You've all heard one of the selling points of the bailout bill... that it would restrict the compensation of executives in companies who accepted the bailout. This is a half-truth. It does not restrict their compensation. It restricts the amount that is tax deductible to the company... Read the bill below...


"SEC. 302. SPECIAL RULES FOR TAX TREATMENT OF EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION OF EMPLOYERS PARTICIPATING IN THE TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF PROGRAM.
(a) DENIAL OF DEDUCTION.—Subsection (m) of section 162 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
‘‘(5) SPECIAL RULE FOR APPLICATION TO EMPLOYERS PARTICIPATING IN THE TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF PROGRAM.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—In the case of an applicable employer, no deduction shall be allowed under this chapter—
(i) in the case of executive remuneration for any applicable taxable year which is attributable to services performed by a covered executive during such applicable taxable year, to the extent that the amount of such remuneration exceeds $500,000, or ‘‘(ii) in the case of deferred deduction executive remuneration for any taxable year for services performed during any applicable taxable year by a covered executive, to the extent that the amount of such remuneration exceeds $500,000 reduced (but not below zero) by the sum of—
‘‘(I) the executive remuneration for such applicable taxable year, plus ‘‘(II) the portion of the deferred deduction executive remuneration for such services which was taken into account under this clause in a preceding taxable year.

Yup. This video sums it up pretty well: http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2470&updaterx=2008-10-02+13%3A06%3A43

"Any CEO who can't find a way around these executive pay limits should be fired."

How could they? Lets say you are a CEO of some company that is looking for help. You have a signed contract with the company not the US government. If the requirement is that CEO pay must be limited then the CEO would leave and take his money and the company would need to find a new CEO willing to sign a contract that meets the new requirements. The government has no authority to rip up existing contracts between private individuals and private companies. They do have the authority however to change tax laws and impose penalties to companies that accept the provisions of the "help".

Total waste of money, and I must say, even on plug-ins. What's funny is we, the taxpayers, will be paying GM to make the Volt, then we will be paying $37K+ for it when it comes out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u65V6ATo4rM

Total waste of money, and I must say, even on plug-ins. What's funny is we, the taxpayers, will be paying GM to make the Volt, then we will be paying $37K+ for it when it comes out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u65V6ATo4rM

What's special about this bill is that lots of people who are NOT Ron Paul are also very pissed off about it. That should tell you something.

I just don't get the wooden arrows but nothing tops the NASCAR funding for me. What the ****?!

Edit: Wow! I do believe I just saw Ron Paul come out in favour of regulation! Of course he was talking about regulating the Federal Reserve and he's absolutely right. Don't know what he's thinking with the tax cuts but hey let's cut him some slack here.

Don't know what he's thinking with the tax cuts but hey let's cut him some slack here.

He's pro-tax-cuts, but with that would also have to come lower-federal-spending. Tax cuts don't really work in socialism, so his message is twofold when he speaks of tax cuts.

I think he said that if we eliminated income tax, the federal government would have the same revenue as we did in 2000.

Not sure if that's true, but I'm completely in favor of lower federal spending and lower taxes.

Total waste of money, and I must say, even on plug-ins. What's funny is we, the taxpayers, will be paying GM to make the Volt, then we will be paying $37K+ for it when it comes out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u65V6ATo4rM

You are actually paying to keep car industry jobs in the USA without any garantee it will.

He's pro-tax-cuts, but with that would also have to come lower-federal-spending. Tax cuts don't really work in socialism, so his message is twofold when he speaks of tax cuts.

I think he said that if we eliminated income tax, the federal government would have the same revenue as we did in 2000.

Not sure if that's true, but I'm completely in favor of lower federal spending and lower taxes.

I'm familiar with his position. I just think it's silly to talk about slashing taxes when the deficit is so high and debt is soaring. If tax cuts automatically came with lower spending then sure, but that's not what we see happening. Some of the "sweeteners" in this bill designed to woo house republicans were corporate tax cuts and of course that's all it took to turn them around.

What I'm trying to say is that right-wingers have this strange dogma where tax cuts are always a positive thing and they often push for those tax cuts without any regard to the overall spending picture. I wouldn't mind Republicans so much if they supported big cuts in military spending to go along with their tax cutting, but other than Ron Paul there isn't a single person on that side of the aisle who's willing to consider it.

