Recently there has been a flurry of outrage concerning the fact that some very wealthy individuals, notably Mitt Romney, pay Federal taxes at the 15% middle class rate, because of a law that put a cap of 15% on taxes on capital gains and qualified investment income. Before jumping on a bandwagon calling for a repeal of the law, people need to understand something of its history and how it operates.

In its initial form the law took effect in 1997, during the Clinton Administration. While the Congress that framed it had a Republican majority, there was no notable opposition from the Democratic side. Part of the rationale was to encourage investment, and in particular to encourage people to sell stagnant investments and reinvest the proceeds in the most actively growing parts of the economy.

In its initial form, the law benefited only the well-to do, as I discovered when I filled out my 1997 income taxes. I had sold some appreciated stock to finance a friend’s mortgage, a move which produced substantial capital gains on paper, but my total income was still in the 15% bracket and I had difficulty paying the taxes since the effective income I had to live on was much less than what I was being taxed on. At that point, the tax structure encouraged reinvestment and portfolio management at upper income levels but still made it difficult for people in the middle.

At some point between 1997 and 2004 the law was modified to give people in the 15% bracket a break on capital gains and investment income as well. The typical person in this category is a retiree liquidating an investment portfolio to maintain a middle-class standard of living. That portfolio is the person’s retirement savings, and while in most cases no real sacrifice was involved in accumulating it, it does represent the sort of prudent financial management society would hopefully like to encourage. Some of the capital gains is simply the result of inflation. People have based their retirement savings strategies in part on the existing tax structure, and don’t have the flexibility the tycoons have to move funds around in anticipation of legislation.

Before using a few conspicuous examples of very wealthy individuals who are favored by the tax system as the rationale for trashing a law that also benefits people in more modest circumstances, I would like to see a breakdown of the numbers of individuals and dollar amounts involved under the current tax structure, and be very certain that either (a) the modifications to the law preserved the tax break for middle-class retirees, or that (b) the people who supported the law were clear that they wanted to saddle this large demographic with an unanticipated and potentially burdensome tax liability. I would also hope that the law was free of the sort of loopholes that would enable the very wealthy, who were allegedly being targeted, to escape a large chunk of the effects.

Photo Credit:

“Weishaupt.”  Flickr Creative Commons.   Some rights reserved by illpig

Capital Gains Tax Breaks – Not Just for the Rich is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

During the last couple of years I have been exposed to a whole sub culture of people who are presently incarcerated or have recently been incarcerated. A large percentage of these people are caught in a tangled web of addiction and recidivism. It’s heartbreaking to hear the lonely voices, the cries of the broken people wanting their loved ones to understand and give them one more chance. I’ve seen them stranded in the prison, crying out for anyone to know they still exist. Don’t get me wrong, I know most of them deserve what they got. Nearly all of them made choices that directly relate to their present condition. Still, do we remember these people? Personally I have given huge amounts of time, money, and energy to assist those “locked down.” My heart hurts for them, I cannot help most of them, they are beyond the help of an individual, they need to help themselves. But, how many of us should be there? Could be there? There but for the Grace of God go I, is the old saying. How can we understand, help, but still let our love be “tough love” and let them experience the repercussions of their actions? Take a minute today to remember those struggling with addictions, those dually diagnosed with both addiction and mental problems. Write to someone you know, volunteer to write someone you don’t know, or just simply pray for those in “the Big House.” The disciples asked Jesus, when did we see you in prison? He responded, “as you have done to the least of these you have done it to me.”

 Guest Author Bio

 Drew Sager

I think and think and 99 times I’m wrong. But on the 100th time, I’m right. – Einstein

 I blog, play guitar, body surf, ride a Harley, and occasionally go to church. Oh, and I live in Hawaii!  I’m an apologist and an apostate. I’ve been knocked down, way down, and fought my way back up, way up. I’ve been an advocate of peace and a destroyer of the same, in a word, I am dichotomy.

 Blog / Website: http://www.opinionsofeye.com/

Remember is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

GIPSPUPPE (GYPSUM DOLL)

Purple violets. Dandelions.
At the edge of a village road,

a child bringing an eyeless doll to her father.
“Clank, clank,” they fall.
“I’ll put the eyes back,” apa says.
But forgets his promise.

War refugees from Budapest:
summer of 1946,
Mother and Father, four daughters,
Grandmother Kisanyuka.

Schillerswiesen, Bavarian Woods.
A cold mountain stream.
Shiny black scarab beetle.

