A Worthy Battle

NBC News reported this morning that the most prolific Hedge Fund Manager in 2011, a guy name Ray Dalio who runs a firm named Bridgewater Associates , earned $4.0 Billion in compensation. I doubt that all of that income was salary, but let’s say for a minute it was. Under current tax law Mr. Dalio would have paid $1.4 billion in taxes. Under Obama’s proposal, the one the Republicans oppose at every turn, Mr. Dalio’s tax bill would rise to $1.6 billion, leaving him with a mere $2.4 billion to buy groceries, pay the electric and gas bills, pay for the kids braces and so forth. We can be certain that Mr. Dalio shelters a substantial portion of that income just like the Mittman, the humor challenged presidential candidate who paid only about 15% of his income last year in taxes. Unless Mr. Dalio has the dumbest accountants in the world we can be sure he isn’t paying close to $1.4 billion in taxes either.

As a job creator, Mr. Dalio’s firm Bridgewater Associates employs a total of 1,200 people.  We can only hope that should the Ryan budget plan succeed and Mr. Dalio’s personal taxes are reduced from $1.4 billion to something closer to $1.0 billion (again assuming Mr. Dalio has really dumb accountants) that he will hire a few more people. At an annual salary of $50,000 Mr. Dalio could hire 8,000 additional people with the tax cuts the Republicans are proposing. While it is possible that Mr. Dalio would go on such a hiring binge, it would seem pretty unlikely considering his current payroll of 1,200 employees. According to NBC news the top twenty five hedge fund managers earned a total of $14 billion in 2011, so Mr. Dalio is just the tip of a very big iceberg. Just to show the lame stream media gets it right, Bloomberg headlined this story as follows “Pay for Top-Earning U.S. Hedge Fund Managers Falls 35%...”   

In addition, as expected the Republicans killed a proposal in the Senate to tax away $4.0 billion in tax breaks for oil companies. A pure majority of 51 senators voted to repeal the breaks, but this was not enough to close the debate which means the tax breaks remain. The Republicans who oppose picking winners somehow rationalize these breaks, which amount to a mere 3% of the $130 billion plus in oil company profits, somehow as outside that framework. We can only assume this makes the oil comanies a neutral on the scale of winners  and losers. 

For those who would bemoan the filibuster rules, just keep in mind that a filibuster-proof minority in the Senate, assuming the worst case scenario of a Republican win for President and takeover of the senate, would be the only thing standing in the way between the American people and the complete takeover of the American government by moneyed and/ or corporate interests.

Stand and Fight