And btw, attacking the working poor and the unemployed as lazy and stupid, blaming them for income equality and the drop in their standard of living --- that's class warfare of the worst sort. 

That's class warfare, Herman Cain style.

"If you are close to retirement and your 401k can be "wiped out", then I would suggest you look into a financial adviser."

LOL - you have a good sense of humor!

Many of the banks were forced to be bailed out - if you're talking about TARP. The mistake was that the were expected to lend out that money - they didn't. There should have been strings attached.

jazzy - is GE pursuing aggressive tax avoidance legally? or are they breaking the law? Obviously I think GE should be paying taxes. But if they can legally account their money so that they don't have to, why shouldn't they? I do think that GE should be paying taxes, and they are not. However, my anger in response to this situation is directed at the politicians, not at GE.

Remember, I believe that the tax law should be 1 page of text. Unfortunately, all the politicians have written in loopholes for their favorite contributors.

If the Democrats were really unhappy with GE paying zero taxes, then why did Obama choose GE's CEO to be the leader of the jobs council that Obama created?

Do you guys really think it is the banks fault that they were bailed out? IMO we should've just let them crash, and dealt with the consequences.

Wall St bet that the government would save them if they made bad bets... and guess what, it turned out they were right.

Those ties, along with whose really responsible for all those tax avoidance strategies GE uses, are pretty obvious to anybody who cares. Maybe the "Ninety-nine percenters" skipped reading the newspaper on the way to their gender studies classes.

Krugman has a sympathetic piece on the protests, talking up the line that the "bankers bubbled us in to the state we're in", but he - along with the "ninety-niners" - can't seem to enunciate the words "Freddie Mac" and "Fannie Mae".

Bus: If conservatives have been railing against corporations not paying taxes, I am surprised and I'm sorry I missed it.   

You'd think if liberals want it and conservatives want it, we'd have had by now a rewrite of the tax code so that corporations and wealthy individuals didn't get away with paying no taxes.   

       :R:ROFL:        OFL:                                 

soccerguy, you should read this book. "Fiasco: Blood in the Water"

http://www.frankpartnoy.com/_/F.I.A.S.C.O..html

Wall Street traders weren't just playing by the rules - especially with regard to derivatives trading. The behavior described is pretty shocking.

Busdriver:

 Frankly, I don't look at just the signs of the protesters on the street --- there is definitely a lot of "out there" sentiment I don't buy into.    If you saw "Abolish capitalism" among the protesters, well, I don't agree with that and "Tax the Rich" has some validity --- I think they should be taxing my percentile too to pay for the wars so my kids don't have to be saddled with that debt and I'm well short of $250,000 a year. 

The scruffy protestors in the streets are not the face of this movement to me. 

 The real face, if you care to confront it, is the people writing into the "I am the 99 percent" website at tumblr.com.      I've gone through a few pages of this and they are real people who are being winnowed rapidly from middle class into poverty levels and they are scared and frustrated that the American dream is no longer even remotely attainable for them.

I am not saying that some of them didn't make bad choices or bring some of their problems on themselves.   I'm sure they did.    

But if you read through the short messages the people hold up, you can glean that some of them played by the rules, did the right thing, and they are getting destroyed by a system that favors big money interests.     Banks foreclose and cause short sales rather than working out a lower interest deal.    They are parents who work two jobs and still can't save anything.    They have no health insurance, so an injury or illness totally wipes them out to the point they can't pay the mortgage and now they're threatened with eviction.   They planned for careers as teachers or nurses, but cutbacks and no-first-hire rules make that impossible.   They work 40-hour weeks but are still classified as "part time" so employers don't have to pay them a living wage or give them health benefits.

And since these are not illiterate serfs,  they do know that corporations are sitting on cash and not hiring, they know that corporations like GE and people like the Dodgers-owner Jamie McCourt don't pay any federal taxes, and they know how much money has gone into buying favors from politicians both Democrat and Republican.    

And they know that the media doesn't care to tell their story in any other context but that of the horserace in elections --- how much do these unemployment numbers hurt Obama, how much will refusing to act on the jobs bill hurt Republicans.   

The media isn't bothering to tell the story of the long-term unemployed or the young people who went into debt to get an education only to come out and find no jobs.  Or to have been working for a few years, and then at 27 or 30, have that career taken away and replaced with minimum wage.

There is a systemic advantage being handed to the already supremely well off (the 1 percent if you will) through long-time privilege, and of course through the work of forebears, but also through the government granted largesse that comes with having well-heeled lobbyists.    Who lobbies for the unemployed and the underemployed?  Nobody.   That's really what's behind these protests.

