What is Obama Waiting for? Egypt is Burning. (Live blog)
Posted: February 2, 2011 Filed under: Breaking News, Egypt | Tags: 2011: days of revolt, Orderly transition 44 Comments
Click Image to go to Feb 3 Live Blog of Egypt Protests at Al Jazeera English
This post will update frequently with links, tweets, and information.
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JohnKingCNN (at 10:11 pm CST):
Obama admin official sees tipping point, says next “24-48 hours” key and US urging military to choose “society” over mubarak.
Heartwarming moment in the middle of chaos:
Christian Protesters protecting their Muslims Fellows during their prayers in #Tahrir square.
Enduring America‘s latest tweets:
#Egypt: Captured Thug in Cairo: We Were Paid by MP to Beat Americans in Tahrir Square http://tinyurl.com/5ukrq7l
#Egypt: Egypt State TV Blaming Killings in Tahrir Square on a Random Car Shooting on Protesters http://tinyurl.com/5ukrq7l
Mona Eltahawy, an hour ago (around 10 pm CST):
My heart, my sould, my memories, what most excites me about #Egypt, is there at #Tahrir. Only thing keeping me optimistic re #Egypt is youth
Mona, we are with you in Tahrir Square!
Another tweet from Mona, about an hour later:
I am torn between staying here NYC and continuing my media uprising to amplify #Egypt voices and returning to #Cairo for revolution. #Jan25
Egyptian blogger Ramy Raoof broadcasted this LIVE about 20 minutes ago:
AJE Live reporting:
5 killed7 killed in overnight clashes and more than 800 woundedarise_subvert 836 casualties is being reported on Al Jazeera. #Egypt The reporter thinks that is low.
Interesting read from pbs.org Frontline:
Women, Islam, Egypt, and Iran by SETAREH SABETY
Last update to the live blog for now (more in the comments):
RT @kttrend: #egypt can’t sleep when i know the massacre of innocent ppl is happening wo any intervention from world leaders, do smthg #obama do smthing
Follow-up: GM Alfalfa
Posted: February 2, 2011 Filed under: crops, Farming, Food, gardening | Tags: alfalfa, farming, food, monsanto 10 CommentsI wrote about GM Alfalfa several days ago, and wanted to post a short followup.
First, do we really need GM Alfalfa? Probably not. It’s not like Alfalfa is riddled with a weed problem in this country. Michael Pollan points out that 93% of the alfalfa in this country is raised without any herbicides at all. This makes sense, alfalfa as fodder can benefit from the addition of other plants (although not poisonous ones, obviously). My goats thrive on weedy alfalfa. Anyway, GM Alfalfa says Pollan, ‘is a bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist’.
The Center for Food Safety is going to continue bringing Monsanto to court over GM Alfalfa. ‘by tackling a new angle, Page Tomaselli, staff attorney at the Center for Food Safety, explained Friday at the Eco-Farm Conference. Their strategy will hinge on the “gene flow” risk accepted by the Supreme Court last June as harmful and illegal under current environment protections.’ The Public Patent Foundation is also going to sue Monsanto (or continue suing Monsanto. The foundation has been fighting Monsanto’s patents for a while now). If the foundation succeeds (and it just won a court battle to declare patents concerning human genes invalid), most of Monsanto’s patents concerning living things will be rendered irrelevant. Yes!
The Center for Food Safety has issued a press release pointing out that Vilsack’s decision leaves many problems. Who’s liable if a farmer’s crop is destroyed by GM pollen? Who pays damages? WHo is going to monitor and control herbicide useage on a crop that doesn’t need it, unless it’s ‘Round-Up Ready’? Who is liable for the super-weeds that will result?
From the Department of ‘Of Course, We Should have Known!’ (via Kat) comes this news. Media reports suggest that the reason Vilsack disregarded the comments of 200,000+, the recommendations of Aphis and so on has to do with pressure from the White House. So I wonder, is Obama actually fake? I mean, is he, like, made by Monsanto and the others? Just a gas-bag filled with whatever, maybe Round-Up, and tuned to say certain things that get frat boys excited? I wonder what Michelle, organic gardening proponent that she is, thinks about this? I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Just more proof everyone up ‘high’ is bought and paid for by the time they are weaned.
Dirty Little Secrets
Posted: February 2, 2011 Filed under: Corporate Crime, Team Obama, The Bonus Class, U.S. Politics, Voter Ignorance, We are so F'd | Tags: corporate tax rates, effective tax rates, self dealing 12 Comments
The overall corporate income tax was featured during the President’s SOTU address and by Republican circles. I have mentioned that this particular rate isn’t even relevant anymore in posts and down thread comments because corporations here really don’t pay any where near the effective rate.
