The War on Greed & Fair Taxes

This is my first diary; I hadn't actually planned to write any diaries, but I saw this webmovie and just want to pass it on to the people who I know care deeply about this issue (you).

Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films, who previously brought us the films Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price, and Iraq for Sale,  has created a new webmovie titled The War On Greed: Starring Henry Kravis and his homes (note: movie will auto-launch when you click the link.)

To premiere the movie, protestors are outside Henry Kravis's 26-room Park Avenue penthouse apartment, just one of the 5 multi-million dollar homes he owns. You get to see them on all the short film, and learn that last year, Henry Kravis earned $450 million, which breaks down to $1.3 million a day. That is just so awesome! I bet he created a gazillion new jobs doing that. Or maybe he invented some really cool new product! Maybe he even invested in alternative energy.

Actually, none of the above. Henry Kravis is a founder of KKR, a private equity firm that borrows money to buy out companies, then, in the words of the film:

"To pay off this debt they then sell off assets of the companies, fire thousands of workers and radically cut benefits of the remaining employees. It is the same product, in the same building, with the same customers as before."

What's even better, for Mr. Kravis, is that he pays less taxes than you and I. Yes, that's right. After increasing the load on the public sector by eliminating jobs and reducing benefits, Mr. Kravis gets rewarded with tax breaks. Where you and I pay 35% rate on our income taxes, Mr. Kravis pays only 15% rate on capital gains, which is where private equity managers derive their income.

Check out some excellent coverage on the subject, including David Sirota's blog from Dec 2, the SEIU's Behind the Buyouts website, NY Times article on today's protest-premiere.

For youtube fans, here's the War on Greed: Starring Henry Kravis:

Of course, bringing it back to my favorite hot topic, the 2008 candidates, here are links to where the Big Three stand on Tax Reform (in order of my personal preference):
John Edwards: Building One Economy with Tax Reform to Reward Work and on Congress 'Failure to Pass Tax Reform
Barack Obama: On Poverty (campaign website) and on Tax Reform (senate website)
Hillary Clinton: Ending Unfair Tax Breaks for Wall Street Investment Managers

Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think (of the topic and the diary).