Projections of Power – How Elections are Called by Our Media
DATA DRIVEN VIEWPOINT: Our election results are called based on statistical projections made by corporate media behind closed doors. These are the same media corporations that benefit so lavishly from all that campaign spending. So the question becomes, what is the rationale for highly vulnerable electronic voting machines to rapidly count votes when elections are called based on projections and exit polling by the NEP? And why is it so important to get such quick result in the first place? Finally, if something did go wrong,this extra layer would make it so much more difficult to unravel what went wrong. Recall the confusion caused in 2000 when Gore was projected to win. The Bush camp when nuts, got the medial to take it back and then call him the winner weeks before anyone knew the final result. And when you think about it, how could Bush have been declared the projected winner when the actual vote coun was so close.
Bev Harris covers these issues and she grants permission to re-post providing it is attributed and credited to her Website, blackboxvoting.org
AMERICA’S CLAIRVOYANT ELECTION SYSTEM
by Bev Harris, BlackBoxVoting.org
11/7/2012
Perhaps one of the oddest moments of all during last night’s live election coverage was what happened to Karl Rove on Fox Network News.
With Florida still too close to call and hundreds of thousands of votes still out in Ohio (including a large hunk of votes in Romney strongholds), and with a spread of about 100,000 votes separating the candidates in Ohio, Fox called Ohio for Obama. Karl Rove arranged to come on the Fox network to voice his rebuttal.
Now, whatever you think of Rove, I think most of us agree that he’s a numbers guy. His numbers didn’t support the calling of the state of Ohio at that point in time. When he explained his reasoning, the Fox anchor quickly shut him down. “It’s a science” he was told.
Based not on actual votes, but on projections from a single private entity, the National Election Pool (NEP), we were all told what the election results were going to be. When Rove pulled out his notes and calculations, he was basically told “Shut up, this is a science.”
But is that what your vote really is? A science project, to be viewed only by experts inside a nesting set of black boxes, completely out of public view?
If we are to have real self-governance, we need to be able to authenticate each essential step in our own elections — without need for special expertise to explain to us what the result is. What more centralized, privatized form of declaring a result is there than to commission the NEP to provide a single set of statistics to ALL of the TV networks for a declaration of results without human eyes ever looking at a single ballot.
The media called the election in Tennessee just 11 minutes after the polls closed and by the way, exit polls had already been cancelled in Tennessee because, it was explained, everyone already knew who the winner was going to be so why bother with the expense. Even the voting machines, opaque and controlled by whatever their programmers put into them, had not yet issued results printouts. Is this the new, NEW method for pretending at democracy?
Washington State, where I live, is a forced absentee state, where 100% of the votes are now absentee ballots, which must be postmarked on Election Day. I placed my ballot in the post office at 2 pm. There are no exit polls, because there are no polling places. Apparently a few phone calls now substitute for actual exit polling (to people with land lines? That’s an increasingly elderly demographic). Perhaps 40% of all ballots in Washington have not even been counted yet, but we’ve been told the results.
In California, typically 25% of the votes are counted after Election Day, yet results have been announced. That’s a million uncounted ballots in Los Angeles alone. We have no clue what is on those ballots but we’ve been told not to worry about it. The stats guys have issued their verdict.
Forget voting machines, programmed by insiders to do whatever they do. Let’s just skip counting the votes altogether and use statistics.
Creepy little way to run an election, if you ask me.
From Wikipedia: The National Election Pool (NEP) is a consortium of American news organizations formed in 2003 to provide “information on Election Night about the vote count, election analysis and election projections.” See NEP’s FAQ. Member companies consist of ABC News, the Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News. The organization relies on the Associated Press to perform vote tabulations and contracted with Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International to “make projections and provide exit pollanalysis.” [see below]
The precursor was Voter News Service, which was disbanded in 2003, after controversies over the 2000 and 2002 election results. The NEP plan is largely the suggestion of CNN, which used Edison/Mitofsky as consultants in the past. Mitofsky headed the original pool that preceded VNS.
The organizers of the pool insist that the purpose of their quick collection of exit poll data is not to determine if an election is flawed, but rather to project winners of races. Despite past problems, they note that none of their members has incorrectly called a winner since the current system was put in place. [1] However, to avoid the premature leaking of data, collection is now done in a “Quarantine Room” at an undisclosed location in New York. All participants are stripped of outside communications devices until it’s time for information to be released officially.
Warren Mitofsky (September 17, 1934 – September 1, 2006) was an American political pollster.
Mitofsky graduated in 1957 from Guilford College and was executive director of the CBS News election and survey unit from 1967 to 1990. He also previously served as an executive producer of CBS election night broadcasts.
Prior to CBS, Mitofsky worked with the Census Bureau where he designed a number of surveys. Along with Joseph Waksberg, Mitofsky is credited with developing an efficient method of sampling telephone numbers using random digit dialing, which has since been widely adopted as a sampling method. In 1999, the American Association for Public Opinion Research presented him with its lifetime achievement award for his “continuing concern for survey quality”.
