Eunuch Tax Collectors

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

[Caution:  Ugly fact follows]

There are at least 350,000 eunuchs in the Indian city of Delhi.   
[End of ugly fact.  Discussion of same follows.]

350,000!!!  Who knew?  Can anyone tell me why the human gelding industry exists?  Are there so many harems that still need looking after?  Can that many parents be so desperate as to geld their sons so that they can be street entertainers?  Fact is, the eunuchs exist and the city doesn't know what to do with them.  Why the city thinks it has do something is best left for another day.

The City of Delhi now has the answer to the Eunuch Question.  They're going to give them conscience money, a monthly Eunuch Allowance of 1,000 rupees.  It isn't much, around $22 Ameribux/month.  The poverty rate as defined by the Indian gummint is $11 or less a month so $22 is a living wage by gummint standards.  I don't think I'd sign up just for the money but the city saw a problem and did something about it.  Something dumb, maybe, but something.  Still, that's USD $7,700,000/month that Delhi didn't used to have in its budget.  $7.7 mil Ameribux a month.  India.  Think about it.

[Chuck, where is this going? ... Just a sec.] 

Being a eunuch isn't a great life opportunity, we can probably agree on that.  However, I am at a loss to see how it is inherently career-limiting.  I mean, wouldn't employers have to know before they could discriminate against a eunuch?  I've had a lot of jobs and job interviews and never has an interviewer said "Drop 'em and let's 'ave us a look-see."

Delhi city councilman Malti Verma says "It's our responsibility as public representatives to help them."  It is?  When did that start, yesterday?  Delhi.  Why did they single out eunuchs to help?  It's not like they stand out in crowds.  

One other thing.  They've found jobs for them, too.  "Doing what?" you may ask in your innocence.

Drum roll:  They're going to be TAX COLLECTORS!  [OMG!]

This  isn't about the rich irony of the city's job offering.  No, you expect better of me (but I may develop the theme in my book.)  Turns out, it is not peculiarly American to define a previously unknown problem and then try to buy a solution without ever addressing the problem itself.  Here (in America, that is) we define people without health insurance as a problem (some are, some aren't) that we can fix by giving them all free health insurance.  Free to them, paid for by you, like Free Mexican Food.

Failing banks that you don't patronize?  Give 'em $3/4 tril.  Failing private insurance companies?  Bail 'em out, then force 'em out of business.  Car companies that can't sell their own products?  Buy 'em out at grossly inflated prices.  Student loan firms?  Abolish them and step into the lending vacuum they leave and put it in the health care bill so that we don't forget.  There's no problem so big that you can't satisfy yourself by spending other people's money.  Satisfy, but not solve.

The point is, eunuchs or AIG, the solutions are NOT to throw money at problems and hope they go away.  They won't.  Rather, it is to address the problem itself, not just its symptoms.  Take eunuchs, for instance (please).  Delhi has chronic  and massive poverty and unemployment problems.  If you're a eunuch, now you get a job AND a stipend.  Daily Double!!!  Don't be too surprised if they get more eunuchs.

San Francisco has a chronic homeless problem.  They provide free shelters AND a monthly stipend and more to homeless people.  The result has been more homeless in SF, not less.  Ring up another Double!!!

Here's the deal with health care in America now.  You'll get it whether or not you pay your premium.  If you don't pay up the IRS may later impose and try to collect a fine (a tricky problem with the poor, that) which will be less than your premium would have been, plus you have to start paying or the same thing will happen again next year.

If you receive medical care and you're uninsured, same thing happens.  You get fined and you have to start paying your premiums unless the gummint pays for you anyway.  The thing is, there are already 11 mil people who are eligible for existing health care assistance who haven't bothered to sign up for it yet.  Why would a new law get them to sign up when the old ones didn't?  Look for more uninsureds or, best case, no significant reduction in their numbers.  

So why the bill in the first place except that it redistributes money and maybe that's all that was ever intended?

From the Sifynews article itself, and no surprise to you if you've been paying attention -- "The eunuch community is also happy with the new ruling... But they are not happy with the amount." 

And "It is better late than never.  But the government should also try to increase this amount.  They should at least bring us at par with Group D staffs said Sunita, another eunuch."

Say, haven't we heard talk like that somewhere before?

I couldn't possibly make this stuff up.  I do have one idea:  Maybe the IRS could start recruiting in Delhi.


