Pennsylvania and Turkey

  

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

It only took a month for the Pennsylvania deficit to balloon from $700 mil to a bil.  If you can believe Gov. Ed Rendell (you can't) he couldn't possibly have predicted that last month.  See our April 4 column for details, such as they are.  NOW Ed wants "spending cuts, new taxes and revenue transfers" to address the problem.  Seems his income and corp tax forecasts were off by, oh, call it $376 mil.  Now the state senate is predicting a $1.5 bil deficit by... wait for it... the end of next month.  Nope, who coulda seen THAT coming?  Not Ed, that's for sure.

Good-bye Ed.

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Sadly (and tellingly) for me, I neglected to write my Armenian Genocide column on April 24.  I wrote one a bit earlier but that's no excuse.  Remember that one?  And the one I wrote last year?  And my brief mention on March 12?  The inevitable has happened, as it is wont to do (Ed Rendell's myopia notwithstanding).  The Turkey-Armenia talks have broken down because, to no one's surprise, the Turks won't discuss their massacre of 1,500,000 Armenians.

And so it goes.  All those little kids' skulls and tiny skeletons in the desert?  You can just forget them.  Or you can try.  

There is plenty of shame to go around.

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I see that Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thinks that gummint shouldn't be responsible for the care and treatment of wounded and disabled American military personnel.  Say WHAT?!  Yep, here's what he had to say as quoted in a DAV press release a day or two ago:

 "I am not arguing in any way, shape or form that this should be the purview of our government because what I would like to see happen is community outreach to [servicemembers] and the government just be out of it," Mullen said.

Last November MikeyM said, regarding the Ft. Hood shootings, "We're at a point now where we really have to move forward to aid those families, the wounded and those who are suffering so much... (T)hat's really where we are putting our main effort."

That was then, this is now.  Things can change in six months, as soon as the news cows move on to graze greener pastures.

I thought Mike was a good guy until that brain fart.  Try telling the soldier with a recent TBI (traumatic brain injury) that his local docs back home will be his primary care-givers from now on.  You know, because they've seen so much of that sort of thing.  

I keep hoping to see a correction or retraction ("Sorry, I must have been drunk" would do) but nothing yet.  Failing that, it's time to call for Mike's departure, with thanks for his previously honorable service.

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There is no cannibalism in the British navy, absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount. -- Graham Chapman (of Monty Python)

Revisiting the Armenian Genocide

 We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

The 1915 Armenian Genocide at the hands of the Turks is back in the news.  Some in Congress want the US to call it what it was, some don't.  The House Foreign Affairs Committee narrowly voted the matter to the floor Thursday.  You read about the genocide here last April 24.

The prez wants Congress to drop the issue altogether.  (Reminder:  He promised to acknowledge it as genocide during his campaign.)  Turkey recalled its ambassador "for talks", Hillary says it's because we don't want to jeopardize the ongoing Turkey-Armenia reconciliation talks.  The Azeris don't want to disturb the endless Nagorno-Karabakh talks, either.  Say what?

This isn't about US foreign relations, or Nagorno-Karabakh or about the Turkey-Armenia reconciliation talks which are already stalled over the same issue.  Maybe, just maybe, if those talks would give rise to an international body to settle the issue (a precondition to the talks in the first place), then maybe we could wait a little while longer.  BUT THAT AIN'T HAPPENING!  It would embarrass the Turks too much, don'cha know?

Just a few points here:

1.  1,500,000 or so innocent Armenians died in a very short time by order of the Turkish pasha, who wanted to exterminate Armenia, period.  That happened, mass murder with an agenda.  It was witnessed and well documented and that's genocide, folks.

2.  The prez's word is no good on this issue.  He promised one thing and did another.

3.  If the administration can't tell the truth about a foreign catastrophe, why should we believe them when they tell us about our impending domestic catastrophes... and how they saved us from them.  Lucky us, but they spent our children's future to do whatever it is they say they did.  Say, do you remember exactly what that was?

4.  If we're not to call it a genocide, what DO we call it?  "Man-caused disaster" has already been taken (thank you, JanieN).  

We've gone through this same soul-searching (to the extent our national soul still exists) before.  Hitler is supposed to have said "Who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?"  OK, point taken, Adolph, but we remember the Holocaust... and we damn you.

Who among us remembers Pol Pot?  Mao?  Mao, maybe, but usually for the Long March or the Little Red Book, not for the worst genocide in history.  Stalin?  Something vaguely reminiscent there but who can place the Ukrainian genocide or the one in Chechnya?  Rwanda?  Does anyone these days even know where Rwanda is?  ("Africa" doesn't count.)  Darfur?  The government of Sudan is sponsoring the Darfur genocide and we're fixated on Toyota's brake problems.  Where did the American moral compass go?

