Previously: That’s a really good question (July 3, 2012)

“…you can only put thirty thousand dollars per year as a regular person into these accounts. How could he possibly have grown that account to one hundred and one million dollars?…”

Jennifer Granholm on Current TV:

http://current.com/bc/1719777665001?linkBaseURL=http%3A%2F%2Fcurrent.com%2Fshows%2Fthe-war-room%2Fvideos%2Fcall-for-transparency-romneys-astronomical-101-million-ira

Jennifer Granholm: Governor Romney’s IRA, his Individual Retirement Account, is reportedly worth as much as one hundred and one million dollars. This is just his retirement account. But you can only put thirty thousand dollars per year as a regular person into these accounts. How could he possibly have grown that account to one hundred and one million dollars?

Edward Kleinbard: Uh, uh, you know, again, this, this is a great mystery and, um, there are, uh, two possibilities. One is that from a little acorn a mighty oak grew very, very quickly, uh, extraordinarily so. Uh, but at [crosstalk] thirty thousand dollars a year for fifteen years.

Jennifer Granholm: How can that be? Wait, wait, wait, wait, don’t move away from that. How could this, what little acorn would have grown to a hundred and one million? And I want to get some of that acorn.

Edward Kleinbard: Exactly so. Me, too. Uh, you would have to have had, um, if you actually put thirty thousand dollars of cash, uh, away in a 401K plan for fifteen years, which was his tenure at Bain. You know, that by itself is four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So you can imagine you need, you need a, uh, a return of like thirty percent a year to, to reach a hundred million dollars.      

Jennifer Granholm: Which is ridiculous.

Edward Kleinbard: Exactly. So, the other possibility, uh, and the one that I find quite troubling, and again, disclosure would clarify all of this, complete disclosure would clarify it, uh, is that, uh, he didn’t just put thirty thousand dollars of cash in the fund which then went out and invested in, you know, S and P five hundred public stocks. The money went to buy, uh, interests in Bain funds that he himself controlled and he sold them at prices that he set. And the question is, did he set those prices at an honest fair market value [crosstalk], or did he lowball the prices?

Jennifer Granholm: Okay, wait, now, I just want to be clear about this. So, what you’re saying is that somebody can, um, put something into their IRA where they set the value of it and if it comes in under that thirty thousand, is that what it is, if it comes in under that cap that it’s okay, or is it a special deal [crosstalk] with private equity?

Edward Kleinbard: No. No, it, it’s, uh, it’s not okay. Uh, the price at which you sell into your 401K or IRA plan has to be the market price for what you’re selling. And so, if in fact you systematically are selling, um, uh, speculative, uh, uh, positions in private equity firms, uh, private equity funds, investments that you’ve made, uh, and you’re systematically doing that for nominal prices, that’s in fact a very serious issue.

Jennifer Granholm: So.              

Edward Kleinbard: Because, he would not have offered me the opportunity to buy those same interests at the, at nominal prices. And so, that’s the question. [crosstalk] That’s the issue.

Jennifer Granholm: So, in other words, if I’m, I just want to read into it, ’cause I just want to say it as it is. So, he would have put into his IRA something that he put a value on which had the potential to grow enormously, so he maybe would have, again, this is all speculation on our part, he maybe would have undervalued it as it went in to the IRA, grew enormously, he wouldn’t have had to pay taxes on that because it is exempt from tax ’cause it’s an IRA. So that’s how possibly it could grow to some astronomical amount like a hundred and five million?                          

Edward Kleinbard: Right, because, if it, imagine, just as by way of an example, imagine that you, you valued, um, uh, positions that you sold to your IRA at ten cents on the dollar, ten percent of what they’re really worth. Well that means that you can put three hundred thousand dollars into your IRA, not thirty thousand dollars. Now, what’s very frustrating to me about all this, uh, you know, is that, uh, we, we can only, uh, talk in abstractions and generalities because, again, of the lack of disclosure. These are issues that, that, that would be clarified presumably to the governor’s, uh, benefit if he were to be [crosstalk], if were to be more candid with the American people.                

Jennifer Granholm: If he were to be open, open.

Edward Kleinbard: Exactly.

Jennifer Granholm: All right.

It’s the one percent’s world, the rest of us only get to subsist in it.

