R.P. Barr

Get Government Out of Marriage

Don’t you think that there are enough problems in the world already without the government worrying about who wants to get married? Marriage is a social and religious union. The government enforces contracts. We need to separate the contract from the social relationship. Right now, people who want to get married have to get a marriage license. Let’s drop the word the marriage. Call it a cohabitation license. Anyone who want to live in the same dwelling, share resources (50/50 unless otherwise specified), and share responsibilities (50/50 unless otherwise specified) can pay the filing fee and be domestic partners. The health department may want them to prove they are free of communicable diseases, and the government will check to see that they are not parties to other similar licenses. Since it is not marriage, anyone can apply. Sex is not a factor. Cohabitants can be lovers, or family members, or friends, or business associates. Simple. Divorce would also disappear. The contract could be dissolved like any other partnership. The property settlement, child and spousal support would still be factors, but sexual activity would no longer be a consideration. Marriage will still exist for all the romantics among us, but it would be the business of religions and other associations. Anyone who wants to have a ceremony or call themselves married is free to do so. Will this destroy the institution of marriage? Baptism, bar mitzvah, and other religious ceremonies don’t seem to have suffered from being outside of government concern. Marriage wouldn’t either. A marriage would include the contract. The scandals that are so entertaining would still occur. There might be some “marriages” with more than two participants, but the in-house politics of those situations would hold down the numbers. We would still have child protection laws. –And, for the sake of Bill O’Reilly, there would still be animal protection laws. The big difference is that politicians would have one less distraction—and maybe they could get something done.

Keeping Secret Service Secrets

At the outset, I want to say that I do not know the Secret Service rules for employee conduct.  However, law enforcement officers of all stripes have stressful jobs.  Actual risk may not be as high as in some other occupations, but the potential for sudden danger makes the job stressful.  In addition, Secret Service agents may, on any given day, have to leap in front of a bullet to protect the person in their charge.  All of that means that it is vitally important to know and trust the agents working with you.  Partying is not merely blowing off steam, it is bonding in a way that could save lives on the firing line later.

 I’ve been waiting to hear what terrible thing the Secret Service agents did in Colombia.  Did they compromise the President’s security?  That would be serious, but so far all that has made it into the public arena is speculation. 

 There was an argument over an $800 charge for sexual favors.  I don’t have a clue what the going rate is in Colombia, but that seems high.  The agent should have settled that before bringing the woman to the hotel.  If prostitution is legal in that venue, then he could be charged for theft of services if he refused to pay.  But, we haven’t heard of any charges like that.

 Did they spend government funds or do their carousing on government time?  Apparently not.

 I’m sure that the Secret Service brass has more information than they are releasing, but I have not seen anything so far to get excited about.  They had some free time in the evening.  They drank, probably to excess, and they had sex with strange women who they compensated.  There may be moral issues that need addressing, but those are personal matters.  I do not see a public scandal.  We've got to get over the national--or at least media--obsession with sex.  It's a fact of life.

 

The Monster We Made

[reference: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120224/D9T3O0MO0.html]

How did American private equity firms cause dozens of people in India to commit suicide?  To be fair, it wasn’t entirely their fault.  Like the roadhouse on the highway is not responsible for the accidents caused by drunks leaving their parking lot.

Here is what happened.  In the 1970’s, Bangladesh was, and probably still is, the most impoverished country on the planet.  A Bangladeshi economist named  Muhammed Yunus had an idea.  Working from the principle that poor people cannot get credit, he would—from his own pocket—make small loans to poor women (because men are more likely to waste the money).  When they paid back the money, he would roll it over into loans to others.  He had a 100% repayment rate and Yunus formed the Grameen Bank.  Each village would have a board of five women who would decide which applications to approve.  The business grew and Yunus received a Nobel Prize for his creation.  So far, so good.  Bangladeshis helping Bangladeshis.

An Indian alumnus of Tufts University, Yale and the University of Chicago, Vikram Akula took the concept to his own country in 1997, and founded his own microcredit organization, Swayam Krishi Sangam (SKS Microfinance), Sanskrit for "self-help society."  Like Grameen, it prospered, doing well by doing good.  So good that in 2005, SKS evolved into a for-profit organization.  His American education paid off.  And, like a good American businessman, in 2010 Akula took SKS public.

