How Baaaa-d does it have to get?

The StarTribune sometimes can make me really angry.  This morning I just wanted to find the weather forecast and instead I stumbled upon the business section where the following was printed:

...Despite recording nearly $1.1 billion in profits last year, Ameriprise actually got back $224 million in federal income taxes...25 companies reported average global profits of $1.9 billion last year.  But through a variety of accounting techniques, tax breaks and loopholes they managed to shave millions off their actual tax payments, and in many cases got money back from the Internal Revenue Service...They averaged tax refunds or credits of about $300 million each...at the top of the (list), ranked by CEO compensation, Stanley Black & Decker (paid CEO) John Lundgren...$32 million last year, while the company got a federal corporate income tax credit of $75 million."

All I wanted was to find out the weather forecast, dammit!  This may teach me to look through the paper more carefully next time.

I've got a friend who is waiting to hear if she'll be able to keep her job, which doesn't pay all that well in the first place,  but her family relies on her monthly checks that go entirely to paying the mortgage.  Because the family was feeling a squeeze a couple of years ago, they refinanced along with most of the working class half of the country.  We all were convinced by lenders that house prices will just keep going up, so what might otherwise seem like overextended borrowing was really nothing to worry about.  The spiel given to anyone with a 98 degree body temperature went something like this:

"You can just keep refinancing; it's not only a house, think of it as living inside your very own ATM.  We've got the money right here waiting for you, all you have to do is sign some papers and walk out with a check in your hand - it's just that simple!

Still, my friend is not one to complain, even though her mortgage payment is for a loan amount twice the present value of her house.  Not that she would smile much either, she could use some serious dental work because she has deferred routine care for years and just has teeth pulled when they get too bad.  Instead, she has seen to it that her own children don't go without at least some visits to the dentist.  Insurance coverage under a dental plan? Nah...she's a teacher at a private school.  Her students have shiny white teeth, smiling all the way to the door of Mommy's Lexus as she picks them up at the end of the day. 'No insurance, no pension and she may be shown the door after twenty, dedicated years of service, which in her world means loving care and self-sacrifice.  That's who she is.

So, my friend is waiting to hear if bankruptcy and/or foreclosure are possibilities for her family.  She'll hear next week whether the school can afford to hire her back this year after the administrator returns (seriously) from a vacation in the Bahamas (unbelievably taking off the entire week just before the start of the school year!)  My friend waits on pins and needles while the one who determines her future sits sipping drinks in the shade of a oceanside cabana.

Meanwhile the CEOs of any of those 25 top companies are waiting to hear how many of their tens of millions will be in stock options.  They have good accountants who will make it seem like they're broke on paper, just like the ones who finagle the books before the IRS returns are filed down at the office.  They'll all be getting refunds. The weather forecast for them is always sunny.

I'm going to probably skip looking up the weather forecast altogether, I'll just end up thinking of the time I stumbled upon the business section.