During the campaign, many people expressed outrage over Mitt Romney’s statement concerning the fact that almost fifty percent of the public do not pay pay income taxes. I well understood the anger, but I am a bit surprised that a video by the California Federation of Teachers has not produced the same outrage over its unfairness and frankly crudeness. The video shows a wealthy person urinating on the poor as part of a “Tax the Rich: An Animated Fairy Tale.” I readily admit that I am in the minority on our blog in opposing some of the tax increase proposals in this country and abroad as economically unwise. However, the demonization of the wealthy in this country has gone a bit far when a video of this kind is released by a major organization.
Real Clear Politics and a few sites ran a story on the urination scene, but the video below has the sound but not the image of actual urination. It is not clear if someone added the yellow image to the video or the producers removed the image. When you now hit on various sites that showed what they said was the image of the urination, a sign pops up that this is now a “private video.” I am unsure of what that means since the union reportedly put the video out to the public. However, there is no mention of the controversy that I could find on the union site.
The eight-minute video was written and directed by California Federation of Teachers’ communications director Fred Glass with voice over by Ed Asner. The mythical land describes rich evading taxes by investing in “Wall Street” — not quite mythical. “Don’t worry. This is good for you, too. Because it will trickle down from us to you.” You can still hear the sound of the rich man “trickling down” on the poor.
Viewers are urged to email their elected representatives to tell them to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to fund public services.
I happen to agree with the premise of raising revenues (though I oppose some of the tax proposals in this country and abroad). I am a long and vocal supporter for increasing funding for schools and teachers. However, I view this video as unfair and hyperbolic even without the yellow stream. The wealthy do pay considerable taxes and many support public programs and public causes. They also do pay the vast majority of taxes. Should they pay more in this economy. Yes, but it is grossly unfair to engage in this type of vilification. The video for example states that after the housing market crash the government printed money for “rich people” but they didn’t give any to “ordinary people whose houses and jobs were broken by the crash.” The video also states that after the collapse that rich people “love their money more than anything in the world.” That is simply outrageous. What would be the reaction to a business group releasing a video stating poor people do not care for other people and do not want to work? There would be justified anger and outrage, but the reaction to this video seems to be muted from the left. It is not enough to simply shrug and again blame the other side triggering such responses. Whatever the excesses of the other side of this debate, it does not relieve adults of being the obligations of accuracy and decency. As an educator myself, I am embarrassed to see any teacher’s organization engage in such attacks.
I am interested in whether the union did include the even more offensive image and removed it or whether it is claiming that conservative groups hacked their video. If it is the former, I do not believe that they have served the interests of teachers who generally strive to engage in reasoned and respectful debate. If it is the latter, I would love to know who added the yellow image and left the appearance that it was in the original video. The union itself has thus far said little on the controversy. [UPDATE: the original video is posted here and shows the yellow image. It would appear that the union has altered its own video though I cannot find any statement from it on this controversy].
The current video is shown below.
Gene H:
I understand mixed economy fine, it is what we have now.
rafflaw,
We should have sympathy for the poor workers on Wall Street. Their bonuses are going to be smaller this year than in past years. I don’t know how they’ll be able to survive!
Wall Street Bonuses Expected To Be Lowest In Years
The Huffington Post | By Alana Horowitz
Posted: 12/09/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/09/wall-street-bonuses-2012_n_2267278.html
Wall Street bonuses are expected to be the lowest in years, according to the New York Post.
New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli told the Post that the average Wall Street worker’s bonus is expected to be $101,000, an almost 50% decline from 2006 bonuses. Bonuses haven’t been this low since the financial crisis began in 2008.
Last year, the average Wall Street bonus was $121,150. In 2010, it was $138,940.
The drop in bonuses shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to those familiar with the financial industry. Wall Street has lost 1,200 jobs this year, and last week, Citigroup announced it would slash 11,000 more.
According to Market Watch, companies who brought in less revenue this year may choose to cut bonuses rather than lay off workers. JPMorgan told Bloomberg that its bonus pool was down 2%. Citi’s could be down as much as 10%.
Don’t feel too sorry for bankers and traders, though. The financial industry still boasts some of the biggest paychecks. The average Wall Street salary in 2011 was $362,950, according to CNN.
Try telling that to Goldman Sachs employees. During the last bonus season, workers reportedly cried over unexpectedly low checks. One Goldman employee told CNBC that it was “a bloodbath.”
Great links Elaine to the many, many welfare benefits to the uber-wealthy!