Tossed by a child her Gipspuppe:
pigtailed four-year-old,

trying to escape the stink of the dunghill.
I miss my doll and want
to bring her home again,
but I leave her there—

She has holes in her face.

Photo credit:

Photos courtesy of Ilona Martonfi. Public Domain.

Guest Author Bio

Ilona Martonfi
Ilona Martonfi A first book of poems, Blue Poppy, was published with Coracle Press in 2009. A second collection, Black Grass, (Broken Rules Press) published 2012. Poems have appeared in Vallum, Accenti, The Fiddlehead, Serai, and various other magazines. Poet, editor, teacher. Founder and producer/host of The Yellow Door and Visual Arts Centre Poetry and Prose Readings, co-founder of Lovers and Others. I won the QWF 2010 Community Award.

Blog / Website: Ilona Martonfi https://profiles.google.com/

GIPSPUPPE (GYPSUM DOLL) is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

THE GUITAR PLAYER

There in a homeless shelter: blue tiled floor,
glaring fluorescent lights.
Black bag stuffed with sweaters, jeans, and jackets.
Upstairs, in the mission locked storage.

Upstairs, things out of sight.
She rents a curtained cubicle: A bed.
No chair, table, or framed oval mirror.
After breakfast, she hangs out on the streets.
My eldest daughter.

Bay windows. Pinewood door.
Red tile roof. River grass. Two apple trees.
The day her social worker takes me upstairs:
Elevator fourth floor, storage room.
“That’s all Marisa has,” she says.
In a black nylon sack: her electric guitar.
There at the shelter, on de Maisonneuve East.

No mortgage, or vegetable garden, or dishes.
Streets where she sits in coffee shops.

My eldest daughter:

St. Mary’s hospital psychiatric outpatient.
Eyes glazed and hollow. The fatigue.
Recurrent pneumonia.
Scarring lung sarcoidosis. Melancholia.

Once, she owned a house:
Bay windows. Pinewood door.
Red tile roof. Tall river grass —Apple trees.
A woman who lost her children.

Two daughters and one son.
Youth Court declaring her:
“An unfit mother!
Sole custody for father.
Supervised visiting.”

She rents a curtained cubicle: A bed.
No chair, table, or framed oval mirror.

Photo Credit

Guitar – Flickr Creative Commons.  Some rights reserved by Paul Dotsulenko

“Marisa and her three children” courtesy of Ilona Martonfi

Guest Author Bio

Ilona Martonfi
Ilona Martonfi A first book of poems, Blue Poppy, was published with Coracle Press in 2009. A second collection, Black Grass, (Broken Rules Press) published 2012. Poems have appeared in Vallum, Accenti, The Fiddlehead, Serai, and various other magazines. Poet, editor, teacher. Founder and producer/host of The Yellow Door and Visual Arts Centre Poetry and Prose Readings, co-founder of Lovers and Others. I won the QWF 2010 Community Award.

Blog / Website: https://profiles.google.com/

THE GUITAR PLAYER is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The Women’s Shelter: Day 16

Who you are, didn’t matter.
What you said at three in the morning
to Maria, Guiseppa,
sitting around the oak table:

Day sixteen in the shelter—
peeling potatoes, carrots.
Food provided by Le Garde Manger.

Who you are, didn’t matter.
Walled garden.
Grey-painted balcony.
A clothesline.
He called you: “Puttana.”

Red tile roof.
Pool and sauna.
Nineteen mohair sweaters you knitted.
Jasmine, wild rose.
Apple trees.

“How often were you battered?”

Who you are, didn’t matter:
Leaves turning scarlet, sienna.

In your crisis worker’s office,
with the stained glass door.

Seeking refuge in 20th century Anjou.
A bad marriage—

He argued against the separation.

18 Karat gold. Diamonds.
Four children.
Rental properties.
Overseas family trips.

By the river.
Acacia hills.

Previously published at:

Nashwaak Review – Volume 26-27 – St. Thomas University 

Poppy poet preaches self-empowerment 

Further Reading:

Wikipedia:  Women’s Shelter

Photo Credit:

Photo courtesy of Ilona Martonfi

From: ilona.martonfi@sympatico.ca
Ilona Martonfi

Guest Author Bio

Ilona Martonfi
Ilona Martonfi A first book of poems, Blue Poppy, was published with Coracle Press in 2009. A second collection, Black Grass, (Broken Rules Press) published 2012. Poems have appeared in Vallum, Accenti, The Fiddlehead, Serai, and various other magazines. Poet, editor, teacher. Founder and producer/host of The Yellow Door and Visual Arts Centre Poetry and Prose Readings, co-founder of Lovers and Others. I won the QWF 2010 Community Award.