The sign I see most often is:    Jobs.   

Lol.  

 GE's spending on lobbying is eye-opening and it is something that epitomizes what the OWS protest is about --- in 2010 GE paid no federal income tax on $5 billion of profit in the U.S.    In fact, I believe they got a tax "benefit."

This isn't about bashing evil corporations --- I don't think they're evil, though their ability to manipulate the tax code to their benefit is diabolical.     You can argue that the profits benefit their shareholders (as well as their top executives of course) but that's where the vast majority of those in the 99 percent protest are left out.   They can't afford to invest when they can barely afford to pay their bills.

We have the largest, most expensive military in the world....isn't a large part of its role to protect the interests of corporations like GE?    Where do they get off paying no federal taxes for defense and national security?

This ticks me off and while I may not be a financially marginal American, I am one of the 99 percent who is frustrated beyond belief by this situation.  And that's just one of the Top Spenders. 

   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/business/economy/25tax.html?_r=2&hp

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

While General Electric is one of the most skilled at reducing its tax burden, many other companies have become better at this as well. Although the top corporate tax rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, companies have been increasingly using a maze of shelters, tax credits and subsidies to pay far less.

In a regulatory filing just a week before the Japanese disaster put a spotlight on the company’s nuclear reactor business, G.E. reported that its tax burden was 7.4 percent of its American profits, about a third of the average reported by other American multinationals. Even those figures are overstated, because they include taxes that will be paid only if the company brings its overseas profits back to the United States. With those profits still offshore, G.E. is effectively getting money back.

Such strategies, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts — from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.

A review of company filings and Congressional records shows that one of the most striking advantages of General Electric is its ability to lobby for, win and take advantage of tax breaks.

Over the last decade, G.E. has spent tens of millions of dollars to push for changes in tax law, from more generous depreciation schedules on jet engines to “green energy” credits for its wind turbines. But the most lucrative of these measures allows G.E. to operate a vast leasing and lending business abroad with profits that face little foreign taxes and no American taxes as long as the money remains overseas.

Company officials say that these measures are necessary for G.E. to compete against global rivals and that they are acting as responsible citizens. “G.E. is committed to acting with integrity in relation to our tax obligations,” said Anne Eisele, a spokeswoman. “We are committed to complying with tax rules and paying all legally obliged taxes. At the same time, we have a responsibility to our shareholders to legally minimize our costs.”

The assortment of tax breaks G.E. has won in Washington has provided a significant short-term gain for the company’s executives and shareholders.

While the financial crisis led G.E. to post a loss in the United States in 2009, regulatory filings show that in the last five years, G.E. has accumulated $26 billion in American profits, and received a net tax benefit from the I.R.S. of $4.1 billion.

But critics say the use of so many shelters amounts to corporate welfare, allowing G.E. not just to avoid taxes on profitable overseas lending but also to amass tax credits and write-offs that can be used to reduce taxes on billions of dollars of profit from domestic manufacturing. They say that the assertive tax avoidance of multinationals like G.E. not only shortchanges the Treasury, but also harms the economy by discouraging investment and hiring in the United States.

You can follow this money too.   Also from that opensecrets site.  This is under the "lobbying" category.  Top Spenders 1998-2011.  No labor union seems to make this top spender list.

Labor spending on lobbying seems to me to be dwarfed by that of financial, business and health industry interests.      

Ranked Sectors

All years (1998-2011)

Or pick an industry from an alphabetical list
or organized by sector& industry of all 121 profiled.

-- Edited by jazzy on Friday 7th of October 2011 10:37:58 AM

side note;

DW almost eligible for medicare, and I'm looking for continuation med insurance with a cancer surgery-- Its illegal for some one to market Medi Gap (Supplemental) to someone who has Medicare Advantage (C). However, its not illegal to market Medicare Advantage to someone who has MediGap

wincester:

Not sure where the discrepancy occurs, but I go to the same site, look at the lobbying data compiled and find that labor is far, far below business interests in the ranking of lobbyists sectors. 

 http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=c

And in the list of top spenders too.

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s

Ahh...donors versus lobbyists.   Thanks, cartera.

Pharmaceuticals and financial companies are well represented.

Busdriver, since the protests are specifically being labeled as protests against Wall Street greed, I doubt they are including people who make a mere 350K in their concept of the 1 percent who are "ruining America."

And Winchester, if unions are the biggest lobby in Washington, they sure aren't getting much for their money, given that they are making more and more concessions to big business every year, and their share of the labor force has been shrinking precipitously for the past decade.