If you’ve followed the trends in American business you can already see how this story would end in dozens of suicides.  If not, well, Akula didn’t see it either.

According to the AP article, “Exuberant investors oversubscribed the $350 million offering nearly 14 times. The stock surged more than 10 percent its first day. The company handed out 21,000 watches to employees in celebration.”

Boston-based Sandstone Capital had made a major investment in 2008 and probably saw a public offering as the best way to see a profit.  It was soon joined by Sequoia Capital from Menlo Park, California.  This partnership became the largest shareholder in India’s SKS Microfinance.  Vikram Akula resigned as chief executive, but stayed on as chairman of the board.

Across South Asia, thousands of people kill themselves every year because of insurmountable debt and poverty.  Grameen and SKS were created to provide a way out.  But, the management philosophies of investment firms in the air-conditioned comfort of Menlo Park and Boston, believe that growing the numbers in corporate ledgers is the goal of all business.

SKS began to market loans to impoverished Indians without concern for their ability to repay.  Agents were given incentive prizes that could exceed 10 times their annual wage.  SKS had 6.8 million borrowers in a 100,000 villages, and loaned $3.2 billion. SKS began bundling loans and moving them off their books by selling them to investors.  Does this pattern sound familiar?

 Then, when the borrowers defaulted, agents began a system of horrific harrassment: seizing household utensils, ordering mothers to sell their daughters into prostitution, telling other loan applicants that they could not get loans until this named person repaid his/her loan, setting up demonstrations in front of borrower’s homes.  Women began drinking pesticides and drowning themselves: one in a pond, another in a well.  44 recorded cases so far.

In November 2011, Vikram Akula resigned from SKS Microfinance.

You might argue that business never was about morality, but it used to be more local, and more focused on the idea that getting ahead means providing products that fill a need and responsible service.  If a merchant was perceived as abusing his neighbors, he faced the opprobrium of the community.  In today’s world of long-distance capitalism, there are no neighbors, and those who are victimized often have no recourse.  The only answer is for government regulators to keep businesses honest and responsible.  Unions also have a roll in counter-balancing greed-soaked schemes.  But, the bean-counters are winning, profitting from failure, and women are drinking pesticide.

 

War in Peace

U.S. forces are out of Iraq.  We should never have been there, and it ain’t over yet.

After 9/11, I oversaw a retraining program for my agency to redirect them toward anti-terrorism.  In preparation, I read a few books about al-Qaeda and terrorism.  I don't claim expertise, only a little study.  But, I told people in the classes I taught that Iraq was not the enemy.  Saddam Hussein was a nasty dictator, but not suicidal.  He would not attack us.  He also knew that al-Qaeda’s top two concerns were 1) to get Western influence out of the Middle East, and 2) to overthrow secular leaders in Muslim countries and install theocracies like Iran.  Saddam would not give powerful weapons to al-Qaeda for fear that they would be used against him.  Many, if not most, of my colleagues believed President Bush’s accusations.  A West Point graduate even argued with me.  I told him that as the war stretched on and American casualties accumulated, the people would turn against the war.  He dismissed me a deluded liberal.  The war would be over in a few weeks.  I wonder if he recalls that conversation now.

 I just saw the movie, Fair Game which is about those early pre-war days, and how hard the Bush Administration fought against those who challenged their views.  The right learned nothing from Vietnam.

Saddam Hussein, like Muammar Gaddafi and the Iranian Ayatollahs, did sponsor terrorist activities here and there, but nothing big enough to prompt an invasion.  The world is a better place without him.  Whether getting rid of him was worth a half million Iraqi lives and 4,500 Americans is another question.

 Some commentators worry that Iraq will dissolve in civil war.  It might, but I don’t believe it will happen in the near future.  A few bombs, but no armed uprising.  The primary aftermath, as far as we are concerned, will be taking care of the men and women who served, those who returned with disabilities, and the widows and orphans of those who died.  For at least the next fifty years the government—you and I—will be paying for the wounds of that war just as we have for all of the others. 

 Did you see that the last combat veteran of the First World War died this past year?  I’m sure that there are still a handful of widows and maybe some dependent children who continue to receive benefits.  That’s how long a war takes.

 And, before we get involved in another—after Afghanistan—Congress needs to set aside a century’s amount of benefits.  That should be a requirement.  Budget for that before a single boot steps into combat.  Make the Administration that agitates for war pay for it up front.  Maybe then they will think twice.

