Bits Bucket for January 27, 2012
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
Most of the proposals seem to exclude up to the poverty line. It doesn’t make any sense to tax someone who is already impoverished, or tax someone who is barely above the poverty line down below it.
Why $40K, though? Shouldn’t someone who is not in poverty pay something for the benefits that society provides them?
]]>It is for those who stopped paying in 2009, Burt just paid too long and then he didn`t want to just give it away.
“which was for sale in August for $9 million and on which foreclosure proceedings began in August, can now be had for $5 million.”
“The home has a market value of $2.4 million. Reynolds, the Emmy Award-winning actor who graduated from Palm Beach High School in 1954, bought the home in 1980 for $700,000, according to Martin County records.”
]]>Lexus far more reliable and slightly less expensive for maintenance.
]]>They are creeping back.
]]>Never did hang in the Excelsior district as I was in party mode way back then…North Beach, Upper Haight, etc., but I know Bayview and Hunter’s Point pretty well as friends lived there.
“I can’t do the Sunset or the Richmond: too much fog.”
I used to room in a nice flat in the upper Haight on Waller street, and it was often foggy there too, but nice fresh air unlike this windy dusty desert I’m doing.
]]>Transferring $50B in costs to the states, forcing them to increase state and local taxes.
I think that this actually happened under Reagan. He cut funds that are sent to state and local governments. (This was known as revenue sharing, I believe, and might have started under Nixon.) That forced those state and local governments to raise taxes. So he was able to crow about the spending and taxes that he cut, but the taxpayer didn’t benefit much as their state taxes increased.
Also, if you look at the list of “welfare” spending that you list, such as TANF and food stamps, the best way to cut spending on those programs would be to increase economic growth and create jobs.
]]>I heard they are planning to cut bases in Europe to 2.
“Crack down on Medicare/Medicaid FRAUD and put in stiff fines and Jail sentences..”
How much are you willing to pay to put more fraud controls and prosecutors in place? Do we reach a point of diminishing returns?
“we should eliminate ALL subsidies for ethanol”
Agreed. But I don’t expect it until Iowa is no longer the first caucus state.
“If the county is exceptionally “poor”, they should look to the State.”
So Mississippi is screwed.
“people are “voting” to tax the rich, because they how no stake in the system.”
A lot of people who pay substantial taxes also favor taxing the rich more. If you expect me to sacrifice my Social Security and Medicare, insurance I have faithfully paid for many years, then I expect the rich to sacrifice and pay more taxes. And if we are serious about tackling the deficit, then it will require both spending cuts and increased revenue.
I am willing to work as long as I am able and as long as someone will pay me. What do we do with people who are too decripit or who have been outsourced into a forced retirement? Do we only value people who can pay their own way?
]]>This is another version of “You gotta know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em, when to walk away and when to run”
]]>+1
But I still don’t think Romney could use Turbo Tax with his investments structured as they are.
]]>Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
Economy & Policy
Is the Fed Undermining the Recovery?
By Stephen Gandel | @stephengandel | January 26, 2012
Ben Bernanke is playing chicken with the real economy.
By most measures, the U.S. economy in the past few months seems to be improving. The unemployment rate has been falling. Manufacturing appears to be perking up. U.S. car companies are back in business. And home sales even rose in December.
Yet, on Wednesday, the U.S. central bank said it plans to keep short-term interest rates near zero until at least late 2014. That is 18 months longer than its previous promise of mid-2013. Low interest rates usually indicate the economy is weak. So a promise to keep interest rates low for another two and a half years, suggests that the Fed thinks the economy will be in pretty bad shape for, well, about another two and a half years. Or maybe not.
When Bernanke was pressed at the news conference following the Fed’s interest-rate announcement on why it chose late 2014 and not, say, 2015 or 2020 — after all, the Fed’s own prediction was that unemployment would still be at a high 7.5% in late 2014 — Bernanke didn’t have a good answer. He said the Fed’s ability to “forecast three or four years out is not very good.” But we didn’t need Bernanke to tell us that. We all know now how poor the Fed’s ability to predict the economy is. Recently released documents from Fed meetings back in 2007 show that almost none of the Fed’s policymakers thought we were headed for a recession at the time.
So why do it? Like many other things the Fed does, to help the markets. Promising low interest rates should help goose the stock and bond markets, and it did this time around as well. Shortly after the Fed made its announcement, both stocks and bonds rose. The question is whether it will have the opposite effect on the real economy.
…
If the economy is benchmarked to performance of stock markets, it is not only US but all the World Markets have performed very well this year in January. Most markets are already up 15-20% like India, China, US, Brazil etc.
–Is this real and sustainable?
–QE3 afterall may not be needed. Will the Fed still do it?
–What happens whe the RE bubble collapses in emerging economies and Greece folds down in March?
“–What happens whe the RE bubble collapses in emerging economies and Greece folds down in March?”
I’m sure near-sighted investors with deep pockets and fast computers will temporarily run for cover when those developments ensue, leaving those who head to the exits more slowly holding the bag.
Trading in the stock market reminds me of the joke where two guys decide to go camping in bear country. One guy asks the other, “What will you do if you see a bear?” Other guy replies, “I’ll run.” First guy says, “You can’t outrun a bear!” Other guy says, “I don’t need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you.”
Those who move faster in the market - earlier in, earlier out, with superior information - are the ones who get the payoffs.
ISTM that low interest rates are part of the “new normal.” That punch bowl used to be a windfall or a boost, but now it has become just another necessary condition for operation. It’s no different than the second household income, lower work benefits, second car, tax games, outsourcing manufacturing, no cash cushion, dependence on increasing productivity, more % income on necessities.
Running faster to stay in the same place…
‘ISTM that low interest rates are part of the “new normal.”’
They were also so in the late 1970s, until they were Volckerized in the 1979-1982 period.
Zirp til eternity and beyond has never been tried.
Obviously pure genious on this one.
The Fed has never been so powerful.
Gravity does not stand a chance.
Here’s a fascinating article - that Krugman responded to - which said that Japan is actually a model for the rest of the world to emulate.
Debt is borrowing from further and further in the future. I realize leaders don’t want to believe this. More debt is like giving treats to a fat dog. You’re gratified and the dog is gratified but ultimately, it’s bad for the dog. But it feels good for both parties right now.
Krugman Take on $12 Trillion Question Rings True
By William Pesek
Bloomberg
Jan 26, 2012 7:00 PM ET
Not necessarily a problem, says Eamonn Fingleton, a long- time observer who recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times headlined “The Myth of Japan’s Failure.” His argument that Japan is a model worth emulating generated a huge buzz. So much, in fact, that it prompted a rebuttal from Nobel laureate and Times columnist Paul Krugman, who’s considerably less enamored with Asia’s No. 2 economy. Fingleton then rebutted the rebuttal.
It’s important, though, to highlight where Fingleton is right. Japan is pretty close to a model society. It is an incredibly safe, clean, efficient, predictable and consistently quirky place for an expatriate to reside. Japan is reasonably egalitarian, its people have one of the highest standards of living and enjoy the longest life spans, and its cities feature the best infrastructure anywhere. On a more superficial level, Japanese cuisine arguably blows away all others.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-27/krugman-take-on-12-trillion-question-rings-true-william-pesek.html
Why should it have the opposite effect on he real economy? Most likely it will have no effect, but if anything, the promise of extended low interest rates should be positive rather than negative.
Low interest rates sure screws up income derived from the float.
I’m wondering about the health of insurance companies, pension funds, etc and their projections of eight-plus percent returns.
There are trillions of dollars involved here.
I’m wondering about the health of insurance companies, pension funds, etc and their projections of eight-plus percent returns.
Perhaps that’s why my health “insurer” has raised rates by almost 10% in less than a year.
BTW, in the course of writing letters to various elected officials, I sent one to US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ office. And a lady from her office called me on the day that her resignation was announced.
Very nice lady, wasn’t sure if she was going to keep her job, but she encouraged me to report my “insurer” to the Arizona Department of Insurance. Well, guess what I’d just done? Sent a letter to the AZ DOI, that’s what.
And, in that letter, I enclosed a copy of this LA Times article about the lovely behavior of my “insurer.” I hope it inspires officialdom in this state to bring this company to heel, because it really deserves it.
“…the promise of extended low interest rates should be positive rather than negative.”
Did you consult with any retirees living off the interest earnings on their savings before posting?
I think Bernackie finally knows we are more screwed then ever take the CC bill, Oh signed it but it didnt take effect for at least 9 months so in that time frame tens of millions of CC were renewed at variable interest rates so i the Fed raises rates it can be passed through even on the old balance, and even if you cancel the card.
Dj, if you’re paying Prime +25% on a credit card balance, you’re just plain screwed. Having Prime go up 1% doesn’t change the formula too much.
8.15% as of now….lets see if $$hu$$bank jacks me up next month at renewal time…to some nutty amount even thought i’ve never been late or over heck i dont even know my pin # for a cash advance
Globalism has to be saved. It must be implemented not matter the fallout onto US citizens.
ZE NEW VORLD ORDER!!!
A short course on Ben Bernanke, from the Joel Bowman:
In 2005, on the question of a speculative bubble building in housing as a result of cheap credit, that “these price increases largely reflect strong economic fundamentals.”