Blog / Website: Ilona Martonfi https://profiles.google.com/

The Women’s Shelter: Day 16 is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

I turned 40 in 2011 and my goal was to rededicate myself to balance.  I’m a size 12 and I decided that I wanted to be strong, really strong.  Ironically, I was inspired by watching bad American television and seeing so many buff male bodies. Why I was inspired by the muscular physique of men, I have no idea. Freud might know, but I don’t actually care. Over the past nine and a half months, I have built quite a bit of muscle. I haven’t changed my eating and I haven’t lost any weight. I just wanted to be strong. My trainer says I can lift more weight on a romanian dead lift than most men – even perhaps him and he’s buff like my American actor friends.  Part of  it is my flexibility.  It’s not an easy exercise for the inflexible. But, whatever the reason my progress is great and I’m not focused on external results. I feel strong. I can run 10Km. And, I’m only going forward.

And, this is precisely why I’m so fired up by the response to the recent photo shoot instigated by Plus Model Magazine and featuring Katya Zharkova.

The plus sized modelling industry is relatively new – 1990s. Why there has to be a separate industry for models wearing clothing sizes above 10, I don’t know. Is it new because it’s driven by capitalism and designers are greedy for more clients? Is it new because women are lazy, getting fat and want to assert their completely unhealthy bodies? Or, is it new because the average clothing size and model is 23% smaller than she was 20 years ago, when she was only 8% smaller and not all women are actually this small?  Have we forgotten that one of the iconic beauties in West was a size 12? Nobody said that Marilyn was plus sized.

According to Wikipedia plus size modeling has received criticism. Some commentators believe that plus-size models may be setting a bad example to women on how they should look. They believe that promoting large models may lead to women believing that having an unhealthy lifestyle is acceptable. I’m wondering why the general public is jumping to the conclusion that someone who is ‘overweight’ is unhealthy when the wide-spread image of women is represented by models who may very well have the BMI of an Anorexic person.  It is possible to have two women side by side, one a size 12 and once a size 0 and both are healthy.

It’s 2012.  Let’s start judging health on something other than body shape, size and weight.

And now, I’ll stop my rant because it’s time for my Sunday 10K. 

Further Reading:

‘Most runway models meet the BMI criteria for anorexia’, claims plus-size magazine in powerful comment on body image in the fashion industry.  Mail Online

To see all the photos from this shoot, visit Plus Model Magazine

Photo Credits:

Plus Model Magazine

Fear of Fat is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Every year, the American electoral process plays an increasing role in undermining the very system it was set up to sustain. There seems to be little doubt in the mind of the average American that Congress is not serving the needs of the general public particularly well. The role that well-heeled special interests play in the selection process has correctly been identified as a major factor in Congressional unresponsiveness to the public good.

There is a widespread perception that a major overhaul of campaign financing would go a long way towards remedying the situation. I personally doubt that this is the case. For one thing, a good deal of so-called campaign finance legislation has already been enacted, to no avail. If anything, the workings of those laws that do exist have been perverse. This is perhaps not surprising, given that the task of reform is entrusted to a body that is acknowledged to be manipulated if not controlled by the very forces one is trying to counteract.

However, even the most well-crafted and comprehensive election financing laws will not alter the fact that an incumbent running for re-election is prevented from being an effective and conscientious legislator, more or less in proportion to the intensity of the impending contest. For one thing, the time and resources he or she must devote to campaigning inevitably detract from the business of running the country, or state, or other entity. In the case of the U.S. House of Representatives, nearly a year of a two-year term must be devoted to effort and strategies for re-election.

Crisis situations affecting large segments of the public, in which category our nation’s continuing economic woes must surely be numbered, encourage lengthy bitterly fought political contests – in other words, at precisely that point when one would wish legislators to devote as much attention as possible to the business of addressing grave problems, their attention is dissipated in preserving their seats so that at some future date they can bring whatever vision and expertise they have to bear. It has been suggested that in the case of an incompetent legislator or one who is entirely controlled by special interests this paralysis is actually a good thing – but that amounts to admitting that the system is irremediably nonfunctional.

