The Ice Flow

By Mary Hannington

"Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

"I know that there are some who say, ‘Let’s just get more money from the higher-income people, let’s just tax them some more', and I understand that’s popular in a lot of people’s minds. But just don’t forget that old Margaret Thatcher line, ‘Sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.’ ”

Um, who is running out of money?

Mitt Romney is worth an estimated $190 - $250 million, and of this, $100 million went as a gift to his children and due to some absurd tax law he paid NO gift taxes on this amount. He estimates he’ll pay $3.23 million in federal taxes for 2011, on income of $20.9 million. Romney will have $5.7 million in itemized deductions, including $4 million donated to charity. The bulk of those charitable donations -$2.6 million - went to the Mormon Church.

Outside of the charitable donations $1.7 million was for other itemized deductions meaning property taxes, mortgage interest (if any), all manner of medical expenses and any state or local taxes that would be deducted from income.

Imagine spending almost 2 million on any of these things.

He DID make income, but no doubt that was wiped away by the HUGE amount of itemized deductions and you may call him charitable, but cynic that I am, I’m willing to bet his itemized deductions match what is allowable for his income. In other words, rather than pay a higher tax rate on income he can give the money to charitable groups he supports ie; the church and deduct it instead of paying the government in taxes.

You can estimate 2010 income here:

Romney's 2010 Income

Of course this is 2010, but it looks to me like you can get pretty close to $4 million if one looks at the income categories, speaker’s fees and imagines the amount of interest income (not disclosed) and I'm guessing here, but I imagine his yearly income doesn't fluctuate wildly.

Republicans argue that during earlier years as Romney earned his money he paid taxes at the regular rate, so it is now fair that he should pay less on the money he now earns off that money in the form of capital gains. Kinda like saying "Congratulations! You are now tremendously wealthy. You no longer need to give to your country."

Let’s look at how trickle down theory is working in this case. The Mormon church did well, but will they use the money to help people or to build another church? Or put it toward genealogy research so that they have a database of all our dead relatives and these families can finally be saved?

It is going to take some dough to get all the way back to Adam. Yes, that is their goal.

Romney’s kids did fantastic, but will they use their money to build factories and companies and put people to work? And how many people does Mitt currently employ?

Good accountants for sure!

No doubt lawyers…

And no doubt low-income positions abound in his household – maids, chefs, drivers, greensmen, pool boys, maybe a pilot or two, assistants and what not.

Not much tricklin’ going on here is there?

Meanwhile, the IRS is coming after Ms. 91, who makes .001% of what Mitt Romney does, for back taxes which she probably didn’t file because she has dementia and gets confused. Sure she owes them, but it’s a hardship for her to have to pay the pittance they are after.

And on another note...

Romney’s family traces back to the Pratt family in colonial times. His great grandfather Pratt had three wives and his great, great grandfather had four. This is one of the reasons for the Mexican heritage that Mitt so proudly claims. Both Pratt and Romney families fled, along with other Mormons, to Mexico because the good ole U S of A frowned on polygamy. His great, great grandfather on the Romney side also had two wives.

“…the kingdom of God cannot rise independent of Gentile nations until we produce, manufacture, and make every article of use, convenience or necessity among our people."

These two families are powerful white Mormon families, in both the church and in politics, which both trace back to colonial times and though some of them were born in Mexico it was not necessarily because they dug the place. They operated a Mexican Mission in Chihuahua in order to convert the Mexicans there. In other words, they were there to CHANGE the culture… not embrace it.

In a 1997 article in Time magazine it was estimated that the Mormon Church’s assets were worth 11 billion dollars. "The church owns many for-profit assets including agribusiness, media, insurance, travel and real estate. Deseret Management Corp., the company through which the church holds almost all its commercial assets, is one of the largest owners of farm and ranchland in the country, including 49 for-profit parcels in addition to the Deseret Ranch. Besides the Bonneville International chain and Beneficial Life, the church owns a 52% holding in ZCMI, Utah's largest department-store chain." These provide over $600 million in income, in addition to this, in 1996 the church brought in $5.2 billion in tithes.

Mitt's mamma used to sing American anthems and according to Mitt he LOVES this country, perhaps that is because his family and the church want to own it one day.

If I had $17 million after taxes and $100 million in the bank? My mind reels with the thoughts... I could build schools, I could give people housing, I could adopt children, I could, I could, I could... why don't they?