Wealthy “Faux Farmers” Get Huge Agricultural Tax Breaks on Their Properties
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/04/17/wealthy-%E2%80%9Cfaux-farmers%E2%80%9D-get-huge-agricultural-tax-breaks-on-their-properties/
The rolls of those with farm-assessed land in New Jersey read like a who’s who in the world of high finance, business and entertainment. Those in the rich-and-famous category with approved applications for tax breaks in 2009 and 2010 include:
– Financier Michael C. Price, with a net worth of $1.4 billion, Bedminster: 92 farm-assessed acres, on which he paid $359 in taxes in 2009.
– Robert Wood “Woody” Johnson IV, heir to Johnson & Johnson and owner of the New York Jets football team, Bedminster: 269 acres, $1,470 in 2009.
– Publishing magnate Donald E. Newhouse, with a net worth of $5.4 billion, Hopewell Township: 273 acres, $1,787 in taxes for 2010; in West Amwell, 77 acres, $611 in taxes in 2010.
– Publishing magnate Malcolm “Steve” Forbes, including properties with his wife, Sabina, Bedminster: 450 acres, $2,005 in taxes in 2009.
– E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg, Middletown: 34 acres, $122 in taxes in 2010.
– Rock star Jon Bon Jovi, Middletown: 7.1 acres, $104 in taxes in 2010.
– Lamington Farm Club, under the corporate umbrella of entrepreneur and TV personality Donald Trump, Bedminster: 195 acres; $277.
– John Whitman, husband of former Gov. Christie Whitman, Tewksbury: 167 acres, $1,521; in Bedminster: 65 acres; $173.
– Vernon Hill II, former CEO of Commerce Bank, Moorestown: 29 acres, $79 in 2010.
More on welfare for the rich:
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Making of Manhattan’s Elite Welfare Farmers
Want fiscal reform? Let’s start by targeting the fattest farm subsidy checks—which are mailed to the richest New York ZIP codes.
By Yasha Levine
http://www.nypress.com/article-21342-the-making-of-manhattans-elite-welfare-farmers.html
Excerpt:
WALL STREET BANKERS and retired hedge fund billionaires have been talking about fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction, preparing the masses for austerity measures and cuts in social services—which we are told are regrettable, of course, but necessary nonetheless. Well, here is the perfect welfare program for the bailout queens to show off their fiscally conservative chops: Let’s see them cut federal farm subsidies, which funnel billions of dollars to the richest Americans, including notables like Ted Turner, David Letterman, Scottie Pippen, Paris Hilton’s grandpa, Charles Schwab, Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen and just about every single one of Sam Walton’s degenerate heirs.
Most people know next to nothing about this $20 billion-a-year welfare for the rich program, probably because the billionaires want it that way. Why get the masses worked up? Best to let them think the $200 billion they spent from 1995 through 2006 went to friendly farmers with cute farmhouses, rather than to Chevron or Kenneth Lay. Better to let urban entrepreneurs call themselves backyard farmers and toil away for the locavore movement, than to realize that their rich neighbors are reaping actual “farm” subsidies.
Oro Lee, preach it! 🙂
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/07/1304121/low-wage-jobs-dont-just-harm-workers-they-harm-their-children/
A for instance, if one should wonder — I submit that a true libertarian would refuse to conduct any business or commercial enterprise except as a sole proprietor or as a member of a general partnership thus foregoing state-created avenues of avoiding unlimited liability, and refuse recourse to state created courts of laws to enforce state created contractual rights, or seek to avoid satisfaction of judgments by claiming state created exemptions of assets subject to execution especially by seeking those exemptions and other relief through state created bankruptcy proceedings. And that’s just for starters.
BTW, didn’t one of our more ardent liberterians admit to taking bankruptcy. Tsk, tsk.
“To take money from our pockets to subsidize anyone is immoral.”
To refuse to recognize that the state is mostly responsible for the ability of people to create any earn wealth is the height of hubris; to refuse to continue to promote that system which has so blessed society — to take “your” money and run — is pure evil: it is this love of money and of self, founded on rapacious greed and unfettered avarice, that destorys families, communities, and eventually nations.
nick,
your post @ 3:36PM … ALL TRUE.
As to the kids and vegan … fad … good way to rebel or establish “independence” … one of ’em might stick with it but doubtful. My youngest brother stuck with it all through college … one grandchild from her sophomore year in high school through her sophomore year in college.
I don’t cater to it … tell them to bring their own food and don’t mention it again.
let ’em cut the apron strings … they tie themselves back up sometime in their 20’s
Elaine, omg, milk, cheese and butter from Jerseys is the best.
Only the Swiss Brown can compare to the level of butterfat and deliciousness they produce.
