Interesting article from Forbes regarding compensation guidelines for Financial, Insurance and Real Estate CEOs:

Because compensation has a big component of stock, yearly compensation fluctuates a lot in the FIRE sector and is highly skewed. But the most compelling finding concerns the actual alignment of fortunes of managers and shareholders. We ask this question by computing the elasticity of CEO wealth with respect to shareholder value for all sectors, i.e. the percentage change in CEO wealth following a 1% increase in shareholder wealth (market cap). The striking result is that in the FIRE sector, CEO wealth is far less sensitive to changes in shareholder value than in any other sector–this in spite of the fact that equity holdings are a more important component of compensation. This may explain the widespread perception that top managers of financial firms do not suffer as much when their firms perform poorly.

While the rest of us suffer, the usual culprits continue to thrive. Now, I’m as much of a capitalist as the next person, but we’ve been sold a bill of goods regarding corporate earnings that is, in a word, bullshit.

Take, for example, the issue of taxes. A change in the tax structure, while potentially devastating for the employee or earner, has little effect on a CEO. Their money is earned through a salary, but most of it is gained through dividends. Dividends today have a tax rate of 15%.

Now, I’m a big proponent of the low dividends tax. I think it allows the flexibility for businesses to hire new people and the owners to feel confident that they can increase their wealth exponentially when the company succeeds. What I find hard to swallow is this whining about how a 3 or 4% tax increase is going to shut doors, cause businesses to close up because their owners “won’t be able to make a living”, or that taxes, in and of themselves, are the world’s greatest evil.

I say lets welcome that new $10,000 in taxes. It’s good for the country, it worked during Clinton (and, by the way, you might recall we were in a recession then and the conservatives were crying about raising taxes during such a downturn) and all it will do is force companies to get more business to offset the taxes they have to pay. Companies are not lazy. The large one’s want the lions share of the world and will do what it takes to get it.

And the larger one’s also get enormous state tax breaks simply for having their businesses wherever they happen to be.

Don’t be fooled by the same shit you’ve been listening to for years. If you continue to be, well, you must be a neocon.

Current News financial ceo, insurance ceo, neocons, real estate ceo, tax system

This will be a regular category for me, primarily because there’s so many of these loonies to choose from.

To start this section off, I’ll introduce one of my favorite right-wing whackos, the forever neanderthalic RobLACa.

While this homonculus hasn’t posted with the kind of expediency he did a year ago, he still manages to clock off a few now and again that leave the average viewer wondering who raised this idiot. His posts are at similar times ignorant, obscene, accusatory, psychotic and forever the naive rantings of a Rush and Hannity puppet. In one long argument I had with him some time ago, he admitted that he had never voted up until the 2004 election and was “brainwashed” by the “Democratic party of perpetual fraud.”

So, really, there you have it. A guy who can barely speak or write english trying to make substantial political arguments when, as a citizen, he’s never fullfilled his duty until four years ago. From his posts, I’m guessing he’s anywhere from 28 years old to 35. Nonetheless, it’s pathetic as an American to missed as many elections as he did. It’s one of the few things you’re asked to do here.

This guy is also a perfect example of that loud, opinionated ignoramus we have far too many of in this country. If you want to voice your opinion on something, have the intelligence to understand what you’re talking about. Be certain to check your facts and make sure they weren’t created by some phony. Live your life as an example of what to do rather than what not to do. Just because you can open your mouth doesn’t mean you have anything meaningful to say. In the case of RobLACa, that is a very profound statement.

And now, some pearls of wisdom by RobLACa:

From Power Line Forum:

“As President, I will need the help of all Americans”F**K YOU! You no good criminal frauds are always begging for AMERICANS to help YOU democrats. Where were you when our troops were racing into Baghdad toppling Sadams statues freeing another nation from dictators like you wish to be?

You were in the complete MINORITY , IRRELEVANT, UNDERMINING PRESIDENT BUSH AND OUR TROOPS AND MOST DESPICABLE , ON THE SIDE OF THE ENEMY AS YOU LOATHSOME TRAITORS PLOTTED YOUR STRATEGY TO TAKE BACK THE MAJORITY AND THE WHITE HOUSE.