In an election year, a legislator’s actual lawmaking must necessarily be heavily influenced by the way the public will perceive the actions on Election Day. This encourages support of bills with short-term favorable effects and long-term negative consequences. For example, borrowing money to fund pork-barrel projects that provide temporary employment but neither create permanent jobs nor contribute much to the nation’s infrastructure or enacting feel-good social legislation which leaves the task of funding programs to states and employers are ways to look good to constituents provided the consequences can be deferred past election day.

Are American elections too frequent? Insightful British commentators in the early 19th Century, comparing a system in which Parliamentary elections normally occurred every seven years but there was a provision for dissolving Parliament early, thought so. A system in which members of one entire legislative house must spend nearly half of their time gearing their actions toward the whims of a public whose decisions are based, for the most part, on sound bytes, is not one calculated towards intelligent long term planning, or one capable of making hard but necessary decisions that risk short-term unpopularity.

Following the same general line of reasoning, I consider that term limits are an open invitation to increase the influence of special interests and the power of money in our legislative bodies. Arbitrarily ousting an individual who has, presumably through serving the voting public pretty well, contrived to be re-elected repeatedly, and replacing him or her with an unknown whose fidelity campaign promises has yet to be determined, is not a strategy for encouraging independence and profound thinking. A business that adopted such a personnel management strategy would be shooting itself in the foot.

It is worth considering that we might have a cleaner elections process, and one that selected for more statesmanlike political leaders, if we made elections less frequent, especially for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Further Reading

Politics, Law and Policy Blog  An Article concerning Georgia State legislature and views the lack of legislation in election years as a mixed bag.

Free Enterprise Magazine 

Washington Post  set of links on the debate over term limits.

Photo Credit:

Photo Is Public Domain

Election-Year Paralysis Cripples American Legislative Process is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

This was written at a very intense moment of self reflection, attributed to friends, as well as personal experience. It is completely true as I see it.

Speaking Out, or, How I Let My Friend Die
Lauren Spencer

I watched you kill yourself
First slowly
Then so quickly I couldn’t blink
You thought it was secret
Secret from everyone
But I saw
And I begged
For you to get help
To stop
You begged me to be quiet
To stop
And I never told

I watched you cut yourself
As the scars piled up
Your skin became rough
Crosshatched across your body
Words carved into your palms
Documenting your pain
Your sadness
Your despair
I saw all of these
You showed me
You told me
I tried to help you
To stop you
You told me to stay silent
That I didn’t need to stop you
And I never told

I watched you spiral
I saw you crash
You drank
And I drank with you
Until we couldn’t stand
We couldn’t think
When you smoked
I was there with you
Coughing it all the way
Flying with you
Laughing with you
Watching you sink deeper
I let you help yourself
And we didn’t stop
We kept it a silly secret
We didn’t stop
And I never told

I watched you
And I looked up to you
And you were there for me
Twinned friends
Partners in pain
I listened
I saw
And I failed you
Everyday I saw you
I should have helped
Forced you to stop
But out of love I stayed mute
Too afraid to stop
And I never told

I watched
As you decomposed in the earth
I stood at your grave
As I stand here now
Your headstone was still new
Still clean
And I spoke to you
About everything we had known
Had done
And I speak here
With your voice
Without your blessing
I break every promise I ever made
I break my silence
Not for myself
Or for my guilt
Not even for you
It is too late for that now
I do it for the friends
The mothers, the fathers
For the scarred girl who can’t speak
For the boy who drowns in drink
For all the children of the century
Speak out
Save them
Don’t be like me
I couldn’t help
Until death made it stop
I was mute
I let my friend die
Because I never told

Photo Credit:  

Photo courtesy of Lauren Spencer

This article has been previously published at Wattpad

Guest Author Bio

Lauren Spencer
My name is Lauren D. Spencer. I was born in Mesa, Arizona on the 27th of July. Poetry is my passion in this life, and hopefully the next.

Blog / Website: http://www.wattpad.com/user/Fenrex

“Speaking Out, or, How I Let My Friend Die” is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The forerunners of today’s banking industry first emerged in China during the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

Conducting banking functions including the acceptance of deposits, the making of loans, issuing notes, money exchange, and long-distance remittance of money, these early banks were called the piaohao and were primarily owned by natives of Shanxi Province.

The first piaohao originated from the Xiyuecheng Dye Company of Pingyao. To transfer large amounts of money from one branch to another, the company introduced drafts, cashable in the company’s branches around China.