Tax and spend, borrow and spend . . . the biggest problem is the "spend" part. It's time for us to make sacrifices; I'm willing to struggle to get by with less government . . . :)

Most government programs are nothing more than corrupt quagmires of mindless bureacracy. Good taxpayer money is wasted right and left - literally.

It's time for people to stand up for themselves, take personal responsibility for their existence, and eliminate the "nanny state".

It's time to reboot.

Tax and spend, borrow and spend . . . the biggest problem is the "spend" part. It's time for us to make sacrifices; I'm willing to struggle to get by with less government . . . :)

Most government programs are nothing more than corrupt quagmires of mindless bureacracy. Good taxpayer money is wasted right and left - literally.

It's time for people to stand up for themselves, take personal responsibility for their existence, and eliminate the "nanny state".

It's time to reboot.

I'm not going to argue nanny states with you, but I think you should keep in mind where the majority of your tax dollars are actually going. The American military is a behemoth that accounts for almost half of all federal spending. Ron Paul is one crazy bastard but on issues like this he is completely right.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending

Some want the world to be safe for democracy; some want it to be safe for tyranny.

If it wasn’t for that big military budget we wouldn’t be on this site talking about what the government does. That military budget it was keeps the world working the way it does. The US people pay for it true and we should be proud that we are responsible for keeping order in the world. Do you honestly think if it wasn’t for us that there wouldn’t have been an all out nuclear war by now?
Like it or not we are the world police and that costs money and don’t expect any other country to help fit the bill.
Not only that think of how many jobs are created do to the military and I’m not talking about just the service Men and Woman there are tons of civilian employees on bases. Towns that 100% of there income is do to the solders spending there pay checks for every day life. Not to mention all the factory workers that makes the equipment. The extensive supply and distribution chain that delivers it all. Those are all civilian jobs you tell me what other organization would create the millions of jobs that the military create if we were to do away with the military founding. You think we have an unemployment problem now.
Look what happened in Puerto Rico when the offshore training was stopped the us navy was going to close the base and the locals freaked out they new if that base closed there would be nothing there to support there way of life.
Shut down all the bases in Nc and that hole state would go bankrupt and jobless with in a month.
As for the US defecate and our so called debt if we just collected on what other countries owed us there wouldn’t be any.

^^^ That's a pretty rosy interpretation of history. People rail against wasteful spending in government (so called pork barrel spending and social programs seem to get most of the flak) yet they ignore the absurd amount of waste and bureaucracy in the military. The wall street bailout, which could cost from a few hundred billion to a trillion dollars, has dominated the news cycle lately. But did anyone know about the military spending bill that was just rubber stamped by congress? 600 billion dollars all at once and most of it going to the pentagon. Why no hand-wringing over that reckless deficit spending? Congress rubber stamped that bill as fast as they could with no discussion at all.

Here's a good interview about America's situation. Try not to let your patriotic reflexes get in the way as you watch this folks.
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2450

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2494

Typical left wing rhetoric
Makes me wonder if they have ever done a "feature" on Barrack Obama's terrorist buddy William (Bill) Ayers and their weatherman country club on REALNews?
Wouldn't surprise me


We could just as easily go back to McCain and the Keating five. Both candidates displayed poor judgment early in their careers.

"did anyone know about the military spending bill that was just rubber stamped by congress?"

The issue is not "military spending"; it is corruption. It is impossible to make a proper detrmination of what the right spending level is as long as we keep electing corrupt politicians.

Not that there is a "right" spending level. It is largely a function of how patriotic the people are. Also when people are getting out of the military because they can make more money as a civilian, it's hard to make the argument that the military is bankrupting the economy.

I found this interesting:

JOHNSON: Well, there's something weird about it. I mean, in the recent debate between McCain and Obama, the only person who ever even so much as mentioned the incoherent budget, the crappy accounting, the failures, generally, in the Pentagon, was McCain.

Looks like McCain is your man, vader.

"did anyone know about the military spending bill that was just rubber stamped by congress?"

The issue is not "military spending"; it is corruption. It is impossible to make a proper detrmination of what the right spending level is as long as we keep electing corrupt politicians.