Mitofsky is credited with having invented the exit poll.[1]
In November 2004, Mitofsky was interviewed by PBS NewsHour regarding what went wrong with the accuracy of his exit polls for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Early poll results were leaked which showed John Kerry leading George W. Bush, conflicting with the final official outcome. Mitofsky said he suspected that the difference arose because “the Kerry voters were more anxious to participate in our exit polls than the Bush voters.” He refused, consistently, to release precinct-level polling data from Ohio to researchers who maintained that the election results were fraudulent, and his own exit polls were a more accurate picture of the vote.
He died on September 1, 2006 in New York City of an aortic aneurysm, aged 71.[2]
Male Contraception Could Mute Abortion Debate
Bio-technology may one day mute the abortion debate by curtailing the number of unintended pregnancies. The possibility of developing an effective male contraceptive just improved.
Scientists from Monash University, the University of Newcastle, John Curtin School of Medical Research and Garvan Institute of Medical Research, in Australia; and the University of Cambridge, in the UK have advanced research that could lead to a male contraceptive. They discovered a genetic mutation in a protein (RABL2) that shortens a sperm cell’s tail and limits its ability to swim. According to an article published October 8, 2012 in Genetics (Medical Xpress), “In laboratory tests, the team found that a mutation in RABL2 resulted in sperm tails that were 17 per cent shorter than normal. Dysfunctional RABL2 also negatively affected sperm production, resulting in a 50 per cent decrease. “
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-closer-male-contraceptive-pill.html
According to the report, RABL2 also works with other molecules known as intraflagellar transport proteins that carry genetic cargo along the sperm tail. Dysfunctional RABL2 results in lower sperm counts as well as sperm structure that reduces a its potency as well as its motility. With these insights it may be possible in the future to develop a pill that inhibits this protein. The prospect is not straight forward, however, because lower concentrations of RABL2 is also found in other organs. The trick would be to find a way to inhibit it only in the testes.
DATA DRIVEN VIEWPOINT:
The development of a male contraception should be a welcome, even an urgent goal for pro-life advocates. A male contraceptive pill would greatly reduce the number of abortions in the United States and bypass most religious based objections to post-fertilization contraceptives methods currently available for woman.
As it stands now, people have been fruitful and have multiplied to the point where human population is creating enormous stress on the planet’s ecosystems. There are more people alive today than have already died in the past. And population growth is still rising exponentially. It is a mathematical certainty that we either take control of our population growth or nature will do it for us in ways that could lead to our extinction. Any advances in contraception and increased ability of families to control reproduction is welcome news.
Counterfeit Ketchup! How Wide Spread Domestic Product Counterfeiting?
DATA DRIVEN VIEWPOINT: I am posting this story because I have never heard of food product counterfeiting before and wondered if other people in other parts of the country have heard of similar instances of this sort of deception. Most stories about counterfeit foods involve food imports. This is a case where a brand name product is purchased and repackaged here in the US. It raises lots of question about how something like this can happen, where a product is purchased in such bulk quantities for repackaging in an obviously disreputably operation without the knowledge of the brand name manufacturer. Note also that there was no local law enforcement investigation. If anyone knows of any similar situations please contact me in the comment section below. Thank you.
Counterfeit ketchup caper: Exploding bottles leave major mess in Dover
on October 18, 2012 at 7:22 AM, updated October 18, 2012 at 4:38 PM
Thousands of bottles of ketchup were found in this New Jersey warehouse. Heinz believes these are the fruits of a fraudulent repackaging scheme.Dover PoliceDOVER — It looks like a grisly murder scene. Red splotches pooling on a warehouse floor. A rotten smell. Insects swarming. Crates knocked to the ground.
But no one died here.
This wasn’t carnage. This was condiment.
Inside a privately owned Dover warehouse are the remnants of an abandoned Heinz Tomato Ketchup counterfeiting scheme. The ketchup appears to be real but the labels on the plastic bottles are a fraud, according to a Heinz spokesman.
Company officials, who visited Dover last week, believe someone purchased traditional Heinz Ketchup and transferred it from large bladders into individual bottles labeled “Simply Heinz,” a premium variety made with sugar instead of high fructose corn sweetener.
The 7,000 square feet of space on Richboynton Avenue in Dover had hundreds of crates holding thousands of bottles of ketchup. Of course, without any quality control, it is impossible to know what, if anything, else was put in those bottles.
Heinz does not believe the scheme got too far.
“The site of this operation was abandoned and had produced only a small quantity of bottles, much of which was still on site,” said Michael Mullen, vice president of corporate & government affairs in an e-mail.
The thing is, you can’t just walk away from something like this. Tomatoes and vinegar, both acidic, combined with sugars, which ferment when left unattended in the heat, build up pressure inside the bottle and then … explode.
