On Superman

Many people are complaining about the recent events in the Superman storyline. For those who are unaware, in the comics Superman personally intervened in Iran, the Iranian government assumed he was acting not as Superman, man of Steel, but Superman, agent of the US Government, and responded accordingly to what they viewed as a declaration of war. In response to this, Superman does the only course of action he, in his position, can take. So long as he is there as a symbol of the American way, there are those who would use him in order to harm his homeland, the people he loves. Due to his immense stature and capability, he could not be that symbol, that it is foolish for him to pretend that his actions would not reflect on his home and those he love.

In order to enable him to protect the home he loves, he has to walk away from it, renouncing his citizenship.

I have heard more people complain, equating it to GI Joe pissing on the Army uniform in one post I saw. Instead, I salute it. DC Comics is addressing a real issue in the world through their comic metaphor, and that narrow minded people don't get it and think that him doing this was unAmerican or an attempt to make being American shameful.

Superman did what he had to do, in order to be a proud American. Due to his status, he became a symbol of America to the world in the DC universe, and in this Universe too I may add. But he also saw how dangerous it had become, that people were looking to him to be America, to lead America and to set it's policies, to personify it's policies. In order to protect America from Kal El, the man, he had to divorce Superman from the country itself.

If such a being as Superman existed in this world, much the same would happen. Imagine in a Watchmen world what would happen, the fallout if Dr Manhattan did as Superman did. Iran would immediatel­y declare war on the US and attack our troops in Iraq and Afghanista­n out of the assumption that if Superman was against them, the US was against them.

This makes Superman in my eye not less American, but more American. This is what being American means, putting the good of your friends, family, neighbors ahead of your own. This is the country of We the People. He is now, more than ever, the symbol of everything that is right about America, what is worth fighting for in America.

On Taxes and the lack thereof

Adrian Hunter commented this on this facebook post: http://www.facebook.com/bsnowden2/posts/182435675138204?notif_t=share_reply

A major complaint is so many don’t pay any Income Tax. The uninformed think that means low income people. But here is reality - due to the gwb gift to the wealthy, for 2011 a couple could have had $86,700 of dividends (at the S&P average dividend rate that is over $5million in stock) and their income tax would be ZERO.

To compare - if that married couple's $86,700 income was wages, their 2010 federal income tax would be $9,369 (no kids, standard deduction)- and they would have paid another $6,633 in social security & medicare taxes.

So on the same amount of income - the couple with $5million of stock pays ZERO, while the working couple pays $16,002.

The above is from an accountant friend of mine.

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So, I went to look this up.

When in doubt about taxes, don't go to the so called think tanks, who often times are financed by groups with personal involvement. As everyone pays taxes, every think tank is financed by someone with a personal involvement.

So who do you go to? One source: http://www.irs.gov

The Internal Revenue Service website is not the cleanest, but it has everything you'd ever need to or want to know about our tax code on there. It is their job, after all. The relevant document this time is: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p550.pdf

It looks more daunting than it truly is. If you break it down, Adrian's accounting friend is 100% correct. A person with $5 Million in stock holdings can live tax free. And, with other accounting processes, can even hold more, through things such as dividend reinvestment.

This seems a tad unfair, especially when we are discussing budget cuts which would harm our economic system itself. Why should I work my tail off to let someone sit on their butt and collect checks for not working?

A Liberal Definition by John F. Kennedy

Taken from: http://www.liberalparty.org/JFKLPAcceptance.html

A small reminder of what Liberal means, from John Kennedy.

Acceptance Speech of the New York
Liberal Party Nomination

September 14, 1960

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

But first, I would like to say what I understand the word "Liberal" to mean and explain in the process why I consider myself to be a "Liberal," and what it means in the presidential election of 1960.

In short, having set forth my view -- I hope for all time -- two nights ago in Houston, on the proper relationship between church and state, I want to take the opportunity to set forth my views on the proper relationship between the state and the citizen. This is my political credo:

I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.

I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.

Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies. And the only basic issue in the 1960 campaign is whether our government will fall in a conservative rut and die there, or whether we will move ahead in the liberal spirit of daring, of breaking new ground, of doing in our generation what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson did in their time of influence and responsibility.