In 2007, as the market started to turn, “we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.”
In January of 2008, two months before the nationalization of GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, “They will make it through the storm.”
And in June of 2009 that, “The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.”
Yea, he does a great job forecasting. Prescience. Brilliant.
The smartest guy in the world, next to OHbamaH.
Wouldn’t a 30% flat tax pretty much solve the deficit problem in one shot, and also institute personal income tax fairness?
Maybe I should join Newt’s camp. I’m already paying 30% or so.
That said, for the record, it isn’t Romney’s fault the Congress passed a 15% capital gains tax rate into law. I don’t believe he has any problems getting his Turbo Tax software to calculate his taxes properly, unlike TTT.
Many of the super-rich pay 15% tax rate like Mitt Romney
January 27, 2012
Mitt Romney has been drawing campaign attacks for paying a tax rate lower than that of many wage earners.
By Bob Drummond
The number of super-rich Americans who pay about what Mitt Romney pays to the Internal Revenue Service has more than tripled in a decade.
Bloomberg’s BGOV Barometer shows that the Republican presidential candidate, whose tax return indicates he paid an effective rate of less than 15% on his 2010 income, has that in common with an increasing number of the nation’s 400 top earners. Of that group, 131 paid less than 15% in 2008, compared with just 38 in 1999.
Tax information Romney released Tuesday showed he paid 13.9% in federal tax on 2010 income of $21.6 million and an estimated 15.4% on $20.9 million for 2011. The former Massachusetts governor has faced campaign attacks for paying a tax rate lower than that of many wage earners because of preferential tax treatment of investment income.
Giving a glimpse into the fortunes of ultra-rich Americans, the IRS periodically releases data from the 400 taxpayers reporting the highest annual incomes in a given year. Although almost a third had tax rates below 15% in 2008, the average that year for all taxable returns was 13.6%.
In 2008, the top 400 had an average adjusted gross income of $270.5 million. It took at least $110 million of annual income just to make the list, which does not name those on it.
…
I don’t believe he has any problems getting his Turbo Tax software to calculate his taxes properly,
Does Turbo Tax have a feature to calculate offshore tax-avoidance accounts in the Caymans?
Does Turbo Tax also have a way to calculate the taxes not paid on freebies received from state and federal government?
See? The class warfare game can be played from both points of view. Doing so solves nothing. Don’t fall into the we/they trap.
freebies received from state and federal government?
Those the mega-rich get? I doubt it. How would they quantify such a thing?
Don’t fall into the we/they trap.
You’re right. I should never mention that the rich are paying the lowest tax rates in modern history at a time when everyone else is being called upon to sacrifice. And that their income has skyrocketed in the last 20 years, while everyone else’ has stagnated.
Mums the word!
The people that are winning the war never want anyone to talk about the war.
Yeah….. “dont fall into that trap” Darrell….lol
So to point out the fact that some wealthy people pay tax at a lower rate than non-wealthy people is to fall into a trap? What exactly does that mean?
“What exactly does that mean?”
That wealthy people tend to be skilled in political rhetoric?
The answer to both of you is certainly yes. I’m sure that the Turbo Tax software is “aware” that foreign dividends aren’t subject to tax in a tax deferred account like an IRA and it is also aware that certain types of income that come from state and federal programs (like S-Chip and SNAP) aren’t subject to tax and therefore don’t have to be added to AGI.
Next question.
I’m sure that the Turbo Tax software is “aware”
On the contrary, the articles I read said that such accounts are available only to the mega-rich who have tax experts advising them. I’ll find a link later today, I gotta run, but it’s out there.
I guarantee Turbo Tax has no such option (maybe they’re ‘aware’). It’s for guys who have tax lawyers working full time.
The account is through a hedge fund. Hedge funds are unregistered. You can’t sell them to people who have less than $1.5 in liquid assets. That is an SEC rule.
However, anybody can put investments in a self-directed IRA whose returns are subject to tax. And if you were willing to set up an off-shore blocker corporation to own that investment, you could protect that money by “converting” it to dividends because the money goes to the corporation and then is distributed to your IRA by that corporation as dividends. You just wouldn’t because the overhead is too much. More than worth it to the hedge funds. Means that university endowments and other large pools of money that don’t get taxed on dividends but do get taxed on some other kinds of income can invest in those other things tax free.
Look, I understand this stuff. It just happens to be one of the things I picked up along the way. The structure is similar to some older corporation/partnership structures I worked on in private practice 20 years ago. Once you know about the structure, understanding how they get out of paying taxes with it is pretty easy. Back when I did it, it was related to getting around the rules governing mutual funds.
I replied to this, but it seems to be hung up. Not sure why as it wasn’t that long, but it should show up soon.
That was $1.5 million in liquid assets.
Oh, facts are so boring!
The Daily Beast
“Rebecca Wilkins of Citizens for Tax Justice, a tax-policy think tank in Washington, D.C…notes that many of the steps that Romney has taken in his return are measures that are effectively available only to the wealthy. Few people “have enough money to justify offshore accounts, charitable trusts, or family foundations. They are expensive to do and you need an attorney and an accountant” to set them up and manage them.”
But Turbo Tax has them on their tax program for the little people? I think not.
A family foundation is just giving money to charity - a private foundation, not a public charity, but you don’t have to have your own family controlled foundation to give money to a private foundation. You just have to find one you want to give money to. Call up The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I’m sure they will be delighted to take your money. If not them, someone else will.
I don’t know what sort of charitable trust they are talking about, but have you ever heard a charity saying that you can give them a bunch of money to invest, and they will pay you a yearly return? That is a type of charitable trust. You get to take a deduction today (for the actuarial value of the money you give them, so the deduction is closer to the total amount if you are 85 than if you are 50) and they pay you money until you die and the charity keeps the rest. The charity will take care of all the paperwork if you have a reasonable number of bucks. $10K might be enough, and I bet a lot would do it for less, especially if they think you will add to it later on. The paperwork of sending you money means they are very unlikely to do it for a very small amount.
As for the offshore account, I already explained that and it isn’t really an offshore account. It is more of an account that holds shares in a foreign corporation in a tax haven country. Doing that keeps you from having to pay taxes currently on business income in an IRA. It is the same way that university endowment funds get to avoid paying taxes on their hedge fund income that would otherwise be taxable. They are called blocker corporations and the structure is a variation on what was originally done to the structure of mutual funds so they could charge rich people lower investment advisory fees than they charge you and me even though mutual funds aren’t supposed to do that.
I have never used tax prep software, but I do not doubt that there are prompts for donations to charities, including private foundations and charitable trusts. And I am pretty sure that they would ask if you had active business income in an IRA - if you use the blocker corp, you don’t so you get to say no. And anyone *could* set up a blocker corporation. You just wouldn’t because of the cost. But if you have enough money to invest in a big hedge fund and you have enough money in an IRA for them to agree, you can ask to be part of their “blocker” fund. They already have it all set up for you.
You can’t do exactly what the Romney’s do without a lot of legal help and a lot of money. But you can use the exact same tax provisions that they do with a lot less money and help - you just won’t do it as well as they do.
I still think that any investment entity that requires a lawyer and an accountant to set up and manage, is inherently beyond the parameters of Turbo Tax, which was my original point.
Only if you are setting it up yourself. If you can get someone else to set it up for you, you are fine. Actually, the private foundation thing is moot. You can do it through a donor advised fund. Bring a check to Fidelity and they will be glad to set you up.
Look, most of the stuff that was in the article are ways to reduce your estate for the estate tax. Family foundations also can be set up to give a wealthy family a way to support their causes for what is essentially an unlimited amount of time (see start and end of almost any PBS show), but they also get money out of the estate. A lot of charitable trusts are used in estate planning as well. The off shore thing, is something the hedge/private equity fund sets up for institutional investors and the people who run it also take advantage of it because they can and it is already there. Yeah, you only take advantage of it if you are rich, but then most of us don’t have enough money in our IRAs to buy a business or a meaningful share of a business. And most of us don’t have any concerns when comes to the estate tax, so we don’t need their planning tricks.
I have issues with the laws that enable the Romney’s to pay such a low percentage of their income in taxes, but the little planning stratgies they are using are the smallest part of it. The big deals are 1) long term capital gain rates and 2) carried interest being taxed as capital gains not ordinary income. That is where the focus should be. The other stuff is a distraction.
The other stuff is a distraction.
+1
But I still don’t think Romney could use Turbo Tax with his investments structured as they are.
What is better for everyone? Depression, or stable economy?
Everything we’ve been doing to ensure the rich can ger richer so that they have more money to loan to everyone else, so those everyone else can go further and further into debt, has been the road to economic collapse.
Check out the federal reserve z.1, table D3. Debt has been increasing at 3x the sustaonable rate for 30 years.
Each household’s share of total debt has increase from 2.8x median income to 6.5x median income over the last 30 years.
It is not us/them. It is unsustainable debt growth that will collapse into depression vs. reversing direction and start working our way out of debt before it collapses into depression.
“Debt has been increasing at 3x the sustaonable rate for 30 years.”
