Oh it's legal-- but is it ethical? Presidential?

How can Americans seriously think about electing a man who has benefited and wants to be president to benefit even further from unethical tax laws? Seriously, this is okay?

Romney may have paid no taxes in 2009

Pretty much, this is what we figured when he didn't want to declare his returns. And then when he set it up for just the last two years. This man is just as unethical as Newt Gingrich but just a lot slicker and playing on a much higher playing field.

He comes down on Gingrich for working for Freddie and Fannie. Oh that's true. Gingrich did. He's small potatoes though from Romney who benefited from it all and now smirks over it. These men created these laws to supposedly help Americans with jobs while men like Romney underpay their maids and start up companies that enable them to pay everybody minimum wage when before they might've owned the companies or worked for living wages.

Really? How dumb are Americans?

The guys behind Romney are like him, and they want not only these laws continued but increased because the small amount they do pay in taxes, it's still too much for them. Their pure desire is to see the poor suffer while they bask in wealth most people couldn't imagine, wealth they made through manipulations. Seriously, this is the best the Republicans can do?

What is happening to our country, to the working people should be enough to make Americans cry as big companies take over small ones and fire the employees, bringing in new people they can pay less or sending the jobs overseas.

Daniels talks about all the jobs Apple created. Yeah, impressive. 60,000 or so in the USA and overseas-- 400,000. Yes, it's legal. But ethical? And really one of them should be president of this country?

How Bain and its ilk make their money

For anyone interested in learning more about how private equity companies like Bain have been operating, read this article. Americans need to understand this because it's a factor in what's been going on. How do you fix things if you don't know why they are happening?

from The New Yorker

Don't you think it's interesting how these guys manage to blame government for all our problems while they are raking it in hand over fist by methods they have managed to make legal. Americans stay dumb and ready for the shearing until they start getting an education. We can thank Romney for at least one thing-- Americans might just be waking up. We can hope.

Something from Farm Boss about what we face in this country.

**************

The link is from Google news, referencing an Obama question to Steve Jobs. The answer is eye opening. For consumer electronics and other items where manual assembly or fast changing product mixes are needed... the jobs will go to the factory warehouses. Nothing is new there.  It is a reality for the time being.

This describes the industrial problem completely.. warehouses of trained, low cost, 'happy slaves'. We(Americans) should be very worried or glad to be maids and care takers, because the war is over..America just does not know it at the 'workingman level'   For 10,000 units a day and change every 6 weeks products..consumer phones, cameras, etc..China, Korea and Thailand have it ALL

 The only hope is small distributed local design and manufacturing.

 

How the US lost out on the iPhone work

It is not totally different from a GM plant in the Brazilian jungle , with a government built port to export autos and auto parts, with the workers happy to have a "sponsored" apartments to live in.. vs no jobs, or mill towns and company stores in the American south or pacific northwest.

Here's the thing-- the only thing Romney knows how to build for jobs is this way where it's all about investments for the richer among us. How do his solutions fix your jobs?

Two interesting choices for Republicans

Well this will be an interesting challenge for Republican voters to sort out. Do they want a creepy guy who cheats with women which is clearly Gingrich whose ex-wife is evidently about to blow the lid off how he treated her.

Newt's ex-wife unloads 

Or do they want a creepy guy who manipulates their finances to enrich themselves regardless of whether it has basically taken tax revenues from the US government?

Romney parks millions in tax havens

So it comes down to a choice between creep who screws women or screws the rest of us again! Good luck Republican voters with that choice. And I use the word creep because of all the rest of the things these guys say-- as in anything to win over those voters.

Listening to a Republican debate is to be more shocked at the people in their audiences and what they will cheer than it even is the candidates. All I want to know is how big a percentage is that kind of thinking? A clue is Mark Levin, a major creep who will say anything to get listeners and book buyers, has his book at the top of the charts for sales. Of course, some of that is manipulated by give aways but still the question always arises-- who are these people who buy into that thinking? And what kind of country do they want this to be? I am afraid of the answer...

