulson's and Cain's look at their success as being totally self-built; the reality is that they've been in a corporate America where crime and fraud are overlooked by our government "for the greater good" because "they're the experts" - while receiving corporate welfare in the form of no taxes or tax rebates - due to untold numbers of "loopholes" in our tax code for corporations. They continue to gamble massive amounts of money with no risk-adversity, because they depend on our taxdollars to "cover their bets." They use the US Treasury as their personal bank, with ongoing zero interest loans on top of the TARP monies being made to them, thanks to Obama, Geithner and Bernanke. They're all so arrogant they think WE don't 'get it.' Truth is, THEY don't. Robber barrons have risen throughout history and been protected by their governments, who refuse to see that the people have had it. Obama talks the talk, but what few moves he actually makes are empty. The student loan "assistance" for example: that will help NO ONE WHO IS CURRENTLY DROWNING UNDER MASSIVE STUDENT DEBT. Much of the loan balances are due to banks having loaned amounts initially, helping themselves to huge "loan origination fees" - so the student may have borrowed $3,000, but the bank has taken 1/4 or /1/3 of it to make the loan on the front end. Then when students are unempl0yed and have to get deferments for their loan payments, the accrued interest is capitalized when the students can't pay it in lump sums. Let me see, they get deferments because they can't pay on the loan, but they're expected to make lump sum interest payments - or those roll into the loan. On top of that, these are the ONLY loans I've ever heard of where you CANNOT pay "extra" each month and have to go to reduce principal. All the overage goes to interest. "Paying a little extra" has been the way people have dragged themselves out of debt for eons. But this isn't allowed with student loans. Anybody see a pattern here? Kinda like the miners of early days who had to pay rent to the mine owner and shop at the mine's store. They ended up owing more than they made by the end of the month. Essentially endentured servitude. Obama's "new plan" won't help those millions who have student debt RIGHT NOW. Instead, he's come up with this quite empty plan that will start in 2012 - NOTHING FOR CURRENT LOAN INDEBTEDNESS. And as for the banks that were "too big to fail" in 2008 - they're even bigger now, but that's OK, as I said, the administration keeps the back door to the Treasury open for them with a drive-thru window. So the Mr. Paulson's will continue to be unloved martyrs, living in their billion dollar mansions, suffering the vilification of the 'unwashed masses.' And the Republicans will keep telling us how the tax subsidization of big biz - and people like Mr. Paulson who kept bonuses for having gambled and lost - by US taxpayers will "create jobs." - Yea. More gardeners and maids is what I'm thinking. Do you think a Paulson, pointing to "creating 100 jobs" in a mega-zillion dollar industry even REMOTELY gets it? But he'll be Cantor and Boehner's newest 'hero' - representing all the jobs being created by billionaires.
November 01, 2011 9:46pm
The bailouts and tarp suck.
It was just announced that the execs at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are getting $12MN in bonuses, after they went into gov't recievership in Sept. 2008 and basically were the cause of the credit crisis and responsible for much of the subprime crisis.
Ron Paul says, and I have to believe, that Gov't involvement in education is the main proponent behind the escalation in tuition and other costs involved with college.
Same thing with skyrocketing healthcare costs, the gov has been paying 50% of the nation's costs but only receiving 40% of the benefits for years - thru medicare and medicaid.
I am sorry you got a raw deal on your loan, I hope you're employed or soon to be, good luck.
I just don't see a reason to excoriate Mr. Paulson here, he's just a lucky and/or success driven and/or money oriented person. He can give to charity, perhaps he has, but it's his choice because we have freedom and property rights. You have the same rights and opportunity as it stands, if you care to get into the financial field. We can curse Paulson if he isn't charitable and of course we have the choice to curse him if he is. But if we legislate Mr. Paulson's property into our greedy little hands, our property rights go away quickly, right along with his.
I think that our right to own stuff has served us well, and once recovery comes, it will benefit us once again. Peace be unto you and godspeed, sir.
Youtube some Ron Paul videos and you'll see the light. He studied Austrian school economics, and predicted the housing bubble, the subprime crisis and the credit crisis from 2001 right thru 2008 when they all happened. Getting back to our constitutional roots and constitutionally limited government will restore America to prosperity once again. Youtube some Ron Paul, he speaks truth to power and truth to everyone. Youngsters may get the chance to opt out of soc sec and other long-tange traps. If you read some of my other posts about the Federal Reserve, I think on this page, that may help explain how we got here. Ciao.
