In recent weeks, the Big Six banks—Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo—have reported their financial results for the first three months of 2018. According to a report by the Associated Press, the passage of the Republican tax bill saved them a combined total of $3.6 billion dollars in tax payments during the first quarter and boosted their net profits by an equivalent amount.
Even by Wall Street standards, that’s a chunk of change, and it’s a direct result of the tax bill reducing the corporate tax rate from thirty-five per cent to twenty-one per cent. Under the old tax law, after taking various deductions, the Big Six banks paid between twenty-eight per cent and thirty-one per cent of their profits to the U.S. Treasury, the A.P. report said. In the most recent quarter, the banks paid a tax rate of between 17.1 per cent (Goldman Sachs) and 23.7 per cent (Citigroup).
For some reason, Mulvaney didn’t highlight these figures in his speech. At a moment when the Republicans are talking about entitlement reform, and Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is proposing to triple the rents of some of the poorest people in the country, the sight of big banks reporting surges in profits that were fuelled by tax cuts raises alarming moral questions. It also demonstrates how, from Wall Street’s perspective, pouring money into ruling political parties, particularly today’s G.O.P., can be an astute investment.
I checked, and not a single Democratic member of Congress voted for the GOP tax bill. And this morning it was in the news that Wells Fargo is to be hit with a billion-dollar fine for ripping of its customers; guess that can be paid for with the GOP tax cut. The Dems should be mercilessly flogging the GOP with this. But will they? Time will tell, but I have my doubts.
I wouldn't, er, bank on it. Remember, the article says nearly half of that money went to Democrats. They know who they are, and they are as dirty as Republicans...and they are still in charge of the party.
The large family gathering is a bit overblown for effect. Later on in the story, though, we learn just how many siblings Susannah's parents have, and her description suddenly doesn't seem quite so overblown.
You're probably right that some foreshadowing, however vague, of Susannah's rescue would be a good idear.
How's this? --- Though sorry to see Jamie go, overall I was glad enough to be left to myself. The buzzing hum of conversations and the clatter of cutlery on restaurantware (My relations might be rich but most didn’t have much in the way of couth!) all around me had begun to produce the inevitable headache. The room, though spacious, was warm and stuffy, while the competing aromas of steak (in every state from practically on the hoof to old shoe leather), a chicken dish whose name escaped my non-culinarily inclined mind and vegetarian lasagna, several brands of expensive cigarettes and several other brands of equally expensive cologne and perfume made me queasy. I didn’t like crowds, even when I was related to their constituent members. I picked at my chicken and took a long drink of lemonade. Still holding the glass, I looked around absently and allowed myself a wistful daydream of some dashing, swashbuckling Errol Flynn type cutting his way to my table, rapier flashing, and bearing me away. I sighed. Even in the slightly florid romantic mystery novels I wrote under the nom de plume Kitty Kiley, a rescue of that kind was unlikely. Certainly, a family reunion wouldn’t qualify as the caliber of emergency that would call for it. On the other hand, my plucky, resourceful heroines seldom needed rescuing. I looked around again, more purposefully. If I could make it to the back corridor where the restrooms were situated, I’d be home free. My shoulder bag was slung across the back of my chair. It was natural enough to take that to the Ladies’ with me. An inconspicuous side door led out from the corridor to the alley between this building and the next. I knew from previous experience that the alley was clean and relatively well-lighted. A short sprint, and I’d be strolling along the street, just another unremarkable pedestrian. My spirits fell. Perhaps not so unremarkable. We’d had a sudden cold snap. It might be more accurate to say that Indian summer ended rather abruptly. So, though this time last week I would have been quite comfortable on the street in slacks and a blazer, today I’d needed a winter coat and scarf...when we arrived at 4:00. Now, just after 6:00, the temperature was no doubt even less comfortable. All the coats, including mine, were in the restaurant’s coat check room. Since the restaurant catered mainly to large family parties, it still had this anachronism, though not a fulltime coat check attendant. The room would be unattended, but I couldn’t reach it unobserved. And, if observed, I’d be pounced upon by some aunt or cousin and loudly denounced for trying to leave while the evening was still young. And yet without my coat, scarf and gloves, I’d freeze before finding one of the town’s few cabs.
