President Backs Millionaire's Tax

The press is weighing in this morning on President Obama's speech last night, in which he sought public support for his proposed overhaul of the U.S. health care system. For the first time ever, according to the New York Times, he said that he "would be willing to help pay for the plan by raising income taxes on families earning more than $1 million a year." Insisting that middle-class Americans would not shoulder the costs at the end of the day, the president said that, in turn, a surcharge on the highest-income Americans would be acceptable. According to the Wall Street Journal, the health care bill costs are estimated at about $1 trillion over a decade, and, as it stands now, the bill calls for a surtax on families earning $350,000 and up—a figure House leaders have already signaled may be too high. According to the Washington Post, Obama said that over time, the nation's health care costs should go down because of digitized medical records, less-repetitive tests, less-expensive drugs, and changes in the way doctors are paid.

On Wall Street, pay is "rocketing back" to pre-crisis proportions, according to the Washington Post. So far this year, the top six U.S. banks have set aside $74 billion to pay employees, up from $60 billion in the same time period last year. The increase has angered some in Washington, where a committee vote on a bill to increase oversight of Wall Street pay has been scheduled for Tuesday. At the press conference last night, Obama responded to a question about the pay practice. "With respect to compensation," he said, "I'd like to think that people would feel a little remorse and feel embarrassed and would not get million-dollar or multimillion-dollar bonuses."

Amazon (AMZN) announced plans yesterday to buy online footwear retailer Zappos.com. The $847 million acquisition will be the largest ever in Amazon's 14-year history, according to the Wall Street Journal. Amazon has long been a dominant force in selling books, DVDs, and electronics online but has had less luck in apparel sales. Zappos, a dot-com boom success story, had more than $1 billion in gross merchandise sales in 2008.

According to the Financial Times, Goldman Sachs (GS) has earned the distinction of becoming the first major bank to buy back warrants held by the U.S. Treasury yesterday. After nine months, Goldman is ridding itself of "the last vestige" of its participation in the federal bailout in shelling out $1.1 billion to buy back the warrants, which had been granted as part of the government's $10 billion investment of TARP funds in the bank last year. Goldman paid pack the those funds last month and, according to the article, began negotiations on the buyback price of the warrants a few weeks ago.

The federal government will assume the pension plans of bankrupt auto parts maker Delphi Corp. at a cost of $6.2 billion, reports the New York Times. According to the paper, this decision comes "after years of demanding that the assets of the company and its former corporate parent, General Motors (GMGMQ), be used instead." The deal will further burden the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which reported an overall deficit of $33.5 billion in May.

And, finally medical marijuana in California is making its way toward the commercial mainstream, reports today's Wall Street Journal. Since the Justice Department said earlier this year that federal agents should no longer target medical-pot dealers who are in compliance with state law, vendors and entrepreneurs have been emerging from the shadows. Still, investors should be cautious, the paper says: "As shops proliferate, there are even signs the nascent industry could be heading for another familiar business phenomenon: the bubble."