Al Franken on Class Warfare June 30, 2003March 25, 2012 Did you see the front page story in last Thursday’s Times showing how well we are all doing? Well, not all, but the 400 wealthiest taxpayers, anyway, which is hundreds of us. These taxpayers showed $86 million in income and capital gains for the year 2000, at the low end, and – on average – they showed $174 million. (That’s an average. Some showed more, some less.) But it’s not all wine and roses when you’re earning $86 million a year, as those of you who are surely know. There are federal taxes (well, not on tax free bonds, but on most other forms of income) and in the worst year from 1992-2000, those federal taxes ate up nearly 30%. For the year 2000, the 400 paid the IRS, on average, 22.3% of their income, much of it realized in capital gains. The good news is that the Bush administration, to a far greater degree than its Democratic predecessor – which actually raised taxes on the best off – is sensitive to this situation. ‘Had President Bush’s latest tax cuts been in effect in 2000,’ reported the Times, ‘the average tax bill for the top 400 would have been about $30.4 million – a savings of $8.3 million, or more than a fifth, according to an analysis of the I.R.S. data by The New York Times. That would have resulted in an average tax rate of 17.5 percent.’ The night before this story came out, Al Franken was talking to 650 Democratic donors at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. You may have seen it on C-SPAN. He said that when Democrats point out stuff like this – point out that 17.5% is less than the tax rate a factory worker pays – the Republicans cry, ‘class warfare.’ But that’s not class warfare, Al told the assembled. He had been reading Barbara Tuchman’s classic A Distant Mirror, about the calamitous Fourteenth Century, and he came upon the scene where these serfs, tired of being subservient, scale the walls of their knight’s castle, capture him, kill him, roast him on a spit, and then make his wife eat his flesh. In front of her children. Al – who is the author of the forthcoming, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right – took a long, deliberate pause, looked at us incredulously, and said . . . ‘Now that’s class warfare.’ So buck up, folks. The right-wing Republicans have learned to cow us by telling us to stop ‘whining.’ (Just take a moment to consider what a bullying, offensive word that is.) And they tell us to stop waging class warfare. But, as deca-billionaire Warren Buffett put it so succinctly (this should be the signature line of billions and billions of e-mails from now through next November), ‘If this is class warfare, then my class is winning.’
6-3 June 27, 2003March 25, 2012 Yesterday’s 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v Texas was terrific. Thank you, America. But do you know what Attorney General Ashcroft, Senator Santorum, House Majority Leader DeLay, Justice Scalia and the rest are all thinking today? They are thinking, ‘Let ’em have sex at home – what do we care? In the President’s second term, when we replace Sandra Day O’Connor (who wants to resign) and John Paul Stevens (who is 83) with two more Scalia/Thomases (the two Justices that President Bush cites as his models), we’ll be 5-4 against a woman’s right to choose, against stem cell research, against civil unions, against gay adoption and immigration, against the separation of church and state – and on and on – for decades.’ So the ruling was great. But everything hangs on the next election. (Not to mention what’s been done to our financial underpinnings or our standing around the world.) Have a great weekend.