After the split second’s cold blankness I always felt when transferring between worlds, I found myself in the dimness of summer woodland... Comfortably warm, not overheated in wool slacks, silk blouse and cashmere blazer. I was nude! I glared at the centaur, returned to full sized from the human-scaled guise he used in my world, who was trotting gently along a green ride, holding me in his massive arms as though I were a doll. “Drat it all, Glen,” I fumed, “Why did you do that?” He glanced down at me, deadpan. “Do what?” he asked innocently. I knew better than to trust that heart-stoppingly handsome face. He was my friend, after all. “Strip me,” I spluttered. “Take off my clothes in front of, of everybody!” A puff of wind rustled through the leafy branches, allowing a sunbeam to stab down, right into my eyes. I groaned and turned my face against the centaur’s chest. The lousy nag probably did that on purpose to distract me. But he answered my question and, curse him, did so quite reasonably. “Not to worry, my dear Zanna. You merely left your clothing behind. Not a soul in the eating establishment glimpsed your lovely, naked body. I give you my word.” I sighed. When a Denison of Fairyland gave you his word, that was the end of it. You knew beyond a doubt he was telling the truth. Or, at least, what he believed to be the truth. “You can’t know that for sure,” I protested, but the sally was weak, and I knew it. I looked around at the woodland and drew a contented breath. One thing among many I loved about Fairyland, none of the bugs bit. There were dark, nasty, even monstrous things here. The Brothers Grim had proven that conclusively, to say nothing of other, more recent entrepreneurs who had been mining Fairyland (or more properly Fantasye) for profit. E.A. Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and S. King sprang irresistibly to mind. But I had nothing to do with that and devoutly hoped I never would. A few chills and thrills, a little mild eroticism, that was as daring as I wanted to get. Mostly, I stayed in the dreamy, bucolic spaces, writing my neo-Romantic poetry and cozy mysteries. Nothing horrid intruded into my part of Fairyland, and I accepted the sense of security, illusory though it might be. We all need our illusions..
I had no illusions about the homo-equine in whose company I currently found myself. He was a dazzlingly intelligent, deeply thoughtful, uninhibitedly prank-prone being. In all likelihood, he had stolen me away from my family on a dare. His having left my clothes behind lent credence to this hypothesis. At the moment, though, I couldn’t imagine who might have put him up to it. Then again, underneath it all, he was a kindly, sensitive creature. He might simply have picked up some extra strong vibe of unease from me and charged in to rescue me. It wouldn’t be the first time. Once, in Eighth Grade, he had come thundering into Mrs. Pickering’s classroom and whisked me away from a particularly hellish Math test. I had it on good authority that poor Mrs. Pickering was still in therapy. We’d had a long, serious talk after that episode. But the centaur still considered himself my personal champion and protector. Sometimes I found myself wishing he were more human and less horse. It might be nice, for several reasons, to have him around as a boyfriend. Glenstorm’s voice roused me from my reverie. “Zanna? Are you all right?” I looked up to smile at him. “Yes, thanks. And, thank you for rescuing me. I had just concluded that I couldn’t escape when you turned up.” “Why could you not escape?” “Well, I could have done, but it would have meant going out without my coat, and the weather had turned cold. Snow was forecast...” “You humans are such wimps,” he said. His tone held no judgment, merely simple observation, as if he had said, “Those trees are so leafy.” I couldn’t take offense, but instead laughed shamefacedly. “Yes, I suppose we are. I am at any rate.” I looked around. “Where are you taking me, by the way?” His big, liquid brown eyes twinkled. “To the satyrs.” I struggled upright in his arms and pounded ineffectually on his brawny chest. “I don’t want to be the satyrs’ sex toy today!” I exclaimed. I didn’t have to work hard to simulate panic. I’d heard pretty wild stories about the satyrs and their games. But that twinkle in the nag’s eye reassured me, or at least gave me hope, that he was only teasing. He did enjoy harassing me about my femininity. He threw back his head and laughed his massive, rolling laugh. “Zanna, Zanna. You are so easy to tease. No, I’ll not take you to that debauched lot. I’m sure you could do with some excitement in your love life, but not that much.” I snuggled back against his chest and pouted. “Let’s keep my love life out of the discussion if you don’t mind.” Glenstorm laughed again. “That I won’t my pretty pet.” “You’re as bad as my family,” I complained. He stopped. “I could take you back,” he offered. “No, no, don’t do that” He squeezed me with amazing gentleness considering his massive physique; horse part proportioned like a Clydesdale, man part proportioned to match. “Well then, you be a good girl and trust Glenstorm. Has he ever steered you wrong or done you harm?”
