Super-Rich in America Cheat The Nation: Refuse to Pay Their Share of Taxes

Anyway here is an item dealing with how the richest Americans manage to avoid paying their share of taxes. So much for economic fairness and equality. The rich in America believe that they are entitled to keep their wealth without any responsibility to the rest of society. While everyone else in society is expected to pay their fair share of taxes.

From Real News Network
Super-Rich Cheats

July 25, 2008
http://newsproject.org

They hide about $100 billion a year from the IRS, but the Senate is cracking down on super-rich tax cheats -- people like Peter Lowy (son of Australia's second richest man) and toy importer Steven Greenfield.



Meanwhile as Congress & the US Senate bail out the super-Rich, the Banks etc. the rest of the American citizenry must fend for themselves. It is odd how the Republicans and Neocons tell us how important risk takin is and having unfettered capitalism and healthy competition in the Market Place yet they insist on helping out those banks and corporations whose risk-taking did not pay-off. So much for unfettered capitalism and deregulation . These banks, lending institutions & corporations need not worry when they make risky or bad investments because eventually the government will underwrite their loses .
t r u t h o u t 07.28

Dean Baker Time to Address Foreclosures
http://www.truthout.org/article/after-housing-bill-time-address-foreclosures

Truthout contributor Dean Baker writes: "Last week Congress finally passed its long-debated housing bill. In addition to securing the multimillion-dollar salaries of the top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and protecting their shareholders from facing the full consequences of their bad stock picks, the bill also provided funds for guaranteeing new mortgages for homeowners facing foreclosure. The bill allows lenders to bring failing mortgages to the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), which will guarantee a new mortgage at 85 percent of the current appraised value of the home. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that lenders will bring 400,000 mortgages to the FHA over the next three years. CBO expects that 140,000 of these mortgages will go into foreclosure a second time, leaving a net of 260,000 homeowners who will hang onto their homes as a result of this program. By contrast, there are likely to be 2.5 million to 3 million foreclosures in both 2008 and 2009. This means that the housing bill will likely help less than five percent of the families facing foreclosure over the next two years, leaving 95 percent of this group out of luck."

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From Information Clearing House Thar She Blows:The Last Hurrah for the Banking System By Mike Whitney

28/07/08 "ICH" --- The Bush administration will be mailing out another batch of "stimulus" checks in the very near future. There's no way around it. The Fed is in a pickle and can't lower interest rates for fear that food and energy prices will shoot to stratosphere. At the same time, the economy is shrinking faster than anyone thought possible with no sign of a rebound. That leaves stimulus checks as the only way to "prime the pump" and keep consumer spending chugging along. Otherwise business activity will slow to a crawl and the economy will tank. There's no other choice.
The daily barrage of bad news is really starting to get on people's nerves. Most of the TV chatterboxes have already cut-out the cheery stock market predictions and no one is praising the "impressive powers of the free market" anymore. They know things are bad, real bad. A pervasive sense of gloom has crept into the television studios just like it has into the stock exchanges and the luxury penthouses on Manhattan's West End. That same sense of foreboding is creeping like a noxious cloud to every town and city across the country. Everyone is cutting back on non-essentials and trimming the fat from the family budget. The days of extravagant impulse-spending at the mall are over. So are the "big ticket" purchases and the "go-for-broke" trips to Europe. Consumer confidence is at historic lows, disposal income is a thing of the past, and all the credit cards are at their limit. The country is drowning in red ink.

Something has gone terribly wrong with the economy, but no one knows what it is? In the last three months bank credit has shrunk faster than any time since 1948. The banks aren't lending and people aren't borrowing; that's a lethal combo. When credit-creation slows, the economy falters, unemployment rises and the misery index soars. That's why Bush will have to mail out more stimulus checks whether he wants to or not; his back is against the wall. He'll try to make it look like the economy is still breathing on its own and just needs a spell on the respirator before resuming its normal activities. But Bush is wrong; we've reached Peak credit and the blood-transfusions won't work anymore. The vital signs have shut down and rigamortis is already setting in. Our goose is cooked.

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Let the poor the old and disabled freeze who cares- It will decrease the excee population and weed out the weak- Republicans think like Nazis
Meanwhile Republicans want to do even less to help out the poor and the working poor

from Senate Republicans Block Heating Aid Bill/Saturday 26 July 2008/by: Matt Yancey, The Associated Press

Washington - Republicans on Saturday blocked the Senate from considering a bill next week that would nearly double federal aid to help the poor pay heating and air-conditioning bills.

Although a dozen Senate Republicans support the measure, most voted with GOP leaders who would rather spend the time trumpeting their call to expand offshore oil drilling before Congress takes six weeks off for vacation and the presidential nominating conventions.

"The American resources on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts contain 14 billion barrels at a minimum ... more than we have imported from the Persian Gulf in the last 15 years," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

Democrats needed 60 votes to substitute the measure on heating and air-conditioning aid in place of the debate on an expansion of offshore drilling championed by President Bush and GOP presidential candidate John McCain. They got 50 votes Saturday, with 35 Republicans voting against changing the topic.

"Do we vote to keep the old, the sick and kids alive when the weather gets cold or very, very hot, or do we spend money on people who make huge campaign contributions? That is part of what this debate is about," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont

and so it goes,
GORD.