Andrew Sullivan on Obama's 'real' record

If you are a rightie who hates Obama or a leftie who hates Obama, either way (and both extremes do), please read this link of a defense by Andrew Sullivan with which I agree. And if you read it and don't like it, put out some facts here as to where it's wrong. Bait and switch gets us nowhere. Looking at the facts regarding Sullivan's claims-- which are wrong?

Andrew Sullivan on Obama's 'real' record

president for the 0.001%

This speaks for itself and is soooooo typical of right wing chicken hawks. What did the average Republican do to leave themselves with this as their best option to be president. Just think where he'll take us if he gets power...

president to the 0.001%

Capitalism

The Republican guys running for the nomination and trying to point out how what Romney did hurt working class Americans, are being pummeled by the wealthy. The last thing corporate heads want is for people to analyze what capitalism is or what it does, whether our version of it currently works for average Americans; and most especially whether there are areas within it where it's good and areas where government needs to step in with regulations. Those at the top of the food chain do not want these questions even explored by Republican voters. Hence a backlash that supports Mitt Romney and what he did with his Boston Consulting Firm and Bain Capital.

Perry gets a backlash that costs him support

Basically capitalism is a word many don't understand its full meaning, but they want it because it sounds good. It fits right in with Christianity and patriotism as a word that evokes visceral responses from some people.

Capitalism is what came after feudalism and seemed to offer ordinary people a chance to gain money and power. The fact that there are different types of capitalism or that it could be misused under that name, well it's something righties, who want simple answers, simply won't delve into. One thing about the right wing is that most of them simply don't want gray areas or to understand something can be good one place and bad another (and yes I know, not all but enough of a faction in that party to impact their political choices).

At one time in this country there were laws to break up monopolies. Monopolies were seen as bad because they eliminated competition, pushed out the small guy, and eventually led to higher prices. But the rich never have enough money and they have done what they can to consolidate their power by blocking any attempt to stop monopolies-- and there are many ways to get a monopoly. Any attack on monopolies is hence an attack on capitalism, Christianity, and country-- the three Cs.

So we have Romney who used a form of capitalism to take over companies, consolidate then and then fire workers, he's now acting as though this is the free enterprise system. Free for who?

He brags much about his putting together Staples which allows people to buy all their office supplies and computers, etc. in one place. He says that the jobs  Staples has means that he created that many jobs. Okay how about all the small stores and suppliers that went out of business as a result of Staples? What about the employees they had? Romney won't be talking about those.

Even on the level of big stores, I remember where there was Office Depot and Office Max. Office Depot is gone in the city nearest me. Office Max is still around but looking iffy for the future. So if Staples outsells them, can have more products (often with sweetheart contracts), and it wins the marketing game, the jobs that were lost don't count?

I understand free enterprise and competition, but what Romney was able to do with taking over companies without the money to actually buy them, basically on credit. Often these were hostile take-overs. Then gutting them, ending jobs, so he could create new companies maybe with less employees, and often at lower wages. These takeovers aren't about free enterprise. They are about the big fish swallowing the small one by manipulation and trickery. It's often crony capitalism which Romney was in a prime position to exploit with a powerful father both from the political and the corporate world.

Romney didn't get his positions as CEOs like even Herman Cain got his. Romney was on the inside as a crony from the start and frankly it doesn't hurt to also be a Mormon as that religions knows about business.

It's amazing to hear him say he worried about a pink slip. The guy doesn't have a clue what that is about. The closest he has come to it has to be from those he knew who got one (assuming he ever knew anybody who did). I've heard Sununu supporting him claiming the last guy hired always worries about being fired. Frankly one of the worst things Romney did is bring us back hacks like Sununu, who is doubtless hoping for a government position if Romney wins. All I can say to that is ugh!

Capitalism means private ownership of the means of product, creation of goods or services for profit, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange, and wage labor.  Those who say Obama has tried to end it haven't paid attention to anything. GM and Chrysler are still US corporations, making cars, privately owned, and would not be if Romney had been president according to Romney's own words. How would that profit us as a people exactly?

from the debates

I hope Republicans are paying attention to these debates and the things Romney is saying. Two biggies were when he said only those already well off should run for political office. Isn't it amazing that he is going back to the argument before the Constitution was written that the country should be run by the well off and many thought only landowners should be permitted to vote.