Posted by M. Hannington at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Mary Hannington

Reagan, Bush, the Tea Party have run this nation into the ground. What's it going to be like here when the oil runs dry, the population has no chance at an education, their homes are rotting, but there is not enough affordable housing, millions take to the streets, and die ("Yay! Serves ya right for not buying health insurance." they cry), and China is now providing the World with all the smart technology it needs.

Lady Liberty still stands there welcoming the poor, but they don't want to come here any more.

The leftist Occupodos have finally woken up, but they are angry with the left, which is where our reversal of fortunes lie, but in a reasoned way.

The right has left us with some pretty fucked up shit to clean up.

Here is something:

Constitution Free Zone

The article above, if you chose to skip it, describes a 100 mile swath around the entire country where the Homeland Security Department felt they needed to have the right to be able to search and detain ANYONE without a warrant. Perhaps this might be one reason the immigrants are absent… Or could the reason for these 100 mile zones be political.

Let your eyes rove around those zones. Seems to me they swallow up over half the purple and blue districts… Hmmm… how strange…

But phew! I’m glad I’m protected from those pesky criminals and immigrants flowing in from Lake Michigan or the ones crossing the Detroit River! Damn Canadians! They’ll try anything to smuggle their cheap goods into OUR country.

And those damn Brits sailing the Atlantic in order to sneak into the Hamptons to rob and pillage making up for years and YEARS of taxes on tea… Or, or the Japanese invading the West Coast in droves, floating in on old tires across the Pacific, I know, I know they used planes once, but times have changed.

It’s just… just such a frustrating problem!

But now comes Grover Norquist saying, “We need to cut taxes! People know how to spend their money more wisely than the government.”

I’m so excited!

Now, that our borders are safe, suddenly, all those old Enron CEOs will see the light, help collect the garbage, police our cities, educate our children, INSTEAD of buying gold shower curtains and stashing their cash in offshore accounts and FINALLY now will, with glee, invest their money in the sagging American economy. Yay!

They will take in new employees, give them healthcare, educate them, give them a place to live…

I’m sure they will follow the example of the saintly Samuel Slater (google the great man), who in 1793 came up with the kindly idea to offer his workers, housing, a company store and education. Hey, it came out of their paycheck and they had no other options in life, but they were fed right?

Wow! Utopia!

Maybe the wealthier of us could just let the poor work for free in exchange for room and board if they commit to a lifetime of service. Oh, we tried that it was called slavery, right?.

Is that illegal now?

And you’d think with all this opportunity the poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free would be flooding in…

Foreign Workers Leaving US

Maybe Lady Liberty’s torch should be replaced with a wave bye-bye.

Christina Fernandez Kirchner won 37% more votes than her opponent in Argentina’s presidential race. Their GDP is up 9% and there has been a 30% rise in salaries. This is largely due to huge investments from China and partly Brazil, which took Argentina out of a 2009 recession.

Clearly Detroit’s borders are safe, but I don’t like the idea of being felt up by the FBI whenever they wish.

Buenos Aires aquí vengo!

I’ll turn the lights out before I go.

Reading: Jeffrey Sachs – Columbia University "The Price of Civilization"

Posted by M. Hannington at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Or the day Ms. 91 found out I could take pictures with my iPhone.
Or why aren't there pictures here?
Or on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.
Or use this but for only two weeks because after that it will make your teeth brown.

By Mary Hannington

What? So much crap flies at me every day I need a crap racket, dodger or some sort of athletic equipment!

Ms. 91 doesn’t get the fact that even though there is a Slouchy, I’m still single. Eh, so be it.

Some picture Ms. 91!

She is a Democrat now and maybe she always was. She hangs out with black men and women, has gay friends, wears a low cut swimsuit in the YMCA pool that would make her husband, who would avert eyes to my teeny bikinis, blush (RIP). He was a quartermaster that was on one of the boats that took Okinawa and then became an engineer and a comptroller for a southern automotive plant.

I grew up in a household controlled by this conservative Scottish father whose own father ruled him with a strap. He was embarrassed by his daughter’s sexuality, couldn’t hide his shock when he opened the door once and found my date to be a black man and openly griped when I chose to live with a man unwed. He didn’t do a lot of parenting, not until much, much later in my life when we came to a meeting of the minds and we could talk about adult things like business and even sex.

A football rivalry was the real kicker. A way to take our aggressions out in a healthy manner.