Thousands of bottles of ketchup were found in a Dover warehouse. Heinz believes these are the fruits of a fraudulent repackaging scheme.Dover PoliceThat leads to a pretty big mess and a feast for flies, which is what caught the attention of other tenants who rent space in the warehouse, Dover Public Safety Director Richard Rosell said. If this all sounds a bit unusual, it is.
“These incidences are rare for Heinz,” Mullen said. “As the world’s leading manufacturer of ketchup, Heinz has stringent manufacturing and packaging practices in place to ensure the safety of consumers.”
Dover police are not yet involved. They are aware of the situation, Rosell said, but nothing has been reported stolen.
Heinz is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigation, Mullen said.
“As a company dedicated to food safety and quality, Heinz will not tolerate illegal repackaging of our products and we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law anyone who engages in such illicit behavior,” Mullen said.
The space is leased by Wholesome Foods, LLC, which is registered to Joseph Carrera, according to state records. A man answering Carrera’s cell phone repeatedly hung up when he learned a reporter was on the on the line. Voice messages were not returned.
Rutgers University food science professor Don Schaffner said counterfeit food operations in the U.S. are rare, though scams have popped up with greater frequency internationally in recent years.
In 2008, a chemical used to make concrete, fertilizer and plastics called melamine sickened 300,000 children in China and killed at least six infants when it was used as filler in Chinese milk and formula products.
Schaffner said it’s impossible to know what health consequences the counterfeit ketchup could have caused without knowing what kind of filler might have been added, but said it’s unlikely someone making counterfeit food would follow even basic food safety regulations that govern food products in the U.S.
“If you’re opening ketchup containers and pouring ketchup into other bottles, God knows what you’re diluting it with,” Schaffner said. “Ketchup is thick, so it’s possible you would not use a food-grade ingredient to replicate that texture. I can’t begin to imagine how bad it could be.”
Star-Ledger staff writer Jessica Calefati contributed to this report.
This article has been changed to reflect the following correction: It was incorrectly reported that acids ferment, causing ketchup bottles to explode if left in the heat. Sugars ferment, not acids.
Counterfeit food becoming a bigger problem
The most recent case involved vodka laced with methanol which left some college students in England with permanent vision damage.
Something that just popped up recently. Garden-variety tomato being marketed as the more expensive heirloom ones.
Voter Suppression Humor: NJ-ACLU Cartoon Contest Winner
I was the winner of the NJ ACLU’s 2012 cartoon contest to come up with the best caption or punch line for a cartoon drawn by syndicated cartoonist, Drew Sheneman. Below is my winning entry. Thanks to NJ ACLU and Mr. Shenemen for the opportunity to participate in this fun.
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A 99 Year History of U.S. Income Tax Rates
SPECIAL NOTE: Our US progressive tax structure [or whats left of it] will turn 100 years old on October 3rd. We should plan a celebration!
OUR TAX STRUCTURE USE TO BE MUCH MORE PROGRESSIVE THAN IT IS TODAY.
The Progressive Tax Code
Our progressive, or graduated income tax was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson On October 3, 1913. The idea was to create a system where those who did well bore a greater responsibility for funding the government. In fact, the original intent was to only tax the wealthiest citizens. The income tax was never meant to burden the majority of wage earners. The new law taxed individuals making $3,000 or couples making $4,000 per year. $4,000 at that time would be equivalent to about $100,000 per year in today’s dollars. What the law did not take into account was inflation. Much the same as is presently the case with the minimum alternative income tax, the original income tax brackets stayed constant every year while inflation and working class wages slowly rose. Eventually, income taxes became a burden to lower wage earners as well as the rich. [ http://www.buzzle.com/articles/the-controversial-history-of-the-graduate-income-tax.html ]
The progressive nature of the income tax is achieved by creating multiple income tax brackets to for rising levels of income. Each tax bracket has a slightly higher tax rate. Between 1913 and 1918 the number of tax brackets that applied to wealthy incomes rose to 56 brackets. By 1940 that number of brackets fell to 24 and there it more or less remained for the next 40 years.
What did rise over this time period were the marginal tax rates. By the 1950’s the top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest earners was 90 percent. The top marginal tax rate was gradually lowered over the next 30 years until it was at 70% in 1980. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan collapsed the top 9 tax brackets to lowered the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 50%. During is second term he eliminated 10 more upper tax brackets dropping the top marginal tax rate from 50% to just 28%. He also raised the tax rates on the lowest income earners, those who were originally not expected to contribute. At the same time, tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans combined with huge jumps in military spending resulted in huge budget deficits and a large national debt that has been with us since.
The top marginal tax rate for wage income was eventually raised back to 35% but not before capital gains income was stripped from the progressive tax code and separately taxed at a rate of just 15%. Capital gains income represents the major source of income for the wealthiest Americans. So the original intent of the progressive tax code, that the tax burden should only fall on the wealthiest American’s, was turned upside down.
