Tag Archives: Think Progress

Six fast facts on Romney’s low, low taxes and big, big income

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Think Progress: 6 Facts About Mitt Romney’s Taxes/ Lack Thereof

  1. Romney paid a lower tax rate than many middle-class Americans, at 13.9 percent.
  2. Romney makes more in a day than the average American makes in a year, and becomes a 1 percenter every week.
  3. Romney likely paid $0 in payroll taxes.
  4. Romney has accounts in countries notorious for tax dodging, like Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands.
  5. Romney and Gingrich’s tax plans would slash Romney’s taxes in half.
  6. Romney needs four lawyers, including the former IRS commissioner to defend his tax plan.

via: think-progress

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Note: #5 — Newt’s taxes would be slashed also.

Mitt Romney in 26 seconds: the new “Romney standard” of campaign advertising

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“The Romney campaign’s very first television ad, released this evening, dishonestly presents a 2008 McCain campaign quote as the words of President Obama. The ad features a voice-over of Obama saying “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” Then-candidate Obama indeed said those words, perhaps dozens of times during the closing month of the 2008 campaign. The only problem? Obama was actually quoting the words of a strategist from Sen. John McCain’s campaign.” — BREAKING: First Romney TV Ad Falsely Presents McCain Campaign Quote As Obama’s

NO BIGGIE! Here’s a hilarious ad about Mitt Romney, in his own words and according to his own standards for truth and fairness, created by Think Progress:

Big banks vs. the rest of us: 11 facts you need to know

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THE LARGEST BANKS are more profitable than since before the recession and they’ve grown larger than ever. They make 30% of all corporate profits, they hold about 63% of the GDP and 60% of all bank assets, and in 2008 they paid 5,000 bonuses of at least $1,000,000 each — YET big banks won’t lend to small businesses and they’re planning to lay off tens of thousands of workers (job creators, lol!).

11 Facts You Need To Know About The Nation’s Biggest Banks

  1. – Bank profits are highest since before the recession…: According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., bank profits in the first quarter of this year were “the best for the industry since the $36.8 billion earned in the second quarter of 2007.” JP Morgan Chase is currently pulling in record profits.
  2. – …even as the banks plan thousands of layoffs: Banks, including Bank of America, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse, are planning to lay off tens of thousands of workers.
  3. – Banks make nearly one-third of total corporate profits: The financial sector accounts for about 30 percent of total corporate profits, which is actually down from before the financial crisis, when they made closer to 40 percent.
  4. – Since 2008, the biggest banks have gotten bigger: Due to the failure of small competitors and mergers facilitated during the 2008 crisis, the nation’s biggest banks — including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo — are now bigge rthan they were pre-recession. Pre-crisis, the four biggest banks held 32 percent of total deposits; now they hold nearly 40 percent.
  5. – The four biggest banks issue 50 percent of mortgages and 66 percent of credit cards: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup issue one out of every two mortgages and nearly two out of every three credit cards in America.
  6. – The 10 biggest banks hold 60 percent of bank assets: In the 1980s, the 10 biggest banks controlled 22 percent of total bank assets. Today, they control 60 percent.
  7. – The six biggest banks hold assets equal to 63 percent of the country’s GDP: In 1995, the six biggest banks in the country held assets equal to about 17 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Now their assets equal 63 percent of GDP.
  8. – The five biggest banks hold 95 percent of derivatives: Nearly the entire market in derivatives — the credit instruments that helped blow up some of the nation’s biggest banks as well as mega-insurer AIG — is dominated by just five firms: JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo.
  9. – Banks cost households nearly $20 trillion in wealth: Almost $20 trillion in wealth was destroyed by the Great Recession, and total family wealth is still down “$12.8 trillion (in 2011 dollars) from June 2007 — its last peak.”
  10. – Big banks don’t lend to small businesses: The New Rules Project notes that the country’s 20 biggest banks “devote only 18 percent of their commercial loan portfolios to small business.”
  11. – Big banks paid 5,000 bonuses of at least $1 million in 2008: According to the New York Attorney General’s office, “nine of the financial firms that were among the largest recipients of federal bailout money paid about 5,000 of their traders and bankers bonuses of more than $1 million apiece for 2008.”

Meanwhile, the bankers and the GOP / Teaparty politicians and pundits tell us these banks need more tax breaks and loopholes and greater deregulation… because why again?  More importantly, why does the self-hating Republican voting base feel the need to defend such greed at their own economic peril?