 

Putting the Republic at Risk

The first coal in my stocking this Yule was the vote on granting the government power to detain anyone anywhere, including the U.S., on mere suspicion of aiding terrorists.  The first vote on this provision was overwhelmingly in favor.  This bill was the worst threat to the the United States since the British burned Washington in 1814.  It’s been watered down, but hasn’t been killed completely or universally denounced.  

 It is appalling that any Americans would think that our justice system is incapable of dealing with terrorists.  In 1862, the Sioux in Minnesota massacred some 800 settlers.  303 Sioux were arrested, tried and sentenced to hang.  Abraham Lincoln reviewed the sentences and commuted all but 39, which is still the largest mass execution in American history.  Southern sympathizers murdered Lincoln, but the system was trusted to try and condemn 8 conspirators.  In 1920 two men were murdered by anarchist bank robbers. Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were tried and executed.  When communists stole secrets of the atomic bomb, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested, tried, and executed.  I could go on.  Some of the cases are still controversial—and the rules of civilian trials were not always followed--but the point is that none of the suspected terrorists walked away free.  Our record of catching the bad guys is excellent.  We have more people in prison than any other country.  (The pros and cons of executions can be saved for another time.) We don’t need to broaden our detention rules.

 Besides that, we have a reputation (somewhat tarnished now), of being fair.  Our enemies tell their recruits that we are cruel and barbarous.  Reinforcing that prejudice is not helpful to our cause.    Americans like to think of ourselves as the good guys, and our men and women in uniform have proven that to be true in combat zones all over the planet.  The exceptions to that practice have been, in fact, exceptions.  We cannot allow a bunch of millionaire dilettantes in Congress to endanger our troops and diplomats by throwing out the Bill of Rights in an effort to appear tougher than the men and women who actually go into harm’s way.

 Of course it is really less about terrorism than it is an attempt to shut down debate and the free exchange of ideas.  If someone disagrees with a government policy, he is, by definition, an enemy of the state who is giving comfort to the foreign powers who hate us, and should be locked away.  That can be any one of us, depending on who is in office at the time.  And, detention without trial means that you or I don’t even have to disagree with the government.  If I object to the charges on my credit card statement and make a stink about it, the bank manager could make a call, and I disappear.  Take away the matter of credit cards, and that is how some detainees wound up in Guantanamo and spent years trying to fight evidence held in secret.  We must give our enemies benefit of our Constitution in order to protect ourselves.

 

Occupy This

Having left the Occupy Wall Street folks alone until now, their eviction from parks around the country creates an opportunity to reflect that I would like to address.  Squatting in public places is a good attention getter, but alone, it is not going to accomplish anything.

 Not every opinion spouter offers full disclosure, but I do.  Therefore, I admit that I have not attended a demonstration since 1969, although I did march in a union picket line a few years ago.  And, to be honest, in ’69, I was on the other side as a Military Policeman.

 That perspective inspires my first point.  The police are part of the 99%.  Embrace them.  (Not literally, of course, that could get ugly.) I’ve heard several protestors on the news say things to the effect of “Now I’ve seen a police state.”  That is a bad direction to go.  For centuries, the rich and privileged have pitted groups of the oppressed classes against each other.  When the French peasants stormed the Bastille, they could not have succeeded except for the soldiers who were sent to crush them and instead joined them.

That may be a little too dramatic to expect on American streets, but think of staging a day of protest in defense of first responders—police and fire and EMTs—who have seen their numbers cut, their pay and pensions cut, and who still go out every day, often risking their lives for the rest of us.  Tell the cops that “We’re doing this for you.”  Some won’t appreciate the gesture, but some will.

 The thing to remember is that cops don’t like disorder.  In part, that’s why many of them joined the force—to bring order and sanity to a brutal world.  More than that, every cop knows that losing control of a situation can cost him his life.  And, we’re not being hyperbolic as in, “I got killed in the stock market.”  So, tell the nice policeman what you are planning to do.  Apologize for making him arrest you but explain that you need the publicity to fight the bastard bankers who are screwing with his retirement savings.

 And, remember the Bastille!

 The other lesson to take from the French Revolution is what happened after the Bastille fell.  The Committee of Public Safety couldn’t agree on much except that there were always more heads to cut off.  That chaos led to the rise of Napoleon.