For a glimpse of the problem with our current tax structure, see the US states map at the following URL to see how much more the bottom 20% are paying in taxes, as a percentage of income, over the top 1%. http://tiles.mapbox.com/occupy/map/TaxBurden
The graph below shows the 99 year history of tax rates for four incomes levels in the US. The data are adjusted for inflation and reflect the current value of the dollar. Tax rates for those making one-million dollars are in blue, those making $100,000 are in pink, those making $50,000 (approx. median household income) are in brown, and those making $25,000 (half of all American make less than $26,364) are in black. All rates are based on the married, filing jointly category. The tax information begins in 1913 and continue through 2011.
See data source here: http://taxfoundation.org/article/us-federal-individual-income-tax-rates-history-1913-2011-nominal-and-inflation-adjusted-brackets
What the graphic says to me is that for most of the last 100 years the wealthiest Americans have been paying more taxes than they are today, a lot more. Also, there was a period from around 1932 to 1988 when tax rates were lower for the working poor than for middle Americans.
I also noticed that beginning in the early 1980’s the tax brackets for the wealthy began collapsing until 1987 when a person making a million dollars a year was paying the same tax rate as someone making $117,760 per year. This had the effect of adding millions of tax payers into the same federal tax bracket as the ultra-wealth. From a political perspective, they became a single voting block on the issue of taxation. Also note that the tax rates for the two lower incomes jumped significantly in 1942-1946 and has been relatively steady since, decreasing only slightly during the Reagan administration when taxes on the wealthiest Americans began dropping sharply. Remember that mantra in the 80’s, “It’s not what you make, it’s what you keep.” This was never truer than for the wealthiest among us.
See Raw Data Here
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_individual_rate_history_nominal&adjusted-20110909.pdf
The Rise and Fall of the US Progressive Tax Structure
Below is a companion chart to the 99 Year History of Tax Rates in America (Click Here to see chart). This graph charts the number of tax brackets into which income was divided over the years. Looking back, it is apparent that our progressive tax structure had many more tax brackets separating rich and poor for most or hour history. There was a peek of 56 income tax brackets in 1918. In 1924 (the Roaring 20’s) that number was compressed to just 23 tax brackets. The number of tax brackets fluctuated over the next 62 years but maintained an average of 25 brackets until the 1980’s.
In 1981 the first of Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts was passed dropping the top tax rate from 70% to 50%. Five years later his Tax Reform Act of 1986 dropped the top tax rate again to 28% while raising the bottom rate from 11% to 15% where it remains today. The 1986 law also collapsed the number of tax brackets from 15 in 1984 to 5 in 1985. While lowering the top tax rate for the rich from 70% to 28% was a huge boost for the wealthiest Americans, compressing the top 10 tax bracket helped assure that the changes would not be undone. The reduction in tax brackets meant that the number of people in the top earners bracket went from tens of thousands of the riches voters to many millions of voters including those with much more modest incomes. By lumping together people making over $300,000 with those earning many times that amount the change created a large voting block of voters who would oppose future tax hikes.
During these same years the Reagan administration began deregulating the banking and finance industries leading to more and more wealth building opportunities for those already blessed with riches. Ronald Reagan was following the economic path created by the economist, Milton Friedman, who, in turn, was influenced by the Objectivism philosophy of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand believed that altruism and self-sacrifice for others is evil. See more here]
Paul Ryan’s Mentor: Ayn Rand, the Mother of Modern Conservatives
On April 30, 2012, The Atlas Society published a piece called “Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand’s Ideas: In The Hot Seat Again.”
In it they talked about the close association then vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, had drawn between Ayn Rand and his own political philosophy. Publicity surrounding his views were prompted by a National Review article entitled, “Ryan Shrugged” which characterize as an “urban legend Ryan’s alleged connections to Rand’s Objectivist philosophy. While Rep. Ryan may never have expressly indicated he embraces her Objectivist philosopy, he is clearly a fan of Ayn Rand‘s ideas and requires his staff to read Atlas Shrugged. (See National Review’s “Ryan Isn’t a Randian” for more along these lines.)
How closely Paul Ryan and other conservative associate themselves with Ayn Rand’s Objectivism is important because it shines a light on the heart and soul of their political objectives. Ayn Rand, a staunch believer in individualism and foe of collectivism in any form, believed altruism and any form of self-sacrifice was evil. She meant this literally, and any institutions based on such collectivist notions were also evil. This included churches and all major religions. Ayn Rand was obviously an atheist. This is an inconvenient truth for Ryan and many evangelical Christians who have adopted Rand’s ideology with respect to the behavior of corporations and the formulation of government business policies. Rand’s Objectivism philosophy has become, ex-post-facto, the underpinning for today’s very aggressive brand of capitalism. In fact, the incompatibility of Rand’s value systems applied to business behavior and Christian values applied to human behavior is the great paradox of our time. Objectivism and Religion antithetical belief systems. (To hear a little more about Ayn Rand in her own words, listen to her interviewed on the Phil Donahue Show back in 1979.)
