James G. Gilmore's Blog - Latest Comments

Re: An Open Letter to Target, Best Buy, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and the Gap

Guest — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 10:48:22 -0000

I am baffled that, out of the hundreds (or thousands!) of terrible things that giant corporations do, you chose this issue on which to take a stand and write a letter. Rather ridiculous and trite in the grand scheme of things. And based on the dozens of people I know who currently work in retail or used to work in retail, I don't think most employees care about the issue. First, stores start with volunteers who want to work Black Friday. Often there aren't enough volunteers, so some employees are assigned to work. For most, it's really not a tragedy. First, most people still get to enjoy a family meal that you write about. Do that many family meals really go until 11pm or midnight? No. Most Thanksgiving events are mid-day, and even the evening dinners are over much earlier than a worker would have to go to work. Second, lots of people wouldn't be all that sad about missing a Thanksgiving meal. Many families aren't the Leave-It-To-Beaver variety that you seem to think exists. I haven't flown home for Thanksgiving with family in over 15 years, because it just isn't worth the trip to eat a meal together on a silly holiday. Lots of other people feel similarly about Thanksgiving and wouldn't think twice about having to work late that night.

It's nice that you care about social justice issues, but maybe put your self-righteous anger behind issues that matter more.

Re: An Open Letter to Target, Best Buy, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and the Gap

Yno — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 02:57:02 -0000

what about walmart which opened on thanksgiving at 10pm or earlier , where as Best Buy opened at at midnight at-least it was not on thanks giving.

Re: A Disturbing GOP Debate Moment

Margot — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 00:58:36 -0000

You might be giving humanity too much credit - lots of the people you hope wouldn't applaud would mindlessly enter mob mentality and right-wing-fear-land and applaud for whatever Perry (or another right winger) said.

I agree that no death should be cheered or applauded. I was horrified when so many Americans, including many of my friends, cheered Osama's death, let alone cheering the consequences of the death penalty. However, I do disagree, to some extent, with your focus on the connection between the death penalty and race. There is some connection, without a doubt. But the main connection is class, and America likes to live in oblivion of class issues. The second factor is the nature of the crime, which is a complicated mix of sexism, racism, classism and all sorts of issues in society. For example, you're just not gonna get the death penalty for killing a prostitute, because we don't care a whole lot about prostitutes and women who "deserve it" (unless maybe if you killed a dozen of them or got a media storm around your crimes). Yes, more ethnic minorities are on death row than white folks. That's because more of them commit murders. (Or maybe white people and Asian people commit just as many but are better at getting away with them. I don't know, but I doubt it.) My understanding is that the ethic disparity on death row reflects the ethnic disparity of who is committing murders (for the most part). Again, race certainly is a factor, but it's not the factor that us lefty folks are used to relying on when we argue against the death penalty.

Re: A Disturbing GOP Debate Moment

Concerned Citizen for Justice — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:45:39 -0000

Does anyone remember that Simi Vallley was the location of the
Rodney King trial and verdict that exonoreated 4 police
officers of the vicious and excessive beating of Rodney King then their lies to cover it up but for a video tape that showed
the world scope of police brutality ?Even with a tape explicitly
documenting the wanton criminal felonious assault by
several police officers of an unarmed black man by 4 LAPD
officers while 18 other officers from the LA sherriffs department, the Calififornia Highway Patrol and other
LAPD officers watching idly and silently....then not fullfilling
their duties as officers of the law....not a vicious gang of thugs in uniforms.... to report what was a crime.
It was no fluke or accident that the jury in Simi Valley
19 years ago found those officers not guilty. That jury
was drawn from the voters of Ventura count, California...
a place which the US Justice Department and subsequently
a US Federal Court found guiltu of systematically rigging
the election procedures and voter regisration to exclude Hispanic nand Blacks. All elections in
Ventura County must now be supervised by federal election monitors...similar to Alabama and Mississipi in the 1960s
( but no longer deemed neccesary in the South currently)
and 3rd world corrupt, tyranical countries America always invieghs about for human rights violations.On the
the matter of human rights violations.... the US Justice
Department found that the Ventura County Sherriffs Depart-
ment ( with the knowlege of the Ventura County District
Attorney and Prosectors office ) used illegal restraint chairs
that had been implicatred in deaths essentrially as torture
devices on prisoners... most of whom were not in need of being restrained for dangerous behavior but were use3d gratuitously for retribution on prisoners.... particularly minority group disproportionally chosen foer this punishment by a device which is outlawed by the Geneva Convention and even was prohibeted at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. If citizens are concerned by the blood lust response
of what was predsominately an audience from Ventura
County.... they should should be concerned that the children and grandchildren routinely express their
explicit consent and approval of means which violate
the 8th amnebdment to the US Constitution regarding
cruel and unusual punishment. In fact the criminal
justice system in Ventura County....knowing they will not
be held accountable by the cititenry routinely engages
in t5hese act incuding the shooting and killing of of
unarmed citizens.
To hold responsible for the ongoing violations of due
process by the Ventura county criminal justicice system.... the public and citizens from outside of Ventura ....now aware
of the blood lust bias of the Ventura county residents...
need to appeal to the US Justice Department to go beyond
a piecemeal case by case review to encourage
the US Justice Department, Civil Rights Division...Office
of special investigations office to institute a comprhensive
investigation of " Pattern and Practice " violaions through
abuse of police and prosecutorial authority by abuses " under of law" of the entire system so a court appoointed monitor can be installed by federal authority what
has been an ongoing violation of federal law.