I thought about this. “There was the time you took me to visit Pythagoras and Euclid and encouraged me to include direct quotes from them in the paper I was writing on the History of Mathematics.” The centaur tossed his head dismissively. “That would have worked out fine if your teacher had been a man of vision and imagination.” “Prof. Dowling is one of the leading historians of Math and Science in the country, er, my country.” “Well then, he should have accepted your work. I certainly thought it was an excellent paper.” “Yes,” I said gloomily. “But you didn’t have the power to get me thrown out of the History Department.” “I am sorry about that, Zanna. But it was for the best. Otherwise you never would have pursued your talent for poetry.” I sighed. “I suppose not. And I wouldn’t have survived the cutthroat world of academia anyway.” “That’s right,” my friend said bracingly. “You’re a sweet, gentle soul, totally without guile. You weren’t suited to that world of legalized brigandry.” Before I could think of a reply to that, we came out of the ride into a clearing. A hedge of something that wasn’t quite boxwood rose before us, an old-fashioned garden gate set in it opposite the ride. Beyond the hedge I could make out an archetypal rose-covered cottage. I squirmed, once more acutely aware of my nudity. “Where is this?” I demanded querulously. “Who lives here?” “Hush, Pet. A friend.” “Of yours? Great. It’s probably the Big Bad Wolf!” We had reached the gate. He chuckled then raised his voice to call, “What ho, Jack!” Jack? Hmmm... And Jill, probably not. And the Beanstalk? Be Nimble? The door opened and a man strode across the porch and down the steps. My heart sank as he came into the sunlight, hurrying along the path; a man from the Real World, one I recognized from his book jacket photo. Writer of hard boiled detective novels Jack Jackson definitely was not someone I wanted to meet in my current state of dishabille He wasn’t exactly handsome; though, to be fair, few humanoid males seemed handsome beside the centaur’s Olympian beauty. But I knew Jackson to be intelligent, which was a point in his favor. And, as he recognized his visitor’s burden as a naked woman, he hurried forward with an exclamation of concern, which was another. “Chiron,” he exclaimed in an accent I couldn’t quite place, opening the gate wide and gesturing the centaur to enter, “what happened? Is she hurt? Bring her inside.” I warmed to him despite myself. As Cozy and Hard Boiled we were natural rivals, but I couldn’t help being favorably impressed by his quick compassion and commonsense. Glenstorm, as always, did the unexpected. “I rescued her,” he said shortly, and thrust me into Jackson’s arms. “I leave her in your care. You will look after her well, I know.” Stepping back through the gate, he latched it and, turning, cantered off into the woods.
Just in time!
ReplyDeleteMick Mulvaney and the Trump Administration’s Sellout to Wall Street - Click
ReplyDeleteIn recent weeks, the Big Six banks—Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo—have reported their financial results for the first three months of 2018. According to a report by the Associated Press, the passage of the Republican tax bill saved them a combined total of $3.6 billion dollars in tax payments during the first quarter and boosted their net profits by an equivalent amount.