In the article the Atlas Society released an audio recording of a 2005 speech mand by Paul Ryan at the organizations “Celebration of Ayn Rand” event. That audio file is posted here below along with the following excerpts [highlights are mine].
Congressman Paul Ryan on Ayn Rand
(1:45) I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we’re engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that’s what I tell people. You know everybody does their soul-searching, and trying to find out who they are and what they believe, and you learn about yourself.
(2:01) I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well.
(2:23) But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.
(2:38) In almost every fight we are involved in here, on Capitol Hill, whether it’s an amendment vote that I’ll take later on this afternoon, or a big piece of policy we’re putting through our Ways and Means Committee, it is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict: individualism vs. collectivism.
(2:54) And so when you take a look at where we are today, ah, some would say we’re on offense, some would say we’re on defense, I’d say it’s a little bit of both. And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism—that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism—you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.
(3: 21) It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are. I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech (at Bill Taggart’s wedding) on money when I think about monetary policy. And then I go to the 64-page John Galt speech, you know, on the radio at the end, and go back to a lot of other things that she did, to try and make sure that I can check my premises so that I know that what I’m believing and doing and advancing are square with the key principles of individualism… [To better understand Ryan’s references here go to David Weigel’s commentary in Slate from August 13, 2012 ]
(6:53) Is this an easy fight? Absolutely not…But if we’re going to actually win this we need to make sure that we’re solid on premises, that our principles are well-defended, and if we want to go and articulately defend these principles and what they mean to our society, what they mean for the trends that we set internationally, we have to go back to Ayn Rand. Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works.
TO LISTEN TO AUDIO, PLEASE CLICK ON THE ORIGINAL ATLAS SOCIETY LINK ABOVE
Fiscal Cliff’s Specific Tax Breaks About to Expire
Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Key aspects of the law include:
§ Extending the EGTRRA 2001 income tax rates for two years. Associated changes in itemized deduction and personal exemption rules are also continued for the same period. The total negative revenue impact of this was estimated at $186 billion.[7]
§ Extending the EGTRRA 2001 and JGTRRA 2003 dividends and capital gains rates for two years. The total negative revenue impact of this was estimated at $53 billion.[7]
§ Patching the Alternative Minimum Tax to ensure an additional 21 million households will not face a tax increase. This was done by increasing the exemption amount and making other targeted changes. The negative revenue impact of this measure was estimated at $136 billion.[7]
§ The above three measures are intended to provide relief to more than 100 million middle-class families and prevent an annual tax increase of over $2,000 for the typical family.[8]
§ A 13-month extension of federal unemployment benefits.[2][9] The cost of this measure was estimated at $56 billion.[7]
§ A temporary, one-year reduction in the FICA payroll tax. The normal employee rate of 6.2 percent is reduced to 4.2 percent. The rate for self-employed individuals is reduced from 12.4 percent to 10.4 percent.[9] The negative revenue impact of this measure was estimated at $111 billion.[7]
§ Extension of the Child Tax Credit refundability threshold established by EGTRRA, ARRA, and other measures.[7] According to the White House, this would benefit 10.5 million lower-income families with 18 million children.[2]
§ Extension of ARRA’s treatment of the Earned Income Tax Credit for two years.[7] According to the White House, this would benefit 6.5 million working parents with 15 million children.[2]
§ Extension of ARRA’s American opportunity tax credit for two years, including extension of income limits applied thereto.[7] According to the White House, this would benefit more than 8 million students and their families.[2]
§ The above three provisions, as well as some other similar ones, are intended to provide about $40 billion in tax relief for the hardest-hit families and students.[8]
§ An extension of the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010‘s “bonus depreciation” allowance through the end of 2011, and an increase in that amount from that act’s 50 percent to a full 100 percent. For the year of 2012, it returns to 50 percent.[9] The White House hopes the 100 percent expensing change will result in $50 billion in new investments, thus fueling job creation.[2]
§ An extension of Section 179 depreciation deduction maximum amounts and phase-out thresholds through 2012.[9]
§ Together, the above two business incentive measures were estimated to have a negative revenue impact of $21 billion.[7]
§ Various business tax credits for alternative fuels, such as the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit, were also extended.[10] Others extended were credits for biodiesel and renewable diesel, refined coal, manufacture of energy-efficient homes, and properties featuring refueling for alternate vehicles.[9] Also finding an extension was the popular domestic Nonbusiness Energy Property Tax Credit, but with some limitations.[7]
§ Estate tax adjustment. EGTRRA had gradually reduced estate tax rates until there was none in 2010. After sunsetting, the Clinton-era rate of 55 percent with a $1 million exclusion was due to return for 2011. The compromise package sets for two years a rate of 35 percent with an exclusion amount of $5 million. The negative revenue impact of this provision was estimated at $68 billion.[7][11]
§ An extension of the 45G short line tax credit, also known as the Railroad Track Maintenance Tax Credit, through January 1, 2012. This credit had been in place since December 31, 2004 and allowed small railroad companies to deduct up to 50% of investments made in track repair and other qualifying infrastructure investments.[12]
2. ^ a b c d e f “Tax Cuts, Unemployment Insurance and Jobs”. The White House. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k “Tax Cut Extension Bill Wends Its Way to White House”. Accounting Today. December 17, 2010. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
8. ^ a b “Fact Sheet on the Framework Agreement on Middle Class Tax Cuts and Unemployment Insurance |”. The White House. December 7, 2010. Retrieved December 10, 2010.
