He’s making big box office with this film. Hopefully his Canadian Tax Shelter will keep most of it safe from that “Capitolist” IRS so he can have more money to pay a non-union crew for his next “honest” “Documentary”

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/michael-moore-snubs-union-workers-making-capitalism-love/story?id=8715559

Gotta say, I haven’t seen this film, or Sicko, but anybody who is willing to go to the depths of Dishonesty that Moore has in his other films makes the rest of the world morons for thinking he could even tell the truth on a dare.

Thanks for proving my point, Richard.

BTW, no I haven’t and likely won’t see “Capitalism” and I haven’t seen any direct attacks on the dishonesty of it yet…I’m sure I will tho.

My above comments are specifically directed to the open lies and dishonesty in Rodger&Me, Bowling, and F 9-11.

When an open and unapologetic liar makes a new film, its safe to assume he’s lied again.

And you lapped it up like the loyal dog you are! Congrats!

The points Moore makes in the film are truthful– he just wants to dramatize them.

What is it with some of the liberal/left?

This is just another in a long line of justifications for lying and manipulating the truth.

As in Dan Rather’s “Fake buy accurate” Memos, if the truth can’t stand on its on, does it really need that type of help?

http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-In-Fahrenheit-911.htm

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

How about two sources of Michael Moore’s deceits and “fake but accurate” issue?

And what is it with Cliff and you about people’s online identities?

I have absolutely no proof that the person posting under “Ricard Warnick” is really the person you say you are and it doesn’t matter.

What matters is the accuracy of what you write, the facts you cite or the information used.

Maybe you didn’t read far enough

Moore amplifies the deceit with a montage of newspaper headlines, purporting to show that Gore really won. One article shows a date of December 19, 2001, with a large headline reading, “Latest Florida recount shows Gore won Election.” The article supposedly comes from The Pantagraph, a daily newspaper in Bloomington, Illinois. But actually, the headline is merely for a letter to the editor–not a news article. The letter to the editor headline is significantly enlarged to make it look like an article headline. The actual printed letter looked nothing like the “article” Moore fabricated for the film. The letter ran on December 5, not December 19. The Pantagraph contacted Moore’s office to ask for an explanation, but the office refused to comment.

The Pantagraph’s attorney sent Fahrenheit’s distributor a letter stating that Moore’s use of the faked headline and story was “unauthorized” and “misleading” and a” misrepresentation of facts.” The letter states that Moore infringed the copyright of The Pantagraph, and asks for an apology, a correction, and an explanation. The letters asks Moore to “correct the inaccurate information which has been depicted in your film.” Moore’s law firm wrote back and claimed that there was nothing “misleading” about the fabricated headline.

or

Regardless, Moore’s suggestion that the purge was conducted on the basis of race was indisputably false. As the Palm Beach Post details, all the evidence shows that Data Base Technologies did not use race as a basis for the purge. Indeed, DBT’s refusal to take note of a registered voter’s race was one of the reasons for the many cases of mistaken identity.

or

The movie lauds an anti-Bush riot that took place in Washington, D.C., on the day of Bush’s inauguration. He claims that protestors “pelted Bush’s limo with eggs.” Actually, it was just one egg, according to the BBC. According to Moore, “No President had ever witnessed such a thing on his inauguration day. ” According to CNN, Richard Nixon faced comparable protests in 1969 and 1973. According to USA Today, the anti-Bush organizers claimed that they expected 20,000 protesters to show up, whereas the anti-Nixon protest in 1973 drew 60,000 people. (USA Today, Jan. 20, 2001).

Having shown a clip from August 25 with Bush explaining how he likes to work on the ranch, Moore announces “George Bush spent the rest of the August at the ranch.” Not so, as Scott Marquardt found by looking at Bush’s activity for the very next day.

Sunday, August 26
Speaks at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Speaks at the U.S. Steel Group Steelworkers Picnic at Mon Valley Works, southeast of Pittsburgh. He also visits some employees still working, not at the picnic. /blockquote>

or

Castigating the allegedly lazy President, Moore says, “Or perhaps he just should have read the security briefing that was given to him on August 6, 2001 that said that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America by hijacking airplanes.”

Moore supplies no evidence for his assertion that President Bush did not read the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief. Moore’s assertion appears to be a complete fabrication.

Do I need to go on?

Richard,

You obviously didn’t read Kopel’s rebuttal and the associated points of how BUSH won the election.

Maybe Moore should have used another paper’s headline– there were plenty that said the same thing. Kopel admits it was part of a montage.

Again, you miss the point (deliberately?), Moore didn’t; use a headline. He manipulated a letter to the editor to make it look like a headline. It wasn’t and to claim, through imagery, that it was is a lie.

Sounds like you are nitpicking in an attempt to justify Moore’s lies

It’s an established fact that purging voter registration rolls without notifying the voters is a standard political trick whose purpose is minority voter suppression.

And just because it is “an established fact” you have evidence that was why it was done in this case?
And that it was conducted on the basis of race, in spite of contrary evidence?

Regardless, Moore’s suggestion that the purge was conducted on the basis of race was indisputably false.

Moore lied repeatedly, in his previous films. You asked for evidence and it was provided. Of course, you could have found this yourself but chose not to.

That does not mean there was only one egg. Eggs are sold by the dozen.

Is that supposed to be evidence that Moore didn’t lie?

Moore clearly said the “limo was pelted with EGGS” plural. Evidence, photographs and statements, show that it was just 1 egg.

Again, proof that Moore LIED. Yet you seem to think the fact that eggs are sold in dozens means that Moore didn’t lie.

Either the limo was pelted with more then one egg or Moore has egg on his face.

