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Courtesy of Wikipedia.
After all the bluster dies down, Historians will revisit this era and come to this conclusion.
In order not to tax the top 1% an additional $85 billion dollars, the 99% was made to suffer for it….
Cost = $85 billion.
Let us compare that to wealth, not income, to see how that $85 billion stacks up….
The current household wealth of the United States is listed between $64 and $65 trillion dollars…. We are going to draw the line at at the top 20% and bottom 80% of the population.
The top 20% owns 89.9% of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 80% owns 11.1%…. In dollars that stacks up as follows:
- Top 20% owns $58 Trillion in net worth.
- Bottom 80% has $ 7 Trillion of net worth.
Ok. now we have the dollar figures. Let us break down the population. Since we are dealing with government services we must assume that affects everyone, so we are going to use the 315 million population figure for our calculations.
- Top 20% of population equals 63 million people.
- Bottom 80% of population equals 252 million people.
So now let us see how that works out per person. For both income levels we are going to divide the total wealth by the total persons and get the total wealth per person…
- 58 Trillion divided by 63 million people gives a per person average of…$841,269 per citizen.
- 7 Trillion divided by 252 million people gives a per person average of … $27,777 dollars per citizen.
Ok so here is what historians will find. If we tax the existing revenue for the $85 billion difference it will only hit the top group of 20%… If we sequester or cut out of our national budget, it will only hit those in the bottom 80%…
To see what the average hit will cost, we will take the $85 billion and divide it among the number of people in that income range. Then later we will apply that to their wealth and see who has the greater and who has the less percentage…
- $85 Billion sequestered spread over 63 million 20%’ers comes to $1349 each.
- $85 Billion sequestered out of the 252 million 80%ers comes to a tiny…. $337 each…
So here is the fun part.
- That $1349 is this percent of $841,269… 0.16% of one percent.
- That $337 is this percent of $27,777…. 1.2 percent…
Each person in the bottom 80% is paying roughly 8 times more of a burden to their wealth than paid by those in the top 20%……. When our economy fails and historians look back and say, didn’t anyone crunch the numbers? Well, yes? Someone did..
And if fairness is truly an America virtue, then once we know that a 8 to 1 ratio exists, it become easy to figure out how to divide the costs equally… (8x +1x = $85B) then we should have a tax hike of $75 billion and sequester or cut of $10 billion to give every America an equal percentage bite out of their wealth….
Unless you read one of the big newspapers you will never hear of this… From yesterday’s sequestration hearings on Capitol Hill:
United States Army Chief of Staff Raymond T. Odierno elaborated on the impact that these indiscriminate, across the board cuts would have on military readiness in the Pacific and the United States Pacific Command.
“First, as I talked about 80% of our force having to stop training this year that includes our forces in Hawai’i, that includes our forces in at Fort Lewis that are in PACOM so they will be significantly degraded capabilities that they would have to respond to anything that goes on within Pacific Command. Additionally, the Army is responsible for providing a significant amount of communication support, intelligence support, logistical support to the PACOM Theater. Their ability to do that will also be affected by sequestrations specifically in the Fiscal Year 13 but beyond. We have tried to fence our capability in Korea to make sure they are at the highest readiness level. We will continue to do that. But the cuts in family programs, cuts in soldier programs, cuts in our civilians will also impact Korea as well. So for us it has a significant impact on our ability in the Pacific for the next several years,” said Odierno.
- 80% of our forces will have to stop training this year.
- Communication support, intelligence support, logistical support to the PACOM Theater; their ability to do that will also be affected by sequestrations specifically in the Fiscal Year 13 and beyond.
- Our capability in Korea to make sure they are at the highest readiness level. We will continue to do that to the best that our finances will allow us. But cuts in family programs, cuts in soldier programs, cuts in our civilians will also impact Korea as well…
- Just as we trim the forces in South Korea, North Korea puts us on a Defcom 4.
It is obvious with yesterday’s nuclear explosion on the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, we can’t cut the Pacific. If we try we are going to run cost overruns. This is just as silly as your boss setting financial goals that have never been proposed before and you simply know you will go over them. You accept that because it is impossible to meet them.