What a co-incidence. That’s right about the time de-regulation and offshoring jobs took off in a big way.
What is better for everyone? Depression, or stable economy?
Today or 20 years from now? Seems like we’ve been throwing the future under the bus for over 3 years now just to keep the lights on for today.
Why do we have to choose? We could have both.
as long as it’s legal who cares?
the fact that these provisions exist; and people like romney can take advantage of them to reduce their effective tax rate does not mean there is a problem with romney; but with our tax code as a whole.
mass reformation is required. the FIRE econonmy should die; and the provisions in the code that were implemeneted to promote it should be dismantled in favor of a production based economy.
“We/they” trap? Are you kidding?
Tell me you’re kidding.
There are MOUNTAINS of data that PROVE it is “we/they”.
There are only 2 other countries with incomes gaps as large as ours. Mexico and Turkey. (this may have changed since I last say the data)
Can’t say I really admire either of those countries.
“the average that year for all taxable returns was 13.6%.”
Is he saying that the rich actually don’t pay less taxes than the average peeps?
Gosh! That would make great Talking Point!
The average American pays a slightly lower federal tax rate than the mega-rich (until you calculate in FICA, Medicare, etc, but parentheses never make it to the Talking Point stage).
Let’s go with it! It’s just dumb enough to work perfectly!
Then to be clear, your issue is that high earners do not pay Social Security Insurance premiums above the max. I’m not saying this is a bad issue, but focusing in does change the conversation.
Not too many years ago I didn’t pay above the max when it was in the $50K range, so I could identify with that issue.
To be clear, my issue is that the mega-wealthy pay taxes at lower rates than most everybody else.
People who pick out one little piece of data (’hey, this mega-wealthy guy is paying about 1% more federal income tax rates than Joe6pack’) while ignoring such things as SS, Medicare, state and local income taxes (all of which we’ve talked about repeatedly here), and ignoring the fact that you’re comparing someone with an 8-figure income to someone with a 5-figure income and saying, ‘hey they’re pretty close in tax rates after all’- either doesn’t get it or doesn’t want to get it. Because it ain’t that complicated.
Perhaps you’re unclear about this point: I’m not saying the mega-wealthy should pay the same as Joe6pack, I’m saying they should pay higher rates. Shocking? It’s only done in pretty much every civilized country in the world, and was done in the US back when we had a much more stable middle class, and a much stronger economy.
We ditched it in favor of supply-side economics, and here we are at the end of the experiment. How do you think it went?
It is hard to have a conversation with someone who is automatically dismissive.
I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, bro. Sometimes I forget how sensitive you are.
OK, I tend to recover.
This year’s run of applejack is quite excellent, that is a consolation.
Regarding the rich bastards, they are going to be falling hard in an asset deflation. Difficult to tax losses. Windows of opportunity.
Let’s try it:
48% of households don’t pay any federal (income) tax.
The rich Americans are the tob creators (in China, India and many other places that are not America).
A flat tax would be great for (rich) America(ns while totally screwing the poor and in reality, would likely plung us into depresssion as the poor are unable to keep paying on their debt).
Obama has (followed Republican economic policies, which has) added $3.8T to the national debt in the last 3 years (maintaining the trajectory Bush Jr. put us on when he added $1.3T to the national debt in his final year).
The housing bubble was the fault of the (Republicans that accelerated housing programs in the 2000s, even though house prices were record high and going ballistic that the) Democrats housing programs started in the 1970s ( when house prices were depressed).
Obama has been a miserable failure (and is still doing better than a Republican alternative would have done).
(The investor class that has won the) Class War (think that a new round of class warfare) is bad for (rich) America.
Hey, yeah…. You are right. The stuff in the parans never makes it into the sound bite.
Dude, you’re out of date. You forgot the newest talking point:
Rich people get to pay 15% on their taxes as a reward because the money they invested was already taxed once (as was my food and Polly’s law school, but we don’t get to pay 15%).
Except that your food was taxed thrice.
LOL- Good parentheses, Darrell.
What an excellent post, Darrell. Thank you.
Poor pay less. Rich pay less.
It is the upper middle-class, paying 25% marginal rate and 15.6% payroll that pay the most on each additional $ of income.
I earn an extra $, government takes 45-50% of it.
bingo!
aka…the forgotten man.
the political turmoil is these two “houses” battling to maintain the status quo.
Don’t forget the renters.
What differnce does it make how much tax collections come up short? Can’t the Gov just borrow (print) more? What’s the big deal?
Isn’t this the message from the whole lesson?
We are going to have to spend our way out of this “crisis”.
Write it 200 times on the blackboard.
heard some dem douche talking head say the deficit doesn’t matter on the TV the other day.
i was praying for the follow-up…”then why do you ever need to raise taxes on anyone (rich or poor) if you can just borrow indefinately?”
no such luck.
The patient has a gun shot wound casuing blood to drain out (called trade imbalances.. international trade deficits and widening wealth disparity).
We keep pumping blood in (new money creation offset by unsustainable debt growth) to keep the patient alive.
We’re doing NOTHING to stop the bleeding.
The arguement is stuck between “keep pumping in the blood” or “let the patient die”.
NO ONE is seriously taking about directly attacking the woulds to stop the bleeding. The bleeding is someone’s profit, they have spent 50 years convincing it is good, and they are making sure the conversation about stiopping the bleeding doesn’t happen.
heard some dem douche talking head say the deficit doesn’t matter
He might have been quoting a Republican from back when they were in charge.
He might be quoting the same voice of authority that the Republican quoted earlier. Republicans and Democrats both know who’s in charge. It’s their loyal shills who do not.
He might have been quoting a Republican from back when they were in charge.
+1 Stockman has since confessed for his sins.
so which douche do you vote for?
Not including the payroll tax.
Let’s be fair to Romney and include his payroll tax payments as a percent of income, compared with everyone else.
Oh, but that’s an insurance payment, not a tax, and it will provide substantial benefits in old age! Cough.
Romney agrees that benefits should be slashed, but only for those 54 and younger, since they are the onces who paid the higher post 1983 payroll rates throughout their careers.
The beauty of suggesting that benefits be reduced for those < 54 is that it’s a solution which will not be implimented for over a decade. It’s what the people want; no pain until way later.
“Oh, but that’s an insurance payment, not a tax, and it will provide substantial benefits in old age! Cough.”
this argument worked to get it passed.
“Wouldn’t a 30% flat tax pretty much solve the deficit problem in one shot”
A 30% flat tax would take hundreds of billions of dollars out of the hands of people that actually spend it. Could you imagine someone making $15K a year minimum wage suddenly paying $5K of that to the government?
Are we getting rid of IETC and Per Child credits? Or making them 4x as big?
And, how does a flat tax coax the people with money to spend it.
One person’s income is another person’s spending.
Raise taxes on the poor, the income of the rich goes away.
One person’s money is another person’s debt. If the person with the money will not spend it, then the person with the debt can not possibly get the money. If they can’t get the money, the detb will default into depression.
Flat tax is the EXACT opposite of what we need.
We need to roll back payroll taxes to under 5%. We need a steep income tax with a 90%+ top marginal rate, with lots and lots of deductions for spending money.
The goal is not to take from the rich and handout to the poor for nothing. The goal is to get the people with money to spend it, employing people who need money in gainful employment.
We need to get more money into the hands of the people with debt, via WORK, by using a steep income tax code with lots of deductions.
This is the only way to avoid cascade debt default into depression.
Almost all flat tax proposals include fairly huge exemptions for the first $x of income. That is why the realistic ones have very high percentages. You exempt the first $40K or $50K of income so that the people who would otherwise get the EITC and other credits targeted to the low income don’t have to pay anything.
My friends who get the EITC “use” most of it to offset their FICA obligation so that they don’t have to pay for that out of pocket. Given how broke they are, I don’t see how they could come up with the quarterly payments. Especially since they don’t have a bank account.
That’s right Polly. I’m all for a flat tax. Pick your percentage, include all earned and unearned income and exclude the first $40k of earnings.Done.
Now everyone pandering for a flat tax just went silence.
Why is that?
Including getting rid of payroll taxes?
exclude the first $40k of earnings.
Most of the proposals seem to exclude up to the poverty line. It doesn’t make any sense to tax someone who is already impoverished, or tax someone who is barely above the poverty line down below it.
Why $40K, though? Shouldn’t someone who is not in poverty pay something for the benefits that society provides them?
Almost all flat tax proposals include fairly huge exemptions for the first $x of income. That is why the realistic ones have very high percentages. You exempt the first $40K or $50K of income…
A tax system like that would not actually be a flat tax, If you exempt the first $40,000, a family with an $80,000 income would pay twice as much tax as a family with a $60,000 income. So it would be a pretty progressive tax for most taxpayers.
Truly Amazing. I’ve just read more than a dozen posts about ways to re-arrange the “tax structure” to be more “fair”.
The Ohbamah delusion.
Not a single post suggested we stop spending. And of course, darryl the Keynesian thinks money grows on trees and the solution to all our problems is to just pass it around. I guess all goods and services grow on tree, too. Savings is bad, because you are withholding ’spending’ and thereby depriving others of “income”. Insane.