Why should anyone trust someone who has repeatedly lie to tell the truth in his latest work of fiction?

“Weer’d–

We’re still waiting for you to say something worthwhile.”

I’ve said all I need to say. I’ve pointed out that Moore is a documented liar, and said that even if I dug up the references for you to read you’d ignore them.

BobS, being the glutton for punishment DID dig some of them up, and you proved me right.

Now you’re playing moral relativist with O’Reilly who is a Man I certainly won’t defend.

and you complain about the references “nit picking” (while you ignore the blatant lies), and then attack the weakest points.

Was it one egg, or several? Who cares, but you won’t comment how he spliced together an interview with a US soldier complaining about the Pain Meds he received at the VA Hospital where Moore was never present, with a voice over of Moore asking about President Bush, making the appearance that Moore was interviewing the Soldier, and the soldier expressing displeasure with the President. The guy actually lives near me, he sued Moore and was awarded damages.

Or how about how Moore cut together two separate Charlton Heston Speeches (with inter-cuts of stock footage of protesters, so the audience is less likely to notice that Chuck’s shirt and tie change, as well as the curtain behind him) to make the NRA sound callous and bloodthirsty about Columbine.

The list goes on (if you care to read it) and you simply talk about eggs, and O’Reilly!

I mean seriously, you look absolutely unhinged.

I guess the reason we’re talking about eggs is the same reason we talked about typewriters before Dan Rather got kicked out of the media for telling the truth about Bush’s favored status concerning his National Guard defection.

The only thing to know about the sad Bush inauguration was that the entire media neglected to show us what really happened. We watched stunned as Moore showed us what happened for the first time. Contrast that awful day with the inauguration walk of Obama and Michelle.

Richard,

You are changing the terms you use and it isn’t going to work.

You stated

People now routinely bring assault rifles

Using your own source we see this definition of Assault Rifle

An assault rifle is a rifle designed for combat, with selective fire (capable of shooting in both fully automatic and semi automatic modes)

Your link took a person to the page for “Assault Weapons”, which is close but not the same thing as an Assault RIFLE.

Either you are lying , sloppy in your wording/linking or deliberately trying to confuse the issue.

Which is it?

Larry,

Could you help me out and tell me why so many people on your side of the political aisle have trouble with reality?

Dan Rather didn’t get kicked out for

telling the truth about Bush’s favored status concerning his National Guard defection.

.

Dan Rather was fired because it knowingly used forged documents.

The only thing to know about the sad Bush inauguration was that the entire media neglected to show us what really happened.

Again with the different reality!

Richard and I linked to several reports describing what happened that day….how did the media not report it?

Richard,

You are failing logic here….Cliff would be so ashamed – NOT.

An assault rifle is an assault weapon but not all assault weapons are assault rifles.

The protester did not bring an Assault Rifle to the location near President Obama’s town hall meeting.

He took a semi-automatic only making it an assault weapon.

Under the law there is a very distinct difference between the two…as you should know from that tedious discussion we had a while back.

So, again you are either lying deliberately, sloppy or trying to deceive folks…which is it?

Richard,

You sound like Whoopi Goldberg defending Polanski “It wasn’t rape rape”.

Either a weapon is capable of select fire or it isn’t. That is a legal and important distinction.

We’ve covered the meaning of the Second Amendment in the past…I see you are bringing it up again as a change of subject.

1.) Just because the Amendment lists A reason for existence doesn’t mean that it is the ONLY reason.

2.) Please explain how a militia –An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers — can be comprised of ordinary citizens when they aren’t allowed to own their own weapons?

Isn’t the militia expected to provide their own weapons?

Richard,

The federal government isn’t supposed to “allow” anything, it is prohibited from interfering with. Major difference.

Not all militias were state militias. Some were local city/town militias, some were private militias, some were armed with up to and including cannons.

The 2nd amendment protected all of them, not just the state militias.

Today’s equivalent isn’t the National Guard it is still the militia. The Organized portion of the militia is the National Guard, but the unorganized portion is still the average armed citizen.

You want to nit-pick my choice of words, go ahead. Assault weapon, assault rifle, assault weapon that’s a rifle but not an “assault rifle…”

If it is just a nit-pick then you won’t mind repealing all the laws that make it nearly impossible for the average citizen to afford an “assault rifle”, eh?

After all, if the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to form a militia, then the average citizen should be able to afford weapons similar to what the Army and the National Guard uses, right?

As far as President Obama, good on him. I was against the wrongful arrests under Bush when they were wrong and said so then.

The federal government isn’t supposed to “allow” anything, it is prohibited from interfering with. Major difference.

Sorry, Bob, but you are out on a flimsy limb here. One need only point out the general welfare provision in the constitution to show the federal government does, indeed, “allow” things. A quick pass through the document indicates many similar cases as well.

Richard,

If the definition is inventive, give credit to the federal government.

Title 10, Subtitle A Part 1 Chapter 311

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Article 1 Section 8

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

While the U.S. doesn’t currently issue letters, there is nothing in the Constitution stopping the government from doing that.

Richard,

Sorry but the government doesn’t have the power to disarm militias or private armies.

Please provide evidence to the contrary.

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

The government can army militias, but private property is private property.

You saying that the government has the power to disarm is the equivalent of saying the government has the power to shut down printing presses ala the 1st amendment.

Richard,

Thanks for proving my point. What were the charges against Koresh?

Was he charged with illegally forming a militia?

Nope.

Besides allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct, Koresh and his followers were accused of stockpiling illegal weapons. Authorities investigated these charges and obtained a warrant to search Koresh’s compound. Former Davidian Marc Breault claimed that Koresh had “…M16 lower receiver parts” (when the receiver is modified and these parts are added to an AR15 rifle it becomes a fully automatic weapon and is subject to the National Firearms Act and its $200 tax in the United States).[15]

Nice of you to try to tug on the heart strings with a graphic picture and description…standard liberal technique?

