Josh Marshall asks: ”With IRA contributions capped at $6,000 a year, how did Mitt manage to amass an IRA worth $100 million? Hint: an Island might be involved.”
I think the Island of Misfit Toys may be the only island on earth not holding part of the Romney fortune.
“They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft, where we are hard, cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s description of the very rich
Mitt Romney on a jet ski — the GOP candidate’s Kerry moment? – The Boston Globe
While most people with MS (or any other pre-existing condition) would be grateful to have health insurance and / or simple healthcare in general, Marie Antoinette has said she doesn’t consider herself wealthy yet she explains her dressage hobby as a form of therapy for her MS:
Ann Romney and dressage: A pricey private world
[Romney] soon fell in love with dressage, a fussy Olympic sport that is also called “horse ballet.” In dressage, a horse moves in delicate, dance-like steps to music as the rider, formally clad in top hat and tails, imperceptibly guides the animal.Because it requires tremendous muscle control, dressage also provided Romney unexpected therapeutic benefits.
“Riding exhilarated me; it gave me a joy and a purpose,” Romney told the Chronicle of the Horse magazine in 2008. “When I was so fatigued that I couldn’t move, the excitement of going to the barn and getting my foot in the stirrup would make me crawl out of bed.”
The article says, “Dressage is not for the faint of wallet; it requires healthy outlays of cash for upkeep, training, transportation and veterinary care. It attracts some of the world’s richest people…” Apparently so:
A spokeswoman for the Romney campaign would not discuss the costs associated with Ann Romney’s horses. “We are not required to disclose this information,” said Amanda Henneberg in an emailed statement.
The woman who bought Super Hit, Catherine Norris, testified that it cost $2,400 a month to board him at the Acres.
Insurance documents in the court file indicate that from November 2006 to November 2007, Ann Romney paid $7,800 to insure five horses against mortality and theft for amounts ranging from $50,000 to $135,000 per horse, which she said was far less than their value. “I self-insure for the rest,” she testified. “Just expensive to have insurance.”
That’s five horses at approximately $100,000 each. A pittance, she’ll assure you! Ann and Mitt not only want to repeal Obamacare on his ‘first day’ if he wins the election, but they want to close all Planned Parenthood clinics which provide multiple health care services for low income women. So you see, Marie Antoinette gets dressage as therapy and you get a bottle of Jack Daniels and a piece of wood to bite on. And? Ann has explained, patiently, that you just need to be wealthy in spirit, because that’s worth more than money (or a job, a car, a home, food, or medicine).
Deal with the cake you’re given to eat.
Remember this quote from yesterday by Marie Antoinette Romney:
Well, Ann, we bet you do “love” women who don’t “have a choice” whether to “go to work” and still raise kids. Here’s some very enlightening information from the article, 12 Things We Could Learn From Previous Romney Tax Returns about how much Mitt and Ann Romney actually value “those people” who scrub their numerous toilets:
7: How many additional household workers did Romney employ? Did he pay them fair wages?
Romney Paid $20,603 Total In Wages To Four Household Workers In 2010. According to the Huffington Post, “IRS forms released Tuesday by Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign show that despite reporting income of $21.7 million, the couple paid only $20,603 in taxable wages for household help in 2010. This figure was divided among four women: Rosania Costa ($4,808), Kelli Harrison ($8,667), Susan Moore ($2,238) and Valerie Cravens Anae ($4,890).” [Huffington Post, 01/24/12]
Romney Paid Only Half Of The Lowest Range Of An Average Housekeeper’s Salary For Only One Of Romney’s Three Houses. According the Huffington Post, “According to a number of Boston-based domestic staffing agencies, the salary range for a housekeeper is between $20 and $30 an hour, which adds up to an annual salary of $40,000 to $50,000 based on forty-hour weeks and two weeks of paid vacation a year. But this number is only for one house, and the Romneys have three houses — a 2,000 sq. ft. townhouse in Belmont, Mass., a 5,400 sq. ft. lake house on 11 acres in Wolfeboro, N.H., and a beach house in La Jolla, Calif., that is undergoing renovations to double its size. Even if the Romneys avoided spending time in La Jolla in 2010, they spent plenty of time in New Hampshire, with regular visits in the summer from five sons and their families. Yet the Romneys still paid only half of the lowest range of an average housekeeper’s salary, which raises the question of who cleaned the Romney houses the other 50 percent of the time.” [Huffington Post, 01/24/12]
We should all aspire to be Ann Romney: being born into privilege, marrying a man also born into privilege, living off investment income while in college, buying four homes and paying the household help less than the national average to clean them, dressage competition as a hobby… HARDEST JOB IN THE WORLD, PEOPLE!
“I love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids. Thank goodness that we value those people too.” — Ann Romney
via: peterfeld
I can’t decide if her tone is mocking, throwing me a bone, completely insincere, or just patronizing. I’m not sure why she ‘loves’ that some women have no choice but to work and raise the kids — but fortunately she bestows permission upon her audience to value ‘those people too.’ Ah, cake. Let them eat it.
Good grief. Do you think she equates ‘those people’ who have to work and raise kids to her house staff? Maybe in Ann Romney’s mind, ‘working mom’ reminds her of those who do the dusting or make the beds at one of her many homes. No wonder Mitt automatically assumed the cookies brought to an event by a regular person (one of those people) came from 7-Eleven.