* * * * * 

Action expresses priorities. -- Mohandas Gandhi

Health and Circuses

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

"...Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions -- everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses

Juvenal, Satire 10.77-81, around 100 A.D.

* * * * *

The prez has been in office for 15 months and boy, has it ever been entertaining.  We've seen bankers sent to the dunce corner, auto execs booted out and their companies taken over, insurance companies bailed out of their mistakes, one war won and another escalated, the worst depression since 1929 "narrowly averted" (whatever that means) and communists outed from the White House.  That's entertainment.

Now for the grand finale:  FREE HEALTH CARE!

Well, free in that Someone Who Isn't You (SWIY) will have to pay for it.  And really, if it's free to you then it's completely free, isn't it?  Sadly, no, it isn't free in the sense that sunshine is free.  It's free in the sense of Free Mexican Food, that kind of free.  

The Romans knew about that kind of free.  They got  free bread and circuses and all they had to do was pretend that there were no Barbarians at the gate, come to rob and kill them and sack Rome.  Did you know that they could flood the Colosseum and stage mock sea battles to the death, with hundreds of skewered and drowning men?  Great circuses.  The emperors and the stage hands unions had important stakes in the continuity of circuses.  Their lives and jobs depended on them and they were a LOT more important than the plebs.

Wait.  Does that sound familiar?

The emperors feared the unwashed masses of Rome.   They passed out food to show their concern for the common man and staged spectacular circuses to divert their attention.  The great issues of the day - and the continued existence of Rome itself was already in question - were ignored as long as the people didn't protest... too much.  As long as people were debating their favorite gladiators in the upcoming circus, gathering at huge public sporting events and queuing up for free bread they would be less likely to, say, riot and overthrow the government.  The Romans sold their birthrights, their futures and their souls for some bread and a few afternoons of watching someone else's death-as-entertainment. 

America has been diverted from its core beliefs of the strength of the individual and the sharing of the national burden of whatever kind.  We have been entertained by a 15-month circus of non-stop campaigning for this or that issue, always at the expense of the national treasury, and we're told that nothing will really cost us anything so why not do it?  During this period of entertainment on a grand scale we have managed to lose sight of who we are.  We have accepted that we can have magnificent things like national health care and it will be paid for by SWIY.

But you know that can't work, don't you?  There's no free health care, there's no free Mexican food and BTW, peace isn't free either.

Rome eventually ceased to exist as a player on the world stage.  It lost its means to provide for and protect itself and its citizens.  It succumbed to the wild self-indulgences and promises of its leaders who, while the plebs were wondering whose army was making all that dust on the horizon, moved to Constantinople and took the remaining army with them.

You know all too much about the vote-buying that led to the health care showdown circus.  In a world that was supposed to be "post-partisan", the HC vote was 219-212 along party lines.  They voted while you were watching March Madness.  Or was it gladiators?  Hey, is that gladiator really drowning?

We didn't sell our vote, not exactly, but the folks we elected did.  They sold our vote and we allowed it.  We "abdicated our duties" just as Juvenal wrote and now we "anxiously hope for just two things: bread and circuses."

Pretty smart guy, that Juvenal.

I'm looking for property in Constantinople.  I've heard they've got good bread there.

* * * * *

In times like these it's difficult not to write satire - Juvenal

Meanderings

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

NB:  The pres has donated his NobelBux to several charities.  Congratulations, Mr. President, on your honorable act.

* * * 

The Armenian Genocide debate continues.  The Swedish Parliament just passed a resolution recognizing the murder campaign as genocide.  The vote was close, 131-130, but the Swedes go the job done.  Predictably, Turkey humphed, recalled its ambassador and canceled a conference.  Now Congress trails the Swedish Parliament in courage and common sense.  Well, yes, maybe they already did.

* * *

They would be lies anywhere else but here.  Lehman Bros. used "accounting gimmicks" to disguise its impending failure, hiding $50 bil in bad - excuse me, "troubled" - loans while begging for ever more money and paying outrageous bonuses.  Ever the spinners, Lehman calls those lies simply "non-culpable errors of business judgment".  Could I make that up?  Guess you could say the same thing about a lot of felony arrests.

It must be a real challenge, hiding $50 bil of bad loans and hoping prospective lenders and creditors won't notice.  How big do your other problems have to be before you try that trick?  Biggest bankruptcy in American history, that's how big.

