Napkin Calculations

Ok, I know it is more complicated than this, but let’s consider a hypothetical ship that the US Government buys from Northrop Grumman.  Say they pay $10,000,000 for it, but it only costs them $9,500,000 to make.  The government gets back 35% of that 500,000, or $175,000.  That remaining $425,000 goes to shareholders who also have to pay their own taxes on it…  another 15%.  Giving the Government $48,750

If 60% of the costs are in materials and there’s a 6% sales tax on that, the government gets $342,000 in sales tax.  I think it is fair to guess that a large part of the cost to produce those components that get bought also gets eaten up in salaries, so let’s assume that these people are making money in the 28% tax bracket.  That’s another $1,276,800 that goes back to the government.

The remaining 30% goes to salaries and 10% to facilities.  (Yes, I’m pulling these numbers out of the air, but it’s a thought exercise.  I am hoping that Freakanomics will take on this question and address it for real.)  There has got to be some taxes associated with running the facilities, but I don’t know what they are, so we’ll stick to the salaries.  Assuming that these people make a little more than the poor suckers producing the steel that makes up the ship, we’ll tax them at 30%.  That’s $840,000.

So for every $10,000,000 the government spends, it gets $2,633,800 back in first-degree taxes.  Take it down another level and contemplate what the salaries are associated with what the people who are getting that first-degree salary are buying…  House and pedicures and grocery stores and malls and so on.  Because we know we aren’t putting that money into savings.

Does it change anyone’s view of government spending knowing that, at least roughly, for every $1.00 spent, $.30 comes back to it?

Brave Enough to Lose

Listening to NPR this morning with Newt Gingrich talking about how corporate bailouts didn’t do much good to the families that are underwater on their mortgages.

What.  The.  F*ck.

Correct me if I am wrong, but weren’t the first round of bailouts conceived and executed under Bush?  Not that it makes me particularly pleased to say this, but Obama just did more of what Bush did.  Imagine the GOP outcry if all that money had been divvied up and given to each American homeowner.  We would have all collectively paid down our morgatges and you would have gotten a twofer…  more stable American families and the banks would have gotten their money.  But no.  We didn’t do that.  We don’t give money away to American families!  We’re independent!  We are a country of bootstrappers!  We only like welfare when it is corporate welfare!

What the hell is wrong with expecting our companies to be functional adults as our citizens are, especially considering that the companies have fought long and hard to enjoy the rights of personhood.  You can’t have the good without the bad, @sshole.

And now Newt wants to posture like he’s for the little people?  That he would have done anything different?  Hell yes, he would have done things different.  He would have made it possible for more companies to make more money.  The only reason why he’s mad at Romney is because Romney made so much more money than he did.  After all, Romney’s made tens of millions, while Newt only made millions working for Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac.

This whole group of GOP candidates is going to convince a whole slew of people that they are true fiscal conservatives.  Some of them are going to convince some of those same people that they are true social conservatives.  (Thank God for Christianity.  Jesus wipes your slate clean and all of a sudden two adulterous divorces just magically disappear.  Well listen buddy.  It’s Jesus’s job to forgive and far be it from me to stand between anyone and their true calling.  It’s my job to remember that past behavior is the best predictor of the future we’ve got and I don’t trust you….  well, I don’t trust any of them, GOP or Dem, but that is a different story.)

Why can’t we call it as it is?  Bullshit is bullshit, and I’m tired of people trying to tell me that the shit sandwich they’re serving up is really a BLT.  What’s done is done.  They gave the corporations a shit-ton of money and the corporations didn’t save the economy.  They’ve given corporations a lot of tax loopholes and breaks and all the privileged of person-hood, and the corporations have literally shit all over the country that enables them with pollution, discrimination, downsizing, fostering an ugly us vs. them mentality, and finally taking those crappy jobs overseas where they can’t be held accountable for labor conditions or acts of egregious pollution.  We’ve racked up a huge debt on foreign wars and then blamed Obama for the deficits.  Well no shit Sherlock.  War costs money.  And as previously pointed out, that money bought goods and services that employed a bunch of people at Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors.  Meanwhile Americans sit around and bitch mightily at the money spent and the deficit never recognizing that we have all profited from the money spent on the wars.  You want a trickle down economy?  The government buys a big ass boat and the systems to run that boat and suddenly a bevy of engineers, computer geeks, writers, accountants, factory workers, factory managers, proposal writers, middle managers, HR professionals, machinists, and janitors have a job to go to.  Which they pay taxes on, incidentally.

Anyway, it’s done.  Can’t go back, can’t undo it.  So what are any of these political criminals going to do differently?  Why are they all looking backwards for solutions instead of forwards.  “I’m a Reagan Republican.”  Really?  That was 30 years ago.  Before the internet.  Before terrorism.  Before bad mortgages that corporate America put in a blender and resold as solid gold like a mom putting spinach in a milkshake.  I hate to break the bad news but Reagan is dead.  Now what are you going to do?

Can any of these idiots think their way out of a paper bag?  Are any of them capable of a thought no one has had before?  Of ditching their ideology for long enough to see the world clearly, not as they want it to be?  I haven’t seen it yet…  have you?

What I meant to say when I started this rant was that it’s disingenuous for any of the Republicans to be complaining about Romney making money or bankrupting companies.  And it is total nonsense for any of them to be trying to make the differentiation between vulture and venture capitalism.  Furthermore, Newt Gingrich is a very smart man full of a great deal of BS.  At least Perry isn’t bright enough to know better.  Gingrich *could* distinguish himself as the realpolitik genius that he is.  If they weren’t all so afraid of losing, then someone might get brave enough to think an original thought.

Show me the politician – Dem or GOP – that is brave enough to lose and that’s the one I’ll vote for.   (P.S.  Sweet Pomegranate-scented Jesus, please let Obama get brave enough to lose.)