County who were shocked by the audiece response

Re: God’s Economics, Part II: A Generous God

Onyourmarx — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:39:34 -0000

Now I appreciate the attempt to appeal to theology to direct economic and political ideas, however there are several major flaws in your argumentation.

The first is not distinguishing between the kingdom of God and the kingdom's of this world. It's true that there is no scarcity in the kingdom of God, but until the parousia we do indeed live in a world full of scarcity. We are, for all intensive purposes, living in Babylon not Israel. We do have to deal with the fact that there's limited amount of resources in the world. Acceptance of this does not mean that there is a de facto acceptance of the poor being less worthy to receive goods.

Secondly, despite agreeing with you how the generosity of God should bleed through into our own lives, it seems that you assume the means by which this is accomplished. The most wasteful and inefficient means of distributing goods (our government) should be the de facto means of doing so. Before many of our current social programs, foreigners would often remark in disbelief about the magnificent and generous ways the churches in America took care of the poor. This not only allows for more efficient use of resources, but also enables the transfer of the good which the poor truly need the most to overcome poverty--hope.

The big government entitlement mentality spurns hope. Its no longer receiving the grace of those who give, but an anonymous check which they are entitled to. As anyone who has done serious inner city missions (as I have) knows, there's a fairly large segment of people who spend their time just looking to get "free" money from the government. I have never seen or heard of a single impoverished person ever thanking someone of means for paying their way. The wealthy are only thought of as villains because they have wealth and they don't. As I'm writing this, my projected annual household income is around 23,000 for both me and my wife, so I'm not even close to being part of the "entitled rich."

Lastly, as a nation we most certainly are broke. To put things in perspective that makes sense to us, America is like a household that makes $58k a year, spends $75k a year with 328,000 in credit card debt. The "outrageous cuts" proposed were to reduce the spending from 75k to 72k. Our current path is unsustainable. The question of reducing the entitlements is not a question of "if" but of "when" and the latter determines how drastic the cuts will be. I am sure you'll respond to this by saying that the rich just have to give more. Even if we took the money from all the rich, we would still be running a deficit, but then leave the country w/o any capital to create new jobs. This would then increase unemployment all the more and needing even more money poured into the social programs.

In conclusion to this really long response, our mirroring of God's generosity needs to be done in such a way that gives strong thought to the means and manner in how to do it, rather than following the empty rhetoric of politicians who pretend to care for the poor, considering using the gov. as a filter has proven to be the least efficient and least effective way to truly uplift the condition of the poor. Thank you for your time. In Christ, Aaron.

Re: Dear Senator Hatch:

Karen Fitzgerald — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:44:38 -0000

Tell Orrin Hatch to put his money where his MOUTH is!!!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/...

Re: Some Thoughts on the Rapture

Pastor Richard Alberta — Fri, 20 May 2011 21:54:06 -0000

Jim!

You missed it! It was last Saturday and everyone was taken except Obama and Chris Matthews...and you!

Good writing buddy! :)

Pastor Alberta

Re: Accountability for “Job Creators”

Jason Summers — Sat, 14 May 2011 20:11:14 -0000

I'm curious why you want to exempt doctors and lawyers. When in private practice they are essentially small businesses, typically run as LLPs. As such, they also have a responsibility to create jobs for lawyers who are not partners, legal aids, secretaries, nurses, etc. Also, if you still want to exempt them, you'll need to set the limit around $2m for combined guaranteed payments and distributions.