9 ^ a b c d e Dupree, Jamie (December 9, 2010). “Tax Cuts Compromise Package Summary”. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved December 10, 2010.
U.S. Global Business Competitiveness Slipping
The World Economic Forum published a study on global business competitiveness that ranks 144 nations according to indicators in 12 categories. We American’s sometimes inflate our greatness among nations. With respect to our Militarily this is justified. The United States represent nearly half of the worlds total military capability. But on measures of national well being, ecology, human rights, health care, press freedom and many other critical areas we often fall short in comparison to other advanced nations.
Given how highly our politics regards U.S. business interests, you might assume our global business competitiveness makes us number one in the world. Keep in mind as you read on that many of the specific measures that make businesses competitive are not in the best interest of ordinary citizens. Business interests and social interests are sometime opposed.
The business competitiveness study categories and where the United States ranks:
CATIGORY RANK (Out of 144)
| 1. Institutions | 42 |
| 2. Infrastructure | 14 |
| 3. Macroeconomic Environment | 111 |
| 4. Health and Primary Education | 34 |
| 5. Higher Education and Training | 8 |
| 6. Goods Market Efficiency | 23 |
| 7. Labor Market Efficiency | 6 |
| 8. Financial Market Development | 16 |
| 9. Technological Readiness | 11 |
| 10. Market Size | 1 |
| 11. Business Sophistication | 10 |
| 12. Innovation | 6 |
Overall, the United States is very competitive, ranking 7th out of 144 nations. This is a decline from last year, however, when we were 5th out of 142 countries. Major reasons for the overall low marks can be found in our Macroeconomic situation, primarily our government budge imbalance and huge national debt on which we were ranked 140th and 136th respectively . Our gross national savings is also very low, with a rank of 114th in the world. Still, confidence in America’s credit rating remains high, 89.4%, or 11th among the nations.
Looking at our strengths and weaknesses, in the Institutions category our top ranking was 5th in investor protections. Our next highest rankings were in efficiency of corporate boards (23rd), intellectual property protection and ethical behavior of firms (both ranked 29th). Our lowest ranking was on the business cost of terrorism (124th). Next lowest rankings were in the business cost of crime and violence, and the business cost of organized crime (86th and 87th).
We did better in Infrastructure. We ranked 1st in available airline seats and 15th in telephone land lines. Interestingly, mobile phone subscriptions were our lowest indicator (72nd) followed by the quality of our electric supply (33rd in the world). Our transportation infrastructure didn’t fair much better (30th).
In the category of Health and Primary Education we had no malaria impact on businesses (1st) but the prevalence and business impact of HIV was high ranking the US 92nd and 90th in the world. Also surprising was our low ranking on primary school enrollments (58th), infant mortality (41st) and the quality of our primary education (38th).
In Higher Education and Training we are doing well in post-secondary education (2nd) and the availability of research and training opportunities (9th). We ranked 47th in secondary school enrollment and the quality of our math and science education.
In Goods and Market Efficiency we rank 9 and 10 in market dominance and buyer sophistication. Our worst ranking is on the business tax rate to profit ration (103rd).
In the area of Labor Efficiency we apparently have the lowest labor redundancy costs in the world (1st) and our hiring and firing practices are also great for business (8th). The labor redundancy variable estimates the cost of advance notice requirements, severance payments, and penalties due when terminating a redundant worker. We also ranked 5th in the brain drain measure and 8th in the efficiency of our hiring and firing practices. Our low rankings here were in the women to men ratio in the work force (we ranked 44th) and our cooperation in labor-employer relations (42nd) , perhaps no surprise give our ease and thrift in firing people).
In the Financial Market Development category we are very competitive in the availability of venture capital (10th) but weak on the strength of our banking institutions (80th). Regarding the regulation of security and exchange, we also ranked low (39th) although it is unclear if this means we are over or under regulated.
In the area of Technological Readiness we ranked 8th in the number of internet subscribers yet 20th in the percentage of individuals using the internet. We rank lowest, (43rd) on foreign direct investment and technology transfer.
Market Size, we remain number one in domestic market size (we buy more things) and number two in foreign market size.
In the category of Business Sophistication we are third in the extent of marketing and ranked in the low teens on other measures, such as production process (13th) and local supplier quality/quantity (14th).