But the facts are that Koresh was guilty of not paying the taxes on automatic firearms and not registering them as required by the NFA.

It has nothing to do with the militia that we’ve been talking about.

No.

People have rights to firearms, but firearms don’t have rights.

Next silly question

Next silly question to Bob:

Are corporations persons?

Larry

corporation n. an organization formed with state governmental approval to act as an artificial person to carry on business (or other activities), which can sue or be sued, and (unless it is non-profit) can issue shares of stock to raise funds with which to start a business or increase its capital

Legally, a corporation is an artificial person.

I’ll echo Weer’d. Why the questions?

OK the question about the gun was dumb, but corporate personhood is a big problem. When it serves them, they like to claim they have civil rights, but when something doesn’t serve them, they claim the opposite and usually win. Add that to the fact that corporations can live much longer the a person .

What would I propose? I guess a Supreme Court that wasn’t packed with corporate shills after selecting their own president. Now they’re poised to remove all stops on corporate money in elections.

Well Weer’d, that makes you and Ari Fleischer the only two people left in the country who don’t know the election was stolen. Put away the tin foil hats, this is the lowest lying fruit around. I’m worried about you owning a gun if you cant’ figure this one out.

Illegitimate Bush put two hacks into the supreme court on top of the hacks that were already there and they are going to allow unlimited money from corporations into our elections; mark my words.

Why did you do that Larry? The anti capitalist thing to have done would be to download the movie off the web and watch it for nothing. What could Moore say without being a hypocrite.

It would be nice to see him give all the profit from the movie to some charity in the spirit of his anti-capitalist sentiments.

So what is a movie now Larry? 9 bucks?

You do understand Larry that the destruction of America’s ability to survive has been enacted in policy by both parties representing the American public? Remember when outsourcing was a good thing, and promised to bring a higher living standard and better jobs for Americans? That was the Lyon mantra as the empty headed idiot Tom Friedman wrote books on how marvelous it would all be. Long before Bush, in the Clinton days as NAFTA passed and Ross Perot’s “sucking sound” began to whirl and wisp across the country.

To conslude that more government regulation is desirable, one has to first conclude that government is not corrupt, self serving and incompetent. One must conclude that government acts in the public interest, is free of corruption and is capable of figuring out what is right. Based on Moore’s well documented and accurate facts, I am not ready to come to that conclusion.

Jay Wurlitzer said:

Why did you [spend money to see the movie] Larry? The anti capitalist thing to have done would be to download the movie off the web and watch it for nothing. What could Moore say without being a hypocrite.

Funny you should use that angle. I guess you didn’t know that Moore actually DID allow people to download his last movie for free on the same day it came out. Did you miss “Slacker Uprising” Of course you did, and you haven’t seen any of Moore’s previous films and you won’t see this one either because you’re afraid your friends might get mad. It was a damn good movie about modern day elections in America!

Would you ever expect ANY republican to give something for free, including their worthless time to help save their own country from people who could care less that we produce nothing the world needs.

Brewski said:

I saw the movie last night too. Larry, maybe we were sitting next to each other. I was at the Broadway at the 7:30 showing.

Same theater, but I went to the 9:55 showing. About a third of the the theater was filled. Not bad for a city that disapproves of watching Moore’s films.

I think you mean when they were trying to explain derivatives. Yes, that was funny.

The portion of Carter’s speech which Moore showed was more about the evil of consumerism and the need for a more fulfilling life. What was interesting for me was that this message is one of the most repeated topics of sermons from the minister in the church where I grew up. Carter’s speech was very biblically based and can be directly tied to Jesus’ sermon on the mount.

Carter actually was the one before Reagan who started the deregulation ball rolling. He appointed Paul Volker as head of the Fed. And if I am not mistaken he got started the deregulation of airlines, trucking, S&L’s etc.

He was also a devout Christian Southern white man.

So let me see here, Christian, Southern, white, male, straight, deregulation……hmmmmm. Must be one of those Fox News nutbags.

Brewski:

I’m excited you have seen the film and, believe me, I agree with you that the Democrats have helped immeasurably to exasperate our corporate problems, but COME ON, you saw with your own eyes that Moore was willing to go after both parties; Chris Dodd cannot be happy with this film, but you saw a few Democrats who kicked ass and took names didn’t you?

How many Republicans did that?

So advisers convinced Carter to deregulated some things. He couldn’t have known how far things would go back in the late 70’s could he? He only sold peanuts; not capitalism like Reagan.

I do agree with Bernie Sanders on many things, but not on everything. He is a pretty no-BS guy and seems to have impeccible ethics, which goes a long way with me.

Carter is a lot more than a peanut farmer. Graduate of Annapolis, graduated in the top 10% of his class, did partial nuclear training, was Governor of Georgia, etc.

I believe in the Jesus of the Bible who was quite a revolutionary. He smashed the money changers tables, undid the dietary laws, pointed out that the pius and proud were hypocrites. He made a lot of enemies by challenging the established order of both the Romans and the Jewish leadership. If he is a myth then it is still a pretty good myth.

In general my feeling is that people are better off when people can make decisions for themselves and when people are held accountable for their actions. The left’s drift into paternalism and subsidizing mediocrity has some pretty long run nasty implications.

On the other hand, as I have said many times here, there are well understood principles of “the tragedy of the commons”, “moral hazard”, “agency costs”, “free riders”, etc. These are well understood problems and need to be dealt with intelligently. It is easy to argue that both our regulatary framework and our partial regulatory liberalization of that last 30 years has not dealt with these phenomena well.

