Bloomberg: Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households More than 80 percent of households with incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 would pay higher taxes. Among the households facing higher taxes, the average increase would be $1,635, the policy center said. While the white house web site declares victory: Raises $620 billion in revenue [...]
Repeat after me: "Do you want fries with that, sir?" I think what Obama really said was "I hope you can learn to count change." The job rate among 18-24 year-olds is the worst level since 1948; only 54% have a job. Plus, wages are down for youth workers while they have risen marginally for [...]
The RTD recently ran a series of articles about the status of the state employee pension system in Virginia. I thought the attempts at reassurance were very humorous, right along with the justification for the high salaries. Public employees: Your futures are being stolen by this crisis, just like everyone else's. There is no future [...]
Bloomberg (props yet again to Zerohedge); China makes a major move clearing the way for dropping the use of USD in international trade: Japan and China will promote direct trading of the yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for companies involved in the exchanges, the Japanese government [...]
Bloomberg: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke signaled he’s concerned Europe’s crisis will hobble a 2 1/2-year U.S. expansion that may need another boost from the central bank. The economy allegedly "grew" at about 2% this fiscal year. In the meantime, the federal government borrowed and spent the equivalent of 13% of GDP. SO if [...]
"The banks," of course, are the big, international, Congress-owning kind. Ten Minutes. A few highlights: "We criticized Japan for keeping alive zombie banks. We're pretty much doing the same in the West." "There's a grotesque misallocation of capital going on, away from the parts of the private sector that could use it, into parts, effectively, [...]
News is flying by real fast. Grab your hat, it's gonna get windy. The European Central Bank (ECB) is fighting a losing battle. It is easy to tell this is so: they are telling ever-bigger lies about their soon-to-be-really-announced, no-kidding-we-really-have-a-great-plan, bailout program-of-the-hour, ever more frequently. There is no money; the ECB has invented a massively [...]
Harrisburg, Pa, Said Filed Chapter 9 Bankruptcy -Bloomberg "Pennsylvania's cash-strapped capital city, Harrisburg, filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection late Tuesday, listing debts of $500 million and assets of $100 million, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday on its website, citing an attorney for the city counsel." The story is a perfect illustration of what happens when [...]
Precious metals "bugs" have long predicted that the final phase of the hyperinflationary depression would be a "race to the bottom." This race is a currency race, or more correctly a war, where each nation tries to boost its domestic industries by making its exports cheaper. How does it do that? By shamelessly and radically [...]
...and, of course, more taxes, because someone has to pay for all of this borrowing, you see. You debt slaves out there aren't deep enough in it yet. I can still see the tops of some of your heads. How the hell do you expect us to do a thorough asset-stripping if you still have [...]
That's the message you should see whenever they say "We're going to punt this problem until after the next election." It means they are going to do something the voters really hate, and so they hope to be able to make you forget what they did by the time another two years passes. It means [...]
Budget negotiations are reportedly closing in on a deal to cut the federal deficit and then raise the debt ceiling. Bloomberg focuses on a big number and then, later, tells you that the cuts will happen over ten years. In other words, the dealmakers are going to cut a few hundred $Billion per year from [...]