So, the movement needs to coalesce around some basic goals and then do what it takes to achieve them.

Allow me to offer a few:  1) Re-instate the Glass-Steagall Act which was instituted after the Great Depression to prevent a recurrence of financial collapse—and it worked right up until it was repealed.  Bring it back. Get the hot dogs out of banking and make that industry dull and reliable once more.  2)  If you or I went into a bank and took one of their chairs we would be arrested.  Bankers have taken entire houses from people who never missed a payment on their mortgages.  Insist that the Attorney General employ the RICO statute to prosecute the conspiracy surrounding those thefts.  Put the offending bankers and their bosses in prison.  3)  The reason Congress is a mess is because financing for campaigns has become more important than votes.  We need some tough campaign finance reform.  Money is inherently corrupting.  Separate the financing from the politicians.  5)  In line with that, let’s have a Constitutional amendment that defines a person as an individual, biological human being.  Corporations are not people.  They do not have the same rights and privileges.

There you have it.  Treat the police as brothers and sisters, and pursue five simple goals.  Getting there won’t be easy, but forming a community in a city park isn’t easy either. 

 

Reasons why

On 60 Minutes this week, the new Jobs Czar, Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric asked why people don’t cheer for the success of big business.  He claimed that people in other countries take great pride in their flagship businesses.

 Jeff, I wish that I had a personal story about GE, but I’m sure  someone does.  We’ve all got stories of encounters with big businesses.  I’d like to tell you about Richmond American Homes.

 About a decade ago, my wife and I were shopping for a townhouse.  There was a construction boom in our area so we found several model homes to review.  The one we liked best was by Richmond American Homes.  Since the home hadn’t been built yet, we got to select the floor plan and a number of options.  It was the American dream, modestly speaking.

 Now, flash forward nine years.  The wood around the front door and garage door was rotting.  That’s not right.  We repainted a few years before.  With a vague memory of a ten-year warranty, I called Richmond American.  That wasn’t as easy as it seems, since they close down and open up offices as they start and complete developments.  Anyway, I tracked them down and was told that Richmond American only handles the first two years of the warranty.  Then, they pass the responsibility along to an insurance company.  They gave me the address. 

 I wrote a letter to the insurance company and included photographs.  They asked me to read my policy.  The only document with their name on it was a “Sample” policy.  The word “Sample” was stamped on every page.  But, apparently this was also their actual policy, and it clearly stated that the warranty did not apply to water damage.  I asked what possible defect on the exterior of a house would not involve water damage?  They simply reiterated that rotting wood was a sign of water damage and they didn’t cover water damage.

 I looked around the neighborhood and found that virtually every home had damage similar to mine.  I decided to put together a class action law suit.  My damages were only a few thousand dollars, hardly enough to interest an attorney, but everyone together—well, that would get the juices flowing.  I went door to door with the goal of gather 20 names of people willing to be part of the class.  Once I found a willing lawyer, then I could go after the hundred or so others. 

One home owner declined to join the suit.  He said that the houses were built according to code and so we didn’t have a leg to stand on.  That got me thinking.  How did he know they were built according to code?  I contacted the county and learned that all wood used on the exterior of homes had to be weatherproof.  The wood on our homes clearly wasn’t.

 I called around.  Several local attorneys were not interested in suing a big company with deep pockets.  Then, I found someone who would talk to me.  I brought him my information, and he agreed to look into our chances.

 Three days later, he got back to me.  Home builders had convinced the legislature years ago to pass a law that said code violations could only be enforced within two years of the completion of construction.  Home owners only had two years from date of original purchase to sue the builders over faulty construction.

 In other words, home builders in the state of Virginia—and probably other states as well—could commit any violations that they could paint over and were immune to customer complaints.

 Repairs cost me $7,000 from my retirement fund.  I could have done it cheaper.  Some of my neighbors simply calked over the rotting holes and repainted.  But, I wanted the job done the way it should have been done in the first place.

So, when Jeffrey Immelt wants to know why Americans don’t trust or cheer big business, he needs to be reminded of how big business legalizes fraud, and makes themselves immune to redress.

