Money Quote Friday December 1 2017
When Your CEO Is Unfit, You Fire Him.
When will this nation finally come to its senses?
I’m done with this guy. I just can’t take it anymore. Thank God it’s Friday.
I’ve said this many times before. Our “chief executive” is unfit. Period. When you have an unfit CEO, what do you do? You fire him. Money quote: “Having long trafficked in conspiracy theories — his political rise was fueled by his role as one of the nation’s leading champions of the false claim that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States — Trump continues as president to promote falsehoods and reject facts.” Is this really the person we want representing us? Really?
This tax plan is a bald expression of old school capitalist practice, which means extracting all possible gains and putting them in the pockets of wealthy shareholders (and not working families). Money quote: “Robert Bradway, chief executive of Amgen Inc., said in an Oct. 25 earnings call that the company has been “actively returning capital in the form of growing dividend and buyback and I’d expect us to continue that.” Executives including Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey, Pfizer Chief Financial Officer Frank D’Amelio and Cisco CFO Kelly Kramer have recently made similar statements.”
And just in case you’re wondering who really benefits from this tax bill, here’s a reminder. Money quote: “When you put all these pieces together, what you’re left with is we are squandering a giant sum of money,” said Edward D. Kleinbard, a former chief of staff at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation who teaches law at the University of Southern California. “It’s not aimed at growth. It is not aimed at the middle class. It is at every turn carefully engineered to deliver a kiss to the donor class.”
Now here’s an idea worth thinking about. It’d be a massive shift, but … this is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking we really need. Money quote: “There’s a tried and tested way, within the system we have now, of giving everyone a share in the investment returns now hoarded by the wealthy. It’s called a social wealth fund, a pool of investment assets in some ways like the giant index or mutual funds already popular with retirement savings accounts or pension funds, but one owned collectively by society as a whole. One that paid dividends not to the few, or even just to the shrinking middle class lucky enough to have their savings invested, but to everyone.”
Cities are falling over themselves to bring Amazon’s supposed second corporate headquarters to their region. I’ve made my point of view clear — I think this is a pretty obvious head fake on Amazon’s part. But the promise of so many new jobs is proving intoxicating for more than 200 cities. Money quote: “[Cities] have offered their own employees’ income taxes, free land, and even a partial surrender of community control in pursuit of Amazon.”
I know, I know, too much Trump for a Friday. But my advice? IGNORE THIS IDIOT. Stop playing his game. Which is clearly advice I should take to heart. Have a great weekend. Try to unplug and remember what truly makes America great.
