Why Should Banks Get $83 Billion From Taxpayers Every Year?

The Article: Why Should Taxpayers Give Big Banks $83 Billion a Year? in Bloomberg.

The Text: On television, in interviews and in meetings with investors, executives of the biggest U.S. banks — notably JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon — make the case that size is a competitive advantage. It helps them lower costs and vie for customers on an international scale. Limiting it, they warn, would impair profitability and weaken the country’s position in global finance.

So what if we told you that, by our calculations, the largest U.S. banks aren’t really profitable at all? What if the billions of dollars they allegedly earn for their shareholders were almost entirely a gift from U.S. taxpayers?

Granted, it’s a hard concept to swallow. It’s also crucial to understanding why the big banks present such a threat to the global economy.

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The Best Questions You Can Never Know The Answers To

Or: a 12-minute look into Jean-Paul Sartre’s YouTube channel were he alive for the dawn of the internet.

Elizabeth Warren Winning

She’s left Ben Bernanke scrambling for words and on the defensive. FOX News now blames the Massachusetts senator for the financial crisis and conservatives have begun to call on Elizabeth Warren to quit her campaign dramatics and get to “work”–which for them most likely means “Enough following through with your promises; who do you think you’re working for, the people?” No matter how much GOP ire Warren inspires, the new head of the Senate Banking Committee isn’t going anywhere any time soon–and thank God for that. Here are some of her best moments.

Warren On The Mired State Of The Nation

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How To Cut The Deficit? Cut Into Corporate Welfare

The Article: Ending Corporate Tax Dodging Would Cut Deficit By Twice As Much As Hiking Medicare Age by Zaid Jilani in The Contributor.

The Text: Some right-wing politicians want to raise the Medicare age to 67. This would reduce the deficit by $5.7 billion each year but pass on costs to seniors of $11.4 billion every year.

Rather than making health care more expensive for seniors, here’s a progressive deficit reduction idea. Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office said we could raise $114 billion over ten years — twice as much as raising the Medicare age — by limiting corporate tax deferrals.

The way to do this would be to subject all income earned by foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations to U.S. tax laws by limiting or eliminating deferrals for overseas profits. Right now, large corporations like Microsoft will shift their profits to overseas locations — such as remote islands in the Caribbean or Switzerland — to avoid paying taxes on them.

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Contraception Contradicts Capitalism?

You know you’re Karl Rove when you actually think that a women trying to prevent unplanned pregnancy lacks personal responsibility. You know you’re a FOX wonk when you actually buy that twisted logic.