The concept of a blended economy seems to be just beyond your grasp, Bron. Most forms of socialism are precisely that: a blended economy. They are not laissez-faire, they are not communism, they are somewhere on a spectrum between both disastrous extremes.
Nick S and Elaine M:
Eggplant story (not my own). There is a Greek recipe for eggplant called “Imam bayeldi” which means, “the Monk fainted.” The story is that a certain monk’s wife could cook eggplant in so many delicious ways, there were 100 different ways she made it. He complained one evening: “It’s always the same hundred recipes for eggplant, over and over. Can’t you come up with anything NEW?” The next night he came home and she had prepared the eggplant a new way, number #101. And the Monk fainted.
And another eggplant story (from a children’s book that I can now no longer find): God created the world and had him a garden. In that garden was an eggplant and it kept growing larger and larger and larger, and he didn’t want it to grow any larger but it just kept a’growing. Finally, in a fit of pique, God snatched up that giant eggplant and punched a hole in it and threw it over the cliff into the ocean, where it turned into a whale. And that’s why whales have holes in their heads where they blow salt-water through it in a big spray. And the moral of the story is IF YOU ARE A PURPLE VEGETABLE, don’t get too big for God’s garden.
Gene H:
OK, but if you have workers who have a share in the output of a company, that is capitalism.
Sorry, Bron. “The socialistic State owns all material factors of production and thus directs it.” Your pseudo-economist von Mises is also talking about Communism, not socialism. Changing from Rand the Insane to that greed apologist clown von Mises the Unscientific isn’t exactly a step in the right direction. You need to start reading real economists instead of political polemicists playing at economics. What Marx was to socialism, von Mises was to laissez-faire capitalism – an extremist whack job. Even the Wikipedia definition is better than von Mises. Google “democratic socialism”. Start your reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism
Elaine, When I first moved to Wi. I had to go to a Feed store to interview a witness to a tractor accident. I was appalled @ all the hormones and antibiotics on the shelves for farmers to buy..big quantities!
You’re arrangement is they type of situation I could abide if I were going to pay for organic. Otherwise it’s a crap shoot.
“When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating.”
F. Bastiat
Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!
F. Bastiat
“It is the aim of Socialism to transfer the means of production from private ownership to the ownership of organized society, to the State.[1] The socialistic State owns all material factors of production and thus directs it. This transfer need not be carried out with due observance of the formalities elaborated for property transfers according to the law set up in the historical epoch which is based on private property in the means of production. Still less important in such a process of transfer is the traditional terminology of Law. Ownership is power of disposal, and when this power of disposal is divorced from its traditional name and handed over to a legal institution which bears a new name, the old terminology is essentially unimportant in the matter. Not the word but the thing must be considered. Limitation of the rights of owners as well as formal transference is a means of socialization. If the State takes the power of disposal from the owner piecemeal, by extending its influence over production; if its power to determine what direction production shall take and what kind of production there shall be, is increased, then the owner is left at last with nothing except the empty name of ownership, and property has passed into the hands of the State.”
Ludwig Von Mises
Bron,
Pretty poor effort in defining socialism via Rand or Von Mises. Why not simply go to Wiki and be dazzled by the array of socialist philosophy you encounter by entering a search for “socialism”. A warning though is listed on the Wiki page that the content might be too complicated for some readers. However, I have faith in you as an intelligent person, though you as a researcher leaves something to be desired. 🙂
nick,
We’re members of a CSA farm here in Massachusetts:
Appleton Farms
http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/csa/appleton-farms-csa/
We get organic fruit and vegetables there–as well as milk from Jersey cows that eat grass and aren’t fed antibiotics. Most of the produce and milk is for my daughter’s family. We prepare most of my granddaughter’s food at home. She eats very little prepared food. She likes organic yogurt produced at a farm in Vermont. She loves my husband’s lasagna!
Appleton Farms began making its own ricotta cheese this year. It’s good–but not as good as the ricotta we get at a local Whole Foods.
*****
Malisha,
My husband makes the best eggplant parmigiana and eggplant lasagna. They are both family favorites
Malisha, quite a few. I’ll be happy to give you some..they’re all in my head but Jews and Italians share a love of food and I’m happy to do it. Few questions, are you looking for healthy or tasty..the two are NOT mutually exclusive but I have some recipes where you fry the eggplant in olive oil, or you can grill or roast it. Second, any dietary restriictions? Third, do you have a grill basket? They look like a small wok only w/ holes in to to grill vegetables? If you don’t I would highly suggest one..they’re cheap and you can get @ most housewares. Finally, are you aware eggplant causes flatulence. That’s healthy but turns off some folks. Again, w/ those answers I can tailor my choices. My grandfather loved eggplant and I have recipes from his restaurant.