Be Still My Beating Heart...Well, Almost

Kind of an interesting week in the Free Press.... Shock of all shocks, Stephen Henderson actually defends Obamanomics, and calls out the republicans for having no ideas and no strategy other than bitching for turning the economy around. And the Free Press editorial board follows it up later in the week with another piece calling out the republicans for having no credible alternative, other than tax cuts (for which there is no empirical evidence for strenghtening the economy). You might wonder why the Free Press has suddenly had a change of heart from their usual Kumbaya mantra, but methinks as the election gets closer and closer, we might see a lot more of this type of narrative: the base just may come home, if nothing else, out of abject fear. Along those same lines, Brian Dickerson finally puts his Princeton degree to good use while pointing out how worried CEOS are about new regulations that will require them to disclose the ratio between their compensation and that of their employees. Dickerson rightly points out that their fears are not that their employees won't fully understand, but will understand all too well how much they're getting fucked by their not so competent leadership. Pinch me, I must be dreaming.... Even old Nolan gets one right in discussing the great state of Michigan's problem with high school dropout rates. And actually proposes ideas that aren't your usual republican LSD trip taker on steroids rant. What the hell...give him a week, and he'll be back to his usual self, but I'll take the occasional surprise. But then there's this and you just have to say what the fuck? Ostensibly, the piece is the weekly business column "At Issue" which (sometimes) discusses various business and consumer issues and gives some sort of analysis featuring arguments from both sides. Apparently this week, that was more than Margaret Collins limited abilities could handle, as she attempted to discuss the upcoming expiration of the Bush tax cuts. In reality, the piece was nothing more than a financial advice column for the wealthiest of Americans (the 315,000 who make $1 million or more who will be affected by Obama's plan to let the cuts expire for those making more than $250k) on how to avoid paying such taxes. In typical business world tone deafness to those of us not fortunate enough to have the ability of carnival booth workers talent for swindling, she poses, as an example, that their increase in taxes will be the equivalent of a BMW Z4. A fucking Beemer! Now that's the way to gain empathy for those wealthy folks--use the price of a car that is more than most people make in a year as an example! And trouble is, there are people stupid enough to fall for this bullshit. Not me--and for those complaing about how much this expiration is going to hurt those poor folks, well, hell, I'll gladly trade salaries for a year with any person making such and happily pay the price of a beemer more in taxes.... In the immortal words of the Wicked Witch as she melted, "What a world, what a world...." Peace, emaycee