My good pal Denny sums it up:
Hope your Christmas is fulfilling, merry, filled with family happiness and good cheer!
Stop cruising the internet (unless you want to track Santa Claus, here). Go back to your family and dinner.
BZ
AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs
Banks that have their hands out in Washington this year were handing out multimillion-dollar rewards to their executives last year.The 116 banks that so far have received taxpayer dollars to boost them through the economic crisis gave their top tier of executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses and other benefits in 2007, an Associated Press analysis found.
That amount, spread among the 600 highest paid bank executives, would cover the bailout money given to several banks that have shared in the $188 billion that Washington has doled out in rescue packages so far.
The AP compiled total compensation based on annual reports that the banks file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 116 banks have so far received $188 billion in taxpayer help. Among the findings:
-The average paid to each of the banks’ top executives was $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and benefits.
-Lloyd Blankfein, president and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, took home nearly $54 million in compensation last year. The company’s top five executives received a total of $242 million.
But after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s largest banks say they can’t track exactly how they’re spending the money or they simply refuse to discuss it.
“We’ve lent some of it. We’ve not lent some of it. We’ve not given any accounting of, ‘Here’s how we’re doing it,'” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.”
The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings, and what’s the plan for the rest?
None of the banks provided specific answers.
“We’re not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking,” said Barry Koling, a spokesman for Atlanta, Ga.-based SunTrust Banks Inc., which got $3.5 billion in taxpayer dollars.
Some banks said they simply didn’t know where the money was going.
As Christmas rapidly approaches, nerves are fraying in the Gaza Strip.
The two frontrunners in the race to become prime minister (of Israel) after a snap election in February both vowed to topple Hamas, which has run Gaza since violently seizing power there in June 2007.
Militant rocket and mortar fire continued on Sunday, the Israeli army said, reporting that one person was slightly wounded. A Palestinian medic said a woman had been injured in northern Gaza by shrapnel from a tank shell but the military denied firing in the area.
“Israel must topple the Hamas rule in Gaza and a government under my command will do just that,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leader of the governing Kadima party, was quoted as saying by Israeli media.
“Israel must react when it is fired upon, must re-establish its force of dissuasion and stop the rockets.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party which is leading in opinion polls, echoed the sentiment.
“In the long run, we have no choice but to topple Hamas rule,” he was quoted as saying by the Ynet news website as he toured the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which has borne the brunt of militant rocket attacks from Gaza.
“Right now we have to go from passive response to active assault.”
Gaza – Ma’an – A ship of civil society activists from around the globe arrived in the Gaza Strip from Larnaca Port in Cyprus Saturday morning after being accosted by Israeli warships.
So the terrorists can shell Israel with the support of the population of Gaza, and the IDF’s (Israeli Defense Forces) hands are tied by lawyers.
I just don’t have words to show my anger over how sick the decision making process has become when it comes to think about how to best defend the Jewish people.
If we would have operated this way in 1948, Israel would never have been born — we would have been defeated.
Turn the IDF loose with one objective victory and tell the Chief of Staff: “if you can’t produce, resign or be fired.”
We say such a move would have devastating consequences, devastating humanitarian consequences,” Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki told the Post in a telephone interview. “This is something we cannot accept or condone under any terms.”
NEW YORK — Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the widow of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, has died. She was 76. Roddenberry, an actress who appeared in numerous “Star Trek” TV shows and movies, died Thursday of leukemia at her home in Bel-Air, Calif., her representative said.
At Roddenberry’s side were family friends and her only son, Eugene Roddenberry Jr. Gene Roddenberry died in 1991.
Treasurer Bill Lockyer, the board chairman, had warned the Legislature last week that the unprecedented halt in funding would be necessary if lawmakers did not immediately address a $14 billion deficit in the fiscal year that ends in June. The hole is forecast to grow to $42 billion over the next 18 months.
No taxation without representation has been a firm principle in our nation’s history since its inception. This principle prohibits government officials from adopting taxes without the approval of those who will be taxed. Furthering this policy, the California State Constitution requires state taxes to be approved by two-thirds of the elected members of the Legislature, and local taxes be approved by a direct vote of the people. However, because these vote counts are often difficult to meet, many newly adopted assessments have been passed off as “fees” rather than taxes to avoid the two-thirds approval requirements.
A package of bills passed both Fornicalia houses this week with no Republican support at all. If it can happen here, it can happen in your state. And, as Hugh Hewitt says, it is nothing but lawlessness.
Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) — California’s budget deficit will reach $41.8 billion over the next 19 months, a record shortfall forcing officials to look for ways to pay bills as they brace for the state to run out of cash.
When in doubt, improvise with bullshit, smoke, mirrors, lies, half-truths and outright manipulation. With this in mind Fornicalia Demorats passed a package of bills which removed the horrendous word TAX and instead substituted the word FEE.
According to them, it made all the difference in the world, allowing them to circumvent the Fornicalia Constitutionally-required 2/3rds vote to pass a TAX.
Read the difference:
Taxes Versus Fees
In general, a tax is a mandatory financial charge or other levy imposed on an individual or a legal entity by a government agency. In other words, a tax is not a voluntary payment or donation, but an enforced assessment. In contrast, a fee is a charge paid in remuneration for services directly received by the fee payor.Based on these definitions, the distinction between the two should not be as complicated as some would make it. Essentially, if a government assessment is compulsory and the payer does not derive a direct benefit or service from that assessment, it is a tax. However, some tax-and-spend lawmakers have attempted to blur the lines. Why? To make it easier for politicians to fund programs that, if presented to the people as a tax, would not pass muster.
You want taxes? How about this (California Dems Push Billions in Higher ‘Fees’ to Skirt Law):
The proposal they made Wednesday would eliminate an 18-cent-a-gallon excise tax on gas and a fluctuating sales tax on gas, replacing them with a 39-cent-per-gallon fee. Democrats also were seeking to raise the state sales tax by 3/4 of a cent, tax oil produced in California, add a 2.5 percent surcharge on state income taxes and force independent contractors to pay taxes up front.
Our only hope at this point: Governor Schwarzenegger refused to sign this series of bills.
Today.
And tomorrow?
Words mean everything. Why have Conservatives refused to grant “marriages,” for example (despite that, in Fornicalia, gays can already have Civil Unions which grant every right to their signators as those affixed to marriages — such as benefits, hospital visits, etc.), to gays? Because words mean everything. A “marriage” denotes a union between one man and one woman. Plain and simple. A tax is a tax — and in Fornicalia requires 2/3rds passage.
Unless you call it something else.
This is a perfect example. Words mean everything.
“Tax.”
“Fee.”
These are TAXES.
BZ