So how can we fix it?
We need just $86 billion extra per year. That is a lot for you and me, but for the wealthy, that is nothing. In fact Kinder Morgan just bought out Caldone for 8% of that: $5 billion. Prior to that, it just spent $21 billion on El Paso Gas. One company buying another company it didn’t need. Comcast just bought NBC for $13 billion. That’s almost half the total amount needed, thrown away on another company that would have been fine if left alone. See how easy it is?
Just a few more companies like that, and we could pay enough to keep our military in top shape. We don’t need sequestration.
Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, $86 billion is nothing to them. Each alone could cover the cost of our military.
Point is, we have the money just sitting there. Sitting out there all alone, saying “take me, take me.” All we have to do is go get it, and we can cut our deficit at the same time as we keep ourselves protected by having a first rate defense.
It is no different than a family of four on a tight budget, stopping beside a field of wild strawberries and picking their next few meals.
We can do this… $86 billion on just the top richest 400 people is only $215 million each… That is nothing, nothing to them. What farmer will miss having wild strawberries getting picked out of his hay crop? As a nation, let’s just take it; it is there, it is begging for it, and we’d be doing an awful lot of good for everyone involved….
Are you not up to speed on what I’m talking about? Well then, I wasn’t either before a little while ago, but before you go further, if you haven’t read this article in today’s New York Times, you probably should. This is the background on the pros and cons affecting our schooling this upcoming decade…..
The second paragraph is where the hook punctured my lip…. .
“Then, in 2010, Mr. Rubinstein underwent a sea change. As he grew suspicious of some of the data used to promote charter schools, be became critical of Teach for America and the broader reform movement. (The education scholar Diane Ravitch famously made a similar shift around this time.)”
“Mr. Rubinstein, who knows how to crunch numbers, noticed that, at many charter schools student test scores and graduation rates didn’t always add up to what the schools claimed. He was also alarmed by what he viewed as misguided reforms like an overreliance on crude standardized tests that measure students’ yearly academic “growth” and teacher performance.”
Sound familiar?
The article then goes forward to explain that just as we divided politics into two camps who now don’t talk to each other…. we are doing the exact same to education.
I’m incline to believe it.
So did this researcher…
“Michael Petrilli, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a pro-charter education analyst with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, worries about this lack of exchange. He recently conducted an analysis of Twitter and the tens of thousands of followers of Ms. Rhee, who is pro-charter, and Ms. Ravitch, who is anti-charter, and discovered that only 10 percent overlapped. Just as conservatives gravitate to Fox News and liberals to MSNBC to hear their preconceived notions and biases confirmed, Mr. Petrilli speculates that those in education are now preaching solely to the converted, a phenomenon known in the media world as “narrowcasting.”
“Worse, in Mr. Petrilli’s view, those who follow Ms. Rhee tend to describe themselves in their Twitter profiles as policy makers or otherwise removed from the immediate realities of the classroom, while Ms. Ravitch’s devotees are typically self-identified practitioners: principals and teachers on education’s front lines. Surely these folks should be talking to one another, but in Mr. Petrilli’s experience, they often aren’t.”
And therein we have the core of our problem. Just as we currently have division within our Federal Government where both sides talk only to their own camps, then yell across a chasm at the opposition, we are getting to that same atmosphere in the field of education….
Rhea versus Savitch. Just like a presidential race. In politics the immense amount of loose money keeping the Republican Party alive comes from a very few people. The Democratic Party can only effectively compete because of its massive large numbers of human beings who work the front line. It is very similar now between corporations versus teachers/principals. It was only a matter of time before the contamination of money permeating inside the House and Senate, would spill over into the field of education.
It obviously has… Teachers are being tagged as liberals and being attacked with bad ratings if they work in conservative states, and Charter Schools as well as teacher evaluations, are being killed before birth in states that are far more progressive and unionized…
What if, both had strong possible options that they could bring to the table? What if, the combination of the best of both camps was the one way to lead us to a very good educational system?
