{"id":3128,"date":"2009-07-04T20:32:52","date_gmt":"2009-07-05T00:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/?p=3128"},"modified":"2009-07-04T20:33:54","modified_gmt":"2009-07-05T00:33:54","slug":"14-milliona-collective-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2009\/07\/04\/14-milliona-collective-denial\/","title":{"rendered":"$14 Million\/A Collective Denial"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two quotes.\u00c2\u00a0 From this article<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Which you absolutely should read.<\/p>\n

Fourteen million dollars.<\/p>\n

That is what [Goldman Sachs] paid in taxes in 2008, an effective tax rate of exactly one, read it, one percent. The bank paid out $10 billion in compensation and benefits that same year and made a profit of more than $2 billion – yet it paid the Treasury less than a third of what it forked over to CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who made $42.9 million last year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And:<\/p>\n

It’s not always easy to accept the reality of what we now routinely allow these people to get away with; there’s a kind of collective denial that kicks in when a country goes through what America has gone through lately, when a people lose as much prestige and status as we have in the past few years. You can’t really register the fact that you’re no longer a citizen of a thriving first-world democracy, that you’re no longer above getting robbed in broad daylight, because like an amputee, you can still sort of feel things that are no longer there.<\/p>\n

But this is it. This is the world we live in now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You might not be able to change it, but you should know it.\u00c2\u00a0 And it should inform all of your civic choices and votes.\u00c2\u00a0 I understand how we ended up here.\u00c2\u00a0 And step by step?\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t seem so ridiculous.\u00c2\u00a0 But stepping back?\u00c2\u00a0 Fundamentally fucked up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two quotes.\u00c2\u00a0 From this article.\u00c2\u00a0 Which you absolutely should read. Fourteen million dollars. That is what [Goldman Sachs] paid in taxes in 2008, an effective tax rate of exactly one, read it, one percent. The bank paid out $10 billion in compensation and benefits that same year and made a profit of more than $2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[379,378,139],"class_list":["post-3128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-society","tag-goldman-sachs","tag-tabbai","tag-treasury"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t