For example, if the government is going to guarantee bank deposits, then the government also very reasonably has a role to tell banks what to do with that money. If you are going to remove the controls on what banks can do, then you need to get rid of deposit insurance at the same time. You either need to get rid of both or neither. Not just half of it.

On the other hand, when S&L’s were partially and badly deregulated in the 1980’s, they already were technically insolvent before the deregulation happened. The were insolvent because of awful Fed monetary policy and mindless regulation prior to then. In the 70’s S&L’s were in the position of having billions of mortgages on their books at 5-6%, byt having to fund short term deposits at 18%. A losing business model. There was also at the time no derivative market for them to easily hedge their asset-liability term mismatch.

So the question is not regulation or deregulation. The question is good regulation and good deregulation vs bad regulation and bad deregulation.

Brewski–thank you for your thoughtful remarks. I’ve been waiting some time for someone on your side of the aisle to admit that there is such a thing as “good regulation” and “bad deregulation.” I appreciate that you recognize, as I do, the need for GOOD government more than for big or small government.

I think it needs to be understood that the business vs. government argument need not succumb to the dictates of present circumstance. There are historical examples of evil governments and evil businesses, as well as good versions of the same, sometimes at odds with one another or coexisting peacefully.

When I think of government and business, I think of inherent tendencies. Government (if defined as democratic or representative government, as I think it should be) has the inherent quality of being controllable by the people. Business inherently does not (with notable exceptions). Each has certain powers of governance. Government can be so designed as to not benefit its leaders according to taxation or other revenue-generating efforts. Business ceases to be business if so designed.

It could be said that business is a type of government–a type which is limited in its power precisely because no one would want to live 24/7 under its rule. The bottom line, in this country, no matter what form laws take, will be that the People have power over the Government, and that the Consumer has control over Businesses. But our control over the Government is set and has the potential to be greatly informed–our responsibility lies primarily in voting responsibly. While the government of a selfish and uniformed populace may take such a form, the power of consumers is and has always been subject to the weaknesses of the “circuses and peanuts” phenomenon If we have ever had a model for poor government, it has been expressed by the prevailing business model of any period. This is largely because an institution that is admittedly and unhinderedly motivated by profit will use its governing power to that end.

Purchasing a product from a business is much like electing people who can vote to increase their own pay for this term, or who can legislate an extension of their own term. THAT government would NOT be trustworthy–for many of the same reasons that businesses aren’t. This is why business power should be restricted to their particular processes of producing and servicing, and the business leaders should have political influence only outside of business operations. Buying from a corporation which can donate where it wishes and compensate its owners how they wish is tantamount to voting in another representative as part of purchasing the products you need. Should farming corporations have more political power than the people simply because the people need food? Ridiculous.

As a powerful part of our social interaction network, businesses must be given rules and regulations to conform to. It isn’t coddling for the government to create and enforce such rules. Rather, it is the role of the formal representation of social union to establish rules for social interaction for the protection of the social union it represents. Freedom must, nevertheless, be protected, but it is NOT protected by capitalism.

I recognize that the points I have made are highly debatable. I wish I could lay them out better for you at this time. These are primarily thoughts, which I will have to expand upon at the appropriate time. Criticism is both expected and welcome.

Thanks,
Dwight Sheldon Adams

Larry–

That comment is more of a conceptual argument: in theory, should any corporation have political power based upon the peoples’ dependence upon its product? If we grant individuals or corporations authority over enormous swathes of fertile land, should they be able to wield that land politically either against OR for the people who have been denied access? I don’t believe that they should. Corporations should exist as bodies of production and service, with no political rights beyond those necessary to meet these ends. Farmers are merely stewards of a portion of society’s land, which society needs in order to survive. Generally speaking, private ownership rights should not extend to those resources and means of production which society reasonably deems necessary for its survival–with exceptions, of course. Control of such things should be granted to individuals as long as they control them wisely.

As to Micheal Moore: of course he lies. I agree with his perspectives, generally speaking, but he lies when it serves his aims. How unfortunate.

Dwight Sheldon Adams

Brewski–

You’re absolutely right. I think it’s appalling the way that government operates so much of the time.

But remember that corruption has a source. In a nation where terms are limited and power is disseminated rather broadly, what is the source of corruption? You answer that one.

Corruption can be defined as heedlessly seeking self-benefit and power. Where does this come from in our government? I’ll answer this one: money. Money, money, money. It’s so ironic the way that this nation’s corporate shills point out the failure of government–failures that they created to empower themselves. They criticize lobbying, but they’re the most powerful lobbyists, by and large. They talk about government ethics and politicians’ lust for campaign contributions, but where does that money come from?

I see business and government as very different in terms of corruption. They’re both susceptible to it, of course. But lobbying gifts and campaign contributions are reparable problems. Getting rid of them is in many ways like taking the last remaining remnants of the profit-motive out of government. Take the similar tendencies (the sources of corruption) out of a business and it’s no longer a business.

Of course, more must be done. Subsidies have to be limited and purposeful as well, or congressmen and women might subsidize to their own benefit. Most of them, after all, have professions outside of their representative role. But these are all solvable problems. We the People can work towards a certain design for government. Business, on the other hand, is considerably harder to control.

Businesses exist as the purveyor of a product, not as an ethical or societal body. The peoples’ relationship to businesses is that of the consumer, not the citizen–a relationship which carries a lot of weight in a materialistic culture such as ours. As such, the likelihood of the People taking such an interest in the secret acts of business that they deny the beneficial relationship they have with business is low. People are far more noble when they pick up the ballot than when they choose which store to shop at.