Individuals change their preferences to buy/hold/sell depending on circumstances and should be free to do so. It’s what controls prices when the government gets out of the way.
But that is another story.
My problem with the whole discussion is that the GOVERNMENT is WAY TOO BIG, and needs to be cut back.
Kill the Department of “education”. Kill the Dept. of Energy. Eliminate all the CZARS from the gangster government.
CUT the military budget by 20%, just for starters.
Close bases in Germany, England, France and everywhere else we think we need to have “influence”.
Crack down on Medicare/Medicaid FRAUD and put in stiff fines and Jail sentences..
We could FIX the budget, overnight. It’s not about taxes, it’s about SPENDING. On the flip side, if you are a “government contractor”, which are the people who got most of OHbamaH’s stimulus funds (aka graft), then any proposal to stop the money flows is ‘bad’.
oh, yea, we should eliminate ALL subsidies for ethanol, and other government supports for bad investments.
We could fix the budget problems immediately, without a single change in the tax rates.
I would favor a flat tax, graduated for lower incomes, but not $40,000 of tax-free money. EVERYONE should PAY taxes. Then everyone has a stake in what the government does with their money. Is it now stands, people are “voting” to tax the rich, because they how no stake in the system. If they burden was on their backs, they would think more like me…..cut SPENDING.
oh, yea, all federal supports for schools and ‘education’….Gone.
Each county should decide how to spend the local citizens money. If the county is exceptionally “poor”, they should look to the State.
I think RON PAUL is the only candidate that even approaches a reasonable platform of what America should be doing with its money.
Here you go Diogenes….
Stop spending money you/we do not have!
I didn’t say it was a “real” flat tax. I said that most of the proposals come out that way, at least they do once someone points out to the person who thinks we can get away with a “real” flat tax of 17% or thereabouts that it would knock some huge number of people into destitution. Then they say to exempt some amount of basic “I can barely get by, but I’m trying” income. At that point the rate on the tax has to go way up. Then they give up and go home.
By the way, the tax simplification benefits of the flat rates in a flat tax are trivial. Most people read their tax amount off a table. The only simplification benefit is in eliminating deductions and credits. That saves someone like me about 20 minutes and my friends an hour or two. The real complexity in the tax code is figuring out how much income you have. Not hard for employees. Harder for people who are dealing with capital gains. Much harder for people running a small business. Flat taxes don’t held make calculating capital gains or the profits from a small business easier.
The devil is in the details. Most people I know who tout a flat tax never seem to take into account all the exemptions and deductions and exclusions they take for granted.
I was just pointing out that the large exemption would make the “flat” tax nice and progressive for most taxpayers. I thought that that was an interesting point. I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t understand that.
“Close bases in Germany, England, France and everywhere else we think we need to have “influence”.”
I heard they are planning to cut bases in Europe to 2.
“Crack down on Medicare/Medicaid FRAUD and put in stiff fines and Jail sentences..”
How much are you willing to pay to put more fraud controls and prosecutors in place? Do we reach a point of diminishing returns?
“we should eliminate ALL subsidies for ethanol”
Agreed. But I don’t expect it until Iowa is no longer the first caucus state.
“If the county is exceptionally “poor”, they should look to the State.”
So Mississippi is screwed.
“people are “voting” to tax the rich, because they how no stake in the system.”
A lot of people who pay substantial taxes also favor taxing the rich more. If you expect me to sacrifice my Social Security and Medicare, insurance I have faithfully paid for many years, then I expect the rich to sacrifice and pay more taxes. And if we are serious about tackling the deficit, then it will require both spending cuts and increased revenue.
I am willing to work as long as I am able and as long as someone will pay me. What do we do with people who are too decripit or who have been outsourced into a forced retirement? Do we only value people who can pay their own way?
Almost all flat tax proposals I’ve seen also EXEMPT capital gains from the tax. Now that’s fair.
Well, that horse has left the barn. Do you think that after this little kerfuffle anyone could be taken seriously if they actually wanted to implement a flat tax that would put Mitt Romney’s effective tax rate down to less than 1% (just the tax on his speaking fees and maybe some interest and dividends)?
The reporters are getting trained. We have to make sure they learn what they need to know and understand that people care enough to follow a complex story.
There is this dillusion that spending less that you earn is virtue, while spending more than you earn should be cursed.
We need to flip this around.
If you have big money(like more than the average person will earn in a lifetime… (like $2 million), and won’t spend it, then you are the scurge of the economy. It is your fault that the people with debt can’t repay thier debts.
If you are in debt, yes, stop going further into debt… AS SOON as the people with money start spending it so that you can survive without going further into debt.
People who borrow to buy what they cannot afford are the scourge of the economy. They bid up the price of houses and other things beyond what a free person can afford.
And without them we would not have gotten out of the tech wreck recession.
Politburo better than polls? Sounds like the perfect opportunity for the Kochtopi to strengthen their financial stranglehold on American politics.
BTW, is Glenn (”Give it your best shot“) Hubbard more like Hugo Chavez, or Kim Jong Un?
Smoke gets in Mitt’s guise
By Michael Graham
Friday, January 27, 2012 - Updated 4 hours ago
Who’s Mitt Romney hiring as his top advisers — Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong Un?
According to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, a “top Romney adviser” says that if Mitt loses Florida on Tuesday, “we’re going to have to try to reinvent the smoke-filled room which has been democratized by all these primaries and come up with someone as an alternative to Newt Gingrich.”
Finally — a Republican campaigning against the scourge of democracy! First we’ll go back to the good old days of the “smoke-filled room,” then we’ll bring back Prohibition and get rid of women’s suffrage, too!
Personally I can’t think of a better way to be perceived as an entitled elitist than to have your supporters announce that, unless you win, the voting shouldn’t count. And it’s not just Romney’s team.
Establishment Republicans are in “full panic mode,” as Newt called it yesterday, filling the press with hopeful speculation about a “brokered convention.” That’s when no candidate has won a majority of delegates at the ballot box and the GOP insiders get to pick who they want.
It’s the perfect outcome for folks who prefer a Politburo over a polling place.
…
The GOP wants us all to go back to the 19th century.
Hang ‘em high, Eric!
I’m holding out hope that this news represents a mere warmup to the exercise that will ensue once Obama’s second term is underway.
The American voter’s anger is palpable. Being the skilled politician that he is, Obama seems quite likely to tap into this populist sentiment and, with an eye towards his legacy, respond to it with campaign pledges to restore a Rule of Law in the financial sector.
The Wild, Wild West era on Wall Street was fun while it lasted, but save for denial, IT’S OVER.
Got popcorn?
New Housing Task Force Will Zero In on Wall St.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, will lead the task force in its investigation of banks and other firms.
By EDWARD WYATT and SHAILA DEWAN
Published: January 25, 2012
After failing to produce any major prosecutions stemming from the housing crisis, an expanded federal task force is planning a new tack, cracking down on financial firms suspected of improperly bundling home loans into securities for investors, officials said Wednesday.
The Obama administration tried to instill confidence in the effort by installing Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York state attorney general who is viewed by liberal groups as a crusader against big banks, as one of the leaders of a new unit within the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. But skeptics still doubted the sincerity of the new effort.
The unit, announced by President Obama in the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, while Mr. Schneiderman looked on from a prime seat behind Michelle Obama, is the latest in a string of efforts undertaken by the administration over the last three years to prosecute crimes related to the financial crisis, bolster the housing market and help homeowners who are suffering under unaffordable mortgages.
Many of those efforts have met with limited success. The Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, created in late 2009, seemed little more than “a press release collection agency” being propped up by the Justice Department “to collect examples of investigations or prosecutions that would otherwise have been brought,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, at a Senate oversight hearing in June.
Officials said the new effort would be more focused than previous interagency programs to tackle the mortgage crisis.
“There have been investigations going on in various states and branches of the federal government,” Mr. Schneiderman said, speaking to reporters in Washington. “We’re now making a concerted effort to pull everything together and move forward aggressively to address these issues.”
…
While watching Eric Holder awakened from his judicial slumber would be a pleasant sight for me it would still be………..
Too little, too late. And I will believe it when I see it. The Chicago handbook doesn’t include a section on cutting marionette strings.
While watching Eric Holder awakened from his judicial slumber would be a pleasant sight for me it would still be…
It’s the sort of thing that this soon-to-be deejay wants to dedicate a song to. How about that massive alarm clock ringing on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”?
Y’know, ring, clang, bang, then “Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.”
THAT ringing.
The only one who was serious about cleaning up wall street…Elliot Spitzer?
How are these investigations going to affect house prices? And when?
I’m imagining results to be the same as with all previous theatrical perfomances; to delay, distract, postpone and provide further cover for the looting.
So long as the fraud investigation and charges are applied to borrower and lender alike.
Providing materially false information on a mortgage app is FRAUD.
Now is Mr. Holder ready?
Now is Mr. Holder ready?…..
You’re kidding, right?
The entire OHbamah administration is a shake-down organization.
Is there money to be skimmed from the potential candidates for ‘prosecution’? You know, the way the SEC has been working for the past 15 years……take a fine, call it day.
Homeowners don’t have any money to skim, we could only put them in jail for fraud, which is what should have happened. So, don’t expect any prosecutions there.