Today's alert:  Watch the situation in Greece.  Their government did pretty much the same thing - with Goldman Sachs' help.  If Lehman couldn't figure how to avoid bankruptcy it's hard to see how Greece will manage it.  If Greece fails the EU won't be far behind.  Sell your Greek bonds now.

* * *

Correspondent Paul G. recommends George Will's column "As a progressive, Obama hews to the Wilsonian tradition" (you have to sign in first),  and Charles Krauthammer's column "Onward with Obamacare, regardless".  Will is more the professor type, Krauthammer the mud-wrestler.  Both make  interesting points.


* * *

The failures of the health care industry and the complementary failure of the government to oversee it might seduce you into believing that the government should take over.  I disagree but healthy debate should be the key to major legislation.  There hasn't been any real debate.  Had there been, you'd know more than you do.

Let me ask you a question.  Which key economic or social programs have the government run well and within budget?  If you can't think of at least a few then why would you think that government would do a better job running 1/6th of our national economy?  

Don't forget Krauthammer's column. 

How do you reconcile opposition to "tax cuts for the rich" that actually increase national revenue with a health program that extends government-paid benefits to the same people while draining the treasury?


* * *

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...

James Madison

Revisiting the Armenian Genocide

 We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

The 1915 Armenian Genocide at the hands of the Turks is back in the news.  Some in Congress want the US to call it what it was, some don't.  The House Foreign Affairs Committee narrowly voted the matter to the floor Thursday.  You read about the genocide here last April 24.

The prez wants Congress to drop the issue altogether.  (Reminder:  He promised to acknowledge it as genocide during his campaign.)  Turkey recalled its ambassador "for talks", Hillary says it's because we don't want to jeopardize the ongoing Turkey-Armenia reconciliation talks.  The Azeris don't want to disturb the endless Nagorno-Karabakh talks, either.  Say what?

This isn't about US foreign relations, or Nagorno-Karabakh or about the Turkey-Armenia reconciliation talks which are already stalled over the same issue.  Maybe, just maybe, if those talks would give rise to an international body to settle the issue (a precondition to the talks in the first place), then maybe we could wait a little while longer.  BUT THAT AIN'T HAPPENING!  It would embarrass the Turks too much, don'cha know?

Just a few points here:

1.  1,500,000 or so innocent Armenians died in a very short time by order of the Turkish pasha, who wanted to exterminate Armenia, period.  That happened, mass murder with an agenda.  It was witnessed and well documented and that's genocide, folks.

2.  The prez's word is no good on this issue.  He promised one thing and did another.

3.  If the administration can't tell the truth about a foreign catastrophe, why should we believe them when they tell us about our impending domestic catastrophes... and how they saved us from them.  Lucky us, but they spent our children's future to do whatever it is they say they did.  Say, do you remember exactly what that was?

4.  If we're not to call it a genocide, what DO we call it?  "Man-caused disaster" has already been taken (thank you, JanieN).  

We've gone through this same soul-searching (to the extent our national soul still exists) before.  Hitler is supposed to have said "Who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?"  OK, point taken, Adolph, but we remember the Holocaust... and we damn you.

Who among us remembers Pol Pot?  Mao?  Mao, maybe, but usually for the Long March or the Little Red Book, not for the worst genocide in history.  Stalin?  Something vaguely reminiscent there but who can place the Ukrainian genocide or the one in Chechnya?  Rwanda?  Does anyone these days even know where Rwanda is?  ("Africa" doesn't count.)  Darfur?  The government of Sudan is sponsoring the Darfur genocide and we're fixated on Toyota's brake problems.  Where did the American moral compass go?

Is it too much to ask of our government that, at the very least, it not do business with genocidal monsters and that it call genocide by its name?  No, today's Turks aren't monsters but there are others who qualify.  The Turks do have a dark past that needs exposure to the light of truth.  Justice will never be done (and forget reparations) but that sad murmuring you hear is the voices of 1.5 million lost souls pleading "Give a name to what happened to me." 

* * * * *

One death is a tragedy.  A million deaths is a statistic.

Joseph Stalin

Neo-Kulaks

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

I've read plenty of Soviet history but I was never clear on just what a kulak was.  I knew that kulaks were singled out for confiscation of their property but what the heck was a kulak. I asked my retired Russian MVD colonel buddy that question.  "A successful farmer" he replied.  Nahhh, couldn't be.  Could it?  Yes, it could.  Wiki has a good article HERE.

