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from "who gives a what those commie chinese think" to "we better give them what they want".
Rest in peace, Mr. Kennedy.
It's a shame we've gone from "Ask not," to "Ask more;" From "bear any burden," to calling our allies "unworthy partners;" From "Life isn't fair," to "spread the wealth;" from "Isch Ein Berliner," to :::chirp:::chirp:::chirp:::
from "who gives a what those commie chinese think" to "we better give them what they want".
So the words have changed, but has the philosophy? The welfare-warfare state rolls on, with "liberal" politicians pretending that they're opposed to the warfare and "conservative" politicians pretending to be opposed to the welfare.
We Americans cannot seem to even imagine a country without either. We take a proposed reduction in either as a sign of the end of the Republic, but the Republic ended long ago, thanks to what we now regard as tradition.
The government is not answerable to us, though we pretend it is because the alternative is too dark for us to acknowledge. The only question is whether or not it is answerable to anyone.
Don't worry, it won't take long for you guys to go back to the good old days.
"spread the wealth"
Goldman Sachs’s Tax Rate Drops to 1%, or $14 Million
By Christine Harper
Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the U.S. government in October, expects to pay $14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008 compared with $6 billion in 2007.
The company’s effective income tax rate dropped to 1 percent from 34.1 percent, New York-based Goldman Sachs said today in a statement. The firm reported a $2.3 billion profit for the year after paying $10.9 billion in employee compensation and benefits.
Goldman Sachs, which today reported its first quarterly loss since going public in 1999, lowered its rate with more tax credits as a percentage of earnings and because of “changes in geographic earnings mix,” the company said.
The rate decline looks “a little extreme,” said Robert Willens, president and chief executive officer of tax and accounting advisory firm Robert Willens LLC.
“I was definitely taken aback,” Willens said. “Clearly they have taken steps to ensure that a lot of their income is earned in lower-tax jurisdictions.”
U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who serves on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said steps by Goldman Sachs and other banks shifting income to countries with lower taxes is cause for concern.
“This problem is larger than Goldman Sachs,” Doggett said. “With the right hand out begging for bailout money, the left is hiding it offshore.”
In the first nine months of the fiscal year, Goldman had planned to pay taxes at a 25.1 percent rate, the company said today. A fourth-quarter tax credit of $1.48 billion was 41 percent of the company’s pretax loss in the period, higher than many analysts expected. David Trone, an analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia Waller, expected the fourth-quarter tax credit to be 28 percent.
The tax-rate decline may raise some eyebrows because of the support the U.S. government has provided to Goldman Sachs and other companies this year, Willens said.
“It’s not very good public relations,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Christine Harper in New York at [email protected].
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One reason so many individuals need welfare is the continued, increasing concentration of wealth by the top 2%, and the 30-year war on employees' income and rights started by St Ronnie the Diseased.
Decline of civility as stoked by the intense polarizing and divisive, hate-mongering, paranoia, demagogery of the conservative movemenet, decline of civic life, Bowling Alone, and the salaried middle class, men and women, having to work their butts off just to keep the continued loss of real income from increasing too much makes it hard to look beyond your own household.
The genius of the totally dishonest conservative movement is convincing red-state ignorant bubbas and other suckered losers that all their problems are due to govt, to socialism for the blacks and browns and illegals so vote for Repugs (who then cut taxes for super-wealthy while not fixing govt nor fixing illegals), when the real thievery of the general welfare and quality of life is done by the wealthy conservatives, corporations, and the health-profit system.
It's also a shame how we post Zapruder footage to "honor" President Kennedy and then use it as an excuse to advance our political beliefs.
All things Kennedy are well-loved by conservatives and Repugs.
G.H.W.B. .knows...
All things Kennedy are well-loved by conservatives and Repugs.:
Goddamn, you are ing funny dude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Right on the head. Bam.
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