FBI, IRS Raid Home of Sen. Ted Stevens 539
A while back we discussed the corruption investigation aimed at Alaska Sen. Ted "series of tubes" Stevens. A number of readers sent us word that the home of Sen. Stevens was raided earlier today by agents of the FBI and the IRS. The focus of the raid was a remodeling project at Stevens's home and the involvement of VECO, an oil company.
The same man... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hey Ted (Score:3, Informative)
Somehow, assuming he doesn't simply die of old age before this case were to work its way through the system, appeals, and all that jazz, I think they'll end up playing the health card to keep him out of prison.
Re:Taxes (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Taxes (Score:1, Informative)
No state taxes anyway. They definitely do pay federal income tax.
And it's the state that pays the citizens. It's a dividend on oil revenue, and it's not really a lot.
Re:The same man... (Score:2, Informative)
Also describing them as "bridges to nowhere" is somewhat like describing the first Transcontinental Railroad as a "railroad to nowhere". One of the bridges in question was probably a pointless waste of money, the other would have connected a city of 300,000 people and skyrocketing property prices to a large area of undeveloped land.
It may also be instructive to note that Ben Stevens (the son of Ted Stevens, and another alaskan politician) owned a (miniscule, we're talking several acres out of hundreds of thousands, but still) portion of the aforementioned undeveloped land.
>Oh, also I'm from Anchorage, not just some guy who sits around all day reading about political issues in irrelevant semi-states.
Re:The same man... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Nice Line from Stevens (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't look good for Ted.
Re:The same man... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The same man... (Score:4, Informative)
I agree that the transcontinental railroad wasn't a "railroad to nowhere". But it wasn't built 20 years after "millions of people had already moved to the west coast of the United States.". Fewer than half a million people moved to the West Coast during the emigration period from about 1840-1860.
Re:The same man... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The same man... (Score:5, Informative)
Now lets compare this to say, many other American cities. Anchorage has an "Owner-occupied housing units" rate of 60%, which is among the highest in the country (again, areaconnect.com/statistics.htm says that Tucson is 53%, Oklahoma City is close at 59%, Las Vegas is also 59%, Orlando is 40.7%, Boston is 32%, Syracuse is 40%, Dallas is 43%, Los Angeles is 38%, Manchester NH is 46%). So this tells me that people are having less of a hard time achieving home ownership in Anchorage than just about any other part of the country.
I'm not trying to flame you as I am sure many people there go through the same struggles as elsewhere, but just trying to put everything into a bit of perspective. Anchorage isn't the $40k housing market some people in the lower 48 might expect, but it seems easier to achieve personal home ownership there than most other urban cities in the country. I suspect if you start to consider suburbs, just like any other city, the numbers skew much differently.
Re:Power corrupts (Score:3, Informative)
Umm, what? I assume you are talking about the crash of '87 (I am amazed how many people have forgotten about it). So let me see, Jan 2nd, 1986 the DJIA closes at $1549.20, we have Black Monday and close at 1,738.74 on October 19th, 1987 (still over 12% above the Jan '86 close!!!). On October 30th, 1987, the DJIA closed at 1,993.53, where is your depression?! What kind of crack are you smoking? Can I please, please, please invest in this depression of yours, I would love to have a return of 29% is under 2 years! Please get your head out of the clouds and realize that you speak utter non-sense. There was a singular depression in the 20th century, there was a mild recession in the early 90s that by all economic standards barely qualifies as a recession.
Re:The same man... (Score:3, Informative)
The economic 'recovery' can be attributed to the wars and all the government contracts going out to the various companies that support it. This includes arms makers, construction, fire crews, mercenaries, and all that garbage that comes with it. And to top it off, while the economy is doing great, we've had an increasing distance between the lower and upper classes. So it's all really about perspective. Yes, as a whole, the country is doing 'great'. However, an increasing amount of the population sees nothing from it.
Re:The same man... (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Power corrupts (Score:3, Informative)
The stock market exploding is not the sign of a healthy economy. Its more the sign of a bubble than anything else. Note it also exploded in the 1920s. The anti-inflation was a result of the work of Paul Vocker and the FED, not Reganomics. Regan also caused the 2nd largest defecit spending in US history (second only to Bush II), which we're still paying interest on today. Pretty short sighted policies to spend trillions more than we had.
In an ideal world, things work like that. In the real world, what happens is spending on luxury items, higher housing costs, and general inflation. The greatest increases in world GDP have always happened when the middle class expands- when money is spread out amongst many, increasing the buying power of the general populace not the rich.
Wow you have a short memory. We had a recession after 9/11. Followed by a jobless recovery- stock prices went back up but unemployment stayed high. Then they putzed with the numbers (turning McDonalds jobs into "Manufacturing") to get rid of the evidence.