Wry On The Rocks

Republican hopeful Mitt Romney has unleashed a firestorm of controversy over the current tax code with the release of his tax returns showing a rate lower than that of the other 99% of us.  The difference between the money that Mitt and  “undertaxed” Warren Buffet make in a year is the difference in how “earned income” is taxed versus “capital gains”, the latter being how smart investors like Mssrs. Romney and Buffet become 1 percenters.

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????

The modern day version of PT Barnum and Tom Thumb are at it again.  Larry Gagosian  and “artist” Damien Hirst, that wonderful pair that have brought the art world a rotting shark in a tank, dead sheep and maggots feeding on a cows head, have a new exhibit.  Or rather exhibits.

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.

AP News just released a news flash that the Russian satellite that was to probe Mars has instead crashed  into the Pacific Ocean at 2:45 AM EST.  A Russian spokesperson for the space program was quoted on the tragedy of Phobos-Grunt as saying knweyhnk, which roughly translates to “Aw, Shit!”

WROR, Boston Radio, has gone over to the dark side.  It’s not even Thankgiving yet, but they started playing Christmas music this morning!  Trust me when I say that you don’t want to wake up with a hangover to the sounds of Alvin and The Chipmunks.  I never realized that the song goes on for about 3 and a half hours.

Then there’s Gene Autry and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  Only everybodys favorite cowboy zillionaire pronounces it San_TEE Claus!  I wanted to scream, “it’s San-TAH Claus you fake cowpoke”, but the knife in my head wouldn’t allow it.  Then there’s the back-up band to Autry’s recording…have you heard it?  It sounds like a kindergarten composition only they’re playing instruments that don’t even exist anymore!!

So, no thanks Loren and Wally, I think I’ll tune out until January…unless of course you’re planning on playing Here Comes Peter Cottontail starting on New Years.

Wanted:  workers to disassemble a nuclear bomb.

The National Nuclear Safety Administration has announced this week it has job openings to help dismantle a 10,000 pound bomb the size of a mini-van that contains enough explosives around a uranium core to produce an explosion 600 times that of the A-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

 ”We have had no applicants whatsoever for this job,” commented a spokesman for the NNSA, “despite the generous salary and death insurance.”

The Obama administration points to the lack of applicants for this government job as evidence that the recession is over.  “It’s not like we were looking for rocket scientists!” explained a White House spokesman.  “I mean how hard can it be?” 

When pressed he did admit that workers were to be paid only on an hourly basis.