Mammon category archive

Buccaneer Petroleum loses one in court.

BP bears the majority of responsibility among the companies involved in the nation’s worst offshore oil spill, a federal judge ruled Thursday, citing the energy giant’s reckless conduct in a ruling that exposes the company to billions of dollars in penalties.

. . . But U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier’s ruling could nearly quadruple what the London-based company has to pay in civil fines for polluting the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 spill.

Barbier presided over a trial in 2013 to apportion blame for the spill that spewed oil for 87 days in 2010. Eleven men died after the well blew.

The judge essentially divided blame among the three companies involved in the spill, ruling that BP bears 67 percent of the blame; Swiss-based drilling rig owner Transocean Ltd. takes 30 percent; and Houston-based cement contractor Halliburton Energy Service takes 3 percent.

Via Job’s Anger.

Via Job’s Anger.

Via Kos.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Via Kos.

Robert Reich doesn’t see it. A snippet:

Does anyone seriously believe hedge-fund mogul Steven A. Cohen is worth the $2.3 billion he raked in last year, despite being slapped with a $1.8 billion fine after his firm pleaded guilty to insider trading?

On the other hand, what’s the worth to society of social workers who put in long and difficult hours dealing with patients suffering from mental illness or substance abuse? Probably higher than their average pay of $18.14 an hour, which translates into less than $38,000 a year.

Catherine Rampell considers incorporating herself. A nugget:

According to Martin Sullivan, the chief economist at Tax Analysts, if individuals were treated like corporations, I could set up an affiliate called “Catherine Rampell Bermuda,” have it pay my college tuition and then declare that the affiliate owns the resulting degree. I could then tell the IRS that everything I earn above the average high school grad’s wage should be recorded as income in Bermuda, since it’s all derived from a Bermuda-based asset. Until I decide to repatriate those diploma-derived earnings, I’ve built myself a tax-free IRA.

Other goodies abound. On federal tax returns, individuals can deduct either the sales taxes they paid or their state income taxes, not both; for companies, these deductions are all-you-can-eat. If people were treated like companies, we could also start deducting the first dollar we spend on health care, rather than just the medical spending that exceeds 10 percent of our adjusted gross incomes.

Home-buying would also become more attractive. Right now there are limits to how much mortgage interest humans can deduct. But if you analogize your primary residence to a “corporate headquarters” and your vacation homes to “branch offices,” you can deduct the full interest on every McMansion you ever purchase.

Via Funny or Die.

Recently, much fuss has been made about a ritzy Manhattan development’s plan to have a “poor door,” a separate entrance for persons in the “affordable” apartments. Leonard Pitts, Jr., points out that the fuss overlooks the obvious. A nugget:

. . . (the door) is also the pointed symbol of a truth we all know but pretend not to, so as to preserve the fiction of an egalitarian society. Namely, that rich and poor already have different doors. The rich enter the halls of justice, finance, education, health and politics through portals of advantage from which the rest of us are barred.

Afterthought, Later That Same Day:

I know about separate entrances. Once, when my mother, my brother, and I were taking the bus to visit my grandmother in South Carolina–I was maybe ten–I entered the wrong separate entrance to the wrong waiting room in the Raleigh, North Carolina, bus station. All the Not White folks in that room stopped talking and looked at me, with “What are you doing here” in their faces.

I have never felt so out of place, nor so alone.

I would never wish that feeling on anyone.

Any society that breeds that feeling is evil.

Anyone who would perpetuate that society is evil.

Buccaneer Petroleum’s legacy grows.

In Florida, Daniel Ruth offers a new domino theory, a honeyed tail of sweetening the pols pot.

How do you tell the difference between a political pig at the trough and a wild boar? The Tallahassee swine species requires a lobbyist leash.

Tampa Bay Times reporters Michael Van Sickler and Craig Pittman reported Sunday that for years some of our august public servants took time out from crusading for responsible government to sneak away to Texas for swanky hunting vacations at the King Ranch with expenses paid by U.S. Sugar.

Twas ever thus: Plutocrats skillfully convince themselves that flaunting ostentatious greed is a sign of their benevolence.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Patricia Sabatini explains what credit card numbers mean (other than a quick descent into perpetual debt). It’s fascinating in a mundane sort of way:

Start with the first digit. It, and in some cases the second digit, identifies the card network that will carry the transaction. All MasterCards start with a “5,” for example. Visa cards start with a “4.” Discover cards get a “6.”

American Express cards start with “34” or “37,” while the number “7” is reserved for gasoline cards issued by petroleum companies such as Exxon and Mobil.

The next four or five numbers in the series identify which of the some 13,000 financial institutions in the U.S. issued the card, such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase or Citibank.

I knew that the first digit indicated the type of card. I picked up that tidbit early in my career, when I was empowered to issue refunds in response to certain types of customer complaints. Purchases made by card had to be refunded by card, so we were trained in filling out refund slips (this was long before electronic transactions).