Icy Indifference June 26, 2003January 22, 2017 Several of you wrote in response to the unsigned e-mail I posted Tuesday. I won’t waste your time posting the supportive ones (much as I appreciated them). It’s more interesting to post the opposing point of view – not least so its proponents know they’ve been heard. Juli Bednarzyk: ‘I have been a HUGE fan of your personal finance books since high school when I did a research paper on penny stocks for my senior econ class (I am now 37). I am nearly your opposite politically, (I’m a libertarian, so we have a couple of things in common, but I do consider myself to be ‘right wing’.) I didn’t write that email that came unsigned. But I can sure agree with it 100% and very rarely visit your site since I am disgusted by the political preachings of your site. If I wanted to hear your left-wing drivel, I can turn on CNN/ABC/NBC etc. Please please PLEASE stick to personal finance and how to make good choices and navigate in our rapidly changing economy. Heck, you can even use my name in lieu of the coward who didn’t sign his note. Respectfully – although aggravatedly – yours, Juli Bednarzyk, Plainfield, IL.’ ☞ I hear you, Juli. And I am grateful for your kind words. I just respectfully disagree. It’s almost as if you’re saying you care only about your own finances, not about larger issues. I’m not saying you are saying that, or that you don’t care about those less fortunate than you (although that does seem to be the one huge hole in libertarianism – what do you do about those born physically and/or mentally disadvantaged?) . . . but I do know that FDR – whom you would not have liked and whom many wealthy business people hated – thought societies should be judged on how they treated ‘the least of us.’ And I heard him tonight quoted as having said: ‘The Republicans are frozen in the ice of their own indifference.’ Tom DeLay and Trent Lott, et al, would not appear to be deeply compassionate men. And neither, I’m afraid, for all his protestations, is George W. Bush. Or, for that matter, Clarence Thomas. Indeed, as to Clarence Thomas – and for even more left-wing drivel, as you put it – I commend you to Maureen Dowd’s column yesterday. And keep your eye on the news today. I think 10 a.m. may be when we find out what Justice Thomas, et al, have decided with regard to the Vice President’s daughter. Can Texas rightly arrest and prosecute her for sleeping with her chosen same-sex lifemate? Or is the law under which this is currently legal – a law George W. Bush supports – unconstitutional? I think we find out today. ‘If this is class warfare, then my class is winning.’ – Warren Buffett
Watch What You Say June 25, 2003February 23, 2017 True or False: A lone 54-year-old man in a crowd of people waiting for the President to arrive can be arrested and prosecuted for holding up a protest sign. Click here for the answer. (My favorite line: ‘The prosecutors say that Mr Bursey was not in a special ‘free-speech zone’ . . . Mr Bursey told the cops, defiantly, that he was under the impression that the whole of America was a free-speech zone.’) Note that the State of South Carolina decided to drop the charge – I mean, he held up a sign. Is that really worth prosecuting? But the Ashcroft Justice Department, in the person of US Attorney Strom Thurmond, Jr., instituted criminal proceedings which Thurmond is seeking to have tried before a judge with no jury. If this sort of thing alarms you a little, click here. ‘If this is class warfare, then my class is winning.’ – Warren Buffett
What Do Scientists Know? June 24, 2003January 22, 2017 But first . . . Unsigned [reacting to yesterday’s column]: ‘I believe that W learned a lot from Dad’s mistake and I don’t think the Dems have a hope in hell. Howard Dean sounds the most intelligent of the whole bunch, but I think they’re all stupid to criticize W for the Iraq deal…that’s just not playing at all across the country. If Kerry’s the best the Dems have, it will be a blowout of epic proportion, as average Joe cannot relate to him at all. The Democrats have made the mistake of just playing to the large urban coastal areas (and Chicago), and Hollywood, and forgetting that there is a lot of territory in between. Frankly, I’m tired of being treated like a dumb redneck who’s opinion doesn’t count. I’m not for welfare and high taxes and I’ve put the 2000 election behind me. Yes, Fox leans conservative, but frankly, that just begins to balance the bias. You and I will probably never agree on much, and I don’t have a website to tell the world how smart I am and how stupid everyone else is to disagree with me (or edit posts such as these so that they may be taken out of context, or always have the last word), but I remain convinced that you were a much better writer when you stuck to personal finance. Trust me, there are a lot of people who share this opinion, and your political bent is not helping your cause.’ And now . . . Perhaps you, too, got this promo from The Washington Monthly a couple of days ago: News continues to mount of a growing and dangerous gap between scientists and the Bush administration. Yesterday the New York Times reported that the Bush administration edited out passages in an E.P.A. report that described scientific concerns about the potential risks from global warming. Two days ago, the American Medical Association announced its disagreement with restrictions that the Bush administration has proposed on cloning embryos for medical research. In a penetrating, carefully reported article in the next issue of The Washington Monthly, Nicholas Thompson shows how this news fits in with a general GOP strategy (ignore expert scientific views when they challenge pre-determined administration policy) and the reasons behind the strategy: Most scientists vote Democratic. To read the story, click here. I miss personal finance, too, and I have some blockbuster Cooking Like a Guy™ recipes saved up (Banana Bliss: Open can of chilled Hershey’s chocolate sauce. Unpeel banana. Dunk. Mmmm, MMM!) but I think my country is going down the economic tubes, and I fear the loss of separation of church and state, and so I stray. “If this is class warfare, then my class is winning.” – Warren Buffett
Where, Oh, Where Are Woodward & Bernstein? June 23, 2003February 23, 2017 ‘You know,’ DNC chair Terry McAuliffe told Democrats assembled in St. Paul Friday, ‘there are some who feel the Democrats should just throw in the towel right now. I even read the following just the other day by political commentator Tom Wicker: ‘The real question is whether any Democrat can match George Bush’s claim to be a proven Presidential figure, validated by war and victory. It won’t be easy . . .’ I also read: ‘No political strategist in the country can see any way George Bush is not going to win and win big.’ That came from Ed Rollins, a Republican political strategist. Sounds pretty dire, huh? Well, buck up – these were written in 1991.’ I know this will annoy those who believe the right wing of the Republican Party should control all three branches of government (look how well it’s doing so far), but I think a Democrat is going to win in 2004. Look at it this way: Do the 51 million folks who voted for Gore – 537,000 more than voted for Bush – wake up each morning thinking, ‘Gee, this is really better than I expected! We’ve got peace and prosperity, we’re funding the things that need to be funded, and, well – the guy really is a uniter, not a divider.’ I don’t think so. Do the 3 million folks who voted for Nader – 97,000 of them in Florida – wake up each morning thinking they would do the same thing if they had it to do over again? I don’t think so. Will the nearly 50,000 African Americans in Florida who were systematically – and wrongly – removed from the voter roles in 2000 vote for Bush in 2004? I don’t think so. And I don’t think the ‘Jews for Buchanan’ – those nice little old ladies in Palm Beach – will either. And then look at the other side of it. Do the 50 million folks who voted for Bush wake up every morning feeling glad they did? Yes, I think most do. But I think some small but crucial proportion feel betrayed. This is not the balanced budget they expected. This is not the humble foreign policy they expected. This is not the bipartisan spirit they expected. And I like to think that some portion of the media will finally get a little tough. Not Rush Limbaugh or Fox or any of them, obviously (‘We Distort, You Decide’). But the more traditional media. I can’t say for sure that every word Greg Palast has written these past few years is accurate, fair, and balanced. (And I can’t say that it’s not.) But I am dumbstruck and disheartened that the American press has not investigated and found out for sure. To get a flavor of what I’m talking about, click here. It’s mainly about former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, but here’s one piece of it: Months before the 2000 presidential elections, the offices of Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris ordered the removal of 90,000 citizens from the voter rolls because they were convicted felons . . . and felons can’t vote in Florida. There was one problem: 97 percent of those on the list were, in fact, innocent. They weren’t felons, but they were guilty . . . of not being white. Over half the list contained names of non-whites. I’m not guessing: I have the list from out of the computers of Katherine Harris’ office – and the ‘scrubbed’ voter’s race is listed with each name. And that’s how our President was elected: by illegally removing tens of thousands of legal African American voters before the race. But you knew that . . . at least you did if you read the British papers – I reported this discovery for the Guardian of London. And I reported again on the nightly news. You saw that . . . if you live in Europe or Canada or South America. In the USA, the story ran on page zero. Well, let me correct that a bit. The Washington Post did run the story on the fake felon list that selected our President – even with a comment under my byline. I wrote the story within weeks of the election, while Al Gore was still in the race. The Post courageously ran it . . . seven months after the election. Isn’t this as important as, say, a $225 Presidential haircut that may or may not have delayed airport traffic for 15 minutes? For those who may be growing worried about right wing control of all three branches of government, click here. ‘If this is class warfare, then my class is winning.’ – Warren Buffett
