[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI]
Taxes for Veterans
Some people argue that American foreign policy is largely governed by the United States insatiable thirst for oil. Please note we invaded Iraq to save them from Saddam, but haven’t given as much of a concerted effort in other troubled locations – Rwanda, Somalia – to name a couple. And in our foreign policy efforts, we send many troops into harm’s way. Then veterans come back home physically and mentally harmed.
What I propose is a 1ยข/gallon tax increase on gasoline. The more gas you buy/use the more you pay. And these extra funds go to help veterans. I would like to see the right try to talk down the idea of increased aid for veterans.
Guess it runs in the family
The basic actions of Neil Bush in the S&L scandal are as follows:
Neil received a $100,000 “loan” from Ken Good, of Good International, with no obligation to pay any of the money back.
Good was a large shareholder in JNB Explorations, Neil Bush’s oil-exploration company.
Neil failed to disclose this conflict-of-interest when loans were given to Good from Silverado, because the money was to be used in joint venture with his own JNB. This was in essence giving himself a loan from Silverado through a third party.
Neil then helped Silverado S&L approve Good International for a $900,000 line of credit.
Good defaulted on a total $32 million in loans from Silverado.
During this time Neil Bush did not disclose that $3 million of the $32 million that Good was defaulting on was actually for investment in JNB, his own company.
Good subsequently raised Bush’s JNB salary from $75,000 to $125,000 and granted him a $22,500 bonus.
Neil Bush maintained that he did not see how this constituted a conflict of interest.
Neil approved $106 million in Silverado loans to another JNB investor, Bill Walters.
Neil also never formally disclosed his relationship with Walters and Walters also defaulted on his loans, all $106 million of them.
Neil Bush was charged with criminal wrongdoing in the case and ended up paying $50,000 to settle out of court. The chief of Silverado S&L was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail for pleading guilty to $8.7 million in theft. (Keep in mind that you can get more jail time for holding up a gas station for $50.)
Today Neil Bush is working on closing a deal in Florida, where his brother Jeb is governor, to sell a software package to schools with his startup company Ignite.
Liberal vs. Conservative
An interesting TED talk about Liberals and Conservatives.
Blue Tooth
Yesterday*, or was it the day before?, K and I went to the AT&T store near us to get a hands free device to comply with the law that will be coming into effect July 1st. Being the law abiding citizens that we are, we want to comply. So we purchased two of those clip on blue tooth hand free gizmos. Went home charged it up, synced it with the phone. Carried it around with me. After returning home, I promptly put it back in the box and returned both the devices today.
Returning them in SF cost me 20 cents as the sales tax is greater in Oakland than in SF by .25% Go figure. Maybe lower taxes really do stimulate the economy. Ha ha ha.
I must say those blue tooth things are lame…one more thing to keep track of, one more thing to charge, one more thing to lose and have to buy again. And I question the findings that people who talk on phones are as bad as drunk drivers. I mean, will the hands-free devices enable people to drive better? They will still be engrossed in a conversation with someone who is in another location. And as for the argument that hands-free will prevent people from looking at their phones and pushing buttons while they drive…the radio!! Hello, who doesn’t look at the radio while driving or the A/C, pushing buttons and not paying attention to the road.
I think it’s just a scam foisted upon us by phone company lobbyists so that we have to buy more s#$t.
Reminds me of the switch to digital TV broadcasting.
Why are we wasting tax payer money on coupons for people to convert their TVs? TV is not a right, it is a privilege. Maybe if people watched fewer hours of TV, they wouldn’t be so fat. Less of a drain on health care.
I guess what it comes down to is that I do not want to have my tax dollars going to coupons so people can buy TVs.
*if there is a yesterday, is there a noterday?
Bush’s Stimulus Package
Do we need any more proof that this president is a moron? O.K. so I don’t have a better plan, but then again I am not a graduate of Harvard business school. Isn’t Harvard ashamed of their graduate? Maybe they should revoke his degree. Is such a thing possible? Back in 2004 Bush received a letter from “senior business and economics professors” saying that the president’s “ economic policies are taking the country in the wrong direction”
My stimulus plan would be to drop all income tax for people making less than $35,000 and raise it some on people in the higher brackets. Doesn’t Warren Buffett pay a smaller percentage on his income than his secretary? He paid 17.7% and she paid 30% . I remember hearing once that people who make less money tend to save less money. And more money in circulation is good for the economy, right. So if the lower end of the economic scale has more cash they’ll spend it.
But what do I know? I don’t have and M.B.A.