It is not that hard to envision. If we developed a common curriculum, let teachers teach those items using their personalities, used corporate investment money to fund the constant upgrading of computer power and access points, and then tracked the results in a fair way free from subjective interpretation, Delaware definitely would improve upon the path we’ve taken.
We need to use the talent of teachers in our race to the top. The obvious thing that is holding us back, is that piece of the arbitrary rating system which appears not to accept that in the field of education, things often happen that are beyond a teacher’s control, like not enough computers to take ones tests at the proper time…
Education is too important to have it go the way of politics… Education IS our national future.
Which is why I still think that over these next two weeks, every teacher needs to fill out the survey being asked by the DOE. This appears their critical moment to make a difference in the outcome. But for it to be believable, it needs to be filled out by every teacher, and then a copy needs to get surreptitiously sent to the DSEA for verification purposes…
After all, when it comes to children, teachers are the experts. They know their kids. And monetary investment is sorely needed. Very much so. The Republican decade of starving our schools to keep taxes low, has left no meat on the bones at all….
We need both. We need input from both… And the next step to progress is very simple…. Fill out the survey, take a screen shot of it, then email that attachment to the DSEA… We need every teacher in every Delaware classroom to follow suit.
If Delaware can show the rest of America that teachers and corporations can work together, that it can be done, then despite the bickering going on elsewhere, here there will be one example or proof positive of how it can be done. There is hope for the entire country.
But right now, just think of your classrooms. Make that step to reach out in a positive way and fill out the DOE survey…… It will only matter if every teacher does it…
Today in order to capitalize upon the fact that the fourth quarter economy sank (even though it was because of the downward pressure due to the threat of sequestration forced upon Congress by the Tea Party), they wheeled out Arthur Laughter Laffer to make a dire predictions….
He is on their short list of who-to-call-when-we(FOX News)-NEED-a-dire-prediction…..
Because….. He is well known for making “dire predictions”..
“Economist Arthur Laffer told his clients on July 26, 1982, that (Ronald Reagan’s) Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which raised taxes by about one percent of GDP, “will stifle economic recovery,” “retard economic growth,” and undercut “the economy’s ability to enter into a period of expansion.” On August 20, 1982, he told his clients that TEFRA, Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, “will tend to lengthen and deepen the recession.”
Instead, ….. No one could have been more wrong…
On August 20, 1993, Laffer told his clients, “Clinton’s tax bill will do about as much damage to the U.S. economy as could feasibly be done in the current political environment.” He said that interest rates would rise and the stock market would fall.
Once again, it would be hard to find a forecast that was more completely wrong….
And now! Today,… well, there he goes again….
“You have the whole output of the economy shrinking. Not just expanding more slowly, it`s absolutely shrinking,” (lol, see by how little, below)… Laffer told Fox News’ Eric Bolling…
“That’s catastrophic,” the former adviser to President Ronald Reagan added. (Did anyone else catch the stupendous irony of that? Oh, Wow. You can’t make stuff like that up).
“You can explain some of that by sequestration, and defense spending was down lot and all that. But you still have a rotten economy. And it’s still too bad. We know how to fix it, by the way, a low rate flat tax, spending restraint, sound money, free trade.” (See George Bush’s Economic Record.) Laffer was responding to reports Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012…
Yes. Laffer was responding to reports Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012. Quote: “You have the whole output of the economy shrinking. Not just expanding more slowly, it`s absolutely shrinking,”
Recalling his years as one of Reagan’s top economic advisers, Laffer said Reagan actually cut the highest tax rates (From 70%-50%; they are 35% now) He said “we made a mistake” by phasing in the cuts, which he said caused the 1981-82 recession. But he said the economy took off in 1983* when the cuts (and 1%GDP tax increase) went into full effect. *
“This place just went like a rocket ship,” he said. “I think we had 7.5 percent growth in 1983 and 5.5 growth in 1984, just this boom that lasted for years and years.”* (*lol)
(Conversational excerpts provided by Newsmax)
I was so overjoyed to find someone else got here before I did….
Even though the House of Representatives is still Republicans controlled, the Democrats got more popular votes. The Republicans essentially won the equivalent of an electoral college victory, but the Democrats received 54,301,095 votes while Republicans got 53,822,442. That’s close, but any talk of a mandate, needs to be totally shut down….