Although the method was originally designed for business transactions within the Xiyuecheng Company, it became so popular that in 1823 the owner gave up the dye business and reorganised the company as a remittance firm, Rischengchang Piaohao.

In the next thirty years, eleven piaohao were established in Shanxi Province, in the counties of Qixian, Taigu, and Pingyao. By the end of the nineteenth century, thirty-two piaohao with 475 branches were in business covering most of the nation, the forerunners of China’s modern banking system.

Today, the People’s Bank of China is the central bank of the People’s Republic of China, with the power to control monetary policy and regulate financial institutions in mainland China. The bank has more financial assets than any other single public finance institution in recorded history.

China’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record $US1.95 trillion at the end of 2008, the largest in the world.

Photo Credits

All Photos © Vincent Ross – All Rights Reserved

Pingyao – Where Banks Were Born is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Martha Sherwood draws upon a heated discussion over the holidays to argue that the gap between the rich and the poor is not only increasing, but many working people do not earn enough to sustain themselves. She argues that the current social welfare model in the US is failing everyone.

Recently, a rather heated discussion erupted at a holiday dinner table, after one of the guests made a disparaging comment about “yuppies” and their habits of conspicuous consumption. Our host, who is quite affluent and surrounds himself with the trappings of affluence, maintained that people with money were entitled to enjoy luxuries, that he acquired his high performance car (to give a specific example) not as a status symbol but because as a person of refined and cultivated tastes he could appreciate an item that would be lost on the peons, and that his consumption created jobs. Like most people I know, he sets the bar of excess well above his own level.

I countered by observing that most people in our society who enjoy an exceptional degree of affluence do so, directly or indirectly, at the expense of people who are working for wages that fail to pay them enough to enjoy a very basic standard of living, and are dependent on taxpayer funded programs like food stamps to shield them from actual want. Programs initially designed as a safety net for the minority of people who are unable to work, or who have unusual circumstances such as chronic medical problems that drain their resources, and for single women with young dependent children whose value as child care providers exceeds the low wages traditionally paid for semi-skilled female labor, have become a subsidy for an increasing proportion of America’s working population.

If the profits from my business enable me to live in an opulent home, drive a BMW and vacation on the Riviera, and my employees are relying on food stamps and Medicaid to meet very basic human needs for their families, the welfare that they are receiving is in effect corporate welfare. I may imagine that I occupy the moral high ground because I am a Democrat and it’s the Republicans that are threatening to cut social programs, but aren’t those programs essential to my bottom line?

Affluent liberals like my host will point to some corporate whipping boy such as Wal-Mart, which actually distributes food stamp and Medicaid applications to new hires, and pretend that the problem is restricted to a few bad actors, when in fact it is systemic. The difference between the median income for families and individuals and self-sufficiency income – the amount social service agencies calculate is necessary to maintain a minimal standard of living without subsidies – has been declining for several decades, to the point where the average American family has very little discretionary income, and no wiggle room at all if income declines or expenses rise. Some of the explosion in personal debt in recent years is the result of luxury spending but a great deal of it reflects, directly or indirectly, expenses individuals and families can’t avoid. When personal debt that individuals have little hope of ever repaying becomes a substitute for adequate compensation for present work, it’s an unsustainable situation.

Failing to pay one’s laborers enough to sustain what society agrees is a living wage is a moral issue. It is the subject of numerous condemnations in the Bible, both in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the New Testament. James 5:4 is representative: “Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.” If one studies British and American history it becomes apparent that the trend for social welfare programs to evolve into subsidies for employers emerges repeatedly, eventually reaching a point where the system as a whole is not generating enough tax revenue to support the program. At this point, neither slashing the social welfare programs and throwing a significant proportion of the work force into real poverty nor further tweaking a basically broken tax system provides a long term solution. The only long term fix is to either raise wages to the point where people can maintain a basic standard of living at the lower wage levels, or accept that some items (such as high tech health care) are not necessary for the average person.

Further Reading:

Biblos 

Third World Traveler – “Wal-Mart Welfare:  How taxpayers subsidize the worlds largest retailer.”  An article on the ways the public subsidizes Wal-Mart.

Centre for Women’s Welfare  - Explanation of what the self-sufficiency standard is.

Photo Credit:

“Mastering Social Welfare.”  Flickr creative commons.  Some rights reserved by the justified sinner

Adequate Wages are a Moral Issue is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN