Bill Gates (the .001%) Joins the 99% for Robin Hood Tax...

[Ben]

Bill Gates (the .001%) Joins the 99% for Robin Hood Tax

One of the world's richest and many of the poorest agree on something, but the Obama administration is holding out.

by Sarah Anderson (http://www.commondreams.org/sarah-anderson)

The world's second-richest man and a group of American nurses on the frontlines of the Occupy Wall Street protests came to the G20 summit in Cannes, France this week to advocate for the same thing.Bill Gates backs the financial transactions tax.
Bill Gates came because French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked him to give G20 leaders recommendations on how to raise funds to meet the needs of the world's poorest. Among Gates' proposals: a small tax on trades of stocks, derivatives, and other financial instruments, also known as a financial transactions tax (FTT), Wall Street speculation tax, or the Robin Hood tax.
According to an advance copy of Gates's report, "FTTs already exist in many countries, where they generate significant revenue, so they are clearly technically feasible. According to the IMF, 15 G20 countries have some form of securities transaction tax. In the seven countries where the IMF estimates revenue, these taxes raise an estimated $15 billion per year."
"It is very plausible that certain kinds of FTTs could work," Gates told the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/03/gates-urges-g20-to-introduce-tobin-tax). "I am lending some credibility to that. This money could be well spent and make a difference."
Gates has a net worth of $59 billion. So forget the 1 percent, he'd be in what, the top 0.001 percent? Meanwhile, representatives of the 99 percent were outside the summit security zone, plugging the same idea.
National Nurses United, the largest union representing U.S. nurses, came to France from the Occupy Wall Street protests across the United States where they have been providing first aid for the encampments. In Cannes, they dressed in their scrubs and joined nurses from Australia, France, Ireland, and Korea. This global group then administered an FTT saline drip to an ailing world economy — represented by a man painted in full body art as the Earth.
"The economic decline is literally making our patients sick," said one of the U.S. nurses. "We see more and more children with conditions related to poor nutrition and stress." The solution, according to the nurses, is a Wall Street tax that could generate the revenues needed to address human needs.
Bill Nighy, an actor famous for his roles in "Love, Actually" and other British films, jumped right into the world economy's hospital bed and posed for photos. "People around the world are dying of illnesses that should have been eliminated hundreds of years ago," Nighy said, noting that a new Wall Street tax could help raise the money required to stop those scourges.
One of his contributions to the campaign for such a tax in the UK was a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzZIRMXcxRc) that went viral, in which he plays a banker trying to argue against the idea. Ultimately, his character can't find a good reason why not to raise huge amounts of money for the things people need through a tiny tax on financial transactions.
Back inside the summit venue, there's a frenzy of last-minute lobbying going on to try to line up a group of G20 governments to launch a “coalition of the willing on FTT.” The Obama administration isn't expected to be on the list.
But RoseAnn DeMoro, National Nurses United's executive director, said, “Nurses don’t give up on people and they won’t give up on this.” The union also spearheaded a rally in Washington, DC today, with more than a thousand nurses and their allies targeting opponents of the Wall Street tax in the Treasury Department and Congress.

© 2011 Institute for Policy Studies

[Stavros]

Bill Nighy, an actor famous for his roles in "Love, Actually" and other British films, jumped right into the world economy's hospital bed and posed for photos. "People around the world are dying of illnesses that should have been eliminated hundreds of years ago," Nighy said

Oh dear, what a pity he couldn't have spent an hour or two in the Wellcome Library in London to find out how diseases are eradicated....never mind...Robin Hood!! Is that the best we can do? We have had to endure the bizarre use of the word Czar to describe someone given a special mission - a drugs czar, an anti-litter czar -who needs them?

[Silcc69]

nb4faldursayswriteachecktotheirs

[Faldur]

nb4faldursayswriteachecktotheirs

Lol.. ok

Gates proposal will never pass, he wants to give the money to people who actually need it. Smelly hippies will get none.. :peanutbutter

[Bobby Domino]

Bill Gates (the .001%) Joins the 99% for Robin Hood Tax

One of the world's richest and many of the poorest agree on something, but the Obama administration is holding out.

by Sarah Anderson (http://www.commondreams.org/sarah-anderson)

The world's second-richest man and a group of American nurses on the frontlines of the Occupy Wall Street protests came to the G20 summit in Cannes, France this week to advocate for the same thing.Bill Gates backs the financial transactions tax.
Bill Gates came because French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked him to give G20 leaders recommendations on how to raise funds to meet the needs of the world's poorest.



nice find!!! great post, Ben

[Ben]

Taxes for the super rich would go up if the richest man in America were President. Or maybe not -- ha ha! It's doubtful Congress would go along with a President Gates.

Bill Gates: People Like Me Don't Pay Enough In Taxes - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYnjZ86UvbE)

Otherwise, well, how do we bring down the deficit? Ahhh... single-payer health care and reducing military spending. But, once again, it's politically impossible. Meaning "the owners" don't want it.

George Carlin ~ The American Dream - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q)

[Ben]

Even Ronald Reagan agrees with Bill Gates.... What's happened to the Republican Party??? I mean, they've gone waaay to the right of Reagan. Sad. But true.

Reagan--No Loopholes For Millionaires - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgbJ-Fs1ikA)

[Ben]

Conservatives' heads explode: Ronald Reagan Raised Taxes - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJxlYV4MJJo)

[Ben]

Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!

by Stephen King (http://www.commondreams.org/author/stephen-king)

Chris Christie may be fat, but he ain’t Santa Claus. In fact, he seems unable to decide if he is New Jersey’s governor or its caporegime, and it may be a comment on the coarsening of American discourse that his brash rudeness is often taken for charm. In February, while discussing New Jersey’s newly amended income-tax law, which allows the rich to pay less (proportionally) than the middle class, Christie was asked about Warren Buffett’s observation that he paid less federal income taxes than his personal secretary, and that wasn’t fair. “He should just write a check and shut up,” Christie responded, with his typical verve. “I’m tired of hearing about it. If he wants to give the government more money, he’s got the ability to write a check—go ahead and write it.”
"What charitable 1%ers can’t do is assume responsibility—America’s national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts. Charity from the rich can’t fix global warming or lower the price of gasoline by one single red penny. That kind of salvation does not come from Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Ballmer... That annoying responsibility stuff comes from three words that are anathema to the Tea Partiers: United American citizenry."
Heard it all before. At a rally in Florida (to support collective bargaining and to express the socialist view that firing teachers with experience was sort of a bad idea), I pointed out that I was paying taxes of roughly 28 percent on my income. My question was, “How come I’m not paying 50?” The governor of New Jersey did not respond to this radical idea, possibly being too busy at the all-you-can-eat cheese buffet at Applebee’s in Jersey City, but plenty of other people of the Christie persuasion did.
Cut a check and shut up, they said.
If you want to pay more, pay more, they said.
Tired of hearing about it, they said.
Tough shit for you guys, because I’m not tired of talking about it. I’ve known rich people, and why not, since I’m one of them? The majority would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing “Disco Inferno” than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar. It’s true that some rich folks put at least some of their tax savings into charitable contributions. My wife and I give away roughly $4 million a year to libraries, local fire departments that need updated lifesaving equipment (Jaws of Life tools are always a popular request), schools, and a scattering of organizations that underwrite the arts. Warren Buffett does the same; so does Bill Gates; so does Steven Spielberg; so do the Koch brothers; so did the late Steve Jobs. All fine as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough.
What charitable 1 percenters can’t do is assume responsibility—America’s national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts. Charity from the rich can’t fix global warming or lower the price of gasoline by one single red penny. That kind of salvation does not come from Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Ballmer saying, “OK, I’ll write a $2 million bonus check to the IRS.” That annoying responsibility stuff comes from three words that are anathema to the Tea Partiers: United American citizenry.
And hey, why don’t we get real about this? Most rich folks paying 28 percent taxes do not give out another 28 percent of their income to charity. Most rich folks like to keep their dough. They don’t strip their bank accounts and investment portfolios. They keep them and then pass them on to their children, their children’s children. And what they do give away is—like the monies my wife and I donate—totally at their own discretion. That’s the rich-guy philosophy in a nutshell: don’t tell us how to use our money; we’ll tell you.
The Koch brothers are right-wing creepazoids, but they’re giving right-wing creepazoids. Here’s an example: 68 million fine American dollars to Deerfield Academy. Which is great for Deerfield Academy. But it won’t do squat for cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where food fish are now showing up with black lesions. It won’t pay for stronger regulations to keep BP (or some other bunch of dipshit oil drillers) from doing it again. It won’t repair the levees surrounding New Orleans. It won’t improve education in Mississippi or Alabama. But what the hell—them li’l crackers ain’t never going to go to Deerfield Academy anyway. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.