Even by Wall Street standards, that’s a chunk of change, and it’s a direct result of the tax bill reducing the corporate tax rate from thirty-five per cent to twenty-one per cent. Under the old tax law, after taking various deductions, the Big Six banks paid between twenty-eight per cent and thirty-one per cent of their profits to the U.S. Treasury, the A.P. report said. In the most recent quarter, the banks paid a tax rate of between 17.1 per cent (Goldman Sachs) and 23.7 per cent (Citigroup).
For some reason, Mulvaney didn’t highlight these figures in his speech. At a moment when the Republicans are talking about entitlement reform, and Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is proposing to triple the rents of some of the poorest people in the country, the sight of big banks reporting surges in profits that were fuelled by tax cuts raises alarming moral questions. It also demonstrates how, from Wall Street’s perspective, pouring money into ruling political parties, particularly today’s G.O.P., can be an astute investment.
I checked, and not a single Democratic member of Congress voted for the GOP tax bill. And this morning it was in the news that Wells Fargo is to be hit with a billion-dollar fine for ripping of its customers; guess that can be paid for with the GOP tax cut. The Dems should be mercilessly flogging the GOP with this. But will they? Time will tell, but I have my doubts.
DeleteAlan
I wouldn't, er, bank on it. Remember, the article says nearly half of that money went to Democrats. They know who they are, and they are as dirty as Republicans...and they are still in charge of the party.
DeleteI read about it this afternoon via The New Yorker. Trump dug Cohen in several feet deeper IIUC. With friends like Trump, who needs enemies?
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for the kind words, Bill!
ReplyDeleteThe large family gathering is a bit overblown for effect. Later on in the story, though, we learn just how many siblings Susannah's parents have, and her description suddenly doesn't seem quite so overblown.
You're probably right that some foreshadowing, however vague, of Susannah's rescue would be a good idear.
I really appreciate the feedback!
How's this?
Delete---
Though sorry to see Jamie go, overall I was glad enough to be left to myself. The buzzing hum of conversations and the clatter of cutlery on restaurantware (My relations might be rich but most didn’t have much in the way of couth!) all around me had begun to produce the inevitable headache. The room, though spacious, was warm and stuffy, while the competing aromas of steak (in every state from practically on the hoof to old shoe leather), a chicken dish whose name escaped my non-culinarily inclined mind and vegetarian lasagna, several brands of expensive cigarettes and several other brands of equally expensive cologne and perfume made me queasy. I didn’t like crowds, even when I was related to their constituent members.
I picked at my chicken and took a long drink of lemonade. Still holding the glass, I looked around absently and allowed myself a wistful daydream of some dashing, swashbuckling Errol Flynn type cutting his way to my table, rapier flashing, and bearing me away. I sighed. Even in the slightly florid romantic mystery novels I wrote under the nom de plume Kitty Kiley, a rescue of that kind was unlikely. Certainly, a family reunion wouldn’t qualify as the caliber of emergency that would call for it.
On the other hand, my plucky, resourceful heroines seldom needed rescuing. I looked around again, more purposefully. If I could make it to the back corridor where the restrooms were situated, I’d be home free. My shoulder bag was slung across the back of my chair. It was natural enough to take that to the Ladies’ with me.
An inconspicuous side door led out from the corridor to the alley between this building and the next. I knew from previous experience that the alley was clean and relatively well-lighted. A short sprint, and I’d be strolling along the street, just another unremarkable pedestrian.
My spirits fell. Perhaps not so unremarkable. We’d had a sudden cold snap. It might be more accurate to say that Indian summer ended rather abruptly. So, though this time last week I would have been quite comfortable on the street in slacks and a blazer, today I’d needed a winter coat and scarf...when we arrived at 4:00. Now, just after 6:00, the temperature was no doubt even less comfortable. All the coats, including mine, were in the restaurant’s coat check room. Since the restaurant catered mainly to large family parties, it still had this anachronism, though not a fulltime coat check attendant. The room would be unattended, but I couldn’t reach it unobserved. And, if observed, I’d be pounced upon by some aunt or cousin and loudly denounced for trying to leave while the evening was still young. And yet without my coat, scarf and gloves, I’d freeze before finding one of the town’s few cabs.