Is it too much to ask of our government that, at the very least, it not do business with genocidal monsters and that it call genocide by its name?  No, today's Turks aren't monsters but there are others who qualify.  The Turks do have a dark past that needs exposure to the light of truth.  Justice will never be done (and forget reparations) but that sad murmuring you hear is the voices of 1.5 million lost souls pleading "Give a name to what happened to me." 

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One death is a tragedy.  A million deaths is a statistic.

Joseph Stalin

Holocaust vs. Genocide

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

Yesterday, April 23, was the day set aside to remember and honor Holocaust victims, International Holocaust Day. It is right to remember the millions of innocents who were slaughtered by a criminal regime led by psychopathic monsters from hell. Our prez conscientiously reminded us "Never again". He sat on Capital Hill and listened as speaker after speaker warned of the peril that Iran poses to the existence of the state of Israel. Fair enough, and so noted. This day of quiet remembrance should go on forever.

Today, April 24, is the day set aside to remember and honor the 1.5 million innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide. "Uh, the what?" do I hear you say? On this date in 1915 the Turkish pasha signed an order to exterminate all Armenians and he started with those in his government and army. Murder is the only word that fits the individual heinous crimes and genocide is the only word that fits this persecution in its entirely.

Here's what our prez said in part (thank you, AP) about the Armenian Genocide in 2008 during his campaign:

"Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term 'genocide' to describe Turkey's slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915. I shared with Secretary (Condoleezza) Rice my firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy."

Thousands? Try 1.5 million. Yeah, can't be expected to remember details like that. Can't be expected to remember campaign promises like that, either. Now our prez shares with his predecessors a stubborn and irrational refusal to call the genocide a genocide.

It happened. I've seen the proof and you can, too, if you visit the Genocide Museum in Yerevan or any number of websites. One picture in the museum, "The Hanging of the Doctors", will haunt you forever, but don't avert your eyes. That's what we're talking about here. Genocide. There simply is no other word.

We stood with the new German governments after WW II as they anguished their way through recognition of the Holocaust and today Germany is one of Israel's staunchest allies. We stood with South Africa as it confronted its recent past with truth commissions and free elections. We are helping rebuild Cambodia even as it faces the reality of its killing fields.

Whither Turkey? Are we so afraid that Turkey will somehow fail us or turn away from us if we call their act of genocide by its name? Why? Sure, Turkey is a useful ally but the last time we relied on Turkey, in 2003, it turned its back on us in favor of its own perceived national interests. The 1.5 million genocide victims deserve better than to be sacrificed yet again for oil and market access to their murderers.

Turkey, born in the blood of its own Young Turks at the passing of the Ottoman Regime, should face its past much like the US had had to face its history of slavery. It existed, it was a horror, we ended it on our own and we learned from it. Imperfectly, to be sure, and slowly, but the learning and improvement continues to this very day.

Turkey, I implore you. Explore your past and comes to turns with the Armenians and the genocide you inflicted on them. They deserve it and so do modern Turks.

Twice shame on Turkey. Once for the genocide and once for intimidating the United States into holding its tongue over your acts. Shame on our prez for continuing to bow to Turkish demands, especially when so many western nations have recognized the genocide for what we all know it was.

It's time to stop bowing, prez, and this is a good place to take a stand.

Genocide. It's too awful to ignore.

* * * * *

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I expect the same from them." ... John Wayne as John Bernard Books in the movie "The Shootist"

$145.6 mil... a DAY!

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

I already mentioned not buying a new car, right? Back on March 21? Not that new cars aren't cool. They are. It's just that a financed $40k cool car isn't in your best interest, especially right now. That car is Detroit's way of shifting the crisis from them to you by getting you to go into great and untimely personal debt on their behalf. They need you to bail them out. That is, after TimmyG and the prez finish up their meddling.

This just in: TimmyG and the prez don't know how to fix the auto industry. Neither of them has run so much as a lemonade stand. They want you to buy cars without them actually having to fix anything. That's the fix. Now the US taxpayer is standing behind your next warranty. Why isn't that a comforting thought?

Next up: Bailout loans get paid out as purchase incentives for suckers who buy cool new cars they can't afford. You heard it here first.

Remember the "car czar" idea that flopped a month ago? Now TimmyG is going to head up an "auto industry panel". That should sound familiar. It's a car czar by committee, every bit as appealing as the economic-bailout-by-committee that we discussed last column. Ain't gonna work, nosiree.

The answer isn't doing what they've always done, which the auto industry panel (an A+ for arrogance on the name) doesn't understand anyway. That's how you got GM into this mess, Mr. Wagoner. Now, of course, GM is too big to fail and too screwed up to succeed. How did we get to the point of telling private industry how to operate and who should preside? Let 'em flop. They're going to anyway so get it over with and don't ask for more taxpayer money.

When I was in Armenia in 2007 there was an employer that was too big to fail so it was perennially propped up by the government. Didn't pay its taxes, didn't compete with anyone, didn't really operate under the same rules as for-profit companies, didn't have any plans to get back on its feet. Why bother when the government is perpetually bailing you out?