Gerrymandering is how. When the House became Republican in 2010, they inherited the right to draw up districts based on that year’s Census. Those line last until the next census.
How does that work? Let’s assume you have four districts all touching each other. Two of the districts have a 60/40 split Republican, and two districts have a 60/40 split Democratic. One would expect from those four districts to get 2 Republicans chosen and 2 Democrats… But, through Gerrymandering, suppose that all the Democrats in all four districts were put into just one district. The other three would be Republican, and will remain so until the next redistricting. So though no voters moved, one party gained a seat in Congress…..
Todays technology, able to read and interpret micro data involving every single person in a district, has taken guess work out of the equation. By stretching the Texas 25th District originally centered around Liberal leaning Austin all the way to Ft.Worth, Texas Republicans flipped that district red for the first time this year….
With such a tool, incumbents can stay in power without ever being challenged. A situation that is not good for voters. The technology can be used by an impartial panel for the good of the electorate. We simply need to change the rules so those being affected by the gerrymandering …. are not the ones doing it…
So Republicans gerrymandered themselves in power. The popular vote went the way of the president and the Senate….
It is safe to say Americans want the wealthy to pay their fair share, and don’t want Obstructionist Republicans to get in our way….
The consensus of which was: you waited until we had an election to decide this issue. We told you what we wanted by our vote; now do it!!!
In recent years I have intervened in several cases involving Delmarva Power‘s rate increase requests filed before the Public Service Commission. The process is cumbersome and complex; it requires resources and time that is not always available to me. Unfortunately without me, the public, the ratepayers, and my constituents interests have been inadequately represented in these proceedings. My obligation and responsibility as an elected representative is to ensure some fairness in both the discussions and decisions rendered.
The most recent filing in which I have intervened is identified as PSC Docket # 11-528 and involves a request for rate increases which includes recovery of depreciation values by Delmarva for obsolete meters that have been replaced with “smart-meters” for Delmarva residential customers. I, as the people’s representative, objected to any ratepayer funding for any new technology costs such as advanced metering purchase and installation… simply because… the economic benefit from these devices rests solely with the utility. I have adamantly opposed any recovery of “lost” depreciation for any obsolete equipment that is removed from service especially since there has been no substantiated breakdown of any economic loss to the utility! And, absolutely no justification for any single ratepayer to subsidize this company’s loss. Please read the most excellent News Journal article in the business section of Sunday’s (Oct. 21st) paper for its startling exposure.
The odd request by this utility has caused me to defend all ratepayers against a system that has major flaws which can obstruct honest and fair due process. One identifiable flaw has been the palpable lack of enthusiasm from those entities required by law to represent the consumer! This leaves the average ratepayer at a huge disadvantage.
During the “evidentiary hearing” I was given the privilege to represent ratepayers and to cross examine the witnesses from DP&L, PSC staff and the Public Advocates office. I expended great effort to determine how the $25 million in lost depreciation value was calculated. I asked how this numerical value was determined.., particularly when noted that the average age of a discarded meter was 22 years yet the total life-expectancy was only 30 years. Over 73% of the life-expectancy had already been consumed and that legally should be prorated into any calculation. I also requested the original equipment costs of 22 years ago.
Objections to my cross-examination were raised by both the attorneys’ for Delmarva Power and the Public Advocates office. They wrongly asserted that it was already in evidence admitted. Although my queries were made in a legitimate attempt to ascertain vital information, the objections were sustained by the Hearing Officer. I also asked for the amount of recovered equipment costs garnered from ratepayers over that 22 year span and the amount recovered during that time-span from “depreciation” tax credit recovery and I was rebuffed with the same objections.
To date there is no valid, statistical accumulation of numbers which justify any $25 million recovery of lost depreciation revenue owed to Delmarva Power… Its ratepayers have already paid many times over the cost of those meters in the prior 22 years. Many times. The approval process has too many flaws and all of them must be addressed by me, and my colleagues, in Dover beginning this upcoming January. Trust me. I will be working to assure corrective action is moving forward.
