That’s not a question, but there are plenty of answers if it was.
During the day I’m working on my computer – a lot. Most of that time I’m listening to a random selection from my iTunes playlist, listening to news/talk shows on public radio, or watching cable news – CNN and MSNBC – all the elite news media.
When it comes to the cable news – I’m amazed at who is paying for the coverage of this presidential campaign – energy companies, mortgage lenders, and tax avoidance firms.
I hear a lot about clean coal – that doesn’t exist yet. There are no power plants in America burning clean coal to create energy. They had plans of building a clean coal burning power plant, but the estimated costs were running so high that they scrapped the plans to build the test model. And, that said – it doesn’t matter how much coal we still have in the ground – we need cleaner alternative fuel sources – like wind and solar power. But the energy companies have lots of money to buy commercials to have a woman dressed in all black ( I can only figure she wears black due to all the coal dust in the air) walk around telling us lies about clean coal – the solution. Dig baby dig!
There is also a lot of money being spent on commercials by mortgage companies – some, the same companies who got us into this economic mess to begin with. When the commercials are not on, the talking heads on the news are telling us there is no money for home loans – even if someone wanted to buy a home now that would be worth less – much less – the day after they purchased it – with what kind of loan? Probably some new kind of loan – designed to help homeowners. Right! And, why not buy a home you can’t afford now, from a company that is going broke – when Uncle Sam will pick up the tab? Are these companies trying to run up their debt to get a bigger piece of the bailout?
And, while I’m listening to the lies about taxes – who’s going to pay more and who’s going to get a rebate from Warren Buffet and Bill Gates during the great redistribution of wealth – I see these commercials about people who had huge delinquent tax bills, but they hired some ex-IRS employees and now they don’t have to pay anything. “We owed $100,000 in back taxes, but we hired (fill in the blank tax firm) and now we only need to pay $25″. And, they say this with a smile on their face. The whole commercial is a parade of couples who owe back taxes and end up paying nothing but pennies on the dollar – just because they hired these tax pros (or cons). I wonder what you have to pay these companies to save you that much money? And, how many lunches and beers do these guys have to buy for their old friends at the IRS to get such favorable rulings?
Why would people who make over $250,000 ever worry about being taxed, when all they have to do is not pay their taxes and then hire these wizards of tax loopholes.
But then there are a lot of people who seem to think they are making over $250,000 a year (even when they are not) and are going to have their wealth taken away and given to homeless people paying no taxes. Dang, those lucky homeless people! But then again isn’t that what our current President and Treasury Secretary are doing – taking our tax dollars – current and future – and giving it to people who bought houses they couldn’t afford, predator lenders, stock brokers, financial speculators, and hedge fund managers who blew it all on the product featured in my favorite commercial.
This one tops them all. A man is driving in this big pig of a car – almost the size of a tank. It’s got everything in it and can carry a dozen people – yet he’s the only one in the car and he’s wondering why they don’t use hybrid technology on this kind of car instead of those dinky little cars. Then he smiles and says – “Oh did I spoil the secret” – and he zooms off burning gallons of fuel a minute. In print across the screen we learn that this car now gets 50% more mpg. In small print it tells you that’s up to 14mpg from the 9mpg it used to get in the city – and now 20mpg on the highway. Wow, why wouldn’t you want to pay $40,000 to $50,000 for a car that can now get that kind of mileage a mini-van gets without hybrid technology. Gas prices are falling, so let’s buy big cars again! Why isn’t that auto maker putting hybrid technology in that mini-van? And, we just gave America’s automakers $25 billion to bail them out – what, so they could make bigger SUV with hybrid technology?
Are we stupid? Do they think we are that stupid? Don’t answer that – we don’t want to really know.