He was a child of the 50’s - the world of the American Dream. Maybe he’d be dismayed with the state of the country today and the state of the GOP, but it is more likely that he’d still support that American Dream and those ideas and want it for his daughter, who sees that it is gone.

Ms. 91 on the other hand not only lived the American Dream, but she lived in the 60’s and in the moment (still does). She wore Muumuus and Earth shoes. She had an organic garden, a Zen garden and we both did our Yoga every day.

In the 70’s we shopped for me together and searched for the little known new designers and swore off Halston and Yves St. Laurent or Pierre Cardin that other girls might covet. I wore African style dresses in colorful cloth by Kenzo before he was KENZO and had an odd tattered looking tie-die number by some Danish designer whose name escapes, purple bikini jeans or green velvet, or the crushed purple velvet pants with the HUGE Famolare clogs.

And those bikini jeans weren’t worn with a thong peeking out. They exposed butt cracks that tiny panties couldn’t cover whenever a girl sat down.

It was wild and it was fun while it lasted.

Guru aches for it, I remember it fondly like one should and celebrate it every day in my mind’s eye. Things change and you can’t control the world, but I understand the obsession to try.

My parents made their nest egg and they left for the south again and I set off to make mine.

In the 80’s I was already a punk, having picked it up in a stint in London paid for with student loans and hanging out in the Detroit’s dive bars carousing with freaks my dad would have keeled over at had he opened the door to any of them. I studied Marxism and communist China, read the Guardian and sang songs about Anarchy. Then I got into American politics, which is still slapping me in the face.

I was a delegate for Kennedy – how’d that work out?

I had a chance to go to Parson’s for my Masters of Art with a man I deeply loved - Reagan conservatism and family values ramrodded that whole deal.

For a while it was good. I bought a big house filled it with stuff and along came Dubya and now the house and the stuff are all I have.

When I was fourteen I designed a house on a cliff overlooking the sea, no specific place, but within a train ride from New York City.

I always thought I’d get to that house some day.

I threw the blueprints away five years ago.

It will take an army to do what I need to do to get there. I’m it.

I get half a foot of mail a day, I’m suddenly the mother of 4 kittens and two cats, Ms. 91 goes to the Y three times a week and the only time I get a workout is in the locker room, I have a trademark filing deadline, a Groupon expiring, a class to be completed, bills to pay on time, no money in the bank and the stock market is plummeting, a dental consult, a blood lab and doctor’s appointment, a dinner out for Ms. 91 and my cousin Tom to plan, oh and my medical insurance expires in October, pictures to send to Ms. 91’s sis, plaster work that can’t be finished because the roof that I have had sealed TWICE still occasionally leaks which is why I can’t let the Groupon expire, I had to hire some help, which I can’t really afford, but I don’t have time to deal with it all and at least it is discounted, my garden is now full of weeds again and at least that is a Zen thing for me., the house needs painting and that means me on a cherry picker (maybe in the fall), I have pebble dashing (Just google it!) work to do on three sides of the house, my entire 2 ½ car garage is filled with props and the remains of a 6500 square foot studio and it seems I am now the proud owner of a giant cast iron fireplace that thank Buddha is on a furniture dolly because the damn thing weighs a ton!, the room I’m trying to restore upstairs is filled with props from the last three films and the steamer trunks I lent to the latest and the room I put everything I want to sell on Ebay and organized on shelves is quickly getting disorganized and the guys that helped me do this rewired a ceiling lamp that was in the way of a shelf, but could have easily been raised without rewiring, but in doing so knocked out most ALL of the ceiling lights in the upstairs bedrooms, which I was hoping to eventually rent out, the kittens are in a room that still has a computer desk that I no longer need or use and should sell, but see above, I long ago paid for a series of spa appointments that help me feel better about myself, but I don’t have time to go, I have Ms. 91’s china and crystal service for twelve, but since she LIVES in my dinning room it’s not likely I’m going to serve dinner to twelve people anytime soon, not to mention I have enough china and glassware for a boffo soirée anyways and I don’t need any of it and I just got an ambulance bill from the city for a trip Ms. 91 took 5 months ago!

She woke up one day and couldn’t move. Turned out she was fine.

There are two men that I dearly love in New York and one other that has apparently flown the coop that need me, but there is not much of ME left.

And truth be told I read the news, surveil what’s around me and that house on a cliff has become a jump off a cliff. I’m so scared about what our future looks like that I want my body to hit the rocks rather than see it.