Newt Gingrich nailed Romney

Then there was what he said to Hunstman about the wrongness of him being Ambassador to China under Obama. Hunstman came back with that was how the country is being divided into partisan camps. It's more than that. Romney is declaring you should put the good of your party before your country. Is he thinking at all about what that means?

Huntsman fires back at Romney

Really this is who Republicans want for their president a man who changes his mind according to political convenience, who panders to get votes as he did when he favored Mississippi's Personhood bill before the people in that state had the good sense to reject it, who thinks only the well-off should run for office, and anybody who isn't would evidently cheat, and finally that it matters most what benefits your party-- not what is good for the country. Seriously, this guy??? I am totally amazed he has gotten to the top of the pile.

I really hope Republican voters get their act together and figure out that they need somebody else to jump into this contest. The only one currently who could possibly do a good job as president appears to be Huntsman and he doesn't have charisma, limited or no political savvy (seriously answer a question in Mandarin to appeal to the righties??), won't say nasty things about Democrats and Obama; and so forget him, even though his record is genuinely conservative (which means I wouldn't like him either but at least he doesn't come across as disgusting as Romney).

Two questions for Romney

Right now it seems the right wing candidates are all about subterfuge. They'll say what the voters want (well not Santorum or Paul who I think both really do say what they believe and that's good or bad depending on how you feel about what they believe) and say it in such a way that it won't have to impact what they do once in office.

Where it comes to Mitt Romney he keeps telling Americans he will bring them jobs but never how he'll do it just he knows how and the proof is he's a rich man and ran a big corporation that did something about jobs (more on that later).

Romney's success also came from his advantage in coming from a wealthy family which always helps with networking. What are the ideas he suggests that really would get jobs for average Americans that would stop the bleeding of jobs overseas?  Or would he do anything about regulating the kind of corporations that were part of getting us into the fix we are? When someone makes all their money out of managing money, it can make a lot of dollars for investors but what does it do for jobs?

It's evident that Romney will say anything to get elected including lie-- Romney on Boeing and the truth of it.   There are, however two major points on which he doesn't say much if anything.

First one is how will his religion impact his decisions as a president?

We have gone through this before with Roman Catholics (although not Mormons). 
The first time we had a Catholic run, it was a big deal. John F. Kennedy said his religion would not impact his decisions. He said the Pope would not run America. We know that although Kennedy attended church, he was not sanctimonious about it (to say the least). Same thing with John Kerry and with the same answers. Neither were fundamentalists. They both however ran as Democrats where being a fundamentalist is no virtue.

Now we have two very religious, fundamentalist Roman Catholics and a Mormon. We know about Santorum. His religion dictates everything and he proudly avows he would allow it to dictate it for the whole country with favoring laws that used religion as their basis. I don't know if Gingrich would do the same thing but he speaks very fundamentalist at the moment at least because that's who he needs to have vote for him.

But Romney, as a Mormon, a very fundamentalist Mormon it would appear since he has served as a ward bishop and stake president, how would his religiosity impact him as President of the United States? Would the President of the Mormon Church be dictating policy positions where it comes to morality? Has Romney even been asked about that?

You know Mormonism has some very odd beliefs that fly in the face of scientific knowledge (as do many fundamentalist religions). Mormonism teaches their male leaders can become gods themselves on other planets. Does Romney believe all that? It would seem impossible that he didn't given how high he has risen in the church. Would it impact his decisions as a president?

Being a god on another planet is a pretty big deal and might even trump being a president on this one; so the pressure to conform to the Mormon faith might be even more powerful than the Roman Catholic pressure which can only offer crowns in heaven.

So shouldn't Romney be asked about his religion and how it would impact his job? Why isn't he being? How much of what Mormonism teaches does he swallow? They have changed some of their beliefs thanks to their God giving the direct word to their president that for instance blacks didn't carry the mark of Cain. Did Romney believe that when it was the church doctrine?

