News, Research & Insights for American Homeowners, Patriots & Constitutional Conservatives
"forgetting their duty of loyalty to the taxpayers"
Regular readers will recall our previous coverage of the ongoing saga of the Goldwater Institute and the investigative work they’ve done regarding public worker unions abusing taxpayers in Arizona. Whether it’s paying union officials full time salaries on the taxpayer time while doing no work for the public or trying to fire one of their [...]
Brilliant.
Just days before the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson that forever changed her life, Rep. Gabby Giffords introduced legislation to cut the salaries of members of Congress by five percent. Now, as the 12 members of the Super Committee struggle to adequately reduce the nation’s borrowing to avoid the sequestration triggers, her staffers have made [...]
The "corporations are people, my friend" line was quite the momement. But as bad as it sounded, Mitt had a theoretical point. People (as well as other corporations) own corporations and people work for corporations. The problem isn't that there aren't people at the end of the line behind corporations. The problem is that it's a minority of (primarily wealthier)people.
According to the Federal Reserve's 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances, only 17.9% of families held stocks, 11.4% hold mutual funds, and 52.6% hold retirement accounts that likely hold a lot of stocks and mutual fund assets.
I haven't been able to find data on the percentage of people employed by corporations, but it's assuredly large. That said, it's hard to imagine that corporate tax breaks would generally result in higher salaries for most employees rather than higher dividends for shareholders. The competition to attract capital is likely fiercer than the competition to attract labor (and certainly for semi-skilled or unskilled labor), which would mean that corporate tax breaks would benefit shareholders (a minority of people) and highly skilled labor (again a minority that probably doesn't need a lot of help). So maybe a more accurate phrase for Mitt is "corporations are wealthy people, my friend".
A colleague shared with me a term, “outrage fatigue”. She commented that she was just tired of being outraged by the all the outrages that are occurring across this country.
There is so much wrong with this agreement. Read carefully the “allegations” of wrongdoing recited in the settlement agreement. Print it out and calculate just how much each line item “allegation” has cost the tens of Floridians that are impacted by Fraudclosuregate.
No questions, the fix is in. Stay tuned and watch closely as your rights are gutted and more ground is lost. There truly are two sets of laws….one for the common man and another set for those who are so far above it all.
Where is the outrage? Where are the judges and the prosecutors and the people? Our courts and our judges have been “operationally” bankrupted by the catastrophe that is Fraudclosuregate….staff cut, salaries cut, lights turned off. Meanwhile the beneficiaries of all the wrongdoing moonwalk away.
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While courts, judges and their staff suffer through mountains of foreclosure proceedings and while court budgets and salaries are cut to the bone, Florida’s Very Own Foreclosure Baron is living quite well, very, very well, thank you very much. Really, thank each and every one of you, very, very much.
And while our courts and all of us suffer monstrously trying to unravel the mess that’s been created, take a moment for an inside peek into how the other side of the foreclosure mess lives.
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I’ve always been puzzled by the lack of action and reaction of the public to the mortgage crisis. As I write this, it gets worse, more people lose their homes, more homes are beset by adversary relations between family members, more alcohol abuse, more spousal abuse, more child abuse, more anxiety, depression, divorce and grief. This was all done TO the people not BY the people. Tens of millions of people did not wake up one morning in 2001 with a plan to obtain fraudulent mortgages, with fraudulent appraisals, based upon non-existent income.
In the article below, you see how people can get things rolling by forgetting the ideology and getting with the program: this could not have happened without Wall Street running wild, without incentives to create bad mortgages, and without the tacit or express complicity of the federal Reserve and other U.S. agencies. How about letting them know you don’t like it? The Constitution allows for freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Don’t let the oppressive tactics of the opposition stop you from using your constitutional rights.
By the way, this one led to immediate results. Read the article and then go to the follow-up at Resignations, Investigations and Salary Cuts of 90%
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A boisterous crowd of more than 200 gathered at the corner of Gage and Corona avenues. Several were wearing T-shirts featuring a city seal and the words “My city is more corrupt than your city.”
Their first stop: Oscar’s Korner Market and Carniceria, owned by the mayor, Oscar Hernandez. They then moved on to the mayor’s house, near Florence Avenue, then to a home on Otis Avenue owned by City Councilman George Mirabal.
At the stops, protesters maintained a moment of silence and then shouted “Fuera!” — “Out!” Dozens of cars honked as they passed and offered thumbs-up, though one man stopped, defended the city officials and challenged a protester physically.
“I don’t think they are taking it seriously. And we’re serious,” said Nestor Valencia, 45, an organizer of the demonstration, a Bell resident since 1975 and a founder of the Bell Resident Club. “They need to resign.”
Bell is a working-class city of 40,000 residents. The Times revealed earlier this month that City Manager Robert Rizzo received a $787,637 annual salary, Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia received $457,000, and Police Chief Randy Adams received $376,288. Rizzo earned more than President Obama, Spaccia earned more than the top administrator for Los Angeles County, and Adams earned 50% more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck.
All three resigned on Friday.
Four City Council members are paid close to $100,000 annually for their part-time positions — sums that are far higher than in other cities of comparable size and which have baffled and upset the League of California Cities and other local government organizations.
“This is a test for our community,” Valencia said. “There’s been a fiasco here.”
Hernandez, in particular, Valencia argued, represented “a culture that is not our culture.”
“It is a culture of rule-breaking,” Valencia said. “It is a culture of nepotism. … He thinks he can do anything because he is the mayor.”
Hernandez could not be reached for comment.
[Updated at 12:48 p.m.: Bell police have estimated the crowd at between 200 and 300.
Demonstrators have visited the residences or businesses of the mayor, the vice mayor and two City Council members -- all of whom they want to resign.
The crowd also stopped at a Chevrolet dealership, long a fixture on Atlantic Avenue, that shut its doors weeks ago, citing burdensome property taxes. Demonstrators are now approaching City Hall, their final stop.
"This city has woken up," said Jesus Casas, 35, a Bell resident for 15 years. "We want a new city government that will represent by the people and for the people."]
” Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair, citing “eye-popping” salaries at U.S. banks, joined House Democrats and the New York attorney general in seeking tougher compensation standards for lenders.”
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