There are several reasons for this. First, many of them now set up real or pseudo headquarters in tax and off shore banking havens like the Bahamas or Qatar and place a lot of their operations out of the reach of the IRS. The second is the efficiency of lobbying efforts in getting them so many loopholes that most corporate revenues become exempt. Despite this, corporations use public services and create social costs. Social costs are those costs that the society gets to foot when corporations create problems they or their consumers can pass to the public. A big example is smoking that creates incredible public health issues or pollution. BP is definitely not taking care of the tab for its destruction down here and will most likely escape prosecution for costs the spill will continue to wreck on the environment, livings, and health of people and wildlife in the area. Meanwhile, as an oil business, they are the beneficiary of many, many tax loopholes and direct subsidies.
I was glad to see some hard data–albeit anecdotal–on this phenomenon today in David Leonhardt’s op ed column in the NYT called ‘The Paradox of Corporate Taxes‘. The narrative begins with the example of Carnival Cruises that has a special, extreme loophole that leaves the majority of its revenues untaxed while it uses a number of public resources like services of the Coast Guard. Corporations are cost minimizing and profit maximizing things. They will employ an army of lobbyists and lawyers to help them. They even produce commercials that tout their environmental friendliness and their patriotism. I always shake my head at the commercials of companies like GE and Boeing for whom competitive markets are imaginary and no bid government grants are major sources of revenues. Yet, they act like they are burdened by taxes.
This is so untrue.
Carnival’s biggest government benefit of all may be the price it pays for many of those services. Over the last five years, the company has paid total corporate taxes — federal, state, local and foreign — equal to only 1.1 percent of its cumulative $11.3 billion in profits. Thanks to an obscure loophole in the tax code, Carnival can legally avoid most taxes.
It is an extreme case, but it’s hardly the only company that pays far less than the much-quoted federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent. Of the 500 big companies in the well-known Standard & Poor’s stock index, 115 paid a total corporate tax rate — both federal and otherwise — of less than 20 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of company reports done for The New York Times by Capital IQ, a research firm. Thirty-nine of those companies paid a rate less than 10 percent.
President Obama indicated that he was willing to simplify the Corporate Tax Code and lower the overall Tax Rate for corporations. In exchange, he asked Congress to remove all the pork, breaks, and exclusions they’ve granted many businesses–including ones that really don’t need it like the Oil Industry–over the years. I doubt we’ll see any moves on the latter. My fear is that will only see movement on the former thus cementing the de-funding of government by the by the very people who benefit from government largess. Many study shows that far more rich and upper middle class Americans and American Businesses use public services and public assets than the poor and working class. After all, who uses the roads, the airways, the universities, the grants and loans, and the many tax loopholes?
While the official corporate tax rate is among the highest of developing countries, the effective rate is among the lowest of the countries that actually have economies that don’t function as tax havens or off shoring banking centers. Even Republican economists will pony up that data.
“A dirty little secret,” Richard Clarida, a Columbia University economist and former official in the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush, has said, “is that the corporate income tax used to raise a fair amount of revenue.”
Over the last five years, on the other hand, Boeing paid a total tax rate of just 4.5 percent, according to Capital IQ. Southwest Airlines paid 6.3 percent. And the list goes on: Yahoo paid 7 percent; Prudential Financial, 7.6 percent; General Electric, 14.3 percent.
Economists have long pleaded for an overhaul of the corporate tax code, and both President Obama and Republicans now say they favor one, too. But it won’t be easy.
Indeed, it won’t be easy. First, it’s difficult for even neutral academics to get a good look at the workings of loopholes because because tax filings are confidential. Loopholes are everywhere and folks that support simplifying the tax code can’t even get a handle on how widespread or huge the problem. Publicly held corporations provide for public stockholder reports but even these things are of limited use over time when studying corporate tax avoidance. My field specializations for my doctorate is International Finance and Trade and Corporate Finance so I lot of my class work and research work is based in corporate finance as well as economics. I know the literature, models, and theories well.
Egypt Update: Ugliness unfolds as Darkness falls
Posted: February 2, 2011 Filed under: Breaking News, Egypt | Tags: 2011: days of revolt, Orderly transition 22 Comments
A supporter of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak rides a camel through the melee in Tahrir Square. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
To recap, breaking news from earlier this morning:
Egyptian Military asks protesters to stop
Yemeni president won’t seek re-election
The military is not intervening as Clashes Erupt in Cairo Between Mubarak’s Allies and Foes (NYT):
President Obama’s calls for a rapid transition to a new order in Egypt seemed eclipsed on Wednesday as thousands of demonstrators for and against President Hosni Mubarak, some on horses and camels, fought running battles in and around Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
These pro-Mubarak rent-a-mobs coming in on camels and creating violence and anarchy are calling themselves “pro-stability forces.”
Anderson Cooper is fine and reporting live now, but earlier Anderson was attacked (Huffpo):
CNN’s Steve Brusk tweeted that “Anderson said he was punched 10 times in the head as pro-Mubarak mob surrounded him and his crew trying to cover demonstration.”