Not that there is a "right" spending level. It is largely a function of how patriotic the people are. Also when people are getting out of the military because they can make more money as a civilian, it's hard to make the argument that the military is bankrupting the economy.

The united states is going bankrupt primarily because of its overstretched military. I don't understand how anyone could deny that.

WopOnTour: Typical right-wing rhetoric. You can't argue with what I'm saying so you go on a wild tangent, parroting smears you got from Fox News. The Real News in fact does criticize Obama a lot, but for real reasons, not made GOP smears.

Mike: It's true that McCain has criticized wasteful military spending in the past. But it should be obvious to everyone now that he wouldn't do a thing fix it. McCain has given up on everything he ever believed in to become the next Republican party figurehead, from tax cuts to torture. The man doesn't know what he's talking about anymore. If the man was and is one of the main cheerleaders of the Iraq war and he vows to never leave until we "win," so I would take what he says in debates with a grain of salt.

Those are all civilian jobs you tell me what other organization would create the millions of jobs that the military create if we were to do away with the military founding.

What you are advocating here is socialism. It sounds so great on paper, but just like communism, it just doesn't work in real life.


Do you honestly think if it wasn’t for us that there wouldn’t have been an all out nuclear war by now?

I honestly think the US has done more to provoke nuclear war than it has to prevent it. Especially with recent actions involving Russia. What are we thinking putting missile defense systems right on their border? If Russia did that to us, we would be freaking out more than we did during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And do you know what Russia's response is to that? They are making more nukes and have trained their current nukes on Poland. Not a smart and peaceful move on the part of the US/NATO.


Like it or not we are the world police and that costs money and don’t expect any other country to help fit the bill.

I like it not. Policing the world is not the mandate of our government. The mandate of the government is to protect the rights and lives of the citizens (see constitution), not the rights and lives of those in foreign countries. And where we see it is necessary to intervene, the President should seek a Congressional declaration of war, as is required. The last official declaration of war we have had was against Romania in 1942.


Not only that think of how many jobs are created do to the military and I’m not talking about just the service Men and Woman there are tons of civilian employees on bases. Towns that 100% of there income is do to the solders spending there pay checks for every day life.

Just imagine what would happen if we had troops in the US instead of in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kenya, Egypt, South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Diego Garcia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Germany, Greece, Italy, United Kingdon, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Belgium, Portugal, Netherlands, Russia, Greenland, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Antigua, Columbia, Saint Helena, Cuba, Ecuador, Netherlands Antilles, etc... I'm sure our homeland base communities would thrive a lot better than they are now. We have almost 80,000 troops in South Korea and Japan alone! There hasn't been a war there in ages! And they aren't doing our local economies any good over there. They need to come home and do what they were meant to do- protect the US.

Our presence and meddling all over this globe is not only a national economic problem, it's also a national security problem. Our foreign policy and intelligence operations overseas are causing major blowback (9/11 is a perfect example). People hate us because of what we do overseas. That doesn't make us any safer. A withdrawn foreign policy will cool the heads of everyone- from terrorists to the Russians.


As for the US defecate and our so called debt if we just collected on what other countries owed us there wouldn’t be any.

The US deficit is at $10,000,000,000,000. We will never collect that amount, and it will take generations to pay off even if we were to elect Ron Paul himself to office. The worst possible direction we can take our country right now is down the path of socialism. It will lead to guaranteed bankruptcy and national (and international) economical and political upheaval. Socialism is not the answer, it never has been. We need a smaller federal government. We need to cut spending. We need a withdrawn foreign policy. We need sensible leaders to correct the course of this nation, and we need sensible voters to elect them. We don't have much time left.

But I fear with our two most-likely-to-win candidates and the number of absent-minded voters out there, our nation is doomed.

