Hey, remember when super-mega-gotbuxx-richtard Warren Buffet was begging Al-Obambi to tax him and his fellow gotbuxxes more?
But for those making more than $1 million – there were 236,883 such households in 2009 – I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more – there were 8,274 in 2009 – I would suggest an additional increase in rate.
Well, it turns out that yeah – he  can talk – he wasn’t planning on paying ’em anyway.
NetJets Inc., the private-plane company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), was countersued by the U.S. over $366 million in taxes and penalties.
NetJets in November sued the U.S., saying the federal government had wrongly imposed taxes, interest and penalties totaling more than $642.7 million.
Claiming the federal Internal Revenue Service wrongfully assessed a so-called ticket tax — an excise tax on payments made in exchange for air transportation — to private aircraft owners maintaining their own planes, the Columbus, Ohio-based company demanded refunds and abatements.
The federal government, in a revised answer and countersuit filed yesterday in federal court in Columbus, rejected NetJets’ claims and alleged that four of the company’s units owe unpaid taxes and penalties.
NetJets Aviation Inc. owes more than $302.1 million, and another unit, NetJets International, is liable for $52.9 million, the U.S. said. Executive Jet Management Inc. owes $10 million while NetJets Large Aircraft owes $1.19 million, the U.S. claimed.
“NetJets doesn’t comment on pending litigation,” General Counsel Colleen Nissl said in a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg News.
Probably a good thing.  The minute he opened his piehole around me, I’d be sorely tempted to plant my fist there.
Fucking little needle-dicked asshat…
Denizens, remember when I said the other day…
Just a guess here, but anyone who thinks the Dow will gain Monday should come see me – I have this bridge I want to sell you.
It’s early, and this may or may not hold – the Dow on its best  days is somewhat volatile – but as I write this, it’s fluctuating between 340 – 360 points of losses.
(UPDATE:  Sure enough, the Dow started rallying right as I hit the “Publish” button – losses are now at 275 points & going up.)
WITY™???
Thanks, Imperial Socialist Congress™.  Thanks, Al-Obambi.  Thanks, fiddy-twoers.
You fucking bastards.
UPDATE the 2nd:  634 points down at the closing bell.
Nice going, Bambi.
Item:  The Conservatives4Palin blog reports that Timmy Tax-Cheat Tim Geithner Timmy Tax-Cheat says he never had a real job.
And this assclown is in charge of the United States Treasury.
(Hat tip:  NewsBusters – damn, Jodi Miller is hawt!    )
By now, Denizens, most of you have seen the sickening visage of one Ed Whitacre, new chair-type-critter of Government Motors, touting the “fact” that GM paid off – WITH INTEREST, BAH GAWD!!!  (a little Good Ol’ JR™ lingo there) and wrenching his arm from patting his own back.  (There is a similar video below the fold.)
Obviously, the Ayatollah and the rest of Al-Obambi would positively lurrrrrrve  to use this to beat the GOP and the American people over the head with this – “See?  Gummint bailouts, taking over on-the-verge-of-failure and handing them over to unions DOES work!!!” – which in turn would give them grist for their particular financial-sector-reform retardedness.
But something smelled awfully  damned fishy in Denmark, don’tcha know.
See, I’ve had, albeit somewhat indirectly, first-hand experience with this Ed Whitacre fellow.  As many of you know, I was previously employed by what Denizen & fellow blogger Alan K. Henderson lovingly (lovingly?) calls the “Death Star” – i.e, AT&T Wireless.  I was there the day Ed Whitacre spun us off into our own little company, then put the sorriest-assed excuse ever for a management team in charge of the thing.  I watched as AT&T Wireless spiraled down the tubes, only to be taken over by Cingular Wireless.
I could only sit idly by and suffer as they brought Chris Corrado, Chief Layoff Officer, in – probably with the approval of Ed Whitacre – and started ending the AT&T/Cingular careers, first of my friends, then mine.
So you’ll understand if I cast somewhat more than a jaundiced eye towards anything Ed Whitacre has to say.  Particularly when it has to do with Government Motors – from whom, so help me God, I will never  buy another vehicle, period, end, stop.
