Taxes and Corn Sex July 17, 2012July 16, 2012 OUR SO-CALLED HIGHEST-IN-THE-WORLD CORPORATE TAX If you only read the text or the headline of yesterday’s Business Insider link, you missed this very-easy-to-digest series of 9 telling charts. Guess what: the actual taxes our corporations pay are below average. Yes, all agree it would be very good to cut out loopholes to allow us to lower the top rate while raising as much or more in revenue — simplifying the code. But that was not something the Republicans were willing to work with Democrats on in the President’s first term, because their strategy to regain power was not to work with him on anything in his first term. Combine that with the power of the lobbyists and, now, the power of Citizens United money to protect corporate loopholes, and it’s not clear just how many of these could be closed. But we should try. Everyone agrees. This is not a “Republican” idea. Their idea is just to cut rates for rich people and corporations and never raise them, under any circumstances. WHEN TAXES CAN GO UP Never, says Grover Norquist and the 236 House and 40 Senate Republicans who have signed his pledge. They can only go down, never up. We never want to go back to the awful economy of the 1950s and 1960s, when tax rates were very high, because, although by today;s standards the economy then was booming, well, what we reaqlly want is more of the George W. Bush economy, when . . . MAYBE SHE MEANT PASSIVE PARTNER? Zac: “Best FoxBiz clip EVVVER trying to defend the Romney-Bain scandal. . . you MUST POST. AT 2:20 Gerri Willis says ‘I mean, come on, have people never heard of a passive manager?!?!?! I mean come on, right?'” Well no, as a matter of fact, because there’s no such thing because if you are a manger you are not passively involved.” What one commentator says about this makes no difference; and I think she probably just meant “passive owner” or something. But (a) that’s sure not how he described his role to the SEC — I’ve never heard of a passive CEO. And (b) the main thing, I fully grant, is not what he did at Bain, but that he has embraced the Ryan/Tea Party austerity vision that would, unfortunately, out-Hover Hoover (another successful businessman) and tip the world into full-scale depression, with all the attendant misery and potential horror that entails. So anyone who can’t bear to vote for Obama for some reason should at least just not vote, rather than vote for that. CLIMATE CHANGE AND CORN SEX As we spew millions of tons of pollution into our little space ships atmosphere and oceans, it’s (mainly Republican) folly to think there will be no repercussions worth avoiding (just as for so long the tobacco industry maintained there was no link between smoking and cancer and the oil industry didn’t bother to pre-position giant deep-water containment domes in the Gulf of Mexico — what could go wrong?). Here is one example. Even corn is sometimes just not in the mood. WHEN TO SELL Abe: “Sell discipline…tell your reader from Friday to read Gerald Loeb, The Battle for Investment Survival. It is the best thing ever written on the subject and has not changed one wit since it was written if you are an investor (not a trader). His rules are sometimes hell to abide by but they will save your A**! May have a hard time finding the book but it is worth it. Nothing really changes, just morphs into a different camouflage and speeds up.” Not that hard to find — and just 99 cents for the Kindle edition that you can download instantly.