A CNN update said that “no one was seriously hurt” in the attack.
CNN Anchor and correspondent Hala Gorani reporting she was charged at again and again after the camels came to town.
Molotov cocktails being thrown. Fires being started.
If the White House is reviewing economic and military aid to Egypt, now would be the time to cut it off. Look at what our tax dollars are going to. Certainly not an “orderly transition” on the Mubarak regime’s part.
From NYT’s the Lede:
9:45 A.M. |Twitter Updates From Cairo’s Tahrir Square:
Nicholas Kristof, a Times Op-Ed columnist on the scene in Tahrir, posted this update on his Twitter feed two minutes ago:
Mubarak seems to be trying to stage a crackdown not with police or army, but with thugs. They are armed and brutal.
8:56 A.M. |Egyptian Blogger Says Clashes Are Mubarak Ploy:
In a biting, angry and harrowing commentary on the clashes unfolding in Cairo on Wednesday, the Egyptian blogger who writes as Sandmonkey has called the appearance of regime supporters on Cairo’s streets, igniting violent clashes, a ploy by President Hosni Mubarak to create chaos and justify his continued rule.
Here is Sandmonkey’s commentary, posted on Twitter on Wednesday as the first clashes were reported on Egyptian state television:
Watching the egyptian media now is driving me insane. Propaganda & Stupidity overdose!
The TV just annunced that there is a Pro Mubarak million-man-march. This will be hilarious. They managed to get 1000 today.
Clashes in Tahrir square. The egyptian TV claims that hundreds of thousands of protesters are Pro Mubarak.
Clashes, Pro Mubarak people attacking protesters. Tear Gas thrown. Very violent. No Army intervention so far.
Twitter won’t work from my phone. Everything else works.
egyptian army is not seperating the people, they r holding the egyptian flag&urging egyptians- who r beating each other- to unite.
Twitter down on all mobiles. web still works.
Camels and Horses used by Pro Mubarak protesters to attack Anti-Mubarak protesters. This is becoming literally a circus.
You can’t even make up a movie that would equal this level of insanity.
Ok, it is official, my @Mobinil line has twitter and facebook blocked on it. They work fine on my etisalat line….
This means the regime knows who I am and where I live. My life is now officially in danger.
people are showing on TV holding police ID’s from the protesters they just clashed with.
Mubarak has proven to be smarter than all of us, he will not leave. Just watch.
The aim of this is to evacuate the Tahrir square & justify never having protests there Friday, where 1 is scheduled, or ever again.
Authoritarian regimes, watch Mubarak and learn from the master…. Ben Ali must be so jealous he didn’t think of this psychotic brilliant plan.
CNN’s Ben Wedeman on the phone right now, describing this as a:
lynch mob
and
revenge of the Mubarak regime.
Anderson Cooper on the phone a couple minutes ago telling Suzanne Malveaux he does not want to reveal his exact location “for security reasons.”
Breaking: Egyptian Military Asks Protesters to Stop
Posted: February 2, 2011 Filed under: Breaking News, Egypt, Yemen | Tags: 2011: days of revolt 11 CommentsJust got this on Houston Chron alerts, coming from the AP at 4:07 am Central (just a little after noon in Cairo):
CAIRO — The Egyptian military called Wednesday for an end to more than a week of demonstrations demanding President Hosni Mubarak step down immediately after nearly 30 years in power.
“Your message has arrived, your demands became known,” military spokesman Ismail Etman said on state television in an address directed to young protesters. “You are capable of bringing normal life to Egypt.”
Internet service also began returning to Egypt after days of an unprecedented cutoff by the government.
Mubarak’s embattled regime and the powerful military appear to be making a unified push to end a street movement to drive the 82-year-old leader out.
Note: I saw this news alert early in the morning and missed a few words in the first sentence so it read like “the military calls for Mubarak to step down.” My apologies if you read the original title of this post, which I went back and corrected immediately. The military have asked the protesters to stop, not the other way around.
Minkoff Minx will have a morning post up shortly, so I’ll just leave this here until then for anyone who’s up this early in the meantime.
Update, via Huffington Post/Reuters — Yemeni President won’t seek re-election either:
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key U.S. ally against al Qaeda, said on Wednesday he will not seek to extend his presidency in a move that would end his three-decade rule when his current term expires in 2013.
Eyeing protests that brought down Tunisia’s leader and threaten to topple Egypt’s president, Saleh also vowed not to pass on the reins of government to his son, but asked the opposition to hold down on protests.
“I present these concessions in the interests of the country. The interests of the country come before our personal interests,” Saleh told his parliament, Shoura Council and members of the military.
“I call on the opposition to freeze all planned protests, rallies and sit-ins,” Saleh said.
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