Our liberalism has its roots in our diverse origins. Most of us are descended from that segment of the American population which was once called an immigrant minority. Today, along with our children and grandchildren, we do not feel minor. We feel proud of our origins and we are not second to any group in our sense of national purpose. For many years New York represented the new frontier to all those who came from the ends of the earth to find new opportunity and new freedom, generations of men and women who fled from the despotism of the czars, the horrors of the Nazis, the tyranny of hunger, who came here to the new frontier in the State of New York. These men and women, a living cross section of American history, indeed, a cross section of the entire world's history of pain and hope, made of this city not only a new world of opportunity, but a new world of the spirit as well.

Tonight we salute Governor and Senator Herbert Lehman as a symbol of that spirit, and as a reminder that the fight for full constitutional rights for all Americans is a fight that must be carried on in 1961.

Many of these same immigrant families produced the pioneers and builders of the American labor movement. They are the men who sweated in our shops, who struggled to create a union, and who were driven by longing for education for their children and for the children's development. They went to night schools; they built their own future, their union's future, and their country's future, brick by brick, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, and now in their children's time, suburb by suburb.

Tonight we salute George Meany as a symbol of that struggle and as a reminder that the fight to eliminate poverty and human exploitation is a fight that goes on in our day. But in 1960 the cause of liberalism cannot content itself with carrying on the fight for human justice and economic liberalism here at home. For here and around the world the fear of war hangs over us every morning and every night. It lies, expressed or silent, in the minds of every American. We cannot banish it by repeating that we are economically first or that we are militarily first, for saying so doesn't make it so. More will be needed than goodwill missions or talking back to Soviet politicians or increasing the tempo of the arms race. More will be needed than good intentions, for we know where that paving leads.

In Winston Churchill's words, "We cannot escape our dangers by recoiling from them. We dare not pretend such dangers do not exist."

And tonight we salute Adlai Stevenson as an eloquent spokesman for the effort to achieve an intelligent foreign policy. Our opponents would like the people to believe that in a time of danger it would be hazardous to change the administration that has brought us to this time of danger. I think it would be hazardous not to change. I think it would be hazardous to continue four more years of stagnation and indifference here at home and abroad, of starving the underpinnings of our national power, including not only our defense but our image abroad as a friend.

This is an important election -- in many ways as important as any this century -- and I think that the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party here in New York, and those who believe in progress all over the United States, should be associated with us in this great effort. The reason that Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson had influence abroad, and the United States in their time had it, was because they moved this country here at home, because they stood for something here in the United States, for expanding the benefits of our society to our own people, and the people around the world looked to us as a symbol of hope.

I think it is our task to re-create the same atmosphere in our own time. Our national elections have often proved to be the turning point in the course of our country. I am proposing that 1960 be another turning point in the history of the great Republic.

Some pundits are saying it's 1928 all over again. I say it's 1932 all over again. I say this is the great opportunity that we will have in our time to move our people and this country and the people of the free world beyond the new frontiers of the 1960s.

Taxes, Income, and GDP

In many cases, I hear people discussing our taxes as if they are too high, and that our government is too large. But when I study, our taxes are actually some of the lowest in the world, and our government is anemic, too small to function with the population we have. For instance, our "Business income tax rate" is 35%, which yes, is higher. But that is only *part* of the taxes a business has to deal with. Add in the Tariffs, the VAT, sales taxes, etc, the US lacks those for businesses, so they pay the same 35% rate, but other countries do have those, with the taxes for many companies over 50% in many countries. But why do our companies flee there? Because they don't tax foreign owned companies. But we don't tax foreign earned income. So companies become a shell game, hiding their income, to avoid taxes.

The truth is, our debt and deficit is an issue of the fact that our tax policy has become distorted. We bought a lie, that we could have our cake and eat it too. That we could have the government we needed without paying for it. Our society is too large to operate without a tax base equal to it. But we as of right now have a tax base lower than any point since 1950.

I'm not talking income taxes, mind you, but all government income. We have nothing to cut, even if we eliminated all discressionary spending, we'd still be in debt and we'd crush our GDP in the process, hurting our tax base even more. Our rush to privatize has deprived the system of the income it needs to operate. We socialize risk, but privatize profits, and wonder why we have no money for the programs needed to keep our highways open, to prevent our schools from degrading into morasses of mediocraty, and that our ability to borrow determines our value to society.