Here’s another crock of fresh bullshit delivered by the right wing of the Republican Party (which has become, so far as I can see, the only wing of the Republican Party): the richer rich people get, the more jobs they create. Really? I have a total payroll of about 60 people, most of them working for the two radio stations I own in Bangor, Maine. If I hit the movie jackpot—as I have, from time to time—and own a piece of a film that grosses $200 million, what am I going to do with it? Buy another radio station? I don’t think so, since I’m losing my shirt on the ones I own already. But suppose I did, and hired on an additional dozen folks. Good for them. Whoopee-ding for the rest of the economy.
Tired of hearing about it, they said. Tough shit for you guys, because I’m not tired of talking about it. I’ve known rich people, and why not, since I’m one of them?
At the risk of repeating myself, here’s what rich folks do when they get richer: they invest. A lot of those investments are overseas, thanks to the anti-American business policies of the last four administrations. Don’t think so? Check the tag on that T-shirt or gimme cap you’re wearing. If it says MADE IN AMERICA, I’ll … well, I won’t say I’ll eat your shorts, because some of that stuff is made here, but not much of it. And what does get made here doesn’t get made by America’s small cadre of pluted bloatocrats; it’s made, for the most part, in barely-gittin’-by factories in the Deep South, where the only unions people believe in are those solemnized at the altar of the local church (as long as they’re from different sexes, that is).
The U.S. senators and representatives who refuse even to consider raising taxes on the rich—they squall like scalded babies (usually on Fox News) every time the subject comes up—are not, by and large, superrich themselves, although many are millionaires and all have had the equivalent of Obamacare for years. They simply idolize the rich. Don’t ask me why; I don’t get it either, since most rich people are as boring as old, dead dog shit. The Mitch McConnells and John Boehners and Eric Cantors just can’t seem to help themselves. These guys and their right-wing supporters regard deep pockets like Christy Walton and Sheldon Adelson the way little girls regard Justin Bieber … which is to say, with wide eyes, slack jaws, and the drool of adoration dripping from their chins. I’ve gotten the same reaction myself, even though I’m only “baby rich” compared with some of these guys, who float serenely over the lives of the struggling middle class like blimps made of thousand-dollar bills.
In America, the rich are hallowed. Even Warren Buffett, who has largely been drummed out of the club for his radical ideas about putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to patriotism, made the front pages when he announced that he had stage-1 prostate cancer. Stage 1, for God’s sake! A hundred clinics can fix him up, and he can put the bill on his American Express black card! But the press made it sound like the pope’s balls had just dropped off and shattered! Because it was cancer? No! Because it was Warren Buffett, he of Berkshire-Hathaway!
I guess some of this mad right-wing love comes from the idea that in America, anyone can become a Rich Guy if he just works hard and saves his pennies. Mitt Romney has said, in effect, “I’m rich and I don’t apologize for it.” Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bullshit persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it’s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It’s un-fucking-American is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that—sorry, kiddies—you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay—not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Governor Christie’s words, but to pay—in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money.
This has to happen if America is to remain strong and true to its ideals. It’s a practical necessity and a moral imperative. Last year during the Occupy movement, the conservatives who oppose tax equality saw the first real ripples of discontent. Their response was either Marie Antoinette (“Let them eat cake”) or Ebenezer Scrooge (“Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”). Short-sighted, gentlemen. Very short-sighted. If this situation isn’t fairly addressed, last year’s protests will just be the beginning. Scrooge changed his tune after the ghosts visited him. Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, lost her head.
Think about it.

© 2012 The Daily Beast
http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imagecache/author_photo/s_king.jpg (http://www.commondreams.org/author/stephen-king)
Stephen King is a novelist. He lives in Maine.

[Ben]

The novelist Stephen King [article above -- :)] makes a cogent point. As he writes: "... here’s what rich folks do when they get richer: they invest. A lot of those investments are overseas, thanks to the anti-American business policies of the last four administrations. Don’t think so? Check the tag on that T-shirt or gimme the cap you’re wearing."
The free movement of capital -- and the free import of goods -- is detrimental to the American economy. I mean, it's great for the likes of Romney, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates but it harms the overall economy. As you shift your economy offshore. Including your GNP and your tax base. But America has been in decline since 1945. Prior to '45 it had half of the world’s wealth. It had total security. It controlled the western hemisphere. It controlled both oceans. It controlled opposite sides of both oceans.
By 1970, the US share of world wealth was down to about 25 percent, which is still colossal, but is isn’t 50 percent. As it was.
So, we've seen a steady decline.
And with ballooning deficits and the overall debt and our environmental problems. And the list of problems is seemingly endless -- ha ha!