November 01, 2011 12:37pm
ditto
November 01, 2011 9:40am
Attempting to rectify America's perceived social ills, like our differences in income, is a great part of what caused the financial meltdown. Stimulus and bailouts are only prolonging the recovery by propping up the bad investment. It's the same paranoia about "deflation" that kept us in the great depression for 15 years, and that kept Japan down all thru the 90's and beyond. Politicians are pressured to "do something", when the best course is to leave it alone, hands off.
Doesn't this make sense? The whole world economy is merely composed of people reacting to prices. Why should there ever be a ten year period with low activity? The correction has to come. Allow the companies and assets to fail and fall in price, and investors would snap up those bargains, operate them or form new companies with the assets and get things going again.
Look at the wikipedia page "subprime crisis impact timeline" in the chapter "september 2008" & you'll understand the cause of the credit and subprime housing crisis.
Fannie Mae was a $6TN company, Lehman Bros was only 15% of that. Every co. on Wall St. owned either Fannie debt or Fannie securities.
Fannie failed on 9/7/2008, then in the next 3 weeks is when Lehman, Merrill Lynch, WAMU, all the big names fell like dominoes and we had ourselves a major crisis.
FNMA's "affordable housing goals" were increased over the years until in 2004, they were raised to 55% of all loans passing thru her were mandated to be written to low income buyers. Almost half of all US mortgages passed thru Fannie, so nearly 25% of all U.S. mortgages were mandated low income.
FNMA recieved special low interest loans due to her implied gov't guarantee, and she was exempted from the requirements of the recent Sarbanes-Oxley legislation brought about by the Enron scandal. She was also granted special accounting rules allowing her to count some items as capital that were actually debt, and to be leveraged 70 to 1. If you were in the mortgage business, this was your competition. Is it any wonder how so many mortgages went delinquent when the bubble burst?
The bubble was caused by the Fed - another topic, but all three crises - subprime, credit and the housing bubble were all predicted by Ron Paul starting in 2001 and right thru 2008 when they all happened. He's no psychic, he studied Austrian economics as opposed to Keynesian which is taught in our schools. I encourage you to youtube or google ron paul.
November 01, 2011 7:57am
I'll bet that Hightower would also tell us that a socialist approach is more altruistic. Even tho I point out mistakes I think he's made, this is not to try to be judgemental about Hightower or anyone else. I'll give him a little bit of a break by virtue of my precision-tuned bullshit detector.
I think there is a tendency in America toward laziness in the area of critical thinking. Hightower is participating in capitalism by filling a page with words. He has an audience he caters to by reinforcing their current beliefs, which due to the lack of critical thinking are mainly built by the media and the two parties. He is part of the synergy only because like most people, he operates out of subconscious.
As evidence of this, I point to the fact that mine is so far, the only dissenting comments on this article, the rest are very supportive.
November 01, 2011 7:46am
Hightower makes less than $200,000 a year! Get off your delusional high horse. You are spouting all over the place and ignorant of ANY facts whatsover. I hope your delusional rant has satisfied your lying words.
November 01, 2011 8:40am
OK, so you've determined for me that $200,000 yearly is the point at which one should feel no guilt for participating in capitalism, and for desiring freedom and property rights.
Your post above contains poignant facts rather than empty accusations, huh?
November 01, 2011 9:42am
OH, I get it, the top 1% by income should feel guilty for their greed, but there is a percentage point at which one should feel no guilt. The cutoff point is having a mere few hundred thousand and a Lake Austin retreat as Hightower probably does. That's not greed, right? So he should retain his property rights while we confiscate from those above him at an ever increasing rate allowing our many levels of government to squander whatever money is in those incessantly empty government coffers on war, inadequate education, bailouts and currency inflation by the Federal Reserve, and other needless regulation which is often not enforced because of crony capitalism and other reasons too lengthy.
