Thursday, June 12, 2008

Recommended Reading

Glenn Greenwald explains why today's Supreme Court Decision, which declared Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutional, is a triumph of justice and the American way. He also explains why it's frightening that it only passed 5-4...and wouldn't have if George W. Bush had had the chance to replace John Paul Stevens or Ruth Bader Ginsburg with another Justice in the Scalia/Roberts mold. Which is just what John McCain says he'd do.

• Posted at 11:15 AM · LINK

Money Matters

The Tax Policy Center has done an analysis of the tax proposals of Senators McCain and Obama. A lot of it is way too complicated for any of us to understand — and maybe for Senators McCain and Obama to understand, too — but here's the bottom line...

Although both candidates have at times stressed fiscal responsibility, their specific non-health tax proposals would reduce tax revenues by $3.7 trillion (McCain) and $2.7 trillion (Obama) over the next 10 years, or approximately 10 and 7 percent of the revenues scheduled for collection under current law, respectively. Furthermore, as in the case of President Bush's tax cuts, the true cost of McCain's policies may be masked by phase-ins and sunsets (scheduled expiration dates) that reduce the estimated revenue costs. If his policies were fully phased in and permanent, the ten-year cost would rise to $4.1 trillion, or about 11 percent of total revenues.

And here's the next-to-the-bottom-line...

The two candidates' plans would have sharply different distributional effects. Senator McCain's tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. Many fewer households at the bottom of the income distribution would get tax cuts and those whose taxes fall would, on average, see their after-tax income rise much less. In marked contrast, Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers. The largest tax cuts, as a share of income, would go to those at the bottom of the income distribution, while taxpayers with the highest income would see their taxes rise.

There's a lot more to be read here, including a PDF of the entire report...but those are the money quotes. Anyone here surprised? The Tax Policy Center is somewhat partisan but I usually don't see many who disagree strongly with their projections on stuff like this. If you see another analysis that seems to, let me know.

• Posted at 9:55 AM · LINK

Lifestyles of the Poor and Famous

Here's a pretty good article by John Horn and Nicole Loomis on how some big TV and movie stars get into financial trouble. It doesn't delve much into another aspect of the problem, which is bad investments...but the core problem is there either way. To be in Show Biz usually means having a highly unpredictable income and you can easily gear your spending to one level and then, suddenly and without warning, drop to a lower tier.

The examples in this article, like Ed McMahon and Lorenzo Lamas, may not be deserving of a lot of sympathy. I mean, maybe they should have seen that it could happen and bought smaller homes and used fewer limos. There are, however, people who don't spend lavishly — who acquire modest homes and cars and such — who find themselves in a similar financial pickle. I can think of a dozen cases just among my contacts where someone was on a series or in a successful movie...and while they made decent money, the sums were nowhere close to the astronomical numbers that everyone presumed.

I'm thinking of one guy who was a regular on a very popular TV show...but he'd made a bad deal going in, and he was earning a lot less money than you might have expected. He felt pressure to be a little lavish in his purchasing, not because he wanted to splurge but because he felt embarrassed to be seen flying Coach or driving an old car. He was getting a ton of fan mail and he felt he had to spend the money (and this was costlier than you'd imagine) to hire someone to answer it all and send out the requested autographed photos. And of course, acquaintances said and did things that made him feel he had to pick up checks, loan money, etc.

He lived on the financial edge, assured by agents that in his future would be some new series or movie role that would yield megabucks such that his means would catch up with him. But then his series was cancelled, no lucrative offers followed...and his spouse began having serious medical problems about the time his Screen Actors Guild insurance ran out.

Again, some may not have a lot of sympathy for the guy. After all, he did get to be a star there for a while, and a lot of people would gladly trade places, bankruptcy and all. Still, it's a side of the industry you don't read a lot about. Not everyone in TV lives in a huge mansion. Some live next door to a lady who waits tables at Chili's...and find out one day that they can't even afford that.

• Posted at 9:40 AM · LINK

Omigod!

I just realized! It's been six months since we checked to see if Abe Vigoda is still alive!

• Posted at 1:20 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Actor-writer Bill Dial died on June 2 from a heart attack. He was 66 and had most recently been working on 18 Wheels of Justice, a TV series on Spike. In earlier days, he wrote for (and occasionally acted on) Harper Valley P.T.A., Simon and Simon, Code Name: Foxfire, various permutations of Star Trek and many other shows. I never met Mr. Dial but I admired his work, especially on WKRP in Cincinnati, a wonderful and underrated series.

In fact, he wrote the best episode of WKRP — the famous Thanksgiving episode where Mr. Carlson had an odd promotional idea involving turkeys. Here, with limited commercial interruption, is the entirety of that episode...

• Posted at 12:03 AM · LINK