How’s Your Credit Rating? How To Improve It June 20, 2003February 23, 2017 Visit myfico.com to find out. The basic report costs $12.95 and you can download a free digital booklet, ‘Understanding Your Credit Score,’ with tips on improving it. Most people think their rating is higher than it actually is – I did – and are surprised at some of the reasons their score is lower than they expected (e.g., too much available credit, even if it is unused). Your score can matter. The average rate charged on a 30-year fixed home mortgage recently was 5.16% for someone with a top-bracket FICO score, versus 5.82% for someone just a couple of notches down – an extra $15,000 in interest over the life of the loan. For someone one FICO rung from the bottom, the average rate was 8.53%. Ouch! ‘If this is class warfare, then my class is winning.’ – Warren Buffett
Praisin’ the Raisin June 19, 2003February 23, 2017 Wayne Bennion: ‘Is your question about raisin pits serious? Everyone (at least everyone who grew up in Fresno) knows that raisins are dried Thompson Seedless grapes, so of course the raisins are also seedless. (This is ignoring the fact that grapes have seeds, not a pit, which appellation, I believe, is reserved for the single large seed of peaches, apricots and avocados.)’ ☞ Well aren’t YOU a whole bunch of know-it-alls. (Especially the one of you who began his e-mail with . . . ‘DUH!’) But did you know that raisins – the common brownish ones we all eat – come from green grapes? Hah! You did not. Now who’s the man? NEVER PAY A $29 LATE FEE AGAIN Robert Doucette: ‘My bank allows me to schedule payments on a regular basis. So I can automatically send out the monthly checks. I don’t do that, but I have set up automatic payments to my credit cards. I normally pay them off monthly, but last year I got overwhelmed at work, forgot about them and go hit with late fees. So, every month they get two payments, A small automatic check to cover at least the minimum payment and another check for the rest.’ ‘If this is class warfare, then my class is winning.’ – Warren Buffett
Free at Last . . . June 18, 2003February 23, 2017 . . . free at last . . . thank my friend and webmaster, the estimable Marc Fest – all righty! – I am free (of AOL) at last. Well, okay, I still use it, but this $30 program Marc turned me on to takes three minutes to buy and download and maybe five minutes more to convert my 4,280 AOL 5.0 addresses to an Excel file – complete with the free-form ‘comments’ I have appended to many of my records, some of them quite long. I don’t lose a thing. The program can also convert from AOL 6.0 and 8.0, and from other e-mail programs, not just AOL. It will convert your address file directly into various e-mail programs – not just into Excel. Check it out if you’re only staying with your current provider because you feel stuck. For another $5, there’s a program that will port over your ‘favorite places,’ as well. I like a lot about AOL, and have not yet committed to an alternative or launched into the process of changing my address. But what an amazing feeling that I can export my data from of AOL for use elsewhere. (It is my data after all, painstakingly typed in over all these years.) Like the Iron Curtain coming down. Wilbur Coghill: ‘Restaurant.com [not to be confused with restaurants.com!] sells and auctions (Via Ebay) restaurant gift certificates. You can buy $25 certificates for $12.50 or bid and try for a better price. In my area there are usually 50 or so running at any one time, but for NY, there are a lot more. I won two $25 deals for $6 and $8, for places that I know are good. There are a few conditions (good for food only, etc.) but still hard to beat.’ Jeff Martin: ‘Here’s an interesting short piece on how state and local taxes are going to eat up the tax cut for most Americans, but not, of course, for the rich.’ ☞ An excerpt: Whether or not your personal budget will end up in the black or at a deficit depends. This year, married filers with adjusted gross incomes (AGI) of more than $1 million will save $91,000, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. If that’s you, increases on the state and local level may seem a drop in the bucket. Now, let’s say you’re a married couple with an adjusted gross income of $50,000 to $75,000. The Urban-Brookings center estimates that households like yours will save an average of $767 in federal taxes this year. If you live in Troy, N.Y., the school district’s share of property taxes alone could add $600 to your taxes this year, on average. If you’re planning to send your child to one of the City University of New York schools, you can expect to pay $800 more for in-state tuition. * * * ‘If this is class warfare, then my class is winning.’ – Warren Buffett If raisins are dried grapes, then why don’t they have pits? – Andrew Tobias
Two Minute Movies June 17, 2003February 23, 2017 Here’s an action-hero movie by Mark Fiore. And here’s a horror flick on the Supreme Court. Tomorrow: Back to the written word. Note to those who’ve helped (approaching 3% of you now) and who sent e-mails with your gift. The e-mails never made it for some reason. I apologize – but whatever you wrote, you have my thanks anyway. ‘If this is class warfare, then my class is winning.’ – Warren Buffett