We do have problems. The two party system built and codified by the two parties, along with the supreme court have corrupted our politics. Stimulus handouts and bailouts will be the norm if we don't change things, and I talk only about the federal level. The same cronyism will eventually filter down to county, city, state, township, utility districts etc and these many other levels of gov't are nearly in massive financial trouble also.The two parties have made it very difficult for a third or fourth party candidate to get on the ballot. It's the only reason Ron Paul is running as a Republican.
November 01, 2011 8:27am
If there is any greed operating here, or guilt to be felt, Jim Hightower and all of us have the same greed and guilt as Mr. Paulson. We're all participating. As long as there is a person hungry and/or cold in the world, the definition of greed should be: when a person who has shelter and food won't share.
Shelter and hunger is a problem we have very little of in this country where 65% are homeowners even after the meltdown. We have 38 different federal food related social programs and 45 million of us receive foodstamps.
Hightower pretends the story is about the human condition and morals, but it's not. The story is about U.S. politics, since he doesn't mention the fact that most people in India for example, burn animal dung for heat, and to cook whatever meager sustenance they were able to scrape up that day.
Income mobility is what matters more than income inequality, the ability to attain wealth. Liberty enhances income mobility, regulation diminishes it. Forcing income equality on people by confiscation is so obviously counter productive, it would sink all our boats.
Somehow our college campuses long ago became infused with the notion that socialism is a more altruistic system, and that freedom was a silly word, that it's silly, or greedy for people to want freedom and property rights.
For the opposing view, China's Mao Tse Dung realized in the 70's that China would not be able to provide for her people, and that they would not be able to prevent the billions from participating in capitalism in order to provide for themselves. That is why China allowed the switch to capitalism, according to the wikipedia page "sprouts of capitalism".
Freedom brought wealth to America. Unless we get more of our freedom back, we will languish and wealth will be ever more concentrated in the top 1%.
October 31, 2011 11:18pm
Dave, you almost seem like a smart guy (except for when you accuse Obama of being a "socialist" (don't I wish he were!)) I hope you will put down the Ayn Rand books and study what eventually happens in societies where income & wealth inequality grows unchecked, as it is now in the US. The results are always very unpleasant for the vast majority of the populace.... sometimes the results aren't good for the elites either, as Louis XVI would undoubtedly attest to (if he could speak).
November 01, 2011 9:59am
Bob, I have searched the page and all the replies, you are the only one to have mentioned Obama or the current administration.
But it is a totalitarian regime, whatever else you call it. Especially Eric Holder's justice dept. Busting California marijuana dispensaries while operating fast and furious and Holder's denial of knowledge at a time when even the president acknowledges he knew about it.
Latest news, the justice dept filed a proposed rules change at regulations.gov at the same time fast and furious was breaking as a story, to change FOIA rules to allow the gov't to lie to the requestor, and say the requested info was not available!
November 01, 2011 9:45am
Income disparity doesn't matter one whit. It's the same greed of which you accuse others, that makes you want all incomes to be equal to Paulson's.
By literal definition, free people are not equal and equal people are not free.
Income and wealth disparity are a good thing, and it's worldwide not just in the U.S. It's income mobility that needs to be supported and encouraged so that people are able to attain wealth. Who cares that the top are getting wealthy, as long as the bottom is getting wealthy also? And that is what happened in pre-socialist America.
I am no Randian, but it's obvious that our property rights are what made us wealthy and that it lifted all boats. The lowest income people in America have a car, heating and air conditioning, internet, television and foodstamps.
October 31, 2011 8:05pm
Let's get down to brass tacks,,,,, what exactly does this character do to earn nearly 5 billion dollars per annum? The short and only accurate answer is shuffling papers and making phone calls. And for this he wants our admiration? We won't go into what those papers he's shuffling represent. A good guess is that half of them are fraudulent.
October 31, 2011 5:46pm
We do not have capitalism. We have Corruption. America has lost its soul. The peasants die because we don't have health care as a right like every industrialed nation in the world. Our corporations are killing our earth with poisioned air, dirty water, toxic food and sending us to war for profit...We don't want to do their killing and be killed anymore or profit....We want people before profit. We have a wrong way and things have got to change.
October 31, 2011 4:14pm
The kind of wealth amassed by people like Paulson is derived from the ongoing destruction of the environment as well as the ongoing destruction of traditional communities the world over. In other words his fortune is built on human and planetary degradation. Ans as someone posted earlier we, the working people of this country, are closer to thinking that people like him must hang from a nooze, or be thrown to the sharks, real sharks.