My life is in the hands of Ms. 91 and a bunch of jokers in the White House and a governor, who looked a bunch of folks in the face and lied.

And I love you Speedy, but it is not MY regression. It’s this country’s. And it’s giving me some cement shoes to take me down with it. I be swimming with the fishes if the nonsense don’t stop. You were just a baby when Reagan was kicking my ass.

That was nothing compared to the current onslaught.

American Dream pshaw!

You two, my VG partners, want to change the world? I’m doing it. One kitten at a time. One Ms. 91 at a time. One more chunk of change to the IRS. One more walk to the store and less gas spent.

One more lettuce rind thrown into the composter.

Can I get a Serenity Prayer?

I laugh every time the union sends me a note. “Dear brother and sisters….” “Fraternally yours…” It’s a small world that doesn’t exist outside of those hallowed halls. And inside those halls are egos bigger than the affection for any brother or sister can bring down, but a love of self that, for whatever reason, means more than anything.

I’m just one small woman in a troubled city doing the best I can.

And I’m fucking tired.

Posted by M. Hannington at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Mary Hannington

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise.

The reason is clear: We have an economy that increasingly rewards education and skills because of that education.

Come on people now! Smile on your brother. Everybody get together. Try to love one another right now.

When Rick Snyder (R) took office in Michigan he immediately cut spending on education and the film industry (we are unique, a union business that trains their own) and offered HUGE incentives to big business. So apparently “Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses…” no longer applies in this country. The film industry here, once a white boys club, increasingly embraced minorities and trained them. With a lack of support for the education of the inner city poor where can they possibly go but to lower income jobs?

A recently published 2009 study by Pew Research showed the drop in household wealth for Hispanics was a whopping 66%, while Blacks faired little better losing 53% of wealth over four years (2005-2009).

Click chart to enlarge

The percent of our revenue from business income is one of the lowest of any European and Asian society, those countries make closer to double the percent of GDP vs. the U.S.

Social Security = $865 Billion
Individual Income = $899 Billion
Corporate Income = $191 Billion

All of us came here from somewhere, the exception being native Indians, and benefitted from the ideas in Emma Lazurus' (born of Portuguese Jews) poem. And some very smart wealthy men (including the President) have said they would gladly pay higher taxes to keep her ideas, inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, alive.

Click chart to enlarge

A Pew Center and CBO study named these as the main reason for a decline in U.S. financial standing:

▪ Revenue declines due to two recessions, separate from the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003: 28%
▪ Defense spending increases: 15%
▪ Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003: 13%
▪ Increases in net interest: 11%
▪ Other non-defense spending: 10%
▪ Other tax cuts: 8%
▪ Obama Stimulus: 6%
▪ Medicare Part D: 2%
• Other reasons: 7%

I opened my film business in 1991 in Detroit, hiring crews of up to 30, employing four, plus reps in the Midwest and New York and summer interns, greatly improved a 6500 square foot studio, provided food for neighborhood down and outs and was bringing in business from all over the country. By 2005 most of the assets had been sold and what was once a high tech studio remained shuttered for over five years and the neighborhood declined.

This period represented a switch from a Democrat in the Governor’s office to a Republican one, but was mostly under a Clinton presidency. Under Grandholm (D) 2003-2011 the studio became a nursing school and the neighborhood thrived again. Young creatives moved to Detroit started high tech businesses like mine and I had more offers to work feature films than I could handle.

I rode out the first recession, but saw the second one coming as the automotives continued to spend, not on the future, but on the cash cow, the SUV. I shut it all down helping no one. Many of them now support the film industry and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is working to keep the city growing with a new incentive for employees to move downtown called “Live Detroit”.

A switch to smarter thinking about keeping cities vital and taking care of those in your own backyard.

From Crain’s Detroit Business:

“Here's how the incentives work: New homeowners can receive a $20,000 forgivable loan; new renters a $2,500 rental allowance (and $1,000 for the second year). In addition, existing renters will receive $1,000 for renewing a lease, and existing homeowners can receive matching funds of up to $5,000 for exterior improvements on projects of $10,000 or more.”

For me it’ll be back to high tech with the hope that the Republicans, who seem to always make a creative girl's life miserable, will realize after the terrible news from Norway that some of the Tea Party types they have aligned with will ruin this economy and send its poor and its huddled masses packing.

These are the member countries of the Convention on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on the chart above.

Click here

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