Our GDP per capita, adjusted for inflation, if we'd kept pace with the growth of the 1950's, would be at over $90k. Instead, it's at $58k. The entire slowdown has happened since the 1970's. Until we can honestly say that the median income in the US is at $90k, we're all suffering.

As for hiding income, we need to simply apply the same rules to corporations which apply to everyone else, if you send money overseas, you get taxed on it as if it were profit or earned income, at the highest rate without any options for deductions. Then we need Tariffs, not high tariffs, but a small bump to slow things down. Lastly, we need to fix the capital gains system, it is broken beyond all means, with huge profits gaining no taxes at all despite being a huge drain of government resources.

Until we address the real issue, that our consumer driven economy is being dismantled through a poor tax program, we will never get back on our feet.

On Regulations and the concerns thereof

One of the common issues where Liberals like myself are regularly challenged is on Regulations. The common criticism is that Regulations make the United States less competitive. Other is that people deserve the freedom to do as they wish, and that Regulations are but a way to be oppressed. And there is some merit to the argument, however it is far more complex than many people realize.

Regulations can be good, or bad, depending often times on ones point of view. For instance, a regulation preventing the emission of Coal Ash is bad for the Coal industry, but is good for another group of people, namely those wishing to breathe. But this regulation is one I've seen attacked, claiming it makes us less competitive. Last time I checked, breathing is a fairly popular thing to support.

So why is this regulation attacked? Because it costs money from industries. One of the court legal decisions in the 1920's (The Dodge Brothers vs Ford Motor Company) makes Corporations have to focus on improvement of stock value, over and above all else. This has been interpreted over the years to mean that if a Corporation does not actively try and fight against regulation which harms the bottom line, they are in violation of the law. This includes even if the regulation keeps its own customers alive. Same reason why the fight to eliminate Lead restriction still is out there, or to allow DDT to be used again, despite them both being known cancer causing elements.

Now, is this true of all Regulations? Not at all. Some Regulations do have less common sense. For instance, a Regulation in the 1960's once required all typewriters used by the Department of Defense had to include "A three letter logo of (particular font and size)". This was put in by lobbyists of International Business Machines to lock-in the DoD contract. Instead what it did was get their competitors to all adopt a similar naming system, from DEC, CDC, and OKI all popped up. But this is an example of another form of Regulation, the monopolist Regulation, where a company uses it's influence to lock out competition through regulatory restrictions. Some of them are easier to bypass than others, obviously.

A Liberal viewpoint is that the former regulations bring more benefit than harm, as if we did not utilize them then corporations would have unfettered ability to do things which directly harmed the people of the United States. The viewpoint also frowns on the latter, for it harms Capitalism through artificial barriers, an artificial monopoly.

Also, there is the other form of Regulation, the non-Regulation Regulation. There is another way to Regulate not often taken advantage of, the carrot-and-stick taxation approach to Regulation. Some Regulations work better than others in this manner. It is simple to implement, but it does require a higher tax rate to be effective. In short, you have a high business tax rate, that is the stick, but then have deductions for good behavior, which is the carrot. This form of Regulation works well with the current Corporate environment, where maximizing stock value is of utmost concern.

In addition, a corporate death penalty needs to be reinforced. It exists on paper, but has not been enforced for decades. In short, if a business engages in repeated behavior which endangers the public, or kills people through it's negligence, the business is "killed" and it's assets seized in order to utilize them for restitution. This wipes out the executives and stockholders immediately, their penalty for failing to obey the law and run a business which is ethical. For instance, the BP oil spill, which was caused through BP's repeated decades-long ignoring of regulations, would result in BP's american branch being shut-down, and all assets sold off. You only need to do this once, every few decades, and all Corporations fall in line. To do otherwise for them is to invite stockholder revolts, something no Executive can risk. This must be paired with strengthening individual Stockholder rights while diminishing corporate stockholder rights. A person can decide, a piece of paper (all a Corporation is if you think about it) cannot.

Well, that is my little dissection of regulation anyways.