November 01, 2011 1:14pm
You should continue to read only the news sources that reinforce your opinion.
You know, the ones that make you feel good and don't require you to think too hard, or to use your bullshit detector.
Always remember, there is never any reason to think outside the box.
It was put there for a reason.
October 31, 2011 4:08pm
IT'S A PROVEN FACT THAT ALL CEOs ARE PSYCHOPATHS. THEY HAVE TO BE TO CHEAT AND LIE AND TRY TO DISILLUSION THE REST OF US THE WAY THEY DO.
KARMA IS A BITCH, THEY WILL ALL GET THEIRS IN THE END :)
October 31, 2011 3:20pm
Mene, mene, tekel upharsin. If I were one of these clueless Wall Street tycoons, I would be feeling afraid, very afraid, right about now.
28,000 square feet in one house?? What the hell do they need all that space for? Do they have 10,000 kids? Why don't we break that house up into 28,000 1000 sq. ft. apartments for poor New Yorkers? This kind of greed is obscene.
October 31, 2011 3:06pm
@Henry Cross
It's not how they amass wealth, it's how they keep it in spite of how they amassed it. It fools everybody though.
October 31, 2011 2:31pm
What is wrong with those peasants? Let them eat cake.
October 31, 2011 1:40pm
What Paulson seems to miss is that we cannot build a whole economy predicated on building yachts for the rich. And I would love to see which millionaires Mr. Paulson would be employing cutting his grass or serving him his lunch. Mr. Paulson's brand of self-rationalizing narcissism is eerily reminiscent of the attitude of junkies explaining why their next fix is all they need.
October 31, 2011 6:59pm
You must have gotten into the wrong business.
October 31, 2011 1:25pm
This Paulson guy espouses the virtues of his success. What he should be doing is talking about those hedge fund investments he is managing so we can judge for ourselves, just how honorable he really is.
October 31, 2011 1:04pm
Virtue of accumulated obscene wealth? Of course, millions unemployed, the planet in danger of burning up, poisoned air, water, land, food; few obscenely rich, many having problem staying afloat, millions on the streets, millions dying for the profit of corporate elite around the world, eternal wars, wasted resources, excessive stress and mental illness, ignorance, hunger, poverty, disease! We have the means and the technology to create a much better society devoid of isms, gods, distortions, militarism, wars, etc. Only reason we don't is because a few stick in the mud like Paulson are standing in the way.
October 31, 2011 1:02pm
I am quickly getting to the point of suggesting hanging them all, seize their assets and throw the remaining survivors into the Ocean. Although, it may poison the fish.....
November 01, 2011 5:59am
Nazi Germany was so altruistic, they believed the same thing about the Jews.
This is one of the steps to control of a population through propaganda.
Nobel economist Frederich Hayek wrote a book called "The Road to Serfdom"
You can watch it on youtube as an animation if you care to.
October 31, 2011 12:46pm
Wow, 100 jobs!!! Even if you let him take a billion off the top (for living expenses and stuff) that means he managed to ONLY spend 40 MILLION dollars per job. Now THAT'S what I call the efficiency of capitalism at it's best. Imagine if we could be that efficient with government hiring. Oh, wait.....
October 31, 2011 12:34pm
Steve Jobs is responsible for about 200,000 jobs and passed away with about $6.5 billion after being the first to commercialize the modern personal computer, modern operating system, modern smart phone, radically transforming the music industry, and bringing Buzz, Woody, and Shrek to life as a side-project.
Paulson made almost as much in one year while creating nothing and employing a hundred people, but he can't figure out why we're PO'd.
October 31, 2011 2:00pm
Twenty-five or more years later after Jobs was first at Apple, people are singing his praises and talking about what a genius he was.
However, when the first Apple came out, it was ridiculed and scorned and called a toy. It took a long time for Apple to catch on as a viable operating system and be accepted by the "mainstream" computing world.
As an Apple user from the beginning, I remember when Steve Jobs was fired from Apple because some people saw him as a detriment. He was hard to get along with and often berated people who worked for Apple. When he was brought back, Steve had ideas of the direction he would like to see "computing" go. And he hired people to develop the means to carry them out. Some worked; some didn't.