But why demonize, marginalize and murder successful farmers?  As a class, weren't they the ones who were feeding hungry Soviet mouths and creating jobs and building industries?  Didn't matter.  No truth mattered and no one was safe if the gummint decided it wanted your stuff.   Grigori Zinoviev was Lenin's party theoretician.  He said "We are fond of describing any peasant who has enough to eat as a kulak."  It was all for the greater good, don'cha know.  It was them vs. us, a pogrom to cleanse newly identified enemies of the state for the benefit of... the state.

A neo-kulak is simply a kulak in today's society.  If they have good stuff and the gummint wants it, all it needs to do is identify and marginalize and demonize them:  fat cat bankers, corporations and especially people who earn or have more than you do.  Having done all that, the gummint must be sure to tell you that the kulaks are Someone Who Isn't You.  After all, if they really are someone like you then you might feel a little creepy about taking all their stuff and killing them.  There, there, don't you worry your little head.

Today Oregonians officially recognized two neo-kulak classes: people earning more than $125K and all corporations.  Neo-kulaks, of course, must pay some penalty for their successes, something more than you and I pay for our successes.  Why should they reap the rewards of hard work or good luck or just being from a good family?  The government has to create some means of transferring their stuff to us.  For individual neo-kulaks the penalty is a higher income tax bracket.  For corporate neo-kulaks, new and higher taxes.  Not income taxes, mind you, but taxes on their very existence and taxes on gross receipts regardless of profits or income.

Disclaimer:  My wife and I run a charity incorporated in Oregon.  We take neither pay nor expense reimbursement and, of course, our charity makes no profit.  Regardless, we are caught in the neo-kulak hysteria.  Our state minimum tax is going from $10 to $150.  Why?  Because someone thought we have too much money and it needed to be spread around.   No other reason than that.  We get nothing in return and the money comes directly out of the mouths of the disadvantaged children we're helping.

Our charity, CCRFund, is a victim of kulakization (a real word).  We're so small that we're on the very low end of the new corporate taxes.  We'll make it somehow, I suppose.  150 bucks isn't the end of the world for us, but it is maybe 150 lunches that won't be delivered to poor kids, or some blankets or books or... you get the idea.  Our "rich" donors (would that they were rich, those kind souls who donate for children whom they'll never see) are going to have to cut back somewhere to pay the cost of their kulakization.  Will it come out of charity donations?  Some will, most likely.

When I wrote to the Portland Oregonian about this one commenter responded "It's only $140 a month.  Get over it."  That's sort of what Zinoviev said.  If you set the bar low enough, the gummint can take everything from everyone... for the good of the state.

Today CCRFund lost and lots of people are happy about that, people who think that neo-kulaks can be fleeced forever for the good of those doing the fleecing.  But that isn't true.  You know it in your hearts that there must be a law of diminishing returns, a point beyond which there is nothing left to take.  When that day comes the gummint will have to ID some new kulaks.  It won't be us or people making more than $125K.  There won't be any of those left.

Look around.  Maybe you won't have to pay more under Oregon's Measures 66 and 67.  Of course, that would require you to believe that no one ever passes costs along or structures income to minimize tax or fires employees to decrease overhead to offset new costs.  Or you might believe that the market economy has no relevance, that gummint can fix anything in any way it wants, including taking your stuff and giving it to others.

Look around again and ask yourself, will I be the next kulak?  You already know the answer and you already know your turn is coming.  Zinoviev told you.

"We are fond of describing any peasant who has enough to eat as a kulak."

Grigori Zinoviev

* * * * *

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out.

Martin Niemoller

Saving Health Care... From Us

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

It took extraordinary bribes and payoffs to get 100% of our DemSens to pass a health care... make that a health insurance reform... bill in the face of 100% RepubSens opposition  Way different version than the House version but that's what conferences are supposed to fix so that the versions are compatible. 

Up jumps the devil, in the form of the Mass. special senate election tomorrow, Martha Coakley vs. Scott Brown.  Looks like Coakley might lose, which is throwing Congress into a tizzy. 

DemSens are making extraordinary efforts to pass something, anything, before Brown is seated, if he actually does win.  This, despite the fact that polls show that the measure is wildly unpopular unless you ask the question without mentioning how much it costs and who' going to have to pay the price.

They might not ram the health care/insurance bill through without that 60th vote, the one that makes it veto- and filibuster-proof.  The prez and everyone else of any Dem import are campaigning relentlessly for MarthaC.  Not much of that on the other side because Repubs are afraid of losing even more 2010/2012 cred if they are seen as backing a loser.  ScottB is pretty much on his own unless he wins, then lots of people who aren't him will be taking credit. 