When it comes to Innovation, The United States is still doing very well. We are ranked in the single digits on most measures, including University-industry collaboration in R&D (3rd), Availability of scientists and engineers (5th), Quality of scientific research institutions (6th), Capacity for innovation and Availability of scientists and engineers (both ranked 7th). Our lowest ranking in this area was in government procurement of advanced tech products (15th).
Read more at: http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2012-2013/
High School Graduation Rates A National Disgrace
Educational achievement can be viewed as a long range predictor of a nations economic health and well being. In advanced economies, a great deal depends on scientific and technical advantages.
A recent report from the World Economic Forum published a study on global business competitiveness that ranks 144 nations according to indicators in 12 categories. While the United State ranked 7th in the world over all, our ranking in primary and secondary education measures were alarming. The united states ranked 58th on primary school enrollments and 38th on the quality of our primary education. We ranked 47th in secondary school enrollment and 47th on the quality of math and science education. (See report summary here )
Now the U.S. Department of Education has released data detailing state four-year high school graduation rates in 2010-11 – the first year for which all states used a common, rigorous measure. The report states:
“The varying methods formerly used by states to report graduation rates made comparisons between states unreliable, while the new, common metric can be used by states, districts and schools to promote greater accountability and to develop strategies that will reduce dropout rates and increase graduation rates in schools nationwide.
The new, uniform rate calculation is not comparable in absolute terms to previously reported rates. Therefore, while 26 states reported lower graduation rates and 24 states reported unchanged or increased rates under the new metric, these changes should not be viewed as measures of progress but rather as a more accurate snapshot. “
See States Four Year Graduation Rates here: http://www2.ed.gov/documents/press-releases/state-2010-11-graduation-rate-data.pdf In reading the summary below please keep in mind that no data was available from Idaho, Kentucky, Oklahoma or Puerto Rico and some other states had data missing.
Summary of Finding
The highest graduation rate achieved by any state is in Iowa, which as an 88% high school graduation rate. Wisconsin and Vermont were right behind Iowa with an 87% graduation rate. The lowest high school graduation rate is just 59% in the District of Colombia. Among the sovereign states the lowest graduation rates were in Nevada (62%), New Mexico (63%), Georgia (67%), Alaska and Oregon (both at 68%). All together, 13 states have high school graduation rates at or below 75%.
When it comes to race and ethnicity, the graduation rates for Latino children in Maine and Hawaii are slightly better then for White students. Beyond these two examples, in every other state the rates are lower for both Black and Latino students, and significantly so in some states. In Minnesota and Nevada Black student have a graduation rate below 50%. The disparity in Minnesota is stark. White students in Minnesota graduate at a rate of 84% while the Latino graduation rate is 51% and only 49% of Black students graduate. These numbers and other dramatic disparities among the states are a national disgrace.
Even more startling is the low graduation rates and huge rate disparity for children with disabilities. Graduation rates for these children range from a high of 77% in Texas, 75% in Arkansas and 73% in both Kansas and New Jersey to a low of 23% in Mississippi and Nevada. Only 33 states have graduation rates above 50% among children with disabilities. Children with disabilities are not more severely handicapped in places like Louisiana (29%) than Pennsylvania (71%).
Children with limited English proficiency also graduate at lower rates in most states, but especially in Nevada (29%) and Arizona (25%). Students with limited English proficiency actually have a better graduation rate in West Virginia (79%) than do White children for whom English is their primary language (77%). In states as diverse as Arkansas and Maine limited English proficiency is hardly a barrier at all. Nineteen states have high school graduation rates of less than 50% for children for whom English is not their primary language.
I would appear that childhood disabilities and limited English proficiency are not that closely correlated with economic disadvantage. There are no states in which the graduation rate for economically disadvantaged children falls below 50%. In Arizona, for example, economically disadvantaged students have a 73% graduation rate and students with disabilities have a 67% rate of graduation while, as mentioned, students for whom need help learning English have a very low graduation rate (25%). In the case of Mississippi economically disadvantaged students graduate at a rate of 69% while only 23% of disabled children graduate high school.
So what’s going on here? From the broad strokes of this report it would seem that poor educational outcomes are less a result of funding or the demographics of being economically poor and more a matter of selective neglect for some student populations. I this judgment is too harsh. However, no matter how you look at this data, United States appears heading for national decline if we remain unable to turn around these educational outcomes.
South Carolina Outsources Vote Count to Spain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3_xFb1sWKU
By Bev Harris
The genius of democracy is dispersed public control.
As we saw in Iowa when alert public citizens captured evidence of the actual vote count BEFORE it was reported by a centralized state committee, the state Republican Party and the news media initially claimed victory for the wrong winner. They only corrected this mis-call two weeks later, buying the favored candidate half a month of fund raising prowess and prestige.
In South Carolina, 100% of election results will be redirected through a private Barcelona, Spain-owned company, Scytl/SOE Software, before being reported to the public.