The Banks technically have NO money (they are bankrupt), except that printed up and given to them by the FED, so in reality, if he tries to shake them down, it’s really our money that will be confiscated.
The advantage is to such a plan is that the Administration will have more control over where the graft gets directed. So, it’s possible the AG will go after some banks and get them to send money to the FED’s with the same “no admission of wrong-doing” walk-away.
So, looking at it in that respect, it works to BArrack’s advantage to take this money being bargained by the State’s back to the Fed where he can control who gets it….Friends of Barry.
Take a valium dio.
They have been.
Many flippers and their front men have already been convicted.
The key word is “materially.” If the company was not checking the information at all, there is a good argument to make at trial that they didn’t really care about that information. And fraud requires that the person who received the information actually relied on it.
Lawyer: Really? You depended on this information to make your loan decision and you didn’t bother to have the borrower bring in even one year of tax returns? Why? My client was talking to your representative. Why didn’t you ask him to show some documentation of his income? Did you rely on what was on the application without any supporting evidence? And my client says that his original application included his real income. It was your representative that ripped that up in front of him and filled in a new number. You relied on a number invented by YOUR employee? That employee has also testified and said that changing the numbers was required by his supervisor and that employees that didn’t do it were regularly fired. His supervisor confirms that increasing salary numbers and changing job descriptions was company policy. Did you really RELY on numbers like that?
Case over. No fraud because the bank didn’t rely on the information to make the loan. They just made up the information to give to the investment banks that bought the loans because they had contracts that specified some number of the loans in the packages they sold be at particular debt to (undocumented) income ratios.
Then let’s take tack number two. Ignorance is no excuse.
Failure to due diligence when making contractual obligations falls under malfeasance. While not as serious, it is still a crime. I guess this would fall under civil rather than criminal proceedings, however, i am not sure.
I know Real estate brokers and agents can be prosecuted for failing to protect their clients or looking after their best interests. Not reading a financial statement or relying on material facts that could easily be proved otherwise would not be considered a sufficient excuse.
Show me a statute or a line of common law cases (state or federal) and I’ll take a look at it. A quick google search shows that malfeasance is not well defined and it probably isn’t a defined crime much of anywhere. If it is a civil issue, you have to find someone to make the complaint. Prosecutors don’t cover it. If the investment bank is aware that it is just as much to blame for the bad loans and a very, very unsympathetic plaintiff, why would they go to court? Besides, a lot of the loan originators are already out of business.
Brokers have a relationship with their clients that creates some level of obligation. I’m not familiar with the specific rules, but I’d bet that it is all about not telling some one that they place is only worth $x and getting a buddy to buy it for $x and then splitting the profits with the buddy when they turn around and sell it for $2x a week later. I’d bet that they have ZERO obligation to tell anyone (especially someone they don’t work for) that they can’t afford what they want to spend.
A banker’s obligation is also to his employer. He has an obligation not to take on loans that will not make money for the bank. But these loans were sold a few months down the road. A banker has no obligation not to lend you more money than you can afford under law. Not that I have ever seen. At least not in the US. Maybe other countries with better consumer protections have other rules. Here, most of what they are required to do is tell you what the payment are and they don’t even do that very well.
That is why so many people got into trouble. For several generations (as long as many of us have had family in the US at all) a banker would never lend you money you couldn’t afford to pay back. Never. Yeah, a few people defaulted because the plant closed or they fell off a roof and the wife couldn’t earn enough to replace his salary, but not many. But the idea that a bank would lend you more than you could afford was unthinkable. Most people missed the paradigm change. My dad did and he has an MBA. He also hasn’t applied for a morgage in over 35 years.
But the idea that a bank would lend you more than you could afford was unthinkable. Most people missed the paradigm change. My dad did and he has an MBA. He also hasn’t applied for a morgage in over 35 years.
But certainly your father reads the periodicals, and being educated he reads between the lines, so I trust the paradigm change didn’t come as a total surprise.
He had no idea. He told me that a bank would never lend me more than I could afford to pay back because banks make their money off making good loans. I think it was even before I had found this blog, but I had found a few telling articles in the New York times and was familiar with the lingo of asset backed securities from my time working at a big NYC law firm. Mid-2006 or so.
What? We can’t get a 125% no-down loan like before?
They are creeping back.
“…burned investors are likely to demand a higher premium in the future.”
What does the writer not grasp about the Fed’s potential to use QE3 to step in as buyer of last resort in the GSE/FHA debt markets?
REAL ESTATE: Columnist calls Obama housing policy a bombshell
The Press Enterprise
Published: 25 January 2012 04:28 PM
In swift response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, James Pethokoukis, a columnist for American Enterprise, characterized Obama’s housing proposal as “a housing policy bombshell” for the real estate and banking industries.
The president was sketchy about the details but talked about giving every responsible homeowner an opportunity to refinance at today’s historically low interest rates. He said on average each homeowner who refinances would save about $3,000 a year that could be spent on other needs, thus bolstering the economy. A small fee on the largest financial institutions was also proposed to ensure the mass refinancing plan would not add to the deficit and would give banks that have been rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.
Pethokoukis quoted analyst Jaret Seiberg of Guggenheim Washington Research Group as saying such a mass refinancing could harm holders of mortgage-backed securities when prepayment of mortgages accelerate. Also, he said, the move could permanently drive housing financing costs higher because burned investors are likely to demand a higher premium in the future.
…
Aren’t these “investors” mostly the US Taxpayer going forward? If we are forced to bleed more now, what position are we going to be in to demand better terms later?
‘Aren’t these “investors” mostly the US Taxpayer going forward?’
Of course. But so long as the Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chairman both approve of funneling tax dollars willy-nilly into MBS, there should be no problem…
“The move could permanently drive housing financing costs higher because burned investors are likely to demand a higher premium in the future.”
Does that mean younger generations will pay a higher monthly cost? Or prices will fall?
such a mass refinancing could harm holders of mortgage-backed securities when prepayment of mortgages accelerate.”
so what this is the risk of callable bonds
“Huh? I’m guessing the ‘not’ shouldn’t be in there, but then you’re saying the bank contacted them to tell them they’d lost the mortgage? Really? In the MERSea? That’s kind of…shocking. I don’t think I understand”
Not = note (bad place for a typo)
Yes, according to my colleague, the bank reached out to the homeloaner after he stopped paying. It makes no sense to me either. Keep in mind that I can’t really ask clarifying questions since in my current role I am this woman’s quasi-supervisor. Teachers get worried/get weirded out if you’re admin. and you start asking personal questions. I love BS’ing with people, but I can’t really do that anymore.
It was clear to me three things:
1. The guy stopped paying
2. In the process of not paying, the bank made it clear to him that they couldn’t produce the note
3. With that information, he quickly filled the house with renters and now has cash flow on a house he is not paying the mortgage on
I’m guessing that 2012/13 will be the years that the wheels really come off this sucker — the trick is to hold on to the job during all of this.
BTW, this story has been quite the conversation starter down here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/18/2596300/in-miami-story-of-profits-and.html
the bank made it clear to him that they couldn’t produce the note
Well. MERSy, MERSy me. Some of my wilder predictions are coming true.
Muggy:
Lets not forget Bain owned Cear Channel who just fired 900 dj’s production people and elimination most local radio, so Ryan Seacrest can be heard on every pig farm in America…..
Will the media expose its own?
Are dj’s still relevant? I thought everyone was their own dj these days.
Only because no one has a choice any longer.
Clear Channel single-handedly destroyed radio.
Folks, I’m here to tell you that deejays still spin records. And CDs. And even tape. On terrestrial radio stations. Right here in the US of A.
And there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that doesn’t involve music. As in, taking a transmitter reading while cuing up the next song while taking a telephone request from a listener.
3. With that information, he quickly filled the house with renters and now has cash flow on a house he is not paying the mortgage on
About as much character as a thief, or teacher, in these strange times.
National debt limit now set at $16.4 T.
The sky’s the limit!!
Yes we can!
How’s that hope and change working out for you now kidz?
Convince me McSame would have done any better.
Convince me McSame would have done any better.
No one said McCain was a better choice. What a false dichotomy…
How was it a “false” dichotomy? There were effectively two mutually exclusive choices on the ballot, which is the very definition of dichotomy.
And I’m tired of the BS about libertarians and other third parties. After Perot ruined the Republicans and Nader ruined the Democrats, there will always effectively two choices on the ballot.
After Perot ruined the Republicans and Nader ruined the Democrats
Nobody ruined anybody’s chances. You have to earn your votes.
“National debt limit now set at $16.4 T.”
Light years might sound better.
light year - the distance that light travels in 1 year; 5.88 trillion miles
National debt limit now set at 2.789 ly
“The sky’s the limit!!”
Will not work though.
Geez the economy is so bad spammers dont even respond to my resume on CL anymore
you can make $100K with a fortune 500 company with no experience
I have notice that AFLAC is actually paying the $25 fee to post theirs in the “job” section
I have notice that AFLAC is actually paying the $25 fee to post theirs in the “job” section
Would that be the commission-only “job” of selling their policies?
Specifically, what would your solution to soaring debt be?