This employer produced parts for refrigerators. Russian refrigerators that hadn't themselves been produced since the days of humming round heat exchangers on top. Remember, Armenia has been an economic colony of Russia since forever. They had a guaranteed Russian market for their parts once upon a time but today, no market at all. The few parts that did get made were instant scrap metal which is all they were good for because they didn't fit anything anyway.

Still, the workers show up occasionally, hang around, get paid and are counted as fully employed in the census because, after all, they have jobs. The government is afraid to shut down the plant so things drift along. It embodies the old Soviet phrase "We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us." Think about that for a minute. They government is afraid of what might happen if an unsuccessful company is allowed to fail. Is that where we are? Looks like it from here. That's what happens when socialism replaces capitalism.

Our prez didn't get along with GM CEO Rick Wagoner. The prez fired him and replaced him with Fritz Henderson, whose almost-first act was to announce that he wasn't having any of that buck-a-year nonsense like Wagoner. He wouldn't ask for a raise, not yet, but he darn sure wasn't going to take a pay cut either. So part of our bailout money is going to finance his base pay of $1.3 mil/year.

His almost-second act was to announce to GM employees that bankruptcy is a real possibility. He's OK with that because he'll have a priority claim for his unpaid salary, just like the floor workers and salarymen below him.

Bankruptcy? Wasn't our bailout supposed to at least delay that for a while to give GM a chance to recover? Apparently not, so exactly what did we get for the $13.4 bil we gave GM since last Dec. 31? That's $145.6 mil PER DAY!!! And where is it now? Well, Fritz has one eye on his $1.3 mil/year plus perks. After that it's anybody's guess.

Lest we overlook Chrysler, they're being forced into a shotgun marriage with Italy's Fiat. Fiat is getting 35% of Chrysler for free! Wait, does that include the entire Chrysler bailout to date? And are we going to give them billions more in bailout money? Well?

You remember Fiat, don't you? They once made the nifty 124 Spider and some other cars that Americans didn't want. They were such utter failures in the American auto market -- couldn't keep enough spare parts in stock to handle all the repairs, for one thing -- that they were forced to leave us in 1984 and no one has ever missed them.

You still see 1969 Fiat clones in the former Soviet Union where Ladas and Zhigulis (Fiat sold entire plants to the USSR) still doddle along, belching pollutants that the Soviets (and the Italians before them) didn't require be controlled, collapsing into auto-rubble at incredible rates. Not even Russians will drive Ladas if they can afford anything else. Now Fiat is Chrysler's salvation? Don't count on it. Fiat is a mess.

You heard it here first #2: GM and Chrysler aren't ever going to repay their bailout "loans" and Fiat will go away -- just like they did in 1984 -- as soon as they have milked the American taxpayer out of his last free dollar.

From Eric Bolling's column "What the Car Czars Are Driving Might Shock You" on Foxbusiness.com:

Tim Geithner -- Acura
Larry Summers -- Mazda
Peter Orszag -- Honda
White House Economist Jared Bernstein -- Honda
White House Economic Advisor Austin Goolsbee -- Toyota

They don't believe their own pitch.

Are you mad yet?

Here's my plan: Have Chrysler start making refrigerators in Armenia.

* * * * *

We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can.
Will Rogers

First time out ...

Blogs? TaxBlogs? Are you kidding me?


This is the maiden post of TaxBlog, part of a developing tax collection education and sharing site called TaxCollectorNetwork.com (TCN for short). Check it out but remember, tax collection is not for the squeamish or the easily bored.


I'm writing this from my hotel room in Yerevan, Armenia. No, I don't think there's another Yerevan, I just wanted to be clear. This is going to be my last overseas assignment as a consultant in the field of tax arrears collection reform in developing countries. No, really, there is such a field. I'm tired of being away from home so I'm getting out.


We'll also link to another site called TheStrommeGroup (without so much as a nod to modesty). TheStrommeGroup (TSG) is mostly a discussion forum about well, you know, the stuff in italics above. Plus (drum roll) I'm writing a book that I'm going to shout about there. The target market is smaller than, say, that of a Michael Connelly mystery, but the need is real ... and often urgent. There, I said it and I believe it. Deal with it.


But that's TSG. TaxCollectorNetwork is for tax collectors and staff, private-side practitioners and even for taxpayers who find themselves with the short stick. It's for learning and sharing in an obscure field -- but it's my field and I like it and I've been working in it exclusively for 33 years now. It's time to pass some along.


It's odds-on that we're not going to draw a significant readership, that no one will care about what we're doing. That's just the way things go. But we're going to do our best to write and blog and answer questions and offer participation in a way that you'll find interesting and educational and even entertaining.


We think that if we offer good content presented fairly, and if we can convince our readers that we really do need their input and give them a professional forum for it, then we will gain an audience that will turn this into a worthwhile endeavor. We hope so, anyway. Stick around. There's no charge and you might learn something. That's the point.


Chuck S.