Well, turns out there was more to the Whitacre announcement of the loan paybacks than met the eye.  Much more:
Uncle Sam gave GM $49.5 billion last summer in aid to finance its bankruptcy. (If it hadn’t, the company, which couldn’t raise this kind of money from private lenders, would have been forced into liquidation, its assets sold for scrap.) So when Mr. Whitacre publishes a column with the headline, “The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full,” most ordinary mortals unfamiliar with bailout minutia would assume that he is alluding to the entire $49.5 billion. That, however, is far from the case.
Because a loan of such a huge amount would have been politically controversial, the Obama administration handed GM only $6.7 billion as a pure loan. (It asked for only a 7% interest rate–a very sweet deal considering that GM bonds at that time were trading below junk level.) The vast bulk of the bailout money was transferred to GM through the purchase of 60.8% equity stake in the company–arguably an even worse deal for taxpayers than the loan, given that the equity position requires them to bear the risk of the investment without any guaranteed return. (The Canadian government likewise gave GM $1.4 billion as a pure loan, and another $8.1 billion for an 11.7% equity stake. The U.S. and Canadian government together own 72.5% of the company.)
But when Mr. Whitacre says GM has paid back the bailout money in full, he means not the entire $49.5 billion–the loan and the equity. In fact, he avoids all mention of that figure in his column. He means only the $6.7 billion loan amount.
Oh, but that’s not the half of it, sportz fanz.
But wait! Even that’s not the full story given that GM, which has not yet broken even, much less turned a profit, can’t pay even this puny amount from its own earnings.
No shit.  Don’t let ’em fool you, Denizens – GM isn’t doing that well in sales.  Ford, for example has (if memory serves) lapped ’em at least a couple times.
So how is it paying it?
As it turns out, the Obama administration put $13.4 billion of the aid money as “working capital” in an escrow account when the company was in bankruptcy. The company is using this escrow money–government money–to pay back the government loan.
GM claims that the fact that it is even using the escrow money to pay back the loan instead of using it all to shore itself up shows that it is on the road to recovery. That actually would be a positive development–although hardly one worth hyping in ads and columns–if it were not for a further plot twist.
Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research, points out that the company has applied to the Department of Energy for $10 billion in low (5%) interest loan to retool its plants to meet the government’s tougher new CAFÉ (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. However, giving GM more taxpayer money on top of the existing bailout would have been a political disaster for the Obama administration and a PR debacle for the company. Paying back the small bailout loan makes the new–and bigger–DOE loan much more feasible.
In short, GM is using government money to pay back government money to get more government money. And at a 2% lower interest rate at that. This is a nifty scheme to refinance GM’s government debt–not pay it back!
GM boasts that, because it is doing so well, it is paying the $6.7 billion five years ahead of schedule since it was not due until 2015. So will there be an accelerated payback of the rest of the $49.6 billion investment? No. That goal has been pushed back, as it turns out.
In order to recover that investment, the government has to sell its equity. It plans to do that only when GM becomes a publicly traded company once again. GM was hoping to turn a profit by the end of 2010 and float an initial public offering this winter. However, GM Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell, when queried about that timeline a few days ago, demurred. The offering will be made, he said, “when the markets and the company are ready.”
So in other words, Denizens – Ed Whitacre’s lying through his teeth.  Government Motors hasn’t paid back shit.
Yet another reason never to buy another Government Motors vehicle.
Most of my life, I’ve owned either GM or Ford vehicles. There were a couple of years when I owned a Honda Civic – lame little thing that could literally not hit 50 going downhill with a tailwind – but it was a four-on-the-floor, and that’s what counted.
Seeing, though, as they were  all Fords or GMs, I had hoped one day to own a Dodge or Chrysler, just to see what the big deal was about them.
Sadly, however, that now won’t happen – because, just like GM, Chrysler has climbed into bed with the Ayatollah Obambi.
President Barack Obama announced Thursday that Chrysler would head into bankruptcy with the aid of up to another $8 billion in taxpayer money, a last-resort attempt to quickly restructure the struggling giant.