One person’s money is another’s debt. The soaring national debt is what is funding international trade deficits and corporate profits.
$16T?
What a coincidence.
That’s almost exactly the amount we lent to the Bankstas.
Burt Reynolds’ drops price for Hobe Sound ‘Valhalla’ home by $4 million
By Bill DiPaolo
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 6:22 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012
HOBE SOUND — The price to live in Valhalla has dropped by $4 million.
The waterfront five-bedroom home of actor Burt Reynolds, which was for sale in August for $9 million and on which foreclosure proceedings began in August, can now be had for $5 million.
About 125 brokers and customers attended a showing 10 days ago after word went out that the price dropped at the gated home, said Robert Kairalla, owner/broker for JIC Realty, the Jupiter firm selling the home.
“It’s a sign of the times,” Kairalla said. “(Reynolds) is very motivated to sell.”
Foreclosure proceedings were filed in August after BankAtlantic and Great Eastern Mortgage filed papers alleging Reynolds has not made a mortgage payment since Sept. 1, 2010.
“The lawyers are working that out,” said Kairalla.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/ - 94k -
So many rock stars, movie stars and sports stars getting hammered with their houses.
There should be a blog on that or something…
Lifestyles of the Rich yet Broke!
(I kind of like “Brokeback Cribs”)
“The home has a market value of $2.4 million. Reynolds, the Emmy Award-winning actor who graduated from Palm Beach High School in 1954, bought the home in 1980 for $700,000, according to Martin County records.”
Burt HELOC Reynolds?
The lifestyles of the Rich & Famous don’t come cheap. And if you haven’t had a gig in years … maybe he could do another Smokey and the Bandit movie, this time in a Camaro that would completely smoke that lame-o late 70’s Trans Am he drove in the original movies.
The screaming chicken rules all.
I saw somewhere an article about a body shop that takes new Camaros and makes them look like Firebirds (60’s vintage), by changing the front and rear ends.. The cost was ridiculous, of course.
“…which was for sale in August for $9 million and on which foreclosure proceedings began in August, can now be had for $5 million.”
Nice haircut, Burt…
Snort. It was a $4M toupee - it just flopped off!
This story, and similar ones about yesterday’s Hollywood stars getting foreclosed out of their homes, reminds me of the part in the movie The Artist when the silent film star loses everything in the Great Crash.
BTW, I highly recommend this movie to anyone who has not seen it. My wife has a penchant for picking future Academy Award winners in the movies we go see; this one is among the best we have watched in years, IMO.
thanks, sounds interesting.
Foreclosure proceedings were filed in August after BankAtlantic and Great Eastern Mortgage filed papers alleging Reynolds has not made a mortgage payment since Sept. 1, 2010.
So they’re kicking Burt out after just over a year? I thought 3 years was the standard.
“So they’re kicking Burt out after just over a year? I thought 3 years was the standard.”
It is for those who stopped paying in 2009, Burt just paid too long and then he didn`t want to just give it away.
“which was for sale in August for $9 million and on which foreclosure proceedings began in August, can now be had for $5 million.”
“The home has a market value of $2.4 million. Reynolds, the Emmy Award-winning actor who graduated from Palm Beach High School in 1954, bought the home in 1980 for $700,000, according to Martin County records.”
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=201106
The youthful Obama Zombies of ‘08 are belatedly realizing they are the victims of the greatest intergenerational swindle ever. No wonder Ron Paul is a rock star to high school and college students.
The kids do get it….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnDyXrSwJnA
I felt a slight surge of optimism when I heard that Paul won the age 18-25 vote in the S.C. primary.
I felt a slight surge of optimism when I heard that Paul won the age 18-25 vote in the S.C. primary.
I went to a RP fundraising dinner in San Antonio back in 2007. I was blown away by the knowledge and intelligence of the college kid seated next to me. He knew the history and date of each constitutional amendment. A very energetic and freedom-loving gent.
It’s great to know there are many more like him out there.
My fear is that for every kid like that there are 10 who are not, kids who know all about the Kardashians, American Idol, etc.
My fear is that for every kid like that there are 10 who are not, kids who know all about the Kardashians, American Idol, etc.
Yeah but those 10 will never bother to vote.
Yeah but those 10 will never bother to vote.
Even if only two do vote, the informed hipsters will be neutralized.
Because they do not understand that Paul policies would put us into depression. That we have tried all of the things he wants, many time, long ago, and they failed ugly.
4 years ago I was a Ron Paul supporter. However, since then I’ve taken a big step back from philosophical arguments (should) and taken a long hard look at pragmatic outcomes (would).
We “should” stop spending so much. With our current debt load, tax structure and free trade based trade deficits, IF we stop spending, we’re in depression.
I really do not want a depression.
Will I vote Ron Paul again? Sure. But only as a protest against the front runners. Nothing to lose since he has no chance of really winning AZ primary.
Because they do not understand that Paul policies would put us into depression
I think they get that you have to take the medicine. Then again how worse could it get for the 18-25 age group? More than 1/3rd already unemployed and quite a few already living with Parents or on foods tamps. Not sure the effect of depression would be any different for the ones already suffering.
Not sure the effect of depression would be any different for the ones already suffering.
The foodstamps and unemployment payments go away?
Living with your parents only works when your parents have a place to live.
Hmmm… When their parents (who are feeding them) lose their jobs and their houses (where they are living…).
I’m thinking it could get a lot worse.
Oh yes! Take away the safety net and people will finally understand just how bad things are and how much worse they still can be.
Oh yes! Take away the safety net and people will finally understand just how bad things are and how much worse they still can be.
Preheat the oven to 325°…?
If there are young people who think a depression wouldn’t be much worse than the economy of 2012, they need to head down to their local library. There are probably plenty of books detailing the misery of that period. It’s not a coincidence that the term is used for two separate phenomena - one economic and one psychological.
+1, yep, gotta spend your way out of the Bush Depression, we learned this from history. Surprising people don’t understand this or they want the depression and just get it over with.
Nice little piece of propaganda by the Lieing Piece of Crud Republican party.
Blame 30 years of exploding debt, on 3 years of Obama.
I used to be proud to call myself a Republican. Then they started doing stuff like this.
Find 6 young people, write a bunch of lies, polish the turd, and pass it off as anything but a typical political hack job.
Not one reason to vote for a Republican, just a bunch of “how suck it is”, while not mentioning this is pretty much the result of 30 years of Republican economic philosophy.
Didn’t the guy who wrote 2 Santa Claus memo die some time ago?
…and then there’s this:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/28/us-usa-democrats-offshore-idUSTRE68R40I20100928
The Establishment GOP is every bit as guilty as the Democrats for our unsustainable debt and credit situation. Putting two wars on the national credit card didn’t help. Young people realizing they’ve been sold down the river doesn’t equate to supporting an equally corrupt and Wall Street-beholden GOP.
obama - one of the worst presdient in history.
He is going to lose bad - you might as well get used to it.
FYI - Republicans first took control of congress in 1995 in the our modern era. They lost it in 2006.
The dems controlled the white house, the congress (by a huge margin) and a filibuster proof senate for 2 years in 2008.
The PASSED everything they wanted.
We got $5 Trillion more in debt, another war and 11% unemployment.
Yep - all the republicans fault for the last 30 years…
obama - one of the worst presdient in history.<i/N
Yeah, he sucks.
He is going to lose bad - you might as well get used to it
If the GOP could present a viable candidate I might agree. But fundies won’t vote for Romney and Gingrich is even less electable. And if Ron Paul runs as an independent, taking votes from the GOP candidate, Obama will win in a landslide.
I think that Obama’s going to beat GOP Candidate X the way Nixon won in 1972, Reagan won in 1984, and Clinton won in 1996. Each winner was an incumbent running against a weak opponent.
It’ll either be that or 1980 (or 1992) if it goes the other way.
The PASSED everything they wanted.
Then why do we not have single payer heath insurance?
You are being disingenous about this. The Senate was NEVER filibuster proof. Ergo they did NOT pass everything they wanted.
Then why do we not have single payer heath insurance?
Or, for that matter, a public option? Remember how Obama kept saying that we needed one to keep the insurance companies honest? Well, I sure do.
If that much-vaunted public option existed, I’d drop my “health insurance” like a hot rock.
bababa,
You’re more deluded than I ever imagined. You’re going to be shocked my friend. Shocked.
PS-Everyone save this thread.
“filibuster proof senate for 2 years in 2008″
Keep repeating the lie. You know you are stretching the truth. Filibuster proof was significantly less than 2 years and only lasted from the time Franken was sworn in (7/7/2009) until Brown filled Kennedy’s vacant seat (2/4/2010) - less than a year. Between Kenedy’s death on 8/25/2009 and Kirk’s appointment on 9/24/2009, the filibuster-proof majority temporarily disappeared.
And this “filibuster-proof” majority includes 2 independents that caucus with the Democrats.
But you knew all of that.
They passed single payer healthcare?