Re: Taxes, Part II: A Righteous Rant

margot — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:49:46 -0000

And also, while this is hard to educate people about, the super rich truly don't pay taxes on just about anything. The sort-of-wealthy - maybe those earning under $1 million a year, often do pay lots of taxes because they file like normal human beings. My friend is an attorney for the super rich who specializes in wills, trusts and estates. It would blow your mind how well the rich manage to get around any and all attempts to tax them and their millions and billions in inheritance they want to pass on to their heirs. The "death tax" debate is ridiculous for endless reasons - starting with successful branding that Republicans did with the name - but it's an ultimate red herring, as most of the super wealthy find ways around paying a cent in inheritance taxes anyway. It's especially egregious among America's privately held companies. My attorney friend blows my mind when he tells me about all of the "hidden" American billionaire and millionaires who few people know about because their wealth and companies are privately held, and they manage to structure their financial lives and estates to avoid paying taxes across generations. It's disgusting. The left wing needs to do a better job of articulating this as unpatriotic.

Re: Taxes, Part II: A Righteous Rant

margot — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:44:39 -0000

Well said, my fellow pissed off American! Agreed all around, with a few caveats...

You write, "the government almost shut down over what ended up being about $11 billion in actual cuts." It's important not to let the myth continue that the near-shutdown was about real budget cutting. It was about women's reproductive rights and DC's right to govern itself. Democrats, and Obama in particular, sold out women and DC residents on these points, and the Republicans held the issues hostage under the guise of pretending to care about a deficit. According to a story on NPR (and other places), the negotiations ended and the shutdown was avoided with Obama telling good old John B "I'll give you DC abortion, John." Disgusting.

Also, you listed the various social services and other public goods that are being cut because the Paulsons of the world aren't paying their fair share. True. But, again, it's also important to note that these things are being cut because neither party will muster the courage to cut where we really need to cut and where there is BILLIONS and BILLIONS in waste - the military budget. Well respected military leaders claim you could but the budget by at least 25% without even noticing it in terms of national security. The amount of waste if you peek a millimeter into the issues is almost beyond comprehension. It's a true industrial complex that just keeps growing. We could fund everything we want and need as a nation by spending less on military nonsense. And also taxing billionaires, of course.

Finally, whenever discussing the absurd tax difference between capital gains and income tax rates, it's worth explicitly pointing out the ridiculous messages this sends and incentives it creates...if we are going to tax different sources of money differently, income - the result of people WORKING, which we clearly want to reward - should be taxed the lowest. I'd put interest income next - we want to encourage saving and conservative returns. And last, with the highest tax rate would be capital gains - investing in companies is great, but certainly needs not to be incentivized more than WORKING. I haven't fully explored the implications of this idea yet, but I'm leaning toward thinking that all income from all sources should just be taxed the same - the government can simplify so much by not creating endless different carve-outs and rates for income, capital gains, profits from real estate, etc.

Re: Accountability for “Job Creators”

Tiercelet — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:14:28 -0000

@Marjorie Jordan -- well, now. He's talking about personal income taxes, not corporate ones. It's a pretty huge small business that can afford to pay you a salary of half a million dollars a year -- half a million taken out of the business and put into the owner's pocket -- and that's exactly the point; too much money like this is getting paid out as salaries and bonuses, instead of being re-invested in the business to pay for expansion and employees and the like.

Anyway, this sounds like a great idea -- only your chart stops too soon, and goes too gentle, there should be a realistic possibility of having a top marginal tax rate greater than 100%. This would force money to stay in businesses and be used for investment, instead of being paid to individuals.

Of course, it'll never happen, because the Democrats don't actually care about working people any more. There are plenty of good ideas for the taking -- it's not that the Dems can't find good, effective ideas; it's that they don't want to, when it'd challenge the ascendancy of moneyed interests within the Democratic party.

Re: Accountability for “Job Creators”

James G. Gilmore — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 10:13:43 -0000

The problem is how we determine how many people (I'd narrow it to Americans, of course) a particular person employs... it's easier for small businesses and the like, but what about major corporations? Does the CEO get credit for all of them? The Board of Directors? The shareholders? How do we divide them up?