[…]
As part of the deal, Chrysler is signing a partnership with the Italian company Fiat. The government will be an investor in the revamped Chrysler and will help choose its new directors, but the Obama administration does not plan to help manage the company.
Oh, sure.  Suuuuuuuuuuuuure it doesn’t.  Like ol’ Jugears McHopenchange would pick directors from a list, say, of Tea Partiers.
Pull the other one, Soetero.
Bankruptcy doesn’t mean the nation’s No. 3 automaker will shut down. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing would allow a judge to decide how much the company’s creditors would get while the company continues to operate. The goal is for the whole process to happen quickly, Obama said, perhaps within a couple months.
Perhaps not – but if the American people wake up and smell the coffee on this one, they’ll run so far, so fast away from Chrysler that Iacocca’s old company won’t have any choice but to liquidate.
Unless, of course, the United Auto Workers mob union which is gonna wind up owning the company after all this has some sort of “incentive” plan to compel us to buy their P’sOS.  Kneecapping, perhaps – “buy ourse carses or else Luigi’s gonna come see youse”.
An offer we can’t refuse, indeed.
Shame.  I was looking forward to test-driving a new Charger.
Um, ‘scuse me for saying so – but wasn’t that $25 billion or so of our tax dollars supposed to help put the kibosh on – oh, I dunno – this???
General Motors auditors have looked at the company’s dismal sales and its crushing debt and sky-high costs and said that the current factors “raise substantial doubt about [GM’s] ability to continue as a going concern.”
It may be hard to imagine a more grim report: Despite already cutting thousands of jobs, pledging to eliminate three brands and receiving more than $13 billion in government loans, GM — one of the Big Three U.S. automakers — is still on the brink.
Hmmm.  I definitely seem to remember that if they didn’t get that money RIGHT FUCKIN’ NOW!!!!!,  that was a-gonna be it for ol’ GM.  Yessirreebob™, they wuz a-gonna take their marbles ‘n go home, they wuz, ayup.
The company is seeking nearly $17 billion more in government aid to keep running. But today’s 402-page annual report said that even an influx of government cash may not be enough to keep GM in business.
So, basically, we’ve blown roughly $25 billion to the auto companies, and it hasn’t helped one.  Motherfucking.  Bit.  Do I have that about right?
Oh, BTW, anyone notice that Al-Obambi’s Down Jones took yet another nosedive into territory not seen in 12 years?
Nice going, Demoscum.  Dat dere’s summa dat Hopenchange™, it is, ayup. 
Boy howdy, how ’bout that Al-Obambi economy, hm?
The Dow took yet another beating Thursday.  Not quite the 300-point bath of Tuesday, but still a significant near-90-point drop.
Significant because it dropped the Dow below 7500 – the lowest level since the bottoming out of the last bear market six-and-a-half years ago, a year after 9/11.
The move below that level dashed hopes that the doldrums of November would mark the ending point of a long slump in the market, which is now nearly halfway below the peak levels reached in October 2007.
The market’s inability to rally also signals that investors see no immediate end for the recession, which is already 14 months old and one of the most severe in decades. Investors also haven’t been impressed with two major economic initiatives from the Obama administration this week, an economic stimulus package and a mortgage relief plan.
“It is definitely, definitely a blow to psychology,” said Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist at The Hartford. “There is more pessimism in the market as to when the economy is going to pick up steam.”
But…but…but…but I thought the coronation of THE MESSIAH!!!  was supposed to bring HOPE AND CHAYYYYYNNNNNNNGGEE-UHHHH!!!  to us poor, derelict, destitute Americans!!!  The seas  were going to part, the LIGHT  was going to shine down and we were all going to bask in UNFATHOMABLE, ORGASMIC ECSTASY!!!!!
Mheh.  Welcome to Real World 101, B. HUSSEIN  Obambi.  Lot easier to talk  about it than it is to actually do  it, ain’t it? 
Thomas Sowell said it best in his column today:
Nothing in the amateurish way the current administration has begun suggests that they have mastered even the mechanics of governing, much less the complexities of the huge national problems looming ahead, at home and abroad.