Furthermore, the perturbatious intermingling of product exchange within the market is so complex that consumers can’t make intelligent choices, anyway. Standing up to outlaw corporate campaign contributions is easy. Standing up to kill a specific gasoline company–nearly impossible.

It’s the nature of corporations to seek an end to perpetual competition. Monopoly is the only sure end. It may take a long time. But in a sport where a team can absorb the talent and skill of the teams it beats, what makes anyone think that a global corporation won’t result? I’ll tell you:

GOVERNMENT. Government is the people’s will personified–properly formed and performed, it takes the power of social groups and empowers it with data collection and open debate. Government gets better as it moves towards its goal. Business, seeking governing power over the lives of consumers, only gets worse as it nears its apex. We the People should be focusing on improving government and entirely removing corporate control over government. Corporations are the first and foremost source of corruption; its from them that the greatest crises of modern politics stem. Their interests corrupt our politicians and our sense of unity. They walk economically hand-in-hand with conservative religious dogma in dividing the people against each other. They just might conquer, given enough time, especially when so many of the people are relegating their duties as citizens and representatives to them.

We’re all being duped. Read history. Learn about the East India Tea Company. Learn about limits on corporate power and expirations on corporate charters. The conservatives want to tell you that the founding fathers had it right; that they opposed governmental regulation and supported the “free” market. The founding fathers had it more right than they know; they recognized that corporations would be the downfall of this country if they were ever allowed to have permanency.

Dwight Sheldon Adams

Larry,
I agree with Moore on a lot of things, particularly the self dealing and ethical lapses of our elected leaders of both parties. But Moore constantly undermines his own credibility when, as you just mentioned, he doesn’t have to. There is so much to expose that he could just say it honestly without over-reaching, stretching the truth, and lying. But he does.

Moore describes the Citibank memo as being “secret” and distributed to their wealthiest investors. When in fact, the report was a standard analyst report, it was published and widely distributed, and its author was interviewed on CNBC. There was nothing “secret” about it. There was no need to tell that lie. The content of the analyst report was worthy enough without making up the nonsense that it was “secret”.

I have previously outlined how Moore lied regarding GWB’s (then governor of Texas) culpability to the accounting fraud perpetrrated by Enron, and how Moore failed to mention that Clinton was president (you know the SEC and that whole Executive Branch thing), Ken Lay’s contributions to the Clinton campiagn, inauguration and Clinton Library, and Lay’s membership on the Heinz Foundation (as in Teresa Kerry Heinz). All of that was a good story in itself, but it didn’t fit Moore’s thesis so he didn’t want to get facts in the way of a good story.

Larry, I am sorry to be the one to have to tell this to you, but Moore is right on a lot of things, but he does lie too.

http://investments.miraeasset.us/en/ourMarkets/outlookView.do?board_id=1184&group_id=1&pageNo=1

Richard, I guess you now agree that Moore lied.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674234/Citigroup-Oct-16-2005-Plutonomy-Report-Part-1

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674229/Citigroup-Mar-5-2006-Plutonomy-Report-Part-2

You can also download the file from this site.

I think if Citigroup provides its employee, the author of the report, to be interviewed on CNBC to discuss the report, it is offically not a “secret”.

The report was published in 2005. These sorts of reports are sent to thousands of clients of the bank, so it was probably not available on the web until recently. But you have to be a subscriber of the WSJ to read some of their content, or the Economist, or ESPN for that matter. So yes, there is such thing as proprietary analyses which banks give to their clients, but it is only “secret” if “ESPN.com Insider” is secret.

Nevertheless, its pretty interesting reading. The point of this doscussion is not whether there are huge disparities between rich and poor, but what to do about it. Moore advocates a 90% tax rate. Cliff advocates Maoist forced redistribution of wealth and mass murder and genocide for anyone who gets in the way. Neither of those sound very effective.

I was watching CNBC recently when they showed the tape from 2005 when the author of the now famous analysis was on the program being interviwed about it. So no, I did not see it in 2005, but I did see CNBC have a good chuckle over the “secret” memo which was widely discussed in the media.

I can tell you that our potential marginal tax rate is far greater than 35% on some types of income. If a company earns $100 in California, they pay California income tax at the rate of 8.84%. Then they pay US corporate income tax rates of 35%. Then the company pays a dividend and the individual pays a California individual income tax rate of 10.3%. Then the individual pays a US tax rate of 15%.

So far, the marginal tax rate of all of these taxes is 55%. But we are not done.

So then the individual who receives his 45 cents for $1 of income happens to die in 2011 when the estate tax rate will be 55%. So now the combined marginal tax rate is 80%.

So don’t kid yourself that the top tax rate is 35%.

As for the 50’s when the tax rate was 91%. That only affected people who had reported taxable income over $3.3 million per year (in 2009 dollars). So, if you were making $3.2 million per year and you are trying to figure out what to do the choice was easy. Don’t make any more money, don’t make any more taxable money (municipal bonds), invest in real estate or oil wells and shelter your income with depreciation, depletion and other non-cash deductions, or put your money in someplace safe, like Cuba.

I would not call what we have now (35%) as being on the low end of the “extreme” as Richard calls it. In fact according to this chart
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=105
14 OECD countries have lower top marginal tax rates than the US. And that does not include the increase in marginal US tax rates due to the phase out of exemptions and deductions at those top statutory rates.

From that right wing apologist 20%-er Faux News nutbag tea party cabal, the OECD:

The findings of this paper suggest that taxes have an adverse effect on industry-level investment. In particular, corporate taxes reduce investment by increasing the user cost of capital. The long-run user cost elasticity of investment-to-capital ratio is estimated to vary between -0.35 and -1.0 depending on the
empirical specification. This is in line with recent empirical studies (e.g. Hassett and Hubbard, 2002).