Many years ago I remember arguing with a very nice Mormon young man in Tucson about that. He more or less took the view that whatever he might personally think about its fairness, it was doctrine, came from God that it had to be true, and hence he accepted it as truth.

Does Romney believe that the truth of Jesus and God was lost due to the sins in the religious organizations from the time of Christ. Literally it was lost and required Joseph Smith with his magic glasses and the Book of Mormon to recover it? He would pretty much have to, wouldn't he? I know most fundamentalists ignore facts and science is secondary for what is truth? What does that mean when the President of the United States feels that way?

Okay, second big question has two parts-- how Romney made his money and the related question of why he won't release his federal tax forms. Keep in mind he made most of his fortune from Bain Capital which became a company that managed leveraged buy-outs. Do you know how despicable leveraged buy-outs really are? They use money they don't have to buy up companies which they often then demolish or destroy for their resources.

Big companies even like HP used to have to make sure they had sufficient debt to protect themselves from these vultures. And vultures is what this is with its usual eventual loss of jobs. Tell me how ironic this is that a man who actually savaged jobs now runs as a man who can grow them when what he really grew was stock market profits.

As for the second part of why he won't release his tax returns, it can't really be because he doesn't want us to know how wealthy he is or how he made his money. People do know that. Although they might not have thought how someone who made their money that way will help grow jobs. Anyway I've come up with two possibilities for why he won't release his tax returns.

One is he doesn't want the average voter to realize that with the current tax laws, his payment of taxes is considerably below, rate-wise, what you might expect. Maybe he has this big income and he pays a tiny amount of it in taxes. When you watch him smirk over it, when asked, that seems one excellent possibility. So he's out there wanting lower tax rates when he already maybe has them and doesn't want the country to know it. That's one possibility.

There is a second possibility. Maybe he's not paying the Mormon church the 10% of his gross income that they demand of their members in good standing. I guess he wouldn't want his church to know that, would he? Now if he's a fundamentalist Mormon, he would be paying that full tithe. That relates to the first question regarding how much his religion would impact his job as President.

Why has he been let off the hook on releasing these facts? Usually when people run for the presidency, we do know their religious values and how they will impact their job. We knew that with Lieberman when he ran with Al Gore for Vice-President. He was an orthodox Jew and would observe the Sabbath very faithfully. I think we had a right to know it.

We should know with Romney too but we are not being told what that would do to his work as president. His work as governor of Massachusetts gives us little clue as he claims he has seen the light since then on things like abortion.  The longer we aren't told, the more chance that he'll be the nominee before Americans find out, if they do even then, and only really find out once he's President of the United States and it's too late to take back the power. Do we really want to become a theocracy? Some of us do but do the majority?

So two questions he should answer. One is releasing or explaining why he won't release his taxes so Americans can understand how he manages his own money since he's telling us he can manage ours better. The other is what will his religion matter to the rest of us?

Or do those kind of questions only matter when it's a Democrat running?

Wikipedia's short biography of Mitt Romney 

Wow, after I wrote this, I was reading through the Daily Beast and came across the following which fits right in. Republicans-- do some research on what you are getting with this guy.

Anti-Romney video attacks Bain Capital work

From Robert Reich on Romney's PACs

Where it comes to Romney and how many see him as the solution, please read Robert Reich's thoughts on it. Especially any right wingers.

Romney, Frankenstein and a personal confession

I know a lot of right wingers think Romney is on their side. Think about it long and hard based on his background and these PACs which our Supreme Court let give money without having to identify themselves. Surely you guys can do better with a candidate than these guys? Can't you? At this point Gingrich is beginning, even with his apparent bi-polar personality, to look better...

I'm not thrilled with Obama but seriously, this bunch???!!!

Santorum would do what????

So the pressure will now go onto Santorum, someone so extremely right wing religiously that it's hard to believe he has voters out there ready to support him. But there are. And frankly Romney is not much if any better. The religious, fundamentalist right has taken over the Republican party is how it looks to me, and they have done it based on claiming to be fiscal conservatives.

