Working Life

My first reaction to AIG’s consideration of a suit against the government was like many people: what the fuck? You guys should all be in jail, not swimming along thanks to $182 billion in taxpayer bailout money. But, then, in retrospect, it makes sense.

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When I come back in my next life, I want to be a banker or a hotshot on Wall Street. Because it’s the kind of work where you can do anything you want, break any laws, never get punished and make a huge amount of money. And the best thing is: you make someone else pay for your fuck-ups. That is the upshot of the settlement reached today with the banks. Another day, another sham.

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Damn, math really messes shit up. I mean, first you get told about all this money that got saved and, then, boom, it’s gone because turns out…it wasn’t saved at all. Welcome to the wild world of fiscal deals made by political parties who care mostly about their own futures, not the futures of regular people.

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Just in case you were snowed by the public relations blitz about all the great riches about to be showered on the “middle class” and
“working Americans”, well, it’s actually the same old story again.

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This is not another analysis or observation focusing on the strategy and tactics that led to the deal just made on taxes. I was bored by the whole debate weeks ago because, frankly, it missed a much more central fact: the Democratic Party long ago gave up the fight over having a sensible tax rate for the richest people.

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Facts and figures are useful when you try to get through the smokescreen of political spin. Here are facts about the tax deal — a bad one, in my view.

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I just could not write because there was nothing more to say, at least for a day or two, about the phony debt and deficit crisis. The president caved again. And the story will go on and on and on…sadly.

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To understand how absolutely absurd the debate is over taxes in the U.S., you just have to cast an eye across the Atlantic to France. The right wing in France supports tax rates higher than the left wing in the U.S. Yes, really.

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Here’s a riddle: what large entity has the theoretical access to deploy a few trillion dollars, quickly, if given the chance? If you answered the Chinese or US governments, thank you for playing and please try again another time. The answer: labor unions.

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The NRA’s blood money buys a lot of politicians and, which, then, leads directly to the murder of innocent people. Less paid-attention to is the NRA’s war against the judiciary, which Linda Greenhouse sheds some light on.

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