The paper finds new evidence that both personal and corporate income taxes have a negative effect on productivity. The results seem to support the hypothesis that there are different channels through which these taxes can affect productivity, measured by total factor productivity (TFP). These results can be
summarised as follows:
• The evidence shows that corporate income taxes reduce TFP and that this effect is more
pronounced in industries that are characterised by high corporate profitability as these taxes are levied on corporate profits.
• High top marginal personal income tax rates are found to impede long-run productivity working through the channel of entrepreneurial activity and this effect is estimated to be stronger the higher the entrepreneurial activity is in an industry.

Cliff, I am not worried about me being a 20% since yoou admitted to being a .00001%-er. I will cheer when the armed peasant mob shows up at your swap meet trinket warehouse and seizes your business in the name of the people and summarily executes you for your bourgeois crimes.

Plutonomy.

Is that a game people play after they already have Boardwalk, Park Place and Marvin Gardens and all their friends are tired of playing?

There’s actually a section in the document called –
How to play Plutonomy – which states that there is a refined way to play Plutonomy and that is to buy shares in the companies that make the toys the Plutonomists enjoy.

It’s all just a game, I guess.

One of the most infuriating parts of Moore’s movie was watching that guy on CNBC saying how great the markets were doing now that we were blowing the hell out of people.

Snap out of it brewski.

I did not make any mistake. I am quite aware what the term marginal tax rate is. I never said the marginal rate was on your total income.

A well designed tax code should:
Be difficult to evade
Be simple to understand to comply with
Be simple to understand to enforce
Should not encourage the flight of capital
Should not discourage socially desirable behavior (work, savings, investing, hiring other people…)
Should discourage socially undesirable behavior (polluting..)

Our tax code fails most of these principles.

Yes it is a problem for us. I have explained this before.

Let’s say Joe Fatcat makes a lot of money. He owns 10 companies all of which are very profitable. Mr. Fatcat is now in the top marginal tax bracket. So Mr. Fatcat is thinking about starting an 11th company to make even more money so he will even be even more stinking rich. He gets out his spreadsheet to calculate his after tax return on this 11th company. If the company’s pre-tax profit is, say, 15%, then with a 40% tax rate (35% Fed, 5% state), his after tax profit is 9%. But let’s say the marginal tax rate on this 11th prorposed company is 90%, then the after-tax profit would be 1.5%.

At 9% he might think that risking is capital to get the business going, all of the time and effort, would be worth it. But at 1.5% he might easily come to the conclusion that a potential 1.5% after tax return is not worth risking his capital as well as the time and effort. So he doesn’t start that 11th business, he doesn’t hire those people, he doesn’t order that equipment and facilities.

So yes, it is our problem.

brewski:

Are you Joe The Plumber? Don’t you want ordinary people to have money to actually spend at your business or do you own one of those companies that make the toys the Plutonomists enjoy?

Are you worried that yacht companies will go under?

In finance, a security whose price is dependent upon or derived from one or more underlying assets. The derivative itself is merely a contract between two or more parties. Its value is determined by the fluctuations of the underlying asset.

I am not sure who you mean by “they”.

You keep going on and on about deregulation and this fiasco, when this fiasco was caused by mortgage lending to people who were risky. This risky lending was the explicit policy of several people, including Bush, Clinton, Barney “ohhh THAT brothel” Frank, Charles “ohhh THAT condo” Rangel and others. It wasn’t underwriting by investment banks which brought down banks. It was mortgage lending by banks which brought down investment banks. So, other than having your story completely backwards, you have a theory that might make a good movie script but has nothing to do with actual events.

You and I know that wages have been flat, but the cost of labor has not been. Over the last 20 years the cost of healthcare, payroll taxes and other benefits have eaten all of what would have otherwise gone to wages.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4577/3079/1600/wages.3.jpg
Again, I am sorry to rain on your storyline with actual evidence.

The prospect of a ten trillion $ pipeline through Afghanistan, a cake-walk war to take out an oily ‘dictator’, and the concurrent debt hidden in off book accounting, would neither push ‘terrorism’ out of the equation nor allow the sane among us to promote any peaceful ideas. We almost had to sacrifice our houses so their agenda could drag all the money to Crawford and and the proverbial ‘Undisclosed-location’.

You have to admire them.

I did a search of all my postings and I didn’t find the phrase “innocent victims” anywhere. You must be quoting someone else.

What I said was, that the bubble was caused by 2 government policies. The first was the explicit easy money policy promoted by the Fed since around 1994 and much more dramatically starting in 2001. The second was the policy to lend money to people who would otherwise not be able to get a loan. Neither of these points is really debatable. These 2 policies caused the bubble, and therefore, the crash.

All of the numerous misdeeds and excesses by banks and investment banks are classic symptoms of a bubble. That is what bubbles look like. They are by definition manias. They were not innocent victims. But they were the sympton of the mania and not the cause.

Larry, I agreed with a lot that Moore had to say, in particular the corruption by both parties and their complicty in the fiasco. What I disagree with him is that somehow a 90% tax rate is a good thing in any stretch of the imagination, among other mythological beliefs of his.

I was a pretty big fan of the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, X, Minutemen, Buzzcocks, etc. The best movies to see from this era are The Decline of Western Civilization, Urgh, and The Unheard Music. It’s what my generation did while all the Boomers were going to Disco classes, wearing yellow ties and becoming bond traders.

The actual data is that Freddie and Fannie along with the Fed caused the bubble. The Fed did through their policy of too easy money.