In the final analysis, Denizens, that’s all these sorry pukes really are – amateurs.  And it’s like we conservatives tried to warn everyone before the election – we couldn’t afford to have these incompetents undergo on-the-job training.  Now we’re seeing the results of our collective (socialist pun not necessarily intended, but it fits) shortsightedness.  With far worse to come.
Protect the powder, guys.  I get the feeling it’s going to be needed sooner rather than later.
Inasmuch as I haven’t written squat in the last 48 hours, go read this.
That right there is why he’s the Emperor and I am but a lowly King & Tyrant.
KORRIOTH:  What happened to “Sith Lord”?
VENOMOUS:  That, too.  Shut up.
Anyway, go read it.  Go.  Shoo.
Memo to “The 52™”:
Congratulations on installing a bunch of economically incompetent fucks.  Wall Street thinks you’re a bunch of damnfools.
US stocks fell sharply Tuesday in a broad-based decline as the government announced details of its latest bailout plan.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down nearly 300 points after Treasury Secretary Tim Geither revealed details of the bank-bailout plan. Earlier, the blue-chip index was down less than 100 points.
They’re right.
UPDATE:  382 points down at day’s end.
Yeah, you 52-percenters suuuuuure were smarties to entrust Demoscum with the economy.
Dumb shits.
Monday, Texas Instruments announced that it was laying off some 1,800 people – part of 50,000 layoffs worldwide.
As I told a 7-11 clerk yesterday, “Behold the Al-Obambi economy!  Couldn’t happen to a nicer excuse-for-a-president”.
Boy howdy, that $170 million inauguration sure fired up Wall Street, didn’t it?
The dawn of the Obama presidency could not shake the stock market from its dejection over the rapidly deteriorating state of the banking industry.
Financial stocks, many of them falling by double digit percentages, led a huge drop on Wall Street Tuesday that left the major indexes down more than 4 percent and the Dow Jones industrials down 332 points. Although traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange paused to watch the inauguration ceremony and Obama’s remarks, the transition of power didn’t erase investors’ intensifying concerns about struggling banks and their impact on the overall economy.
[…]
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 332.13, or 4.01 percent, to 7,949.09, its lowest close since Nov. 20, when the blue chips ended at 7,552.29 — their lowest point in more than five years. It was also the blue chips’ biggest drop since Dec. 1.
It was the worst Inauguration Day performance for the Dow, according to the article.
And you can’t blame Bush for this one, Donktards.  I mean, not that I haven’t been blaming the Ayatollah for everything bad that’s happened since November – I have – but you can’t even argue with me on this one now.  This one gets pinned on your empty suit – no ifs, ands or buts about it.
Enjoy the next four years, Donktards. 
What with all the Hue & Cry™ about exhorbitant executive salaries, bonuses (bonusii?), perks, golden parachutes ‘n all – I don’t seem to recall any libtard biznotch screaming about this.
The Walt Disney Co.’s chief executive, Robert Iger, received a compensation package valued at $51.1 million in fiscal 2008, up 85 percent from a year earlier, according to an Associated Press calculation of figures disclosed in a regulatory filing made Friday. But most of it came in stock options that currently have little value.
Those options, which vest though 2013, were granted in January 2008 when Iger agreed to a new employment contract.
Iger’s salary was $2 million the fiscal year ended Sept. 27, unchanged from a year earlier, and he was given a performance-related bonus of $13.9 million, up from $13.7 million in fiscal 2007.
Gee, seems a little high for someone who’s basically watching over Uncle Walt’s legacy, isn’t it?  Especially after he hasn’t done all that much to polish Disney’s image after Widdle Mikey Eisner spent all those years tarnishing it.  All those less-than-wholesome movies (Touchstone  and Miramax  flicks come to mind), making the theme parks heterophobe-friendly, that sort of thing.
Why isn’t anyone screaming Bloody Fuckin’ Murder™ over any of that?  Hmmmmmmmmmmm???
Oh, wait – it’s because we conservatives & Christians object to what Disney’s become over the years.  Must be a Good Thing™, then.  Never mind.
Boggles de mind, it do.
I bought a Chevy Cavalier back in 2005 to get away from Ford, in part due to:  1) horrendously shitty gas mileage from my F150, and 2) equally shitty customer service.
