The Surge Splurge Urge

[As perhaps you can tell, I don't vent about the Iraq war very often, but this just steamed me up to venting pressure.]

With the inevitable stay-the-course message coming in the "General Petraeus" (NOT!) September report, we should all ingest and digest this news:


Dang! With over two million Iraqis already displaced by the war, the "Surge" is making things worser faster.

And there's all the news about the inability of the current Iraq government to ever heal the sectarian hatred... Well, just add a bunch of salt to the coming news of "progress."

Hedge Fund Tax Cheats

Heartfelt letter:

Representative Heather Wilson

U.S. Congress, House of Representatives

Washington, DC

Dear Rep. Wilson

This is from the Wall Street Journal 9.14.07. I hope you are one of the lawmakers working on this. We have to close all the loopholes in paying taxes, for the good of the country.

• The Situation: U.S. lawmakers are examining a tax perk enjoyed by hedge funds.

• Background: Many of these funds lend money like banks but, unlike traditional lenders, often don't pay taxes on the profits.

• Consensus? While some tax lawyers say these transactions are proper, others argue that many variants are legally dubious.

Hedge funds, which control liquid pools of capital with little regulatory oversight, are a growing presence in the lending business. They increasingly take part in lending syndicates with traditional banks, often indirectly, and also make direct loans, frequently to riskier or smaller companies that may have difficulty obtaining traditional financing. Indeed, the additional liquidity provided by hedge funds has helped contribute to the boom of easy credit that is now coming to a halt.

"Clever ways"

But many hedge funds have found clever ways to avoid paying U.S. corporate income taxes on the profits from this business. They do this by using offshore affiliates and transactions designed to take advantage of a murky area in the tax law that differentiates between lending and investing activities.

While some tax lawyers contend that these types of transactions are proper, others argue that many variants are legally dubious and that tax laws should be changed to clarify what is permissible. It isn't clear how much the current tax treatment of hedge-fund lending could be costing the U.S. Treasury, but it is likely in the billions of dollars.

Please, clarify and demand fair tax payment from those funds making huge money from our citizens. It is their sacred duty to be honest in paying their taxes.

Signed Scooter inHer District

Big funds and their computer models have depressed the value of America's greatest company stocks in this nutso market. The very least they can do is pay their taxes!

UPDATED News the Chemical Companies Don't Want You to Hear

[UPDATE AT END]

My Suspicious, eh? button was pressed when I heard such good corporate citizens as Dow, Bayer and Hexion Specialty Chemicals were fighting to suppress government regulations on one of their very profitable chemicals. They just might succeed, since their lobbyists are making sure the government (Health & Human Services) sees mostly industry-funded research.

The stuff is BPA and is rife in plastic baby bottles, plastic-lined cans of food and lots of other plastic products like toys and sippy cups. In the studies not funded by the chemical companies, BPA is shown to have mucho bad impact on test animals; stuff like diabetes, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, male reproductive problems, obesity, and behavioral changes stemming from imbalances in the endocrine systems. Its worst effects are on babies in the womb and those recently emerged therefrom.

And - surprise! - "Other studies – mostly funded by the chemical industry – have claimed little or no effect of BPA." Or how about, "Several university scientists have accused the government-appointed panel of favoring chemical industry studies that have found no harmful effects of BPA."

Thus the Suspicious, eh? button punch. But we don't have to wait on what W's man Secretary Mike Leavitt says; we can take action on our own

I sent this message to my children with children after reading an excellent Dallas Morning News investigative piece:

RE: Plastic Poisons

Chilluns

The good old Dallas Morning News has done the best job investigating this scary thing. For (grandkid’s) sake - and your own - I’d suggest making sure all of the plastic food/drink containers you use are BPA free. I’m still not clear how one ascertains this, so we are moving strongly to glass until we figure it out.

Then, this morning there was a parallel piece on this stuff - Bisphenol A, BPA - on one of my favorite Public Radio International programs "Living on Earth." Same scary news with some new info.

I still haven't learned how to know if a given plastic has BPA in it other than "semi-transparent" and "hard." (Do you recognise polycarbonate plastic when you see it?) I'm working on finding out. You can bet the chemical and plastic makers are not labeling the stuff "bad for your bod!"

UPDATE: Learn more about BPA in this Wikipedia post.