Fannie and Freddie did through their impact on the housing market as a whole. Fannie and Freddie were able to have a lower cost of funds because of their implicit government guarantee. (Glenden, don’t start with me. Look up the word “implicit”).

With their lower bond yields and higher leverage ratios than regular commerical banks, they could buy conforming mortgages at lower yields than anyone else, and also lower than would have been possible without the subsidy. This subsidy for mortgages from the government, through Fannie and Freddie, fueled, in part, the housing bubble.

The repeal of Glass Steagall had nothing to do with the housing bubble. Glass Steagall was to protect commercial banks from the risks of investment bank underwriting. It was not investment bank underwriting which brought the system down. It was the housing crash which brought the system down and the mortgages which went along with it. So your story is completely backwards and nothing but uneducated lefty talking points.

As you keep demonstrating, your argument is more about hating Bush than any actual understanding of the mortgage market or economics. You can hate Bush all you want, but you can’t change facts to fit your venom.

Again, this is like me arguing about tanks with you.

oops, :

Shrinking it down to the one senator who swung the Glass-Steagall vote or whether it was Fannie or Freddy who began the inflation, goes way too easy on the structural notions that too many of us seem to value, like American exceptionalism and ‘too big to fail’, that seem to OBSCURE a clearer understanding of each of our culpability in this mess is.

Hope that helps

He and his buddies didn’t do too badly in the last round of Wall Street profits before it all came to grief. This recent “revelation” about how terribly no file Geithner is corrupt and thereby a reflection or worse an insinuation by the elites that control any who deign to hold the reigns of power.

Like you said somewhere if you want more of something subsidize it.

the rules imposed by the government in the wake of the Great Depression worked well until Reagan, Bush and the Republicans such as Phil Gramm partially dismantled them.

Worked pretty well? On which planet?

Subsidies for junk food started in 1973.

Remember 15% inflation?

Remember 20% prime rate?

S&L’s which were insolvent before deregulation since they had to pay 18% on deposits and had 6% mortgages still on their books?

Remember state-approved monopolies for trucking, airlines, telephone companies? When a long-distance phone call was so expensive that when Grandma called, you were only allowed to wish her happy birthday before quickly hanging up?

Cheap oil resulting in gas guzzlers, air pollution, subsidized sprawl. That cheap oil fed by the US support of the Shah among other despots.

Subsidized water resulting in water shortages in California while farmers were growing hydrophillic crops like rice, alfalfa and cotton?

Oh yes, and Democrats who supported legal segregation. Democrats who invaded Cuba, and got us into Vietnam.

Democrats who came up with Social Security which is explicitly a Ponzi scheme.

Yes, those were the good ol’ days.

Civil Rights Act of 1964 – Vote totals by Party:

House version:
Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)

The Senate version:
Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%-31%)
Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)

Richard, you continue to ignore history to fit your thesis.

You couldn’t be more wrong:

1. Social Security is a bad deal. You would be far far far better off if you took your 12.4% FICA amount and put it in T-bills than pissing down the Ponzi scheme called Social Security.
(Example: Under very modest assumptions most people would reach age 65 with a nest egg near $1MM if they saved 12.4% per year from age 22 to 65. You would own that $1MM and could do with it as you wish including live on it, pass it to your heirs when you die, give it to charity, etc. Under Social Security if you were to reach 65 and then die you get nothing, your heirs get nothing, too bad. If you don’t die then you get the worst possible performing investment return of your life and would be lucky to ever reach a return of 0%). Also, contributes to a lower savings rate.

2. FDIC creates moral hazard, encourages risk-taking, helped fuel both the S&L crisis and the current fiasco, etc.

3. Anti-trust laws pre-date the New Deal by 30 years. Most monopolies are government sanctioned or government sponsored.

Unemployment insurance is a good idea, although it also contributes to a lower savings rate.

My point is that most of the reforms you have touted as being good have their unintended and undesirable consequences.

The current political system isn’t capable of delivering a pizza.

I wanted to note, in regards to the Civil Rights Act vote, that more Democrats voted for it in sheer numbers, and that a greater percentage of Democrats voted for it in both North and South regions. There were just a LOT of Southern Democrats (due to their general unwillingness to vote Republican), which skew the statistics when you combine opposing ideologies in regards to civil rights.

Dwight Sheldon Adams

I’m getting the sense: With folks like Dwight, and Brewski debating, we’re all going to be much better informed.

Thanks.

Shorter Richard “let’s make damn sure poor people stay poor and become wards of the state so that we Statists get more powerful”

Yes, I don’t really believe that we can just trust every depositor to evaluate the riskiness of each bank. So if we are going to back up every deposit with the full faith and credit of the US Taxpayer (e.g. us) , then I don’t want my bank making any loans to anyone for anything other than for their primary residence, 20% cash down, FICO score over 700, etc. The rest of the borrowing world needs to come from other institutions who do not use taxpayer subsidized funds.

I think we need more stringent and effective government regulation too. Except you mean regulation BY the government and I mean regulation OF the government.

Think of this number: 12.4%

That is how much of your gross “earned income” goes to SS each year. Now think about 12.4% put in for 43 years. Now think of 43 years of compounded earnings. Now think about that if you don’t want it all wiped out in the next stock market crash you can put it all in treasuries or agency bonds if you like.

In that unbelieveably conservative set of assumptions you will retire with at least $1MM when you are 65.

Your dismissing that as “measly” reveals that no matter what the evidence, you prefer a Statist answer to any and all questions.

2 and 3, neither do I.

I have not opined on your 401K plan. I have compared what happens to 12.4% of your pay now vs an alternative system. That is called apples to apples. Comparing the 12.4% of your pay to your measly 401K plan is not apples to apples.

