News & Comment
Blogs and Opinion
Tear Down Those Tax "Shrines" by Ed Kilgore, Washington Monthly | January 3, 2013
In the web-wide effort to identify winners and losers in the “fiscal cliff” battle, one of the arguments we’ve heard cited most often is that George W. Bush was the big “winner” because his signature tax cuts finally became part of permanent law, not some temporary budget measure. This conceit, in fact, has become a big part of the progressive case that Obama got rolled. Like Republicans rationalizing votes for the tax bill, these progressives are pretending most Americans got the Bush tax cuts all over again, shiny new and fiscally lethal as they were the first time around. And both sides are using the word “enshrined” to refer to the magical effect the vote had on the tax cuts first enacted in 2001. Sorry, I don’t buy it. read more »8 Huge Corporate Handouts in the Fiscal Cliff Bill by Matt Stoller, alternet.org | January 2, 2013
Throughout the months of November and December, a steady stream of corporate CEOs flowed in and out of the White House to discuss the impending fiscal cliff. Many of them, such as Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, would then publicly come out and talk about how modest increases of tax rates on the wealthy were reasonable in order to deal with the deficit problem. What wasn’t mentioned is what these leaders wanted, which is what’s known as “tax extenders”, or roughly $205B of tax breaks for corporations. With such a banal name, and boring and difficult to read line items in the bill, few political operatives have bothered to pay attention to this part of the bill. But it is critical to understanding what is going on. So without further ado, here are eight corporate subsidies in the fiscal cliff bill that you haven’t heard of. read more »Why Today's Fiscal Squeeze Imposes Needless Austerity by Michael Hudson, nakedcapitalism.com | January 2, 2013
When taxpayers pay more to the government than the economy receives in public spending, the effect is like paying banks more than they provide in new credit. The debt volume is reduced (increasing the reported savings rate). The resulting austerity is favorable to the financial sector but harmful to the rest of the economy. read more »Meet Five CEOs Who Prove That Lower Corporate Taxes Don't Equal More Hiring by George Zornick, alternet.org | December 17, 2012
Corporate tax rates must be lowered in order to create economic growth: this is a key argument made by CEOs and their political allies while they push for a fiscal cliff deal. That was in the Bowles-Simpson plan, and members of Fix the Debt are pushing for that too, along with a territorial tax system. This desire is deeply held in much of Washington. Never mind for a moment the obvious problem with lowering tax rates as a means of fixing the long-term debt. Would allowing corporations to pay less taxes really mean more hiring? Luckily we have some interesting case studies. Several of the CEOs pushing this idea actually run companies that pay extremely low corporate tax rates, well below the statutory 35 percent rate—or pay none at all. So, via the invaluable Institute for Policy Studies, let’s see what kind of job creation these folks did while enjoying very low corporate tax rates. read more »The New Treasury Secretary Must Have a New Client by Jared Bernstein, jaredbernsteinblog.com | December 17, 2012
Secretary Geithner was met at the door in January of 2009 by a financial market meltdown and correctly undertook reversing that as his first job. That part of the market has recovered. The job market has not. But “wait a minute!” you say. That’s the labor secretary’s job—the secretary of the Treasury is responsible for financial markets, making sure our borrowing costs stay low (so s/he must worry about the budget deficit), international trade—stuff like that, right? Wrong! Or, at least only partially right. S/he must recognize the linkages between all of the above and the largely unfinished business of economic recovery. That is, in every policy matter, the new secretary must envision a new client. read more »Not Another Wall Street Puppet by Timothy A. Canova, prospect.org | December 12, 2012
In his first post-election press conference, President Barack Obama said voters had awarded him only one mandate: to help middle class families and those striving to reach the middle class. In line with fulfilling this charge, the administration’s top priority would be creating manufacturing jobs and rebuilding the nation’s schools and infrastructure. An early bellwether of the president’s commitment to this will be his selection of a replacement for Timothy Geithner, who is expected to step down as Treasury secretary early next year. The nomination presents an opportunity for a White House course correction, finally putting Main Street ahead of Wall Street. read more »Dear CEOs: Please Stop Whining About Uncertainty by Matthew Yglesias, slate.com | December 11, 2012
Look. Uncertainty is an intrinsic feature of reality. Business executives do not currently know what fiscal or regulatory policy will look like in 2017 and there is absolutely nothing that can be done to alter this fact. Executives in 1952 did not know what 1957 would look like and executives in 1992 did not know what 1997 would look like. There's no certainty about domestic public policy, there's no certainty about foreign crises, there's no certainty about technological trends, there's no certainty about consumer tastes, there's no certainty about anything. Life is hard. But Google's managed to build a lucrative business around web search and advertising without certainty. Apple and Samsung have built lucrative smartphone businesses without certainty. They pay the CEOs the big bucks because it's hard to know how to make successful products in an uncertain world. That's the job. read more »The Budget Thugs: What Do They Know About the Economy? by Dean Baker, commondreams.org | December 11, 2012
