#union #iww #occupy #ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #TeaParty [VIDEO] Coburn: Medicare and Social Security ‘are things we don’t absolutely need’ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/09/coburn-medicare-and-social-security-are-things-we-dont-absolutely-need/ Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is encouraging Democrats to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits because the programs are “things we don’t absolutely need.” Speaking to ABC’s George Stephanopolous on Sunday about the so-called fiscal cliff, Coburn said that he would be willing to accept tax hikes for the top 2 percent of earners if Democrats and President Barack Obama agreed to reform Social Security and Medicare. The ABC host pointed out that Obama’s health care reform law had already achieved about 6 billion in Medicare savings and many Republicans — including former Republican pre…http://www.twitpic.com/csq722
#union #iww #occupy #ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #TeaParty Tesla Motors fully repays 5 million federal loan nine years early http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_23300602/tesla-motors-fully-repays-465-million-federal-loan In a huge boost for the Obama Administration and clean-energy firms, electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors (TSLA) announced Wednesday that it has paid back its 5 million government loan in full and nine years early. The Department of Energy oversees billion in taxpayer-funded loans for clean energy and other projects, but Tesla is the only United States car company in the vast portfolio of 33 projects to pay back its loan so far. The loan program faced fierce partisan fire in the wake of the high-profile 2011 bankruptcy of Fremont solar manufacturer Solyndra, and Republican presidential candi…http://www.twitpic.com/cshtrl
#union #iww #occupy #ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #TeaParty The Secret Donors Behind the Center for American Progress and Other Think Tanks http://www.thenation.com/article/174437/secret-donors-behind-center-american-progress-and-other-think-tanks Washington institutions esteemed for their independent scholarship don't disclose donations from corporations and foreign governments. The Center for American Progress, Washington’s leading liberal think tank, has been a big backer of the Energy Department’s billion loan guarantee program for renewable energy projects. CAP has specifically praised First Solar, a firm that received .73 billion under the program, and its Antelope Valley project in California. Last year, when First Solar was taking a beating from congressional Republicans and in the press over job layoffs and allege…http://www.twitpic.com/csaxa6
#union #iww #occupy #ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #TeaParty Secrets and Lies of the Bailout http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104 The federal rescue of Wall Street didn’t fix the economy – it created a permanent bailout state based on a Ponzi-like confidence scheme. And the worst may be yet to come It has been four long winters since the federal government, in the hulking, shaven-skulled, Alien Nation-esque form of then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, committed 0 billion in taxpayer money to rescue Wall Street from its own chicanery and greed. To listen to the bankers and their allies in Washington tell it, you'd think the bailout was the best thing to hit the American economy since the invention of the assembly line. Not only did it prevent another Great D…http://www.twitpic.com/cpgscw
#union #iww #occupy #ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #TeaParty 'Fix the Debt' Corporations Take at Least 3 Million in Taxpayer Subsidies http://blog.aflcio.org/Blog/Corporate-Greed/Fix-the-Debt-Corporations-Take-at-Least-953-Million-in-Taxpayer-Subsidies A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies and Campaign for America's Future shows that the CEOs who run the 90 corporations in the '”Fix the Debt” coalition, which advocates for cuts to earned benefits like Social Security while reducing tax rates for, well, themselves, accept massive subsidies from the U.S. government. The amount they have taken in subsidies ranges from a possible low of 3 million to a possible high of .6 billion. The AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch covers related issues…http://www.twitpic.com/cnquvk
#union #iww #occupy #ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #TeaParty [VIDEO] The Merchants of Cool http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/#rest They spend their days sifting through reams of market research data. They conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools, and the malls, hot on the trail of the “next big thing” that will snare the attention of their prey–a market segment worth an estimated 0 billion a year. They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the …http://www.twitpic.com/cmqld2
#union #iww #occupy #ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #TeaParty While Wronged Homeowners Got 0 Apiece in Foreclosure Settlement, Consultants Who Helped Protect Banks Got Billion http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/while-wronged-homeowners-got-300-apiece-in-foreclosure-settlement-consultants-who-helped-protect-banks-got-2-billion-20130426 The obscene greed-and-arrogance stories emanating from Wall Street are piling up so fast, it's getting hard to keep up. This one is from last week, but I missed it – it's about the foreclosure/robo-signing settlement that was concluded earlier this year. The upshot of this story is that in advance of that notorious settlement, the government ordered banks to hire “independent” consultants to examine their loan files to see just exactly how corrupt they were. Now it comes out that not only were these consultants not so independent, not only did th…http://www.twitpic.com/cmpa7x
#occupy #ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #TeaParty Looting Main Street http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-main-street-20100331 How the nation's biggest banks are ripping off American cities with the same predatory deals that brought down Greece If you want to know what life in the Third World is like, just ask Lisa Pack, an administrative assistant who works in the roads and transportation department in Jefferson County, Alabama. Pack got rudely introduced to life in post-crisis America last August, when word came down that she and 1,000 of her fellow public employees would have to take a little unpaid vacation for a while. The county, it turned out, was more than billion in debt — meaning that courthouses, jails and sheriff's precincts had to be closed so that Wall …http://www.twitpic.com/ckap0l
#union #iww #occupy #ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #TeaParty Too Much Online, the free news weekly on excess and inequality, 02 April 2013 http://fightincockflyer.blogspot.com/2013/04/too-much-online-free-news-weekly-on.html Two tales of jackpots and taxes. The first: A New Jersey grocery store employee has just won the fourth-largest Powerball lottery pool ever. The 44-year-old Pedro Quezada will take his cash as a lump sum, about 1 million. Taxes? He’ll owe 46.2 percent of his lump in combined state and federal income taxes. Hedge fund manager John Paulson likes to bet, too. In 2009, he bet that the feds would bail out banking giant Citigroup. He bet right — and cleared billion. Taxes? The profits hedgies make qualify as “capital gains” and get preferential treatment at tax time. Paulson paid only a …http://www.twitpic.com/cgje2a
#union #iww #occupy #ows #p2 #p21 #tlot #tcot #TeaParty Ina Drew Takes Risk, Goes on the Defensive http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/ina-drew-takes-risk-goes-on-the-defensive/ Writing a profile about someone who is not cooperating with your story starts to feel a little bit like an exercise in stalking. I did not actually stalk Ina Drew, the chief investment officer who resigned from JPMorgan Chase following the bank’s billion loss, as I reported on her for the magazine last October. But I did think about her for many of my waking moments throughout the summer of 2012, as I reported the story. I also showed up at her home once. I rang the doorbell, and met her husband, a tall, genial-looking man who told me that she was not available and would not talk to me, not that day and not anytime soon….http://www.twitpic.com/ce6ai7