Much simpler to couple a U6-indexed progressive income tax (this framework) with what we used to have in this country (and the subject of a future post, most likely): a system of legal tax shelters in industries like green energy manufacturing, high-speed rail construction, etc., with the caveat that any investment, to be tax-deductible, must employ a certain number/percentage of Americans (according to earnings, maybe?) at a living wage with benefits, pension, and collective bargaining. That way we could still reward people who use their wealth to create American jobs and grow the industries that need to grow, while still ensuring that overall we're holding the "job creating" class accountable for their function in our economy.

Re: Accountability for “Job Creators”

Vene — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:57:09 -0000

Keep it at $500k, they're still in the top 0.5% (link) which is plenty high enough for me.

Re: Accountability for “Job Creators”

Grigory Yakushev — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:01:54 -0000

I like the idea, but the accountability should be personal. When the education system fails to work, we don't penalize it by closing it down. So the tax should depend on how many people that particular person employs, not on how well the economy does in general.

In particular, I wonder how many people employ politicians, celebrities, wall street traders and the like.

Re: Accountability for “Job Creators”

Marjorie Jordan — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:40:37 -0000

I agree with you . . . but let's raise the income bracket which would trigger the rate for "job creators" to $5 million, instead of $500,000 . . . that way people with small businesses wouldn't be hurt . . . the increased rate would be for the truly wealthy.

Then send the proposal, with easy to read color charts indicating the movement of American wealth into the hands of the very few over the last 40-50 years, to each and every Democratic Congressman and Senator and tell them they must use the information in the up-and-coming fight for budget reform in order to include tax reform in the discussions.

Re: The Latest Project: Flasks

Cait — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:12:06 -0000

WOW. These are incredible! What a great idea!

Re: WordPress problems fixed

Kara Stewart — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 02:14:44 -0000

That's a relief! :)

Re: A Conservative Bible? You’ve got to be kidding me.

Chase — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:04:38 -0000

I realize that pointing out the hypocrisy and lunacy of this project is pretty pointless, but seriously? The adulteress story is out because it lacks multiple attestation? Well, goodbye book of John, it was nice having you around, COMMIE. I think these guys would love the Jesus Seminar -- their method sounds pretty similar.

Re: Bing? Really?!

detoxdiet — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 05:17:36 -0000

my initial test result shows that Bing is as good as Google when displaying relevant search results. Google might be having a tough competitor with Microsofts own search engine.

Re: The funniest thing I've seen all day

Maria — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:03:32 -0000

Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your site and wanted to say
that I have really liked reading your blog posts. Anyway
I'll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you post again soon!

Re: I appreciate ol’ Denton Young as much as anyone…

Baseball Fan — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:20:08 -0000

Edes' column = Fail (even if only to push the new book on Paige)

"Josh Gibson probably was a better hitter than Babe Ruth, and Satchel perhaps the greatest pitcher ever to play the game, but we’ll never know just how good they were because they weren’t allowed to play in the major leagues." = Epic Fail.

Here is one for ya: If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers' hands.

Did you ever think that Gibson's and Paige's stats may have been a bit inflated do to their watered down talent pool and/or fact that there are little to no accurate stats from the Negro leagues? I mean, from what statistical model can you extrapolate their success to MLB? Its not like you watched them in person. Should we use 80% of his fictitious stats to get an idea of how good he really was? How good is someone who "may have embellished 20 percent of what he did"?(from Edes column)?

For the record, isn't Jackie's "42" retired in every ballpark enough for your guilt? Does that not remind every fan, every game about MLB's past "institutional racism"? But I guess we could make an announcement before each game how evil Major League Baseball has been to blacks, even when they broke the color barrier down much earlier than other establishments in this country.

Will all due respect, your blog would be much better if you refrained from commenting on subjects you know little about...

Re: I appreciate ol’ Denton Young as much as anyone…

Charlie — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:27:08 -0000

Doesn't Cy Young also have the most losses in MLB history, or am I thinking of someone else?

Re: iPhone 3G-S Snap Review

Charlie — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:54:49 -0000

Mom sure does love her second-hand electronics!

Re: The Funniest Thing I've Read All Day

Marc — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 02:21:32 -0000

If I end up going to law school, practice law for 20 years, and then end up having to write THAT decision, I am going to sue the writers of Judge Judy for making being a judge seem cooler than it really is ...

Re: Bing? Really?!

brendan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:44:58 -0000

I think you'll find, once you've had a chance to try it, that bing is better than google for some specific purposes (shopping, restaurant/hotel reviews, and a few other things), but is probably less compelling for general search queries.