PCs were around before Apple. They were used by many people but were difficult to use for the "average" person. Apple made the computer (and since, the smart phone) easier to use with a screen that showed the user what the document was going to look like. That was a big, big jump from the PC.
Jobs had an aesthetic sense as well as his finger on the pulse of what innovations would help make computers more useful to more people. But, he didn't build Apple by himself.
His $6.5 billion in personal pay was helped, in part, when he stopped building Apples in the United States and had them produced in China.
Apple's quality went down, its customer service is nil, and Apple is no longer making computers than one can use for a long time (there was a time when Apple supported computers for many years). Now after five years or so, they stop supporting and cut services to them (Mobile Me, for example). You can use it, but at your own risk. Call and no one will talk with you, telling you that "We no longer support that operating system."
Those were Jobs' introductions to Apple, making it more like Microsoft and less oriented to the consumer. Planned obsolescence when one of the best features of Apple was that it was so ahead of its time you could use it for many years and Apple would support it.
Jobs was an interesting fellow and one who died too soon. But he didn't do what he did without a lot of help and more currently, cheap labor.
October 31, 2011 12:28pm
5 billion in personal pay?? What the hell does he DO for that. Ya know, if a person was lucky enough to make $100,000 a year it would take them 10,000 years to make just one billion dollars....that's right, TEN THOUSAND YEARS!! and he makes what?? sueg
October 31, 2011 12:26pm
Where do I apply for one of his jobs? Could you list his office number so I can call him? I am running out of unemployment money or I should say landlord subsidy checks and won't be able to pay rent soon.
October 31, 2011 12:25pm
I'm always amazed at the brainwashing that's taken place in this country regarding wealth. Not only did the wealthiest not "get there" on their own - they're not staying there on their own, either. The huge profits they take for themselves come from the work that we do - we're the ones actually making the products. WHat would a corporation be without "workers" - i.e., with only CEO's? Nothing. The discussion we need to have is about what share of the actual wealth we produce should go to the different people who are creating it. In fact, we might even begin to wonder if we need CEOs at all.
October 31, 2011 12:25pm
'Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.Paulson and his like have surely outgrabe.
October 31, 2011 7:04pm
The only slithy toves here are all the greedy people and the writer, who think Paulson should feel ashamed, or that the government should confiscate a goodly percentage of his wealth.
'Tis nothing but greed, avarice, and envy.
Hilarious that the writer, Jim Hightower, counts himself in the 99% - this is nothing but an attempt to use OWS for political purpose.
I most assuredly am, by the way, in the 99%.
October 31, 2011 12:02pm
If this accumulation of vast wealth is good for the public, how about Mr. Paulson divesting himself of most of it and TRULY make his money work for the public, preferably givingit to folks who live under bridges, don't have decent clothing nd the like. He should be able to get through life with several hundred million...so, how about it, Mr. Paulson? Think you could manage on a mere 100 million?Sadly, I'm kisdding myself. Outside of spending it on several houses (can't just have 1!) he'll use it to buy a few politicians and game the system even more!
October 31, 2011 12:01pm
Somebody find out how much Hightower has.
I have a sneaking suspicion that he also, is profiting from the great global monetary greed synergy.
Not by as much as he would like, so he asks government to spread the wealth around. It's this kind of greed that has Americans attacking Americans over each other's private property.
I'm sure he would claim that socialism is the more egalitarian system. Unfortunaetely North Korea is the only shining example left in the world, all the others China, USSR have turned to capitalism and swamped the world with the money they have to lend. Hightower will be right there urging our government to borrow it, and to confiscate more from anyone who has more than his self-defined share of greed.
October 31, 2011 1:36pm
Dave, you better take alook at who really is responsible for Chinese capitalism. It's the government. As for J.H., it's a sure bet he didn't rake in 5 bil last year. By the way, that 5 bil was taxed at a rate lower than yours.
November 01, 2011 9:02am
The reason why Mao Tse Dung began embracing socialism is that he realized it was happening with or without his approval, because the system was not providing adequately. I just found the wikipedia page 'sprouts of capitalism' which seems to back that up. People will participate in capitalism in an attempt at freedom, not matter how brutal the regime.
Pitch, you make my point. This story is all about greed allright, but it's the greed of you and Hightower, not Paulson or the wealthy.
By trying to convince me that Paulson paid a lower tax rate than I did, you're trying to appeal to my greed.
Greed is a subjective term and this story is about comparative greed. It's trying to point the finger at Paulson and away from you and Hightower, saying that Paulson has more greed and/or more blame for society's ills than you and Hightower do, because he has more money than you do.
I'm quite sure Hightower is very well off, more so than I, but I'm not going to excoriate him for it.
Somewhat in his defense, I also don't have a page to fill or an audience to please by catering to their need for reinforcement of their beliefs.
October 31, 2011 1:15pm
Oh Dave. So enthusiastic ... and so wrong.
Sharing the wealth is a very BAD way to get rich, which you claim is all that's on Jim Hightower's mind. Grasping at straws, are we?
And I'm QUITE sure that Hightower didn't sleep through the oppressive mess the world's major "Socialist" experiments have perpetrated on their people.
You see, those experiments were NOT actually "Socialism" -- no more than the Alberta Tar Sands are Alternative Energy. In fact they were experiments in social engineering that installed repressive Dictatorships and Oligarchies, and just CALLED them "Socialism."
TRUE Socialism MUST be supported by the people (duh!) but instead, they had to FORCE those ideas onto their populations (using, um, FORCE).
TRUE Socialism must always be crafted to support the PEOPLE'S real aspirations, and is what we see in the Scandinavian Countries today. And that is why they are in fact not only NOT going down, but are indeed excelling in every way -- trouncing our bacon, you might say.
It's just that Hightower eschews obfustication; which is probably why you can't follow his logic.
October 31, 2011 6:35pm
So then Joe, read the story and tell me where he uses any logic at all. He doesn't even say that there's a problem or a solution, he only mocks Paulson, using cynicism and sarcasm to insinuate that he is guilty of something because of his wealth.
That is not anywhere near eschewing obfuscation. Tell me what Paulson has done wrong, that you or Hightower haven't. He's created 100 high paying jobs and Hightower pillories him on the cross of phony socialist altruism. Do you or Paulson have a payroll, and if you do, if it's more or less employees, should you carry any more blame or vindication for whatever it is that you claim is wrong? No.
Greed and wealth are subjective terms. As long as there is a person in this world who is hungry and/or cold the definition of greed must be the attainment of something more than that without sharing. Hightower makes it about America, and claims he is in the 99%. I am quite sure Hightower is very comfortable, and all this judgementalism he exhibits should be turned on himself first. How much does he have? Is he a participant in this system or not? This article is merely subjective finger pointing for the purpose of filling a page and catering to an audience with a hole to fill. They want their beliefs to be reinforced, so he picks a weekly target and fires off a bunch of blame, when he has the same greed as the next guy.
We are doing just fine if we could just have market rate interest instead of the Federal Reserve keeping them near zero since 1998 or so, which encouraged bad investment decisions, and keep Fannie Mae from lending to anyone with a dollar for a down payment. 50% of us paid no taxes last year and 45 million of us are collecting food stamps, how much socialism do we need?
Scandinavians are an unhappy lot to begin with, and socialism (actually more like fascism or corporatism) is absolutely being forced upon us. This is a totalitarian regime, Obama uses signing statements and executive orders in place of congress, and is currently threatening more "stimulus" without Congress. One fine example, Obamacare was "deemed " passed by Congress instead of a vote. They never took a final vote, they deemed it passed. What a freakin' financial mess that is already, insurance costs are already increasing at a 50% higher rate than previously. Scandinavian socialism would be one thing, but I think what's being done here is to purposefully take us on a path to financial ruin in the unlikely hope that socialism will spring from the ashes, all out of an intellectually corrupt claim that the perpetrators are being altruistic and want to "share".
October 31, 2011 12:27pm
It isn't a matter of bringing down capitalism, just regulating it so that those with the morals of a gnat can't take unfair advantage of the system. For years, the rich have bought politicians who would make laws to allow them to become richer so that they could buy more politicians who would make laws to allow them to become richer and etc etc etc. The problem with that is that there is only so much GNP to go around and when the rich have all of it, the rest of us are in trouble. That's what's happening right now. Honest, regulated, Capitalism is the best financial system in the world. But, ours has been corrupted by the ability of the rich to buy elections and to use the media to indoctrinate many in the Middle Class that the whole system will collapse if the rich have to play by the same rules that they do.”