You guys watch way to much news I have a question for you anti military spending people. How many of you have gone to these other countries and got a look for your self what they are like? And I don’t mean the tourist areas because those are fronts to keep the cash flow coming in they mask what there countries are like in real life.
I’m all for bring our troops home I would much rather see them on boarder patrol here. Just because we pull out from every ware else in the world doesn’t mean that all of a sudden every one will start liking us. I hate to be the barer of bad news but foreign governments are going to hate us no mater what we do or ware we are. The rest of the world does not like that we have the freedoms we have. And a though you don’t want to see it we are the ones who keep stability in the world. Maybe we should just turn our backs on the rest of the world why should we care if some crazy government decided to kill off large numbers of people as long as it’s not in my back yard why should it matter to me. I say its time we pull out from the rest of the world seal off our boarders and have lady liberty drop the torch so she can have a free hand to give the rest of the world the finger.
As for Korea and Japan you go write on watching the news and think just because there is nothing in the news that that part of the world is all nice and happy. If I had a dollar for every round I sent towards South Korea I would be rich and that with in the last 10 years.
There is no doubt in my mind that if we pulled out of that side of the world there would only be Korea not north and south.
For Japan well that’s burden we have to live with I mean after all we did basically destroy the island and forbid them from having any type of sizable military as punishment for getting us involved in WWII.
Nuclear defense they may not be happy but I don’t think we will be impartial if some one launches a nuke at Russia we will be glad to shoot it down for them before it hits there country and if they launch one in protest to our defense system then I guess we will get to test it out and I don’t think the rest of the world would have a problem with it.

^^^ That's the attitude I see everywhere. Not supported by facts, not based on reality in any way. Why don't you go to these countries you talk about? If you actually did, and actually talked to the people there, you would quickly understand that much of the instability in the region can be blamed on American intervention (supporting military coups, propping up dictators, arming guerrillas, etc.) Your view is very patriotic but I'm afraid that isn't enough. America has acted like they own the world for a long time, and very soon American leaders will have to realize that the country simply cannot afford it anymore. They couldn't afford it even before this economic crisis hit! What we're witnessing here is nothing less than the end of an empire. Cling to your guns all you want, you can't change reality.

A note on missile defense: it doesn't work. The best missile defense systems work at best 50% of the time, in test conditions. There is absolutely no defense against any real ICBM attack. The American missile bases going up in Poland offer no practical purpose other than giving the US a foothold on the edge of Russian territory, a place to put radar installations to monitor activity inside Russian borders. Russia even offered the US use of their own radar installations to monitor "rogue states" like Iran, but the US declined.

vader

If we were to withdraw from the world, the liberals would be the first ones to start screaming that we need to do something. Isolationists take the absurd position that American lives are priceless, but the lives of people in other countries are worthless; unless they come to America and become sucessful, of course. They say that it is none of our business, that we have no right to tell other countries how to live. This is BS. We have the natural law on our side. Thats is why I love the quote from Abraham Lincoln:


"... These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: ``We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'' This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. [Applause.] Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began---so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built..."

Just insert the words "none but Americans"

You see, it is not other countries that we are fighting; it is the tyrants, dictators, despots and all others seek to oppress and control others. They are here in America, and they are everywhere.

I had an interesting conversation with a middle aged black woman a couple weeks ago. She took the position that it is up to the oppressed to fight for themselves; that when they get tired of oppression they will rise up and fight. Uh huh; and the slaves should have freed themselves.

America will only go bankrupt if we bankrupt our morals.

America will only go bankrupt if we bankrupt our morals.

Haha, it's a bit late for that my friend! I respect your position as a patriotic idealist, but you have to understand that the world doesn't work at way at all. America does not fight against tyranny in the world, as history clearly shows. America is going bankrupt due to its overstretched military.

vader

I hope you don't have any money riding on your prediction. I'm not really sure what the elites are up to, but there is some sort of economic reorganization going on. I found this paper interesting.

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/GDPtest1.pdf

vader

I hope you don't have any money riding on your prediction. I'm not really sure what the elites are up to, but there is some sort of economic reorganization going on. I found this paper interesting.

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/GDPtest1.pdf

People have been saying those same things for decades but nobody has seemed to listen so far. But you are right in saying some reorganization is and will be going on. This meltdown is just beginning and it will certainly shake things up. I'm not going to try to predict the outcome, but I can say pretty confidently that America's global empire is highly unsustainable and cannot last much longer. Get used to it, this is what happens to a large military power when its economy tanks.

