Today New York Times’ columnist James Stewart reports on the feedback he got when questioning readers on their personal tax rates.  Among  respondents was Jim Cramer, host of Fox News widely watched “Mad Money” in which the bellicose Mr. Cramer lectures viewers on the secret to making money in the stock market.

But, as Mr. Stewart reports, Mr. Cramer paid  a much higher rate than either Romney or Buffet because his income was all ”earned”…..the million-dollar salary Fox pays him to advise people on investments was his sole net income…so, money maven Cramer didn’t qualify for the lower tax rate because he had no net capital gains.  HIS LOSSES OUTPACED HIS GAINS!!!!

Could the boolya boy been taking his own advice????

 That’s right, buy any 2 items in the store and the 1st  one is 100% off and the 2nd one is absolutely free!

Anyone that signs up for a gold voucher and visits all 11 of the Gagosian galleries spread around the globe, from NYC to Paris to Athens to Hong Kong, et. al., will receive a signed print FOR FREE!.

The estimated cost of such a travel endeavor would range, according to travel agents, from $15,000 at the barest $5 a-day trip to $75,000 for the affluent.  The cost of a print if you simply took a cab to, say the NYC gallery,….about $3,500.

Nonetheless, the Gallery reports that 700 people thus far have signed up for vouchers to be able to brag about their free  Damien Hirst print.  Wouldn’t it just be cheaper and save a whole lot of time if they just wore a sticker that said, “Hello, I’m dumber than asparagus” ?

Dominating entertainment news this week is the announcement by supermodel Heidi Klum that she and pop singer Seal are ending their seven-year marriage.  In a recent interview with the media, Seal expressed his continued love for runway star Klum, and puzzled  that he ,”can’t understand why she wants to leave him.” 

I have a more puzzling question……

Friends are requested to send flowers in lieu of cards or charitable donations.

8 Gagosian galleries around the globe are simultaneously exhibiting a series of canvas’s on which Tom Thumb, nee D. Hirst, has attached a bunch of circles.  Actually, Tom Thumb’s assistants did the attaching as it is beneath a wealthy ”artist” like TT to stoop to glueing circles on canvas particularly when you have to glue about 1,500 of the damn things.  In the New York gallery alone, there are 74 “different” works.  By “different”, ring-master Gagosian means some of the works are small and some are big.  Some have 50 circles, some have only 8.

As usual, art critics for major media have bent semantics to the breaking point to try and justify the buzz which they alone (aside from some shrewd buck-turning “investors” like London’s Charles Saatchi) create.  For example, NY Times’s Roberta Smith wrote that the project was, “a blatant promotion of both the Hirst and Gagosian brands, and a sitting-duck symbol of the end-time, we’re-doing-this-because-we-can-decandence that has subsumed so much of the art world; another example of money celebrating itself.”

But, Ms. Smith realized that she couldn’t end there, because maybe the lack of clothes on the emperor might imperil her profession, so she subsequently and quickly writes that the project is ..”more complicated…challenges you to hold opposing ideas at the same time.”  Kind of like an art critic trying to justify what she knows is nothing but pure crap!!  But, meanwhile, mssrs. Gagosian and Hirst are laughing all the way to the bank.

 While I don’t make a whole lot of money,  I  thought it would be OK if I did;  and I have no idea why someone would want to occupy Wall Street; the rents are too high, the streets are all one way, and bad guys periodically try to blow it up.

 I used to think Newt Gingrich made a lot of sense, which was before he became  fat, deranged and a cartoon; I think Ron Paul still makes a lot of sense, and at least isn’t fat.

 I don’t understand how FedEx can make millions and the US Post Office go bankrupt.

I don’t understand how job growth rate in our Government can grow at 15% in a recession.  (Actually I do unerstand it, just don’t like to dwell on it.)

 I have never watched a TV show hosted by Oprah, Ellen, Dr. Phil, or Billy Bush and have no interest in the fact that Beyonce had a baby, much less how much she paid for the hospital room or why she picked a Martian name for the kid.

 I can’t name even one of the Kardashian sisters and don’t care who Kate Hudson, Katy Parry, Brittany Spears, Denise Richards, Charlie Sheen or most anyone else west of the Rockies, married, divorced, assaulted or was seen canoodling with in Cabo, Martinique or the Seychelles.

I think it’s OK to dis-like the current President without being labeled a racist and OK to like Mitt Romney without believing in that buried book stuff.  I just wish he’d pick a new slogan.  One not so depressing.

The article cites a case where the restaurant Petit Robert, having been found guilty of violation of parking rules, was barred from providing entertainment for 2 nights.  In Petit Robert’s case this simply required them to turn off their 30-inch TV over the bar. 

What the Globe didn’t report was that Petit Robert sucessfully sued the City when the enforcement agency was unable to prove that there was anything entertaining about TV these days.