 

 

Our Longage of Expectations

Recently, I was asked my opinion of a podcast conversation.  Since I find that kind of request to be flattering, I took some time to study the podcast transcript.  The two men having the conversation were Chris Martenson and Nat Hagen.  I didn’t know either one, but they seem to be accomplished so we travel in different circles.  Some of their points agreed with a few I had made in earlier posts, so I judged them to be intelligent and insightful.  But, really, it was the concepts new to me that were fascinating.

The whole thing is available at http://www.chrismartenson.com/page/transcript-nate-hagens-were-not-facing-shortage-energy-longage-expectations.  And, I recommend it.

 They discussed the economy in terms of oil production and consumption.  They pointed out that for as long as humankind has engaged in economic activity, the goal has been growth.  Bigger and bigger, more and more.  Standing still means falling behind.  Today, however, we are rapidly expanding into a wall.  Oil is a finite commodity and as tantalizing as the other sources of energy are, none of them are even remotely ready to replace oil. 

Hagen used the example of ethanol.  We currently produce about a million barrels per year which takes more corn than is used for food.  And, barrel-for-barrel, ethanol produces only 70% as much energy as oil.  Meanwhile, we consume 19 million barrels of oil a day.  So, if my math is correct, we could take a year’s worth of ethanol and replace oil for roughly an hour and twenty minutes.

He went on to explain that the government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) has statistics on Energy Return On Investment (EROI).  Of course they do.  EROI is how much energy it takes to produce one unit of energy.  Seventy or eighty years ago when a wildcatter could find an oil field, stick a pipe in the ground and get a gusher, we would invest one barrel of energy to harvest a hundred barrels of oil.  That was a pretty good business plan and led to the primacy of the internal combustion engine.  By the 1970’s however, that one barrel of energy would only bring thirty barrels in return.  Still not a bad investment.  Then while the world worried about computer crashes in Y2K, the EROI came in around 10:1, and “the EIA stopped producing data on how much energy it takes to get energy.”  I wonder whose idea that was?  Who didn’t want us frightened by statistics?  Hagen doesn’t speculate on the who, but he reasonably estimates that our return on that barrel of energy spent is in the single digits today.

 We may be forgiven for believing that as oil becomes more expensive, drillers will go to greater and greater lengths to find it.  But, Hagen asserts that “you eventually get to a point, even if oil is $100,000 dollars a barrel, or $1 million dollars a barrel, if it takes one barrel of oil to get out [one] barrel of oil, you’re kind of out of gas at that point.”

What happens to our economy then?  What happens when we can’t grow our way out of our problems?

Martenson and Hagen go on to talk about how the issue shouldn’t be the shortage of oil or fresh water or anything else, it should be about the “longage of expectations.”  We, as a society, nation and planet, need to plan how we will get along when growth has been replaced with contraction.

Here is where they lost me because they went on about living on a smaller carbon footprint, and buying locally.  The elephant in the room, gentlemen, is that what needs to be downsized is us.  There are simply too damn many people.  If the available stuff doesn’t stretch far enough now, it sure won’t if the population keeps ballooning.  Back when society could get 100 barrels by spending one, there were only two and half billion people to use it.  This year we have or will top seven billion.  And, as development in China and India has proven, they all want cars.   Given the chance, like Jay Leno, they won’t stop at one.

Current projections are for population growth to slow--but not stop--toward the end of the century--as we approach nine billion hungry consumers.

We can prepare for the crash mentally—as Martenson and Hagen advise.  We can stockpile goods, which they say won’t do us much good since we can’t possibly cover all the bases.  Even money and gold will have little value when we run out of stuff to buy.  Does that sound bleak?  Remember that everything we use comes to us courtesy of oil—in trucks, planes, ships, and trains.  Run out of oil and we run out of everything else, too.

There is a school of thought that expounds belief in human ingenuity.  Pushed to the wall, we will invent a way over.  It’s a nice thought. 

 

Wounded on the Job

Among other things, I follow news of workplace injuries.  Lately, there have been some new cases that present some new trends. 

 There was the woman who telecommuted from home.  Her workplace was an office in the garage.  One day, on her way from the house to the garage, she tripped over her dog.  I forget the injury, but it was apparently worth going to court over. The employer said—in other words—“Oh, come on.  This was her dog in her house, how can we be responsible?”  The court disagreed.  The employer knew that she had her office in the garage, and walking from home to garage involved all the risks therin. 