Santorum on the extreme right

Not only that but Santorum has really been shady on how he profits from his previous  political position. Is there anything scarier than religious bigots? I can't think of what.

Romney by a nose

 Spending any time listening to speeches by the current crop of Republican front runners is very depressing. Pretty much if you pay attention to statistics, Romney only started to have a chance to win Iowa (which he barely did by 8 votes when only around 100,000 Republicans bother to spend the night in a caucus), was when he got even nastier about Obama and let his perfect haircut get windblown.

It appears Republicans want casual looking guys until they get in the White House where they better wear suits every time they do anything in the Oval office and they want red meat-- hate talk. It's funny as they say Iowans turn on anybody who uses nasty ads. Maybe that's so but they sure like the nasty speeches against Obama. If they are lies, it seems to work just as well as do they bother to check anywhere on what these guys say?

The further this thing with the Republicans goes the worse it looks. I mean there isn't one of them who would not shaft Americans who have different religious values from theirs. There isn't one of them who has any idea why we have a government and how to make it work better. They all want to take away health coverage help for lower income Americans, and if you happen to have a child born with a serious chronic illness, pffft to you. Except for Ron Paul, their idea of American exceptionalism is fight wars overseas. I am just amazed that this is what Republican voters want anywhere. Yes it doesn't say it is what Iowans want as this was just the Republican party but what has happened to that party?

Andrew Sullivan on Romney

And Santorum, who nearly won, he would let states ban birth control. He would send us back to the 50s or maybe the Dark Ages. There would be no rights for people on the area of sexual morality while he claimed all the rights for the corporations. Honestly these dweebs are the best the right can deliver? Read how Santorum appeals to Iowans on welfare abuse using black people as the main ones who receive it. Santorum on entitlements and black people . Seriously you don't think that is a racist line?

People on the right are worried about Obama as a secret Muslim and wanting to destroy the United States for some hidden agenda of his own; but do they pay any attention to what they are offering as an alternative? They claim they believe in freedom and yet would use fear and religion as a way to take more freedom from Americans than Obama could dream of wanting.

As a leftie, I am depressed that a good alternative isn't being presented from the right. And if anybody tells me that good alternative is Romney, I suggest they look at his record. Gingrich didn't exaggerate it. The more I listen to Romney, the worse he seems. Gingrich isn't wrong. Romney is a ruthless liar. He smiles with a pretty face but he is using his corporate experience as evidence he can run this country when he fired people as his way to gain more money for himself and it appears he's about to do it for Americans as a whole.

Gingrich labels Romney a liar

Some Democrats are thrilled at this mishmash of candidates, because they think this will guarantee a win for Obama; but seriously what if one of these trolls won? Do Americans really want this kind of thinking to run our country? Do they want to go  back to the 50s for Civil Rights? Blame others for our problems? Fight a war in Iran (which might come anyway but should it be red meat on a stump speech where Romney virtually guaranteed it without explaining how he'd pay for that one? End all entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, which although not all of them would promise that (Paul would), they all criticize and would make them virtually worthless? Are the right wing Christians so ignorant of their own faith that they think this is what Christ teaches for values?

I am shaking my head and understanding why a lot of people don't want to even read or watch the news right now. This is just plain depressing and not just the candidates but the reason they are there and who is supporting them. Doesn't the right wing have anybody else to run to save the day for us all-- right or left? I realize no rightie will please me with their corporation first attitude, but there are lesser evils among them... aren't there? Or has the far right so taken over that party that there is nothing but what we now see on their debate stages? Seriously? That's all there is?

Is libertarianism inherently racist?

Here's a good question for anybody who calls themselves a libertarian. Is libertarianism inherently racist?

Andrew Sullivan's on that question

Perhaps those who want to call themselves libertarian might consider making a distinction as to whether they mean culturally or economically. Or whether it's okay to stay out of it when unfairness or bad things are being done to a group of people because they are a minority and others can. Do they favor few or now rules when it benefits them or in general? Questions questions questions... Nothing like an election to rile us all up on them.