I have been to those countries I spent 20 years of my life in these third world countries and believe me what you here and see on the news is not how it rally is. You may be able to turn your back on those people but I cant I’ve seen first hand how they get treated and I don’t care how much every one thinks we should not be involved there wrong. You ask any one who has seen a mass unmarked grave up close some one who has seen and smelled the remnants of decomposing human flesh and ask them if they think the US should stay out of it. The days of revolution are long gone technology has made it imposable for the oppressest to liberate them selves its hard to take on advanced military units with pipe bombs and small arms its even hard for those people to come together in numbers strong enough to take them on even if they had access to some type of weapons. They live in fear and would rather try to stay invisible in hopes to insure there own survival and not worry about any one else.
I’m still trying to under stand how our big military budget caused our financial down fall last time I looked it was because of greed by the people that run US corporations. Our military spending has nothing to do with people not being able to pay there mortgage or the fact they have no saving and live off credit cards.
The real problem in the US is every one wants to live like a Movie star and live beyond there means. I would much rather see my money being spent on keeping order in the world then paying some shmucks mortgage off because his eyes were bigger then his wallet.
The US has let these big greedy corporations run the country for to long and now we are all in a mess because of it. Our CO got a 54 million dollar singing bonus to come here and the first thing he did was lay off 1000 employees to make up for it.
If people didn’t have so much credit card debt paying our mortgages wouldn’t be a problem. Some of these young guys that work with me have 300k and 400k mortgages and 50k to 60k in credit cards and they pay twice as much a month on there credit cards as they do there house and now there wondering why they cant afford there house.
If you guys would quit crying about the military budget and start demanding caps on credit card interest and the way we are allowing the banks to steel from us and make a 100 times in interest on credit card charges and maybe then you could actually do something to help our economy out. We should be doing every thing we can to let big corporations now they need to share there wealth with there employees that we are tired of them sending our jobs over sees, so they can cut costs so they can have more money.
Like it or not the US military budget it not what caused this problem it all comes down to corporate and political greed. The COs of big corporations do every thing they can to get corrupt politicians elected to insure that there agendas are met and then the media gets the American population to focus on the military instead of the real issues that are destroying this country.

The military budget didn't cause this economic crisis. I never said that. The federal budget is in a huge deficit and national debt is soaring because of military spending. Totally unrelated to the banking system.

You seem to think I'm arguing against interventionism against ruthless dictators. I'm not. What I'm saying is that your rosy view of American foreign policy is not supported by history. The United States goes all over the world propping up ruthless dictators who are western friendly, supporting military coups of democratically elected governments for political reasons. Sorry to break your heart on this one.

"The United States goes all over the world propping up ruthless dictators who are western friendly, supporting military coups of democratically elected governments for political reasons."

Agreed, we have done this sometimes. Would you concede that sometimes it was done in the interest of fighting a larger enemy? Also, what people often forget is that a legitimate government depends on an enlightened citizenry. What does one do when people unknowingly vote against their interests? By the way, there are forces in America that want to create an uninformed electorate.

Darthvader, Ive been reading your stuff on this thread and I reallly got to say you gotta get away from MSNBC

681ONETONBURB, you really said it all, Ive been trying to say it like that but couldnt find the words great job.

NO PLUG NO SALE

Darthvader, Ive been reading your stuff on this thread and I reallly got to say you gotta get away from MSNBC

681ONETONBURB, you really said it all, Ive been trying to say it like that but couldnt find the words great job.

NO PLUG NO SALE

I've never seen MSNBC give any time to these issues :confused:. Where the hell do you get your news?

What I've been trying to say is that the "force of good" image of America is largely a myth brought on by patriotism and lack of education. And that America is terribly overstretched militarily and CAN NOT keep it up, especially with the economy collapsing. You can argue with me on that first point if you want, but to say that the US can keep on going like they are now is idiotic.

vader

Your statements are so non-specific that they preclude falsification. What do you mean by overstretched? Usually when people say overstretched they mean doing more with less. What does that have to do with overall military expeditures? What level of military expenditure is sustainable, as a percentage of GDP? What do you mean by the US going bankrupt? Does that mean not being able to repay the debt? Why do you associate patriotism with attitudes about America's role in the world, considering that both parties claim to be patriotic, yet have different views? Do you think the generals and admirals, some of the most educated men and women in the country, believe the US is a force for good? What have both presidential candidates said about America being a force for good? What sources of information have led you to your conclusions?