In another case, a woman working from home had a fatal heart attack.  The court ruled that AT&T, the employer, knew that she was working beyond her normal hours, and that too many hours at a sedentary job is a heart attack risk.  The woman’s obesity was not relevant.

 The lesson of these two cases—and of others sure to come—is that employers are responsible for remote workplaces.  They may need to visit the homes of telecommuters to ensure a safe workplace, and to monitor employee activity to see that they get up and walk around periodically.  Or else, get out of the telecommuting business altogether.  Or—and I think this is most probable—businesses will seek legislation indemnifying them against employees who are injured at home.

Another pair of cases are so similar, I don’t have to tell the separate stories.  Employers hired undocumented immigrants.  Of course they claimed that they did the due diligence and the employees appeared legal.  The employer did not provide safety equipment or training.  When the workers were disabled or killed on the job, the employer said, “I don’t have to pay because they were illegal.”  The court said—and I completely agree—the legal status of the workers is a separate issue, and irrelevant to the OSHA violations and Worker's Comp responsibility.  To decide differently would be to reward the employer for hiring undocumented workers.

 The moral, as I see it, is that there will always be employers who will look for cheaper operating costs without taking responsibility for the consequences, whether its saving office space by letting people work from home, or by hiring people who won’t question the work rules.   Cutting government oversight will make us no better than Chinese or Indian employers.

 

Quote: Warren Buffett

These excerpts are from In the Loop with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television.   Liu was in Sun Valley to interview Warren Buffett.

 Betty Liu: Is it misguided in many ways to look to the White House to try to help create jobs.  I mean,                 Obama’s got this jobs council—you know he keeps creating these councils to create jobs—is it                 misguided in that way?

 
 Warren Buffett:  People get their expectations too high.  I mean, if you                 look at these 15 recessions  we’ve had since we became a country.                  During half that period, at least nobody knew what monetary policy                 or fiscal policy was.  I mean,we cured ourselves and the system                 cures itself.   And, I would say that’s the biggest single factor.                  Government can do things to make it worse and they did in the                 Great Depression.  And, government can help some.

 Betty Liu:  Is the president making it worse?

Warren Buffett:  No, no, no.  We know the things to do that can help, but they                 are not, in my view, the prime determinant.  There are things to                 work through.  If you have too many houses, what can government                 do?

         …Government gets blamed too much and it may get too         much credit when things do improve.  Government’s a factor, but by far the biggest factor is correction of the business cycle over time is what would call the natural regenerative powers of capitalism.  Capitalism works.

[Later in the interview]

Warren Buffett:  It takes some cooperation from Congress, but [Obama] has ideas about what America can and should be                 that are in sync with mine.  Some of it is social justice and some of it is distribution of wealth, and that sort of thing.

Betty Liu:  Like what?  What are the lot of issues?”

 Warren Buffett:  Like I think, for example, that we’ve had a period in the last 15 years whee the 400  top tax payers in                 the United States—we have to go back 15 years—they had an average income  of about 45 million.  Now, they                 have an average income of 350 million, in the most recent figures, whereas their tax rates went down from                 27% down to 16%.  That’s not my idea of America.  I mean I want everybody to get rich, but I think that the                 rich have a responsibility to pay higher tax rates.

 Betty Liu:  So that when you hear him say targeting the millionaires and the billionaires, you’re saying  “Go get ‘em.”

 Warren Buffett:  Yeah.  

 Betty Liu:  Yeah?

 Warren Buffett:  Yeah, I am.

 Betty Liu:  But, don’t get me--

 Warren Buffett:  No, I look around at my friends here who are paying lower tax  rates than the                 people who are serving us the food—

 Betty Liu:  Do they agree with you?  When you’re here at Sun Valley talking to them, do they agree with  you?

 Warren Buffett:  I think some do, yeah.  And, many don’t.

 Betty Liu:  And are they still talking to you?

Warren Buffett:  Oh, yeah, they talk to me.  They figure I’m harmless and eighty.  This guy will only be  around a few                 more years.  

[So, if you are not a billionaire and plan to be around for more than just a few years, it is time to decide what kind of America you want to live in.  In the next 15 years do you want to see the income of the 400 top taxpayers rise by another 777% and their tax rates drop by another 40% while your numbers remains the same or worse?  The rich have already made their choice.  What are you going to do?]