The harm in allowing Delmarva to recover unproven and unsubstantiated expenses from the ratepayers is a matter of immediate concern and should be denied by the PSC Commissioners. Any action short of total relief from this asking amounts to an abdication of the government’s obligation to ensure fairness for its citizens.
Sincerely:
John Kowalko
This just in from CNN… There is a lot of polling that is showing a large segment of Republicans do not trust Romney.. From October 21, here is what CNN found out….
- Romney’s economic plan has 59 points. Cain’s had 3.
- Many Republican voters don’t like him, trust him or relate to him. It’s the same thing that plagued the former Massachusetts governor in the 2008 election.
- It’s not that he is not conservative; it is that they don’t think he’s sufficiently anything.
- Romney’s character in the debates was accused — by one after another — of being inconsistent, dishonest and untrustworthy.
- Romney deceptively “mixes apples and oranges”
- Accusation that opponents direct at Romney? — that he misleads.
- Romney is accused of “huffing and puffing” over very little tiny things or over things he frequently does himself…
- Republicans feel “”It’s time for you to tell the truth, Mitt.” One Republican ad against him, called him … “Mitt-leading.”
- Gingrich: Romney needs taught a lesson: Don’t exaggerate the facts.
- Republicans are fed up with his tendency to shade the truth. Romney excels at it.
- Look at the Las Vegas debate again and read the body language. It’s clear that Romney’s opponents would not buy a used car from this man. CNN
- Romney tries to look presidential; the message sent by some of his opponents this week was simple and direct: buyer beware.
- Romney is the worst kind of politician, the kind who will say anything and pretend to be anything to get elected.(Remember, this is the same view held by many Republicans, from conservative radio talk show hosts to members of the tea party, of the current occupant of the White House)
- His net worth is over $200 million from his multitude of investments. If elected he’d be the richest president in history.
- His wealth is scattered in so many different bank accounts scattered around the globe in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
- His five sons have a trust fund worth over $100 million. The Romney family has paid no taxes on that $100 million – not one cent in gift or estate taxes – for the past decade by taking advantage of loopholes.
- His old company, Bain Capital, is known on Wall Street for perfecting the art of the “leveraged buyout..
- Under Bain’s stewardship, companies like American Pad and Paper, GS Industries, Dade international closed plants and let go hundreds of the worker. Bain investors made hundreds of millions from these deals.
- When Romney was governor, Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 states in terms of job creation.
- Romney personifies an unattractive side of the elite 1%. In short, they are able to avoid tax rates that apply to the 99%.
- The richest 400 Americans have more money than the bottom 150 million… combined. That means the top 1% controls 25% of the total income in this county.
- Romney’s comments bring to mind a Spanish proverb that says even the foolish sayings of a rich man pass for wisdom.
- Romney’s continued insensitivity on issues of wealth and privilege contribute to an image of an out-of-touch plutocrat who is insensitive to the economic pain being felt by the average American.
- His dubious claim that he knows what it is like to be unemployed.
- “I don’t trust Romney. He shouldn’t make my son’s death part of his political agenda. It’s wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama,” said Barbara Doherty,..
- So according to CNN, and Fox News, these are most of the reasons why Republicans don’t trust Romney….
- It is surprising that they still hold true.
So why is he the contender and neck and neck in the polls? Simple… The $1 billion in dark money has no other candidate with which to stop Obama….Obama will do aways with the Bush Tax Cuts and $1 billion of dark money doesn’t like that. The true real deep down dark contest is between $1 billion dollars of dark money and Obama… not Romney versus Obama….
Anyone who has read this blog over time, knows I’m all about the numbers. If it comes down to what people say, versus numbers, I’ll always take numbers and I’ll always be right. Of course sometimes you have to probe the numbers of the other side, to be sure the other side didn’t (erroneously) switch a minus sign, or divide when they should have added, but if anyone were to analyze past writings of mine, they could only concur, that numbers speak volumes…
In the Bush years I called out that the numbers weren’t matching up; we were headed for a gigantic meltdown and we did. I called for all (who listened and got out in time) to get back into the stock market at 6600 because it would reach bottom the next day and bounce upward, and it did. I called out that our economic well being was based upon removing the upper tax cuts, keeping the lower ones, and we instead, we got the Tea Party because some nuts out there still don’t read this blog.