So your centaur is a dashing Errol Flynn type? Hmm. I guess he is.
DeleteYeah, that'll work. (Edited for correct spelling.)
Well, maybe not quite Errol Flynn, but he'll do.
DeleteNobody.
ReplyDeleteAlan
Fantasy Land Part 2
ReplyDeleteAfter the split second’s cold blankness I always felt when transferring between worlds, I found myself in the dimness of summer woodland... Comfortably warm, not overheated in wool slacks, silk blouse and cashmere blazer. I was nude!
I glared at the centaur, returned to full sized from the human-scaled guise he used in my world, who was trotting gently along a green ride, holding me in his massive arms as though I were a doll.
“Drat it all, Glen,” I fumed, “Why did you do that?”
He glanced down at me, deadpan. “Do what?” he asked innocently.
I knew better than to trust that heart-stoppingly handsome face. He was my friend, after all. “Strip me,” I spluttered. “Take off my clothes in front of, of everybody!”
A puff of wind rustled through the leafy branches, allowing a sunbeam to stab down, right into my eyes. I groaned and turned my face against the centaur’s chest. The lousy nag probably did that on purpose to distract me.
But he answered my question and, curse him, did so quite reasonably. “Not to worry, my dear Zanna. You merely left your clothing behind. Not a soul in the eating establishment glimpsed your lovely, naked body. I give you my word.”
I sighed. When a Denison of Fairyland gave you his word, that was the end of it. You knew beyond a doubt he was telling the truth. Or, at least, what he believed to be the truth.
“You can’t know that for sure,” I protested, but the sally was weak, and I knew it.
I looked around at the woodland and drew a contented breath. One thing among many I loved about Fairyland, none of the bugs bit. There were dark, nasty, even monstrous things here. The Brothers Grim had proven that conclusively, to say nothing of other, more recent entrepreneurs who had been mining Fairyland (or more properly Fantasye) for profit. E.A. Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and S. King sprang irresistibly to mind. But I had nothing to do with that and devoutly hoped I never would. A few chills and thrills, a little mild eroticism, that was as daring as I wanted to get. Mostly, I stayed in the dreamy, bucolic spaces, writing my neo-Romantic poetry and cozy mysteries. Nothing horrid intruded into my part of Fairyland, and I accepted the sense of security, illusory though it might be. We all need our illusions..
[Continued in the comments]
I had no illusions about the homo-equine in whose company I currently found myself. He was a dazzlingly intelligent, deeply thoughtful, uninhibitedly prank-prone being. In all likelihood, he had stolen me away from my family on a dare. His having left my clothes behind lent credence to this hypothesis. At the moment, though, I couldn’t imagine who might have put him up to it. Then again, underneath it all, he was a kindly, sensitive creature. He might simply have picked up some extra strong vibe of unease from me and charged in to rescue me. It wouldn’t be the first time.
DeleteOnce, in Eighth Grade, he had come thundering into Mrs. Pickering’s classroom and whisked me away from a particularly hellish Math test. I had it on good authority that poor Mrs. Pickering was still in therapy. We’d had a long, serious talk after that episode. But the centaur still considered himself my personal champion and protector. Sometimes I found myself wishing he were more human and less horse. It might be nice, for several reasons, to have him around as a boyfriend.
Glenstorm’s voice roused me from my reverie. “Zanna? Are you all right?”
I looked up to smile at him. “Yes, thanks. And, thank you for rescuing me. I had just concluded that I couldn’t escape when you turned up.”
“Why could you not escape?”
“Well, I could have done, but it would have meant going out without my coat, and the weather had turned cold. Snow was forecast...”
“You humans are such wimps,” he said. His tone held no judgment, merely simple observation, as if he had said, “Those trees are so leafy.” I couldn’t take offense, but instead laughed shamefacedly.
“Yes, I suppose we are. I am at any rate.”
I looked around. “Where are you taking me, by the way?”
His big, liquid brown eyes twinkled. “To the satyrs.”