Ed Haislmaier, a senior scholar at the Heritage Foundation, made himself famous in this video where he appears to be assaulting people protesting a conference organized by Fix the Debt. While this act of bad temper may be uncharacteristic of the public behavior of this corporate-sponsored crusade to cut Social Security and Medicare, it does reflect the way in which they hope to bully their agenda through the political process. The line from Fix the Debt, an organization that includes the CEOs of many of the country's largest corporations, and allies like the Washington Post is that we better have cuts to Social Security and Medicare because they say so. Everyone knows that cuts to these programs are hugely unpopular across the political spectrum. The Fix the Debt strategy was explicitly to wait until after the election. They would then go into high gear pushing their agenda of cutting Social Security and Medicare regardless of who won the elections. read more »Wall Street's Creative Extraction by Wallace Turbeville, prospect.org | December 6, 2012
The financial sector provides a crucial function to society. It accommodates the movement of funds from investors to businesses, governments and individuals who use the capital for productive purposes. If the financial sector does this efficiently, the cost to the users of capital will be close to the price demanded by investors. The financial sector will have extracted amounts for providing the “capital intermediation pipeline” that are commensurate with the service provided. If asked, most people would say that the cost of capital intermediation must have gone down in recent decades. After all, advances in technology and quantitative analysis must have made the process less expensive. But they have not. Capital intermediation is now more costly than it was in the days of James Pierpont Morgan. read more »Goodbye To All That by Josh Marshall, talkingpointsmemo.com | December 6, 2012
President Obama made public comments to this effect in front of the Business Roundtable. And various other commentators have reported it. But it’s turning out to be far more important than the jousting over tax rates that President Obama is saying flatly that he will not negotiate under any circumstances over raising the national debt limit. Though there’s still a lot of back and forth over it, Republicans realize that the top marginal tax rate is going up. Given this defeat, House Republicans are saying they’ll regroup around the debt limit and force the president’s hands when they have all the power. This assumes a replay of 2011. But the President says he won’t negotiate under any circumstances. And his top advisors say he’s adamant on the point — not just because of the current impasse but to take hostage taking over the national debt off the table for good. read more »
The Latest
How 12 Multinational Corporations Avoid Paying Taxes, alternet.org | April 20, 2011
By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Alternet
Over the past month, General Electric has been held up as the pinnacle of corporate vampirism –– the world’s largest corporation in the world’s lowest tax bracke more »
Buying Government: Congressional Mergers and Acquisitions, Huffington Post | April 17, 2011
WSJ: Banks Hit for Credit Union Ills , The Wall Street Journal | March 23, 2011
In one of the broadest accusations that Wall Street helped cripple financial institutions during the crisis, the National Credit Union Administration, or NCUA, has threatened to sue several investment banks unless they refund over $50 billion of mortgage-backed securities sold to the five institutions, called wholesale credit unions.
Not Paying Tax: How Corporations Have Mastered the Art, alternet.org | February 23, 2011
Those official and theoretical tax obligations have been used to support conservatives' claims that corporations pay half or more of their profits to federal, state and local levels of government combined. However, because of loopholes, the truth is very different. more »
Barclays: £11.6bn profit, 1% tax, The Guardian | February 19, 2011
Learning To Walk: Fear, Shame And Your Underwater Mortgage, Huffington Post | February 4, 2011
Crisis Panel: Wall Street Appears To Have Violated Federal Securities Law, Huffington Post | January 28, 2011
JP Morgan Boss - Dimon - remarked recently at Davos it was time to "stop denigrating banks".
I disagree.
Were he illegally thrown out of his home by a ruthless immoral bank and communicating this wisdom while living under a plastic sheet in America's growing third world style shanty towns he and people like him might have a shred of credibility. more »
Rudolf Elmer to hand over rich and famous offshore banking secrets, The Guardian | January 16, 2011
Rudolf Elms wants to educate us with the help of Wikileaks.
Now assuming he makes it to the Frontline Club in London with the damning CDs in his sweaty palms we are going to have a ring side seat at some serious scrutiny of the mega-rich. Corruption, tax evasion, general gratuitous abuse of civilised business norms. Who knows what the coming weeks will bring.
Will he make it?
Robert Borosage is quoted in The Washington Post on Wall Street's Influence in the White House, The Washington Post | January 6, 2011
Wall Street ties complicate the politically touchy search for economic adviser
By Peter Wallsten and Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 2, 2011; 7:32 PMPresident Obama is expected to name a new chief economic adviser as early as this week, but the months-long search process has proven difficult and politically touchy...... more »
Roger Hickey quoted in USA Today, USA Today | January 6, 2011