There is only one way to immediately find out whether Scytl/SOE reported the right results*, and that is for members of the public to capture evidence of reported precinct results when polls close tonight. Think of it as a giant neighborhood watch.
Precinct results should be posted at each polling site. In addition, during poll closing the public has a right to be in the polling place watching and videotaping what goes on.
Here is a four-minute video showing exactly what to do:
By the way, the results will be published here:
http://www.enr-scvotes.org/SC/36831/63425/en/select-county.html
Compare photos of what you capture at polling places to the results reported at the above link.
For computer buffs, there’s another thing you can do. (The above steps are easy and can be done by anyone.) But for tech buffs, you can download multiple times during the evening, and there are even Web snapshot tools to expedite this. It is not uncommon to see results change or disappear midstream.
In Broward County FL, the results reported by Scytl-owned SOE Software in 2008 showed an entire candidate, who was winning, disappear into vapor in the middle of the count, and in Hillsborough County FL and Dallas County TX, votes that had been reported began to disappear.
The way to see this is to download “time slices” — snapshots at various points in time, and compare them. More information for those of you who like technical stuff is available in the Black Box Voting Tool Kit – http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit.pdf
Follow Black Box Voting for further developments.
* Well, you have to put an asterisk alongside “the right results” because in South Carolinia you get a two-fer. Results could be incorrect at either end of the pipeline — from the ES&S iVotronic paperless touchscreen voting machines, which have a history of incorrect totals, or from the private results reporting firm Scytl/SOE Software, which has centralized control over what gets reported. More
(USA) 1/12 – THE TRAGIC TALE OF EDWARD TRUE AND JAMES FALSE -Permission to excerpt granted, with link to http://www.blackboxvoting.org
By Bev Harris
The actual Iowa winner may “never be known”, and one of the “dead” voters in New Hampshire has now shown up — alive.
It matters, and it’s called journalistic malpractice. TV networks announced that Romney won Iowa, and newspapers pronounced his 1-2 “wins” as “historic.” Candidates dropped out, donors dried up or rushed to send cash to the reported “winner”.
Now we are being told that the Iowa results “don’t matter.” They matter, regardless of any rent-an-expert who shows up in the press. Misreported results manipulated the candidate field from which the rest of America can choose.
The Des Moines Register is now reporting an even greater malfeasance: that the final, certified Iowa result may “never be known.” There were several typos, they say. Some precincts will never be reported, they claim.
That we got a heads up at all about bogus media results was due to an alert Iowa citizen, Edward True, who captured evidence of the 20-vote misreport in his Appanoose County precinct. That people like Edward True were stationed all over Iowa capturing results before they hit the state Republican Committee tabulation was due to Black Box Voting, where the need to do this was explained, and to radio hosts and sites like Bradblog and Facebook, where the word went out.
Mainstream media then began its next act of theatre: They started spinning the false result that THEY THEMSELVES announced as — instead of their own foolishness — “making Iowa look foolish”.
But if we’re looking for truth, here’s what we will find: The mistakes saw light of day because the Iowa caucus was conducted in open public meeting allowing citizens to watch ballots as they were hand counted.
At least it WAS an open system, until the Republican State Committee pitched the bizarre idea that some precincts might never be reported in the final certified result, and the media failed to bay like bloodhounds tracking the truth.
But there is some good news in this: It’s great that public citizens are starting to understand their role in the “neighborhood watch” component of election integrity.
AND NOW FOR JAMES FALSE, OF THE ANTONYM ORGANIZATION “PROJECT VERITAS”
In New Hampshire, media hammertime revolved around James O’Keefe and his “Project Veritas”, who reported that dead people were allowed to vote, “proving” it by sending people around the state to impersonate the dead. He’s basically getting fat grants from fat cats who don’t want so many (real, live) people to vote. He admits to receiving $50,000 for the New Hampshire piece. They are busy manufacturing evidence to manipulate public opinion in favor of voter ID legislation.
Problem is, another alert citizen — who they were reporting as dead — called them on their malfeasance. Robert William Beaulieu is on the video as a successfully impersonated dead voter. Embarrasingly for Project Veritas, Robert William Beaulieu is very much alive.
It seems that Project Falsum Project Veritas did not even bother to check birthdates to match names to dead persons. They mistook a 23-year old for an 80-year old.
Now, we recently saw an article coming out of South Carolina alleging that 900 dead persons voted, and that should immediately call into question how the match was made. By name only? Name and birthdate? Or Social Security number?
Matching by name only doesn’t pass the sniff test, and it turns out that matching by name and birthdate is trickier than you might think. I found 130 people named Mary Williams in a Shelby County (TN) database. Two had the same birthdate. In fact, any time you have a common name, with 100 or more instances, you will find the same birthdate as often as 1 in 3 sets. In a statewide database like South Carolina, it would not be surprising to see 900 name/birthdate matches.
The only way to do a match is with Social Security number, and this is not available to public interest groups.
Data Driven Viewpoints 