I struggled upright in his arms and pounded ineffectually on his brawny chest. “I don’t want to be the satyrs’ sex toy today!” I exclaimed. I didn’t have to work hard to simulate panic. I’d heard pretty wild stories about the satyrs and their games. But that twinkle in the nag’s eye reassured me, or at least gave me hope, that he was only teasing. He did enjoy harassing me about my femininity.
He threw back his head and laughed his massive, rolling laugh. “Zanna, Zanna. You are so easy to tease. No, I’ll not take you to that debauched lot. I’m sure you could do with some excitement in your love life, but not that much.”
I snuggled back against his chest and pouted. “Let’s keep my love life out of the discussion if you don’t mind.”
Glenstorm laughed again. “That I won’t my pretty pet.”
“You’re as bad as my family,” I complained.
He stopped. “I could take you back,” he offered.
“No, no, don’t do that”
He squeezed me with amazing gentleness considering his massive physique; horse part proportioned like a Clydesdale, man part proportioned to match. “Well then, you be a good girl and trust Glenstorm. Has he ever steered you wrong or done you harm?”
[Continued below]
I thought about this. “There was the time you took me to visit Pythagoras and Euclid and encouraged me to include direct quotes from them in the paper I was writing on the History of Mathematics.”
DeleteThe centaur tossed his head dismissively. “That would have worked out fine if your teacher had been a man of vision and imagination.”
“Prof. Dowling is one of the leading historians of Math and Science in the country, er, my country.”
“Well then, he should have accepted your work. I certainly thought it was an excellent paper.”
“Yes,” I said gloomily. “But you didn’t have the power to get me thrown out of the History Department.”
“I am sorry about that, Zanna. But it was for the best. Otherwise you never would have pursued your talent for poetry.”
I sighed. “I suppose not. And I wouldn’t have survived the cutthroat world of academia anyway.”
“That’s right,” my friend said bracingly. “You’re a sweet, gentle soul, totally without guile. You weren’t suited to that world of legalized brigandry.”
Before I could think of a reply to that, we came out of the ride into a clearing. A hedge of something that wasn’t quite boxwood rose before us, an old-fashioned garden gate set in it opposite the ride. Beyond the hedge I could make out an archetypal rose-covered cottage.
I squirmed, once more acutely aware of my nudity. “Where is this?” I demanded querulously. “Who lives here?”
“Hush, Pet. A friend.”
“Of yours? Great. It’s probably the Big Bad Wolf!”
We had reached the gate. He chuckled then raised his voice to call, “What ho, Jack!”
Jack? Hmmm... And Jill, probably not. And the Beanstalk? Be Nimble?
The door opened and a man strode across the porch and down the steps. My heart sank as he came into the sunlight, hurrying along the path; a man from the Real World, one I recognized from his book jacket photo. Writer of hard boiled detective novels Jack Jackson definitely was not someone I wanted to meet in my current state of dishabille
He wasn’t exactly handsome; though, to be fair, few humanoid males seemed handsome beside the centaur’s Olympian beauty. But I knew Jackson to be intelligent, which was a point in his favor. And, as he recognized his visitor’s burden as a naked woman, he hurried forward with an exclamation of concern, which was another.
“Chiron,” he exclaimed in an accent I couldn’t quite place, opening the gate wide and gesturing the centaur to enter, “what happened? Is she hurt? Bring her inside.”
I warmed to him despite myself. As Cozy and Hard Boiled we were natural rivals, but I couldn’t help being favorably impressed by his quick compassion and commonsense.
Glenstorm, as always, did the unexpected. “I rescued her,” he said shortly, and thrust me into Jackson’s arms. “I leave her in your care. You will look after her well, I know.” Stepping back through the gate, he latched it and, turning, cantered off into the woods.
I'll read and comment tomorrow. I stayed up far to late reading last night and I have work that needs to be done tonight.
DeleteCheck.
DeleteThanks so much, Bill! Rest well.
Would We Have Drugged Up Einstein? How Anti-Authoritarianism Is Deemed a Mental Health Problem - Click
ReplyDelete