We need to tax the rich more than those who have benefited less from the system they developed. We need to close tax loopholes that allow them to keep more money. And, any politician who defends the 1% needs to be voted out of office by the other 99%. Even though the 1% are willing and able to buy the media to brainwash us in to thinking that they must be protected because they are the "job creators", our answer should be " When you start creating enough jobs to go around, we'll talk." Until then, the 1% needs to be the ones to pay for the mess they created-- if for no other reason because they are the only ones who can afford it.”
October 31, 2011 6:56pm
I agree that the rich have bought the politicians. We need to get the money out of politics somehow.
But rather than more government and more taxes, I say less government and keep taxes the same, or lower them when possible.
Regulation of the marketplace comes in forms other than just laws and rules for people to follow, it also comes in the form of institutions like Fannie Mae and the Federal Reserve, the worst kind of regulation. Fannie Mae's "affordable housing goals" were increased over the years until in 2004 they were raised to 55% of all loans passing thru her were mandated to be written to low income buyers. Almost half of all US mortgages passed thru Fannie, so nearly 25% of all U.S. mortgages were mandated low income. Fannie recieved special low interest loans due to her implied gov't guarantee, and she was exempted from the requirements of the recent Sarbanes-Oxley legislation brought about by the Enron scandal, she was also granted special accounting rules allowing her to count some items as capital that were actually debt, and to be leveraged 70 to 1. If you were in the mortgage business, this was your competition. This was a $6TN company, Lehman Bros was only 15% of that. Every co. on Wall St. owned either Fannie debt or securities, and within 3 weeks of Fannie's takeover by the gov't on 9/7/2008, is when Lehman, Merrill Lynch, WAMU, all the big names fell like dominoes and we had a credit crisis.
We had a drop in tax revenue because of the downturn. If we raise taxes now, then when the economy picks up gov't revenue will increase and we will not benefit from that, there will just be more wars and more bridges to nowhere.
Just the federal income tax takes up 17% of the gross domestic product. There are also huge problems with all our other gov't entities, cities counties states townships utility districts etc. etc. etc. they're all going broke and we are up to our _____ in government.
The gov't quoted GNP numbers are misleading because of something called the broken window fallacy. Whether or not the economy is improved by somebody throwing a rock thru a window, so that a glassman has to be hired. It does not improve the economy. Included in gov't GNP numbers are every goddamn Global Hawk drone with a Hellfire missile on it, even the ones we fired off at Ghaddafi that missed and hit civilian's houses. Did that improve our standard of living? NO in fact it made people hate us.
Also, gov't statistics like M1 money supply - it's basically all the cash in circulation and it's usually around maybe 20% of GNP - so all that money has to circulate 5 times in the year to make our GNP.
This has nothing to do with the greed of rich people - it's a pshychological handicap to work hard no matter how much you're income is, and to watch X% of it fly out the window and watch the gov't squander it, and it just subconsciously makes you not work as hard. I am not nearly rich by the way but I protect the right to own property because that's what made us great. Sorry this is gettin' so long.....
The Federal Reserve Bank caused the housing bubble by keeping interest rates too low for too long. Price controls never work, and interest is the price of money. Low interest rates cause bad investment decisions by everybody from people who bought more house than they could afford, to people thinking real estate would appreciate overnight, to investment bankers loading up on derivatives and leveraging their companies 40 to 1. The Fed is making the same mistake right now, and "stimulus" only keeps us in the doldrums by propping up the bad investment. You can't force companies to hire, they have to think things will improve, and bigger government squandering more of our money is not an improvement.
Freedom made us great and that's the only thing that will do it again, is more freedom not less. Ron Paul studied Austrian economics and he predicted the housing bubble, the subprime housing crisis and the credit crisis from 2001 thru 2008 whein they all happened. He is the only candidate who knows how to get us out of this jam and restore America, in fact he's the only candidate who knows anything about economics. Herman Cain is a former chairman of the Kansas City Fed, he was part of the problem.
October 31, 2011 11:54am
Obscene
October 31, 2011 11:48am
It is a mystery to me how people like this actually amass wealth. Surely, intelligence is not a requirement.