From today’s press gaggle aboard Air Force One:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release                   June 06, 2012

Press Gaggle by Press Secretary Jay Carney en route California, 6/6/12

Aboard Air Force One

En Route California

10:08 A.M. EDT

….Q    Can you comment on President Clinton’s remarks on CNBC? And it seems the President’s tour with him was book-ended by some comments in which he differed with President Obama.  Is this indicative of some tension, or is he just incapable of staying on message?

MR. CARNEY:  I think you saw, Caren, last night Mr. McKenna, the spokesman for President Clinton, put out a statement that clarified what President Clinton was saying and made abundantly clear that there’s no daylight between President Clinton and President Obama when it comes to, A, the need to extend the tax cuts for middle-class Americans and to not extend tax cuts for those making over $250,000.  That’s the President’s position — President Obama’s position — and that’s the position that President Clinton has as well, which he made clear at the event that he — in which he joined President Obama the other night.

Q    They both agree that the tax cuts for the wealthiest shouldn’t be extended permanently, but President Clinton and now Larry Summers has said that the tax cuts should be extended temporarily.

MR. CARNEY:  First of all, I don’t believe that’s what Larry Summers said.  But I think what, again, President Clinton’s spokesman said last night is that President Clinton supported the extension of all the tax cuts in 2010 as part of the deal that President Obama reached with congressional leaders at the end of 2010.  He does not support the extension of the upper-income tax cuts, but he does, as President Obama does, support the permanent extension of tax cuts for the middle class.

I mean, let’s be clear about something here.  President Clinton, in 1993 — and I’m old enough to say this from experience because I covered him — passed a budget plan that included raising rates on upper-income Americans.  At the time, Republicans in the House and the Senate, including the very leaders that we have today, decried that budget plan as one that would cause a recession, economic decline, increase deficits, all the worst possible outcomes.  What happened?  The longest peacetime expansion in American history, 22 million jobs, and a situation where the middle class saw its incomes rise, not just for the wealthiest Americans.

Let’s fast-forward to the eight years prior to President Obama taking office.  Those same Republican leaders supported policies that led to a situation where the record surpluses that President Clinton bequeathed on his successor were transformed into record deficits when President Obama took office.  The prescription that the Republicans put forward has been tried and it was a woeful failure.  And people understand that.

Q    Jay, is the President’s vow not to ever extend the Bush-era tax cuts on the wealthy again extend to a temporary extension aimed at getting some comprehensive agreement?

MR. CARNEY:  President Obama has been clear about his position and it has not changed:  We should not extend and he will not extend the tax cuts — the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of the American people.  It’s bad policy.  It’s bad for the economy, bad for our —

Q    Even temporary?

MR. CARNEY:  I would just point you to what the President has said and his position has not changed.

Q    It sounds like you’re leaving room —

MR. CARNEY:  No, I’m not.  I’m citing the President of the United States.

Q    I just want to be clear, though — so even temporarily he would not extend the Bush tax cuts?

MR. CARNEY:  The President’s position is that we absolutely should extend the tax cuts for the middle class; we should not extend and he will not extend tax cuts for the highest-income Americans.

The question you should be asking is, will the Republicans force a tax hike on 98 percent of tax-paying Americans because they’re holding them hostage to tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.  That’s the question.  Because if the Republican —

Q    But —

MR. CARNEY:  No, Julie, it’s not on the level — what I’m saying, he will not — could I be more clear?  He will not support an extension of the upper-income Bush tax cuts.  He could not be more clear….

[emphasis added]

That’s definitive.

Let’s all send Mitt Romney a bill. He’s been sponging off of everyone else for the past eleven years.

…For the poor it consists in sustaining and preserving the wealthy in their power and their laziness. The poor must work for this, in presence of the majestic quality of the law which prohibits the wealthy as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges, from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread…

The Red Lily, Anatole France

There was a Black Friday riot over waffle irons at an anti-union national chain store:

Yesterday, on the NBC Evening News:

Brian Williams, NBC News: …There’s a lot of worry out there on both sides, consumers and retailers. And for both, really, the problem is paying their bills. So, to get shoppers spending in a tight economy they offer come ons and prices come down. While the so called one percent can maybe wait and do their shopping without price concerns. And the rush to buy for less led to violence…

“…While the so called one percent can maybe wait and do their shopping without price concerns…”

At least he pointed it out. You think he speaks from personal experience?