Goings on today! and more!

Posted by Joel Friedlander | No Comments

Nicholas Kristof ‘s foolish columns continue to divert attention from the problems in our nation by focusing on the plight of the poor elsewhere in the World.  I swear, it almost seems as if that fool is in the pay of the President and the Congress, who would love to keep the heat off their backs for their continued inattention to the plight of Americans and attention to the suffering in the corporate suites in the USA.  Trillions for corporate rescue and only billions for the people.

Meanwhile, Carl Icahn, in his Op Ed today, “We’re Not The Boss Of A.I.G.” lets us know that because of the laws protecting the boards of corporations all over the United States, the shareholders, even if they own 80% as the United States does of A.I.G., cannot control the actions of the boards. 

He speaks at length of the ways in which shareholders can take action against a corporation and even suggests that certain states, like North Dakota, give shareholders more control over the corporation, but — good right winger that he is — he doesn’t suggest that all corporations be required to acquire a Federal instead of a state Charter. That, you see, would take revenues away from the states, which are forever licking the asses of the corporate boards. 

Federal incorporation could guarantee that the shareholders — the public owners of corporations — would have the right to see that there was an end to excessive overpayment of executives, and could provide for more reasonable actions by the corporations of America.  Such a change in the law could also require oversight by Federal Regulators, and could outlaw people from sitting on the boards of more than one corporation, especially when they vote the compensation for executives who sit on the board of their corporation and vote for their corporation. Such cozy relationships are on their face wrong and should be terminated. Mr. Icahn would not like such controls of “public corporations” however.

In the legislature in Albany, our idiot legislators are about to increase taxes on the rich. I would like to note that until now, “New York’s highest tax rate, 6.85 percent, kicks in for couples and joint filers making more than $40,000.” Albany Agrees on a Plan to Raise Taxes on Top Earners. 

The highest rate has kicked in at a joint income of $40,000. Is that the sickest thing that you have ever heard of or what? Tell me folks, how many of you can get along on that income in NYC or the surrounding areas.? How dare the State of New York tax that income at that rate. It is no wonder that there is no middle class left in New York. What can we do about it?

Feeling Too Down to Rise Up by Sudhir Venkatesh, writing an Op-Ed in today’s N.Y. Times, suggests that Americans as a people have grown solipsistic and are too interested with their own individual lives to care about what is happening to others. We need outdoor protests to change the government, but he suggests that:

Technology separates us and makes more of our communication indirect, impersonal and emotionally flat. With headsets on and our hands busily texting, we are less aware of one anothers behavior in public space. Count the number of people with cellphones and personal entertainment devices when you walk down a street. Self-involved bloggers, readers of niche news, all of us listening to our personal playlists: we narrowly miss each other. Effective rebellions require that we sing in unison.”

What the writer forgets is that much of the enthusiasm and financial support for Barack Obama came from the internet.  It both ties us together and separates us.  Perhaps it is time to use it to unite us in outdoor protests.  Given what the current administration is doing to the economy with its “Economic Experts,” protest may be necessary to remind President Obama of what he promised to get elected in the first place. 

Hey all you 60’s protesters: get out into the streets again, and bring your progeny.  Many of them don’t have jobs to protect anymore and if we don’t make ourselves heard, this administration, which can be just as authoritarian and the last unlamented one, will do nothing for working people.

Oh, yes, and now for something completely different. If any of you are in White Plains, New York, near 102 East Post Road, stop for lunch or dinner at Roberto’s Grill Café, 914-831-1028, cell: 914-531-6414.  I have eaten there twice now and on both occasions the food has been excellent. On Friday I had rice, beans and what I can best describe, having lost the piece of paper with the Spanish name for the food, as a large vegetable with very starchy roots covered with breading, sauteed or pan fried, with a tomato type sauce on it. It was fine food. The service was also top rate.

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