So, as everyone knows, if given enough time, and pointed in the right direction, a person with one leg can hop towards and eventually reach the finish line. Basically the set back caused by the Tea Party Republicans, has caused us to have to complete the second half of the Obama years, on one leg….
Now, we are seeing Progress that will continue, unless the Tea Party is able to knock out our other leg….. The Romney/Ryan budget does exactly that on a macro scale. (One would expect that from someone who grew up in a little town and has never learned there are other ways to do things.)..
One of the most credible sources out there these days, is the Federal Reserve of St. Louis. Consisting almost entirely of Republicans, when they say things are going well, I will tend to believe them. And they are excited by the latest returns. I borrowed these from the Business Insider, but just seeing them in sequential order, is like art, a beautiful thing for a numbers person to behold…..
Yes, to change the lyrics off a CCR song, ” I see a GOOD moon a’rising….” The only thing that can derail this economy off its tracks, is any major Republican victory in November… Barring that, we are on our way…..
Obama and the Democrats did pull us out of the worst Recession (it would have continued as a Depression if Republicans had been in power) since the Great Depression…..
Trust the numbers: only with continued Democratic leadership, will the money keep coming back…..
You asked for this. Please cut and paste at will.
Barack Obama
President of the United States.
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr President:
There is something you need to know. I would be happy to tell you in person or get a group of educators to discuss the problems we are having with pursuing your education policy. It is a situation where communication is key.
I want to be clear. We have the same goals. It is just that the methods being prescribed are steering us away from those mutual goals, instead of towards them.
Honestly. This is a case of middle management gone awry. This is a case I feel, where the top and the bottom are on the same page, but those in the middle, are not to be trusted.
As member of a school board, one that is struggling to do it’s best to bring a district from behind, who has achieved progress in a way sort of like you have on the economy where we both started so late and so far behind, that we are being accosted as failures though if one actually took time to account for our progress, as well as yours, we’ve both done a pretty good job… I think for your legacy, you need to hear from us….
We are in Delaware’s Race to the Top. Those of us here and in Tennessee are having the same problem.
The specific problem, is that you and those in the top echelon are not getting the truth. You may actually think we are making progress. As the person most accountable, I think you would want to hear that perhaps the glowing reports you are getting, are not entirely true. This is something obviously which cannot be passed up through the chains of commands, because it involves them.
Truth in reporting is the issue. The truth is that what we are being fed, is not working at the interface where student meets teacher. In fact, the pressure all are being put under to fulfill these arbitrary deadlines, inane quotas, and poorly thought out trackers, actually is taking away from the time we spend with students. I repeat it is a negative influence on the results expected….
We originally approached this with an open mind. We wanted to reform our schools too. But, somewhere up the ladder, things went bad.
The prime issue is that we are being force to follow a system poorly designed. When we bring concerns to the table, they are dismissed and we are treated as inconsequential, and dismissed, accused of being the source of trouble. Instead, we were simply trying to establish an environment of mutual respect, where problems can be discussed and probed, and workable solutions can be found, and tested before implementation. It’s as if someone designed the cooks line of a restaurant and put all the necessary tools on the other end from where they were needed. It seems to make sense to talk to those who actually will be expected to provide results during the planning stages, instead of wondering to use the example above, why all the food always took so long… It can be prevented if we can be part of the planning process.
Our concern is our students.
We sincerely would like to discuss ideas that can keep the good parts of these programs moving forward, and utilize all the tools that we, as highly trained professionals, can apply to this worthy cause.
As every leader should know, the truth will not stay buried. It always surfaces, even if it is after the implosion has occurred, even if it is found by specialists sifting through the wreckage to find the cause. Simply put, we would like someone to listen to us on the bottom: the teachers, administrators, parents, students, and particularly a school board…..
It could positively affect the entire campaign.
Sincerely:
All of the below……
kavips.
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