That, and I was boycotting the at the request of Mr. Wildmon.
However, Mr. Wildmon has since called off the boycott – and none too soon, either.  Because if I now want to buy a car from an American company, Ford’s my only option.
Because this morning, GM & Chrysler officially went on my shit list.
Citing imminent danger to the national economy, President Bush ordered an emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry Friday, offering $17.4 billion in rescue loans and demanding tough concessions from the deeply troubled carmakers and their workers.
Translation:  they get only 10 30-minutes breaks per day instead of 12, and the lunches get cut back to 1.5 hours.
Detroit’s Big Three cheered the action and vowed to rebuild their once-mighty industry, though they acknowledged the road would be anything but smooth as they fight their way back from the brink of bankruptcy.
Get it straight, Asphyxyated Piss morons:  Ford isn’t part of this bailout.  For now, anyway.
The autoworkers union complained the deal was too harsh on its members
Not nearly as harsh as not having a job in the first place, you dumbasses.  Then again, you pussified thugs should be glad I’m not President, because any deal with any automaker would include the dissolution of your pathetic little group.  Get your job on your own merits, like I and most other Americans have to.
while Bush’s fellow Republicans in Congress said it was simply bad business to bail out yet another big industry.
And God bless those Republicans, too.  At least they have more spine than Limpdickya.
Bush, who signed the massive $700 billion rescue for financial institutions only this fall, said he was reluctant to approve yet another government bailout of private business.
Oh, sure  he was.  About as “reluctant” as he was to bail out his butt-buddies on Wall Street.
Here’s a hint, Shrub:  In order to succeed at capitalism, one also has to be allowed to fail.  Sorta like what your non-war-related presidency has done.
But he said that allowing the massive auto industry to collapse in the middle of what is already a severe downturn “could send our suffering economy into a deeper and longer recession.”
Oh, bullshit.  There would have been no fucking collapse.  GM & Chrysler would have filed for Chapter 11, life would have gone on, cars would continue to be sold, the cuntmuffin unions would have been brought to their fuckin’ knees, and so on.
Win-win for everyone, IYAM.  Except for the unions, but that’s what would have made it sweeter.
Speaking at the White House, he also said he didn’t want to “leave the next president to confront the demise of a major American industry in his first days of office.”
Ball-less to the very last.
This  is why your ratings are so damned low, Linguiniya!  You have such a fucking woodie  for getting along with Demoscum pussies who’d as soon kneecap you as look at you that you have completely forgotten the conservative base  that got you there in the first place!  You are wasting time trying to play nice with chickenshits who are going to revile you no matter what, to the point that now your own constituency  fuckin’ reviles you as well!
Great Honkin’ Cthulu™, man – you’ve got degrees from both Harvard & Yale – you’re supposed  to be smarter than this!
And then the GOP wonders why the hell they’re getting their brains beaten in.
For your part, Ford – sell me a Mustang and all will be forgiven. 
The Obambi economy is on its way back down again.
The Dow took another nosedive on Monday, finishing at 8,179 as Wall Street suddenly remember whom 62 million jackasses voted for in November.
Hey, Donktards, I’m just giving you pussies what you gave GW Bush for eight years. Not my  fault you can dish it out but can’t take it. 
And the hits (to the portfolio) just keep on coming.
The Dow dropped another 445 points today as investors, knowing what’s coming when Al-Obambi really does  come to power, up and decided they want no part of it.
And make no mistake, Denizens – for all the votes that Jugears McHopenchange and his cronies at ACORN stole on November 4th, this  is the real  election.
The one, that is to say, that is being held by the producers.  The movers & shakers.  The ones who truly  drive the economy.  In other words, you fucking libtards…the rich.
And this is one  election, you leftist Donk cuntmuffins, that neither you nor your pals at ACORN can steal.  Widdle Willie Ayers and his skank Bernabitch Dohrn aren’t going to be able to help you here.  They have seen what the Ayatollah Obambi is going to do, and they’re voting with their feet.
Get a good look, Demoscum – ’cause there’s not a damned thing you can effin’ do  about it.