MarthaC was ahead by 15 or so points a couple of short weeks ago.  Now ScottB is ahead in most polls by anywhere from 5-9%.  That's an almost unfathomable sea change (note the neat double nautical references). Even John Kerry resorted to a sports metaphor, just in case us plebs don't get it:  "This race is a jump ball."  And thanks for that, John.  That translates to "How the heck are we going to spin this disaster?"  Fox has a good story HERE.

No matter who wins, the losing side will spin it is not meaning all that much, being just a special election and all.  Except for that health bill thing.

* * * * *

A politician thinks of the next election.  A statesman, of the next generation. -- James Freeman Clarke

.

Someone Who Isn't You

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

It makes some people feel good when taxes are imposed or raised on corporations.  People like the prez think taxes aren't about revenue, they're about fairness.  We addressed that quirky notion last year.  These are the same people who support Oregon's Props. 66 and 67 on tomorrow's ballot.  Their idea of raising revenue is "We'll just take it from someone who isn't us."

Corporations don't pay taxes.  Corporate taxes are added to the cost of goods sold and figured into prices.  That means buyers pay those taxes, not the corporations themselves.  Buyers = you.

If that's too hard to understand, let me illustrate it another way.  The WSJ reports that the Obama administration is contemplating new bank fees.  This is, of course, the same administration that recently excoriated the banking industry for the high fees it was charging customers.  Do they have no sense of irony or shame?


The prez wants to use the money to help repay some $170 bil that has been lost in TARP bailouts, money that they already know isn't going to be repaid.  This is no more than a trial balloon for increased fees but it's one to keep an eye on.  The underlying message is that someone who isn't us is going to pay for the government's bailouts.  That'll make it all OK, won't it?

The TARP bailout, in case you have already forgotten, was an outgoing Bush administration/incoming Obama administration program to purchase or insure non-performing real estate loans.  We bought bad loans in order to bail out the previous purchasers of those loans.  If you think about it for even a moment you'll know that was probably a bad idea.

The idea was so bad, in fact, that we (you, me and the rest of America) have already lost $170 bil or so from just that one bad idea.  That's more than $14 bil in losses a month.  To put that in another perspective, it's 8-1/2 times California's projected deficit.  We bailed out the RE loans and we're gonna bail out CA pretty soon and CA looks like the more attractive choice!  We shouldn't bail out anyone (except me, of course) but do you doubt that's the way things are headed?  But I digress.

You should be asking some questions about the proposed bank fees.  "How much is it going to cost bank customers?" is one good question.  The answer is, the entire fee plus admin costs plus a mark-up.  You'll pay it in higher bank fees of your own (disregarding prior remonstrations about those high fees), lower interest earned and higher borrowing costs.  Did you think the bank was going to pay it out of bonus money or retained earnings?  Not likely.

The banking industry is healthier today than it was a year ago and that may be partly due to TARP.  I have trouble imagining lending institutions not doing well if they get free money to lend and are absolved of their bad debt.  Check out the latest stories about bank bonuses before you disagree.

The banks that are left today, including the ones that have paid back their TARP bailout money, are going to get stuck for the money that other banks aren't going to repay.  Does that make sense to you?  Should you get stuck with the part of your neighbor's mortgage that he didn't repay?  If you did, he could correctly say "Someone who isn't me is going to pay my bills."  Same thing.

You're going to hear a lot of ideas about how our TARP bailouts should/must be repaid, mostly from the people who shouldn't have made TARP investments in the first place.  They are scrambling to find neo-kulaks to demonize, marginalize and rob.  Rich guys are such easy targets, too.  If we make rich and evil and criminal synonymous then it feels more like our duty to fleece them to help ourselves.  It's a lot easier on our consciences, too.

Do you recall (this goes all the way back to yesterday) our prediction that CA would imposing more arbitrary revenue-generating measures that wouldn't be called taxes... but are?  How could I have omitted predicting that this would happen on the federal level too?


Someone who isn't you isn't going to oppose these methods of paying for bad decisions.  Someone who isn't you isn't going to demand that your governments stop their reckless spending.  Nope, sorry, it's going to be up to you to do it... and someone who isn't you is going to fight you every step of the way.

* * * * *

If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem.  If you them $100 million, that's the bank's problem.

J. Paul Getty