Another green-tech stimulus recipient files for bankruptcy
posted at 3:40 pm on January 26, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
In last year’s State of the Union speech, Barack Obama hailed the great investment he made with taxpayer dollars in the manufacturer of advanced solar panels, only to have Solyndra go down the tubes — taking more than a half-billion dollars in taxpayer money with it. In this year’s SOTU speech, Obama bragged about having sunk money into “partnership” with the private sector to become a world leader in car-battery sector. Right on time, that “partner” filed for bankruptcy, too:
An Indiana-based energy storage company that received a $118.5 million stimulus-law grant from the Energy Department filed for bankruptcy Thursday.
Ener1 is asking a federal bankruptcy court in New York to approve a plan to restructure the company’s debt and infuse $81 million in equity funding. …
The Energy Department, in 2009, approved a $118.5 million stimulus-law grant for EnerDel, a subsidiary of the company that develops lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. The grant was part of a broader program aimed at promoting the development of electric-vehicle battery technology. President Obama touted the program in his State of the Union address this year.
“In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries,” he said.
We saw this coming last October, when CBS first reported on Ener1′s shaky financial position. At that time, the company had spent $53 million of the grant and had pledged to create 1700 jobs from it in total. When the story got reported, Ener1 traded at 11 cents a share, down from its December 2008 peak of $9.40 and the $3 per share price when the Department of Energy decided to invest in a company that had lost two-thirds of its value. The share price was five cents by the beginning of this month, and is now at two cents a share.
Don’t forget, too, that the $53 million spent by October created jobs … 33 of them.
Perhaps green-tech stimulus recipients should call on Obama to refrain from giving them SOTU shout-outs.
The passing age of green-tech stimulus.
My generation has left a landscape hollowed out by exuberant investment in faux saviors.
Save us the ‘generational’ blame. I didn’t have anything to do with any of these things. I also can’t help it when the few times the political hacks i voted ‘for’ won and then they changed cloaks.
It’s like Bush claiming to be a conservative and then aiding and abetting the Dem’s with every big spending program they would put on his desk.
of course, i understand, if he had taken the position that it was ‘dead on arrival’, then he would be accused of “shutting down the government”. It’s always the Republicans accused of shutting down the government when there is a battle of the budget.
They usually give in due to the daily barrage of press coverage about how they are evil, nasty, mean, and to mostly to blame for children’s wet diapers, and halitosis in street people, bad weather, and hair loss in men.
Gee, I wonder why?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/28/us-usa-democrats-offshore-idUSTRE68R40I20100928
Bush had full control for year with Tom Delay. The GOP owns this economy.
Job creation is not really Obama’s forte.
Is the government supposed to create jobs?
No, but shure as the sun rises, every time one job is created Obama crows about how he should get all the credit.
Little known fact:
The green energy companies that HAVE been successful are quickly bought out and MOVED by the Chinese.
The politically connected made some quick bucks in the process. That was the main intention of this “green industry” after all.
…as with ANY industry.
Yesterday, my employeer HAL Inc., sent out an email looking for US workers interested in spending a year in another country, teaching low priced, 3rd-world wage workers how to do our jobs.
The program is called International Training Ambassador, or some such. Guess that sounds better than “Train Your Replacement” program.
Future’s so bright,
I have to wear shades.
Future’s so bright,
I have to wear shades.
+1 My thoughts too!
Can we send over public union emolyees?
As always, you miss the point most spectacularly.
You still get paid your American salary for the year?
So what if you did? You’d get your American salary for THE year and no years after that.
Sorry to hear that. This has been going on for quite some time… In late 2002, I helped train the employees of the outsourcing firm my company had hired to manage our Oracle EBS implementation. By Jan 2003, I was laid off.
Find your niche and specialize in high-value/high demand skills or face the threat of offshore competition.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=GSPT10YR:IND
Meanwhile, the bond vigilantes zero in on the most vulnerable PIIGS target.
Oink-oink-oink!
Ford reports 2nd best profit ever.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/27/news/companies/ford_earnings/index.htm?iid=HP_LN
I guess you can make money making cars, even if the volume is 40% below the peak, if you crank up prices enough. The wealthy and upper middle class will buy them. The rest of us will have to be content with used hand me downs, which aren’t even good deals anymore.
Or maybe it has something to do that they did not take a government bailout?
GM and Chrysler are also very profitable right now.
The only reason Ford didn’t need a bailout was that it borrowed a lot of money when it was easy and horded it. It was bleeding just as bad as Chrysler and GM. And like them it shuttered old factories and laid off thousands of employees. If you buy a new Ford today there is a good chance it was built in Mexico (then again, this is also true of GM and Chrysler)
. If you buy a new Ford today there is a good chance it was built in Mexico (then again, this is also true of GM and Chrysler)
Yep. I can buy a Ford made in Mexico, or I can buy a Toyota made 20 miles from my house. Any wonder which option helps my local economy more?
GM and Chrysler are also very profitable. And Ford is up to it eyeballs in debt. In that regard GM and Chrysler are in better shape.
I’m thinking about giving in and buying a car. I don’t think good deals will be back until high volumes of cars are sold again, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. A 2008 335xi with almost everything I want on it popped up at a dealership just down the street from me for half price off of new. It should be less than that, but that’s life. I’m going to look at it tomorrow.
One thing about older Beemers … they are VERY expensive to fix when they break.
I can certainly testify to that. I bought a used Lexus sports coupe about 10 years ago to replace my BMW535i, which started leaking oil bigtime. Mechanic recommended a newer BMW.
Lexus far more reliable and slightly less expensive for maintenance.
I don’t think good deals will be back until high volumes of cars are sold again, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Car prices are high because the loans are securitized and the feds stuffs ‘em in their vault for later. Few peeps today can honestly qualify for a fully amortized loan, and the banks won’t touch the “how much a month?” balloon payment loans. The car industry really is too big to fail.
There isn’t one new car out here that costs less than 15k these days.
A decent one, not a fancy one, but a decent one, costs 22k or more.
After financing, everything pushes 30k.
IIRC, the Nissan Versa Sedan is about 12K, but your point is well taken. Even cars like the Ford Focus will set you back 20K. A larger family sedan can easily hit 30K. And they don’t depreciate the way they used to. Gone are the days when a 2 year old Taurus or Impala cost 60% of what it did when new. And used Japanese cars prices are even crazier.
I’m hoping my mother is too embarrassed to charge me what the car is really worth when I buy their used Civc from them in a little over 2 years.
I was at the Ford dealer looking at new Fiestas and Focuses. Told them what they already knew, that used prices are getting to the point where it makes sense to buy new.
The Sales Manager says things have reversed. They used to make more off of 2-3 year old used cars than new ones, but no longer. Used car prices are so high, that the margins on new ones are better.
The industry can afford to shut factories down now, instead of building cars with no buyers, because they lost less money keeping them running. Since 2009, that means about 18-20 million fewer cars or thereabouts.
Of course, the problem around here is that the $30-35K you need to spend for the typical mid-size family sedan is about half the price of a decent, livable starter house. And the trend lines are getting closer to each other all the time.
So, most of the locals cannot afford anything new, except bottom feeder compact cars. The dealers are staying alive by selling Mustangs, Camaros, and 4×4 trucks to the 18-25 year olds coming back from Iraq and the “’stans”.
This is something that Californians and people in the Northeast don’t comprehend about Flyover. Houses are cheaper, but nothing else is. Property taxes on houses may be less, but property and sales taxes on everything else aren’t that much less (our local sales tax rate is 9%). Jobs don’t pay much around here, because of the “low cost of living” myth.
As I read somewhere yesterday, we are “Between a rock and a hard place, between another hard place”
This is where Darrell in PHX has it right. The people and businesses who are sitting on all the money are not spending it on salaries, because it has “no return”. So nobody gets any raises, and the penny pinching continues. Everybody with cash is privately hoping for a financial collapse/depression, because they want to buy assets for pennies on the dollar. And if they can get a little deflation going, it works out even better, from their perspective.
And without exception, everybody thinks they can survive, even thrive, in a “Mad Max” world. I for one, believe that many are overestimating their capabilities, and underestimating the problems, created in a Mad Max world.
The fact that we are even discussing the possibility of that scenario coming to pass, shows you how far this society has slid down the tubes.
And without exception, everybody thinks they can survive, even thrive, in a “Mad Max” world. I for one, believe that many are overestimating their capabilities, and underestimating the problems, created in a Mad Max world.
LOL. I’ve played a hell of lot of Fallout 3 and Fallout Vegas… that must count for something
In all seriousness, my Remington 870 w/Eotech, Savage 10 FCP-K .308 w/Trijicon 9x, Stag AR with HAMR and a S&W M&P 9mm say that me and mine will get by just fine. Of course, some gold and silver and a nearby relative’s horse farm with acreage never hurt…
It’s a nice feeling knowing you can hit your target at any range from 15ft to 900+ yards… whatever that target happens to be.
What do you do when you are surrounded by baddies with more guns?
Seems like an open-ended question, but I’ll do my best:
Sun Tsu:
*When outnumbered, withdraw and harry your enemy.
*He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.
*He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.
Another source of useful tactics for asymetrical warfare:
Ranger Handbook
Lastly, unless the “baddies” have a .338 Lapula or 50 Cal,
my Savage .308 has the range(and accuracy) on them. Not many gang-bangers or civilian-cum-mad-max-raiders have range cards taped to their long gun with accurate bullet drop scope adjustments out to 1000 yards for their specific ammo. There is a reason why the sniper is the most feared shooter on the “modern” battlefield…
God (and luck) favors the prepared.
