Two-face would be more appropriate than Joker

All of a sudden, or rather after reports of Banks' PACs and executives switching their donations to the elephant after the donkey's teat turned sour, Obama comes out as a supporter of bonuses and a champion of capitalism, telling Democrats that "We’ve got to be the party of business, small business and large business.”

clipped from www.bloomberg.com President Barack Obama speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while [Dimon's bonus of] $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.” Dimon, 53, led New York-based JPMorgan, the second-biggest U.S. bank, to a profit during each quarter of the financial crisis. Blankfein, 55, was at the helm when New York-based Goldman’s shares doubled last year as profit soared to a record high. [Sounds like they didn't just make the Series: Dimon won the Golden Glove, and Blankfein got the Cy Young trophy too.] “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.” President Barack Obama called bank bonuses “obscene” at least twice this year. Obama is “trying to walk a very fine line,” said Mark Borges, a compensation consultant “He wants to represent popular anger at the bailout and Wall Street pay, while at the same time trying not to alienate these guys, who he needs [to give him the "obscene" amounts of money that he relied on to win the 2008 election.]

The New State of the Union

clipped from dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com President Obama plans to call on Thursday for taxing about 50 big banks and major financial institutions for at least the next decade to recoup all taxpayer losses from the Wall Street bailout fund. While the banks maintain that taxpayers made money from the bailout to save them (many have repaid their federal funds with interest and the government also has made money in selling the banks’ warrants that it held as collateral), losses to the bailout fund are expected from money paid to rescue the automakers Chrysler and General Motors and the insurance giant American International Group, and from a program to help troubled homeowners avert foreclosures. The administration official said that the auto manufacturers and A.I.G., as well as the housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which now are under government conservatorships, are not in a financial position to be taxed to recover taxpayers’ losses. The administration is calling the tax a “financial crisis responsibility fee,”

Taxing those who paid their loans back early and at a profit to the American people to pay for failures who are explicitly excluded from the tax and calling it a "responsibility fee" is perverted irony that passes for logic in the current Administration.
I'm not saying the banks didn't have a hand in the crisis because that's just as absurd as saying that they were more responsible than Washington lawmakers gagged by lobbying bribes and regulators who should be charged with criminal negligence. Let's not forget the American people, so quick to let their fingers be pointed for them at an easily vilified target. Groupthink on this scale hasn't been seen in 70 years. Nobody wants to blame themselves when it's so much easier to demand reparations from the rich with your head held high. After all, in our culture that honors victims before heroes being impoverished connotes a certain moral superiority - which makes it all the easier to remind the wealthy of their noblesse oblige.

The answer is inside the belly of the beast

clipped from www.cnsnews.com Documentary film director Michael Moore, who has become a millionaire thanks to the profits from his movies, told CNSNews.com that “capitalism did nothing” for him. “You know, I had to pretty much beg, borrow and steal,” he said. “The system is not set up to help somebody from the working class make a movie like this and get the truth out there.” “In fact, in Fahrenheit 9/11 if you remember, capitalism, the Disney Corporation, tried to kill that film--tried to make it so that people couldn’t see it,” said Moore. Moore reportedly was paid $21 million by Disney for producing, directing and creating the film. Moore also earned 50 percent of the profits of his 2007 film “Sicko,” totaling $25 million plus DVD sales, according to Vanity Fair. CNSNews.com asked: “Critics may say, when they see this movie, Michael Moore has amassed a fortune of over $50 million, some have said and –” Moore said: “Really? Are you kidding me? Seriously? Wow. Where did it go?”

The good news is that if single-payer health care passes Moore will either die from a heart attack or be found out to have used private doctors (like the wealthy liberals in "progressive" Western democracies Moore talks about do) and defrauded as a grade-D pork once and for all.

A Darling Buffoon

Alistair Darling must have slept through his maths classes in elementary school. If you want to get tax revenue from the rich, but also command firms to curb bonus payments then where are you going to get that extra money from?
At least he is being completely "Frank" about his socialist, Robbin' Hood, ideals. Maybe Labour should just drop the pretense and rename themselves the Pathetic Proletariat Party.

clipped from www.bloomberg.com Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, targeting what he calls “greed and recklessness” in Britain’s financial system, asked banks to curtail bonuses and said the rich will pay more in tax. “It is right that those who earn the most should shoulder the biggest burden.” “We will introduce legislation to end the reckless culture that puts short-term profits over long term success. It will mean an end to automatic bank bonuses year after year.” Darling said he has raised tax rates and eliminated relief for pension contributions for the rich. This week, Darling will [ask bank heads of remuneration] that they reduce bonus payments at the ahead of a change in the law aimed at formalizing curbs on pay. “The government’s implicit presentation of excessive remuneration as the cause of the crisis, and the banking bill as a silver bullet that will kill off financial excesses, is singularly unconvincing,” said Simon Morris, a partner at law firm CMS Cameron McKenna.

Rob the Rich: Forced Charity

Yes We Can... fund universal healthcare by taxing the very people who have no need for it. The bourgeoisie have squeezed the juices of the proletariat with their mighty kulak to quench their unpatriotic greed long enough! Now we shall drain the very marrow from their spines (and harvest the stem cells therein)!
We’ll hit them hard on their mortgages. Sure, we're disincentivizing the people who can actually afford to buy a house and create upward momentum in the housing market, thereby generating positive equity for every homeowner organically. Homeowners facing foreclosure and looking for a handout are one of our strongest constituencies, why would we not want to grow it?
We'll cap their investment gains. Markets are the engine of the capitalist machine. We want to keep them going at precisely our chosen speed limit, and we are pouring billions into the enforcement of our arbitrary laws. Of course we see no need to disband the SEC, their peccadilloes, like ignoring evidence of Madoff's scam, pale in comparison to their ability to choke vehement short sellers and regulate other speculators out of existence.
We’ll decide how much the rich give to charity too. The only worthwhile charity is the one the government deems necessary: funding the socialist welfare state.
Oh, and just to make sure that they don't keep trying to persevere and prosper despite the shackles we have put on them we will change tax code so their estate goes to the government after they die. Bourgeoisie progeny can get in the bread line with everyone else.

clipped from www.bloomberg.com Democrats Weigh Health Mandate as Obama Urges Taxing Wealthy The president is trying to avoid broad-based levies such as a Senate proposal to tax some employer-provided health benefits Axelrod said. Instead he is urging lawmakers to reconsider limiting all tax deductions for Americans in the highest tax brackets. Obama is “mindful” about how “ordinary Americans are able to foot the bills.” Obama’s own proposal would set a 28 percent cap on tax deductions for items such as mortgage interest, investment expenses and charitable gifts Obama also proposes new taxes on securities dealers and life insurers, and to raise revenue by prohibiting certain estate-planning techniques. The plan would place new restrictions on private insurers, including a bar on excluding coverage for those with “pre-existing conditions.” The effort to overhaul health-care would affect a sector that makes up 17 percent of the U.S. economy.