Working the system

Notes 77

In an industry where 20% of the employees were on the temporary injury list last season and the employer makes a fortune on the last men standing, what is to be expected?

Players chip in to save coach’s life after Clippers decline medical coverage
By Kelly Dwyer

Seven years ago, former Los Angeles Clippers head coach Kim Hughes was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Howard Beck brought this column to Trey Kerby's attention, and he brought it to our attention. And now we're passing the feel-good savings on to you, in the form of an anecdote that reveals that NBA players Corey Maggette(notes), Marko Jaric(notes), Chris Kaman(notes) and Elton Brand(notes) all chipped in to pay for expensive life-saving surgery for Hughes, after the Clippers organization (read: Donald Sterling, noted worst person in the world) declined to cover the costs.
Declined to cover the cost of a surgery that would save their employee's life. While playing rent-free in an often sold-out arena in America's second-biggest television market. Unyieldingly evil.
Gary Woelfel has the original story:
"Those guys saved my life," Hughes said. "They paid the whole medical bill. It was like $70,000 or more. It wasn't cheap.
Hughes said he will be forever grateful to Brand, Jaric, Kaman and Maggette. In fact, Hughes said every time he runs into any of them, he thanks them from the bottom of his heart..
"Kim thanks me every time he sees me; he does that every single time," Maggette said smiling. "I've said to him, 'Kim, come on. You don't have to do that. You're good.'
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It’s the declining tax rate, stupid.

Chart shows low tax burden for rich
By Zachary Roth – Wed Mar 16
We hear a lot these days about how government spending has led to a deficit that could pose a major long-term threat if it goes unaddressed. It's true that government has of late grown under both Democratic and Republican presidents.manageable. Via Felix Salmon, a fascinating (and strangely beautiful!) chart, compiled by Stephen Von Worley at the DataPointed blog, drives home that point, and a few others. If the bottom of the chart showed more red and less blue, our deficit problem would be a lot more manageable..
In a nutshell, the chart shows that until around 1940, tax burdens were low for everyone, in historical terms. Then they rose sharply for everyone until about 1970. At that point, the rich and poor began to diverge. Those making around $10,000 to around $50,000 per year enjoyed a comparatively low-tax period in the 70s, but by the early 80s they were taxed slightly higher than the historical average. In the 2000s, their tax rate came back down a bit. By contrast, those making more than roughly $200,000 a year saw a sharp decrease in their tax burden starting in the 80s. That trend has continued to this day.
It's clear, then, that across the board, today's tax rates are low by historical standards--and for the rich they're very low.
The chart also has implications for another topic we've written about here before--wealth and income inequality. As you can see, no one's taxes today are particularly high by historical standards, but those making $1 million or more per year--that is, roughly the top 1 percent--enjoy the lowest burden, relative to past rates.
At a time when a horde of stats indicates that the gap between rich and poor has widened into chasm--and when Congress and the White House are set to argue again later this year about whether to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich--it's well worth keeping this bigger picture in mind.
[Editor’s Note: Unable to duplicate chart]
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50 years past due

Tampa port seeks car ferry service to Cuba
By Robert Green – \
TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) – The Port of Tampa hopes to start passenger and car ferry service between Tampa and Cuba under President Barack Obama's relaxed travel restrictions, a port spokesman said on Wednesday.
"There has been interest by some companies in starting the service," said spokesman Andy Forbes.
He said one of those companies was United Caribbean Lines of Orlando, which has applied to the United States to operate ferry service between Cuba and Tampa, Miami and Fort Lauderdale in Florida.
"We're waiting for approval and could start as early as this fall," United Caribbean Chief Executive Bruce Nierenberg said in a telephone interview.
The Cuban government would also have to agree to the deal.

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We could use high speed trains and cars using photo voltaic cells--or we could risk nucleae disaster. The smart money is on nuclear disaster. That’s where the profit is.
Eugene Robinson | Nuclear Power, on the Brink
Eugene Robinson: "Nuclear power was beginning to look like a panacea - a way to lessen our dependence on oil, make our energy supply more self-sufficient and significantly mitigate global warming, all at the same time. Now it looks more like a bargain with the devil.... The cascading sequence of system failures, partial meltdowns and hydrogen explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was touched off by a once-in-a-lifetime event: the most powerful earthquake in Japan's recorded history, which triggered a tsunami of unimaginable destructive force. It is also true that the Fukushima reactors are of an older design, and that it is possible to engineer nuclear plants that would never suffer similar breakdowns. But it is also true that there is no such thing as a fail-safe system. Stuff happens."

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GE’s technology not state of the art--but least expensive and coming to the U.S.


Will General Electric Get Whacked for the Catastrophic Failure of Its Nuke Plants in Fukushima?
Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening: "GE, the company that boasts that it 'brings good things to life,' was the designer of the nuclear plants that are blowing up like hot popcorn kernels at the Fukushima Dai-ichi generating plant north of Tokyo that was hit by the double-whammy of an 9.1 earthquake and a huge tsunami."

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The U.S, through the State Department and the Pentagon has been training security forces around the world, including in Central and South America to protect corrupt governments that are our allies.

How the Tiny Kingdom of Bahrain Strong-Armed the President of the United States
Tuesday 15 March 2011
by: Nick Turse | TomDispatch | Report
The men walking down the street looked ordinary enough. Ordinary, at least, for these days of tumult and protest in the Middle East. They wore sneakers and jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts. Some waved the national flag. Many held their hands up high. Some flashed peace signs. A number were chanting, “Peaceful, peaceful.”
Up ahead, video footage shows, armored personnel carriers sat in the street waiting. In a deadly raid the previous day, security forces had cleared pro-democracy protesters from the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain’s capital, Manama. This evening, the men were headed back to make their voices heard.
The unmistakable crack-crack-crack of gunfire then erupted, and most of the men scattered. Most, but not all. Video footage shows three who never made it off the blacktop. One in an aqua shirt and dark track pants was unmistakably shot in the head. In the time it takes for the camera to pan from his body to the armored vehicles and back, he’s visibly lost a large amount of blood.
Human Rights Watch would later report that Redha Bu Hameed died of a gunshot wound to the head.
The bullet that took Bu Hameed’s life may have been paid for by U.S. taxpayers and given to the Bahrain Defense Force by the U.S. military.

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Seems everything is for sale in Pakistan. Makes you wonder what the cost of a nuke is.

'Blood money' frees CIA contractor in Pakistan

Adam Goldman And Anne Gearan, Associated Press – 51 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Pakistan abruptly freed the CIA contractor who shot and killed two men in a gunfight in Lahore after a deal was sealed Wednesday to pay $2.34 million in "blood money" to the men's families. The agreement, nearly seven weeks after the shootings, ended a tense showdown with a vital U.S. ally that had threatened to disrupt the war on terrorism.