#OccupyWallStreet: the top 1% take in more of the nation’s income than at any time since the 1920s

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TOP FIVE FACTS ABOUT THE ONE PERCENT from Think Progress:

1. The top 1 percent of Americans owns 40 percent of the nation’s wealth

2. The top 1 percent of Americans take home 24 percent of national income

3. The top 1 percent of Americans own half of the country’s stocks, bonds, and mutual funds

4. The top 1 percent of Americans have only 5 percent of the nation’s personal debt

5. The top 1 percent are taking in more of the nation’s income than at any other time since the 1920s

More at ThinkProgress (via: inothernews)

And what’s a typical conservative / 1% response? It’s either: “If ‘the poor’ did what ‘the rich’ do, they’d be rich too!“ (Only Teapartyers buy that nonsense.)

Or if they wanted to be honest with us, the response would be:

via: inothernews

Revealed: More Corporate Donations To The U.S. Chamber’s Partisan Attack Fund

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It would almost be funny that teabaggers donated money to the Chamber of Commerce (at Glenn Beck’s request). Almost. Except for the fact that these working-class donors are willingly (and stupidly) contributing to elite multinationals who want to buy U.S. elections to further increase their own wealth and power. It seems that most teabaggers would gladly turn working-class Americans into the dominated subjects of a corporate elite ‘New World Order,’ based solely on false arguments about Obama (birthplace, radical past), about Democrats (socialist, communist), and about social issues with regard to the role of government and Christianity (the three G’s).

When the GOP runs government, capitalism runs our nation and ruins the middle-class. There is no balance or oversight without Democrats.

Revealed: More Corporate Donations To The U.S. Chamber’s Partisan Attack Fund

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“Today, the New York Times builds on research published by ThinkProgress by noting that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is mostly funded by a small group of large corporations. The Chamber has tried to lie about its identity for years, absurdly telling the media that it represents 3 million businesses. Then after being caught with no proof of such membership, it modified that number to 300,000 — but then claimed small businesses were the true driver of the Chamber’s member rolls. But the Times correctly points out that in 2008, the Chamber received the bulk of its donations from only 45 companies, including firms like Goldman Sachs, Edward Jones, Alpha Technologies, Chevron Texaco and Aegon.

[...] The numbers below reflect a bare minimum, and in many cases these corporations have paid ten times the amount of their regular dues to the Chamber in the past two years:

– Microsoft’s corporate disclosures state that the company paid the Chamber up to $999,999 in 2009 and up to $999,999 in 2010 in its minimum dues.

– Procter and Gamble paid the Chamber $3.2 million in 2009.

– Outsourcing giant CSC, which specializes in IT outsourcing, paid the Chamber at least $100,000 in 2009 and $100,000 in 2010.

– Intel paid the Chamber at least $100,000 in yearly dues ($100,000 in 2010, and what appears to be $100,000 in 2009).

– Drug company Merck paid the Chamber $234,000 in 2008, and still counts itself as a dues-paying member of the Chamber.

– Utility company Dominion Resources gave the Chamber $100,000 in 2009.

– On the Chamber’s Egypt Business Council website, Apache Corporation, British American Tobacco, The Blackstone Group, The Boeing Company, Cargill USA, CitiGroup, The Coca-Cola Company, ExxonMobil, Google, Microsoft Corporation, PepsiCo, Intel Corporation, Monsanto Company, Pfizer Inc, Philip Morris International combined committed an additional $375,000 to the Chamber for 2009-2010….”

 

UPDATED: Chamber’s foreign funding of GOP campaign ads – what’s the expectation?

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Do you suppose the quid pro quo for all this foreign money flowing into the Chamber to fund attack ads against Dems will be that even more American jobs will be shipped overseas by congressional Republicans? Look at this list Think Progress put together below. So many from India! The rightwing / Fox News is trying to make this a ‘non-issue’ or a conspiracy theory. It’s anything but that.

Think Progress — Exclusive: Chamber Receives At Least $885,000 From Over 80 Foreign Companies In Disclosed Donations Alone

…The Chamber is being deceptive. In addition to multinational members of the Chamber headquartered abroad (like BP, Shell Oil, and Siemens), a new ThinkProgress investigation has identified at least 83 other foreign companies that actively donate to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6). Below is a chart detailing the annual dues foreign corporations have indicated that they give directly to the Chamber (using information that is publicly available from the Business Council applications and the Chamber’s own websites):

See TABLE of 83 foreign companies here

Again, all of these annual dues are collected in the same 501(c)(6) the Chamber is using to run partisan attack ads.

Keep reading…

UPDATED ***

GOP response?

  1. Quote of the Day: “It’s just not relevant to voters.” Mark Halperin on the Chamber of Commerce allegedly using secret foreign money to help finance its political advertising

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  2. Pundits and Republicans agree: Dem attack on Chamber is a flop

Here’s what Rachel Maddow discussed last night, regarding whether this is a big deal or not to the American people:

Rachel Maddow: Anonymous Republican big-money donors become political liability

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