Now you want more! You’ve been telling countless lies and have not done a damn thing yourselve BUT TELL MORE LIES. NOW YOU WANT AMERICANS TO HELP YOU DESTROY AMERICA?

YOU SMUG ARROGANT PRICK,SCREW YOU!

From Lifelike Pundits:

What a little bitch. Democrats never tire of being complete infantile sore losers.

“if the Democrats recapture conviction and courage”.

What a joke. The Democrat Party is a Perpetual Fraud and that’s all they can be. Incompetant , corrupt professional liars.

P.s. THEY ARE IN THE MINORITY TOO! BOTH HOUSE AND SENATE.THEN TRY TO PROP UP A FRAUD AND A TRAITOR AS CALL HIM THEIR HERO CANDIDATE. IDIOTS.

Hey everybody there she goes , it’s Hilary ! She moving towards the center. That’s FRAUD , democrats and their lapdog media call that being a smart politician. Ha HA, they always have a strategy , tactic or their media to cover what is their desparate and last hope of ever getting into power, the perpetual fraud.They are a circus act and they don’t know how to juggle, but they are excellent at looking stupid. they do it for the children cause they really care…Ha Ha HA

Here’s a nice one from WizBangBlog, September 26, 2006:

The bed wetting Democrats think they can just pretend to in POWER with all their bitch asses holding Rats only hearings. What a bunch of lying frauds. They all belong in prison or in front of a firing squad. Why don’t you pansy ass cowards try and over President Bush so we can exterminate every single last one of you despicable traitors.

And, finally, from the Washington Post (he’s moving up in the comment world):

Democrat lie because they are , well liars. Plain and simple. Oh and It helps that over 90% or the MSM and Print Media are voting democrats as well. Did I mention immoral puke in Liberal Hollywood as well? Ya they are democrats as well and have a crap load of UN-AMERICAN liberal biased movies distorting reality for their criminal partners more than ever for this next election.

A great many don’t even know what a democrat is.This proves you to be a shameless stupid liar. Less than half of the Americans population vote. 40% is not the whole Country stupid. Again you are proven a liar.

Funny you admit many “GOOD REPUBLICANS” lost seats. However they were more likely sick and tired of hearing democrats whining and crying and begging like babies to be put back in power. The non stop lies and smears and non crimes democrats accused Republicans of being parroted by the Democrat Media surely did not have any effect on the undeserved unmerited democrats being elected. Certainly not. Let me see if I can name a single thing the democrats did to so deserving to earn their ill gotten gains. Oh ya , that’s where you come in. “ILL GOTTEN” speaks for itself.

Let me translate that for you stupid democrats.

“SAY ANYTHING”

“DO WHATEVER IT TAKES”

The criminal democrat party of perpetual frauds never cease to amaze with there relentlessness. It’s the sign of desperation. Like BJ Clinton claiming have done everything to get Bin Laden. He even thought getting a Blow job in the oval office would some how miraculously put Osama in US custody. Yet he never bothered to talk to his CIA director on a daily basis.

It is the duty of any and all informed Americans to stop the Traitorous democrat criminal frauds. Having been an ignorant blindly democratic voter gives me all the motivation I need to expose the puke scum supporters here and everywhere of the party of democrats. Democrats do not speak for Americans.

I’m sorry. I just can’t get enough of this guy. There’s so much RobLACa wisdom out there. More to come.

Politics, Verbal Paintball Hannity, internet troll, Limbaugh, neocons, republican puppets

Back during Reagan, I found myself in a continuous debate with friends who aggressively defended the Iran Contra situation. It was the first time I really had to study up before a discussion. The studying wasn’t simply to allow myself the opportunity to grasp details and facts quicker in the heat of argument, but to actually HAVE facts and defend them.