If you want a defined benefit plan, then you could buy an annuity on your 65th birthday with the over $1MM in cash that you have. That annuity would be more than twice what you will ever get from SS.

Also, the way defined benefit plans are supposed to work, is that your employer is supposed to sock enough money away into a humongous fund for your enire working career such that on your retirement they have this huge wad to pay you your defined benefit. This is what the mega funds like Calpers and CalSTARS are.

But the problem with SS is that there is no socking away of anything. There is no humongous wad waiting for you. That is where the Pozi part comes in. The only thing have is the vague promise that the government will pay you when you retire. And the government is allowed to change its mind, as are voters unyet born.

So I would rather have a huge wad with mine name on it either managed by me or managed by Calpers than no wad at all. SS is the no wad model, which is why it is called a Ponzi scheme.

Before anybody demeans the argument by irrelevantly dismissing the Marie Antoinette quotation by pointing out that she didn’t actually say it–SHE DIDN’T ACTUALLY SAY IT. That’s not the point. Consider what the quotation is attempting to say about the ignorance (or worse–willful nonchalance) of the ultra-wealthy. Thanks.

Dwight Sheldon Adams

Haha, Geroge Bush inadvertantly, well maybe not, points out the generational scam nature of SSI in America. Who is going to buy them now?

It is no vague promise, the money is gone every pay period out of the working mans check, and it doesn’t go into a lock box to saved for the purpose it was intended. Those IOU”s are about to be paid back with chump change devalued money. Maybe Bush wasn’t stupid for saying what he did. Just brazen.

How exactly does the SS administration “tap the extra funds”? Those extra funds are treasury bonds which need to be redeemed by the US Treasury. Where is the US Treasury going to get the funds needed to redeem those bonds? Raise taxes or cut benefits. Oops.

Richard, if you think it was a bad idea for Bush to spend $928 billion without paying for it, why are you arguing it is a good idea to spend $107 Trillion without paying for it? Do you wake up every morning and say to yourself “how can I best contradict myself today?”

Read this and cry:
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba662

Yes Brewski and SSI is just money in the “general fund” spent as soon as it comes in, or I should say is paid to some bankers in the form of debt service.

Cliff; Obama is a complete screw up. Obama and his congress is now in the position of funding not just two, but 3 overseas wars and looking like just about to escalate Afghanistan. Still shilling for the Obama clown show? How? In any case the party is over in 2010, and it is going to be a drubbing for Democrats.

Let’s just admit it, Obama is his own problem by now. The stimulus “saved” 650,000 jobs? At 1.2 million dollars each, and people think Bush is stupid. I think they must have been bank teller jobs as I certainly see no other area where jobs aren’t hemorrhaging away.

Obama’s task now is to figure out how not get “Jimmy Cratered” before next election though he is not even a year into this term. Term, more like a sentence.

That being easy to figure out, Obama is a weak leader and no doubt the Taliban will be taking full advantage of it. At home joblessness and no job creation with the “African Prince” at the helm is starting to have all the elements of a Haitian refugee voyage, complete with decaying vessel, and a skipper that takes no responsibility, but on the flip side, sure knows how to channel other people’s money to his friends on Wall Street and the banking world.

Swell. I mean in this rickity boat, watch out for that ground swell Democrats, we know Cap’n O Crunch isn’t paying attention.

107 trillion in unfunded liability. Look around everyone, near half the nation is going to be over 60 in a very few years. No net gains, nothing but debt, continued outsourcing of industry, and insecurity on a host of fronts.

It would be too trite to talk to befuddled progressives over what is happening and take advantage of how pathetic their support of the Democrat party is after they caving to Bush both terms, and now this spendathon, coupled with zero foreign policy experience. Oh yeah, it can get worse, under the ideology of those in charge, it can get worse.

COLA’s are gone, you will be paid in chump change inflated fiat money Richard. If there were any money in the system what is the deficit about? Why would you run one if you had all that money? Could the reason be that there ISN’T ANY?

All based on revenue projections that are a little hard to keep while your workforce is underemployed and aging, coming into more benefits. The point where 2 workers support 1 SSI recipient is upon us. The generation below boomers is 32 million, boomers 80 million.

If you is some crazed way believe that the constant colossal screw up that is the US Federal government is competent to trust in these figures on SSI, why are you constantly pointing out the blatant incompetency of it for years on end? Seems a bit contradictory. It seems more of a whistling past the graveyard approach to the impending fiscal train wreck that is dead ahead.

Is there no cash for this clunker? Time to put ads on here, if you have any readers, maybe upgrade.

Pat–

By the same token, if customers are significantly overcharged during an economic downturn in relation to their income (or if their income doesn’t grow at the same rate as their company’s income), shouldn’t the company owe the purchasing consumer and the employee?

I think that the risk element of investments is the last of our concerns. Investment is a risk. Period. And while purchasing and laboring are risks as well (in that your employer could go out of business), they should be shored up against risk with IOUs long before investments should.

But you’re absolutely right, with the understanding that the bailout wasn’t just to help the banks and depositors, but also to avoid a cascade of business failures as a result of bank failures that would result in even higher unemployment than we have now. Personally, supposing we were going to engage in bailouts, I think we should have bailed-out the debtors and mortgage holders, not the banks. Then people would get their house and the bank would still get the money. Two birds with one stone, you know. As it is, the people have been left holding the bag in every way possible, while the banks are still securely profiting off of their debtors, right after having their butt saved by the government.

The people should come first. Always. And if that means no bailout, fine. If that means a bailout of the people, fine. Handing the people’s money to the very groups who the people owe the most money to when those groups fail is ridiculous.

–Dwight