You see, most of my friends on the conservative side, as now, react to issues based purely on emotion. What I’ve always found disheartening is that the conservative politicians feed into this. My earliest memories of Nixon was his sometimes not so subtle attacks on the counter-culture and his call for the “silent majority” to speak up through his candidacy. Reagan, on the other hand, was an optimistic minimalist - he saw little sense in trying to get the electorate to understand even some of the complexities of the issues of the day and would rather sell them a simple idea - tax cuts and trickle down economics, Kadafi as the new Hitler, Granada as the new battleground for freedom.

Bush has been a multiplication of all the worst aspects of Reagan and Nixon. He fed us fear as a motivator, simplified complex economic tools such as tax cuts into across-the-board disasters that have enriched that top 1 percent, trickled very little down, and left the rest of us holding the financial bag. He asked for no sacrifices during war, and instead prodded us to do what he’s been doing his entire life - spend, spend, spend, don’t worry about the debt (daddy will help you out) and forget about personal financial responsibility in any area of your life. Wars are black and white, you have enemies and friends and nothing in between. Saddam isn’t the new Hitler, all Muslims are. Believe what I tell you because you can trust me. Science and complex thinking are for wimps. Go with your gut.

Well, here we are 8 years later. This compassionate conservative has divided the country so severely we are on the verge of ruin emotionally, economically, militarily and ethically. Obama has a tough hill to climb to get us out.

Unfortunately for him, the dead-enders still think they have a place in this process, demands they can make. Well, as far as I’m concerned, when you screw everything up as much as you have you deserve no place at the table until you can learn to get along with everyone else. Neocons live today in a fantasy world where time has stood still and our current President is just another Jimmy Carter with a slightly darker complexion. They STILL feel they are right in all areas (despite the fact that the entire Bush agenda has lead to multi-pronged failures), that McCain would have won had it not been for the media, and the Democrats haven’t changed one iota since the 1960s. What they don’t know and can’t understand is that the country has moved past them, that they are the relics of a different time and the old way of politics has no place in the future.

Sure, things change little in the short term, but at least now we can see the horizon past the moral and ethical wasteland given to us by the Bush-Cheney-DeLay-Boehner-Frist crew. So necons - stay where you are at your own peril. We really don’t care anymore about your ideas. They are bankrupt.

Politics, Verbal Paintball bush disaster, bush failure, McCain, neocons, Obama, republican fantasy world

From the Guardian:

Congressional Democrats today waded into the spat between President Barack Obama and conservative radio personality and blow-hard Rush Limbaugh, calling for a petition “to express outrage at conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh for saying he wanted President Obama to ‘fail.’”

Democratic congressional campaign committee chairman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said in a statement:

Rush Limbaugh’s reprehensible remark that he ‘hopes’ President Obama fails to meet the extraordinary economic challenges Americas face has no place in the public discourse.

Mr. Limbaugh’s comments politicize the economic struggle of millions of hard working Americans. With the unemployment rate over seven percent, today’s news that 62,000 more Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, and millions of Americans struggling to keep their health care and homes, all Americans, regardless of their ideology, hope that President Obama succeeds in getting people back to work and turning our economy around.

Last week, Limbaugh said:

If I wanted Obama to succeed, I’d be happy the Republicans have laid down. I don’t want this to work. So I’m thinking of replying to this guy, say ‘okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: ‘I hope he fails’.

Once again, democrats fail to understand how to deal with a scumbag like this. Yes, scumbag. Rush Limbaugh has spent decades working large lies into small bits of truth and building a constituency of listeners who lap it up. Fortunately, his audience has diminished in the last year, but his ability to command the political stage has not - due in no small part to people who dignify his voice.

Public relations is very simple. Draw attention to your subject any way you can. If no one knows them, publicity needs to be molded carefully so bad first impressions do not stick. For those who are known - and trying to get noticed any way they can - good or bad publicity makes no difference. In fact, bad publicity can help to generate sympathy for said subject.

The best way for democrats and President Obama to get this fat drug-addled slob out of their hair is to either attack him directly (itemize his lies) or ignore him. Show him courtesy, and you’re his bitch.

Politics democrat weakness, neocons, republican lies, rush limbaugh