What happens when 100 Hell’s Angels or the like roar onto your farm, fully armed? That sniper rifle better be going hot and heavy.
*He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.
This is another version of “You gotta know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em, when to walk away and when to run”
This is something that Californians and people in the Northeast don’t comprehend about Flyover. Houses are cheaper, but nothing else is.
+1000
Of course, the problem around here is that the $30-35K you need to spend for the typical mid-size family sedan
What is insane about all this is that even with my near 100K income I hesitate to buy a 35K car. So how is some midwestern schlep making 50K supposed to do it?
Even with a 5 year loan you’re talking about $650 a month. There is always the lease game, but that just gets you into never ending payments (no thanks)
Comment by Diogenes (Tampa, Fl)
2012-01-27 08:36:31
“Truly Amazing. I’ve just read more than a dozen posts about ways to re-arrange the “tax structure” to be more “fair”.”
I know. Still amazing that people are concerned about “fair” when every time we move toward a more “fair” tax code we accelerating wealth disparity, increase debt generation, and race ever faster toward toward depression.
When are people going to stop focusing on this philosophical concept of “fair” that has disasterous real orld results, and return to worrying about the actual pragmatic outcome of the tax code?
“The Ohbamah delusion. Not a single post suggested we stop spending.”
I’ve asked over and over for those that dislike Obama to tell me what they would do… SPECIFICALLY. Frustrating that they won’t give details, isn’t it.
“And of course, darryl the Keynesian thinks money grows on trees and the solution to all our problems is to just pass it around.”
I’ll assume you are talking about me. Silly. Money does not grow on trees. Banks create it out of thin air and the borrowers promise to pay it back. This is what the fed says, what the treasure says, what pretty much every source I’ve ever read says… But, if you think I’m wrong, I’d love for you to offer an alternate explaination of how money is created. Does your version involve a stork?
As for “spread it around”… Actually, I want to offer the people with money both a stick and a carrot to get them to SPEND it, employing people to create goods and services.
I HATE that we are being forced to rely on government spending to generate the new debt/money that our trade imbalance plagued economy needs to function. I want to transfer the burden of spending from the governmetn to the private secotr by plugging the trade imbalances. I want to use tariffs on money leaving the country to plug the international trade imbalance, and a steep income tax with lots of dedcutions to reverse the widening wealth disparity.
“I guess all goods and services grow on tree, too.”
No, they come from people making them, because people with money will buy them. If people with money are not buying, then the goods and services don’t be produced.
“Savings is bad, because you are withholding ’spending’ and thereby depriving others of “income”.”
This is not a unique idea. It is called the paradox of thrift. Look it up.
“Insane.”
Insane is to think that people can make money without others first creating it by borrowing it into existance.
Insane is to think that people with debt can possible pay it back, unlesss the people with money first spend the money.
“Individuals change their preferences to buy/hold/sell depending on circumstances and should be free to do so. It’s what controls prices when the government gets out of the way.”
Creating a natural boom and bust cycle of ugly and painful depressions.
Is that what you want?
“My problem with the whole discussion is that the GOVERNMENT is WAY TOO BIG, and needs to be cut back.
Kill the Department of “education”.”
Transferring $50B in costs to the states, forcing them to increase state and local taxes. Cutting another $30B from university grants and such. This drastically cuts our supply of future workes.
“Kill the Dept. of Energy.”
Saving less than 1% of the budget.
“Eliminate all the CZARS from the gangster government.”
What is that? .1% of the budget?
“CUT the military budget by 20%”
$100B… Some serious cuts. That’s a full 2.7%% of the buget. Alsmost the amount SS and MC is expected to increase over the next 2 years.
“, just for starters.”
$200B is not even a start. It is not 1/7th of what we would need to cut.
Besides, what effect would those cuts have on the economy, and then revenue. Oh, right. One person’s spending is not another person’s income. We cal all stop spending, and NO ONE would have any cut in their income.
What color is the sky in the reality where you live?
“Crack down on Medicare/Medicaid FRAUD and put in stiff fines and Jail sentences..”
Study after study has shown that the amount we are spending right now is the optimal. If we spend more fighting fraud, the amount we reduce fraud will be less than what we spend.
“We could FIX the budget, overnight. It’s not about taxes, it’s about SPENDING.”
Here is the budget:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2012-PER/pdf/BUDGET-2012-PER-1-7-1.pdf
Social Security: $767B
Medicare: $492B
Defense: $703B
Medicaid: $271B (1/3rd goes to long term care of elderly)
Net Interest on Debt: $242B
VA: $125B
Fed employees pensions and disability: $75B
Pensions to retired military not covered under VA: $48B
Justice (courts and prisons): $59B
International Affairs: $75B
Total (untouchables): $2.857T.
With total outlays projected to be $3.72, that leaves everything else $947B.
So, where does that $947B go?
$144B transprotation ($35 Billion more than baseline due to delayed stimulus payouts. Of the normal $110B budget, $77B roads/rail, $22B airports, $9B water including Coast Guard)
$13B non-defense Energy
$37B Natural resources (partially offset by receitps from BLM, national park, natiotal forests, corp of engineer, fish and wildlife, and other receipts)
$27B Ag (partially offset by crop insurance, tobacco trust, financining fees)
$33B Space, science, tech.
$15B community and regional development (half of that is disaster relief)
$100B non-Medicaid/Medicare health ($25B to federal workers and military not covered elsewhere, $32B NIH including CDC)
$30B General government, including all those czars and such
$50B 26 weeks of unemployemnt fully offset by receipts
Okay, so some good stuff and some offsetting receitps type stuff we have another.. oh… $350B maybe.
Let’s attack it from the other direction. What can we cut?
Okay, where is all that Welfare stuff we definately need to elimniate?
$77B Education
$15B SCHIP
$10B other healthcare like clinics on native american reservations ($4.6B) and Substance abuse and mental health ($3.3B)
$41B extended unemployemnt not covered by receipts
$46B housing assistance
$115B food ($85B food stamps, $20B school lunches, $10B other)
$51B SSI disability
$25B per child tax credit (Technically a tax increase if we eliminate this, but it isn’t for rich people, so it is an okay tax increase.)
$46B EITC (Technically a tax increase if we eliminate this, but it isn’t for rich people, so it is an okay tax increase.)
$18B TANF (what is left of the 1960s, great society style welfare)
$125B Disability that is covered under Social Security.
$7B foster care and adoption
That is $576B.
Well, let’s say that only the people on disability are rally disabled, so only 50% cuts to those. That puts us closer to $500B. Then we can add the 20% cut to military ($140B) and the $8B cut to Energy.
So, $670B. Right about half the deficit.
Now, honestly, think about this.
We just increased taxes by $70B on the people that can lest afford it. We have cut housing subsidies $46B. We have reduced unemployment payments by $40B. We cut disability payments by $80B. We cut food assistance by $115B.
That is $500B NO LONGER going to the poorest of people, and other cuts like DoD and energy employees and parents that have been getting child credits.
Honestly, do you not think this could have some effect on reducing how much money these people spend? And, is that spending not part of GDP? Is that money not part of someone’s income?
Is all this cutting not going to have SOME effect
This whole “It is a spending problem”, doesn’t hold water. If we cut spending, we cut economic activity, and that cuts receipts.
It is not a spending problem. It is not a tax problem.
The deficits are symptoms of a lrger problem.
That larger problem is our trade imabalaces. $600B a year international trade imbalances and at least that much going to people that already have more money than they can/will spend.
Nicely done. Why don’t you save this for a post in next Friday’s weekend topics. Or just put it in this week’s right now.
I want to use tariffs on money leaving the country to plug the international trade imbalance,’
there is a trade imbalance and unless the dollar goes down there will continue to be a trade imbalance. Dollar goes down and most of us get a pay cut = lower standard of living.
tariffs will cause inflation and a trade war but the government maybe forced to this anyway ? I think they did this before in the 1930’s plus deportation and a lot of other things.
Government spending on business ? I like science centers for research which can be given to private industry to make a business.
You’ve got some good points there, Darrell. For example:
Transferring $50B in costs to the states, forcing them to increase state and local taxes.
I think that this actually happened under Reagan. He cut funds that are sent to state and local governments. (This was known as revenue sharing, I believe, and might have started under Nixon.) That forced those state and local governments to raise taxes. So he was able to crow about the spending and taxes that he cut, but the taxpayer didn’t benefit much as their state taxes increased.
Also, if you look at the list of “welfare” spending that you list, such as TANF and food stamps, the best way to cut spending on those programs would be to increase economic growth and create jobs.
“I live in a San Francisco environment of strange fantasies and strange understandings of reality.”
We put an offer on a house yesterday. In the neighborhood we want. 4 bedroom, 3 bath, huge yard. In-law apartment with full kitchen. Rents going for 3K a month for similar homes nearby.
Here’s the shocker: 40K down payment assistance from the city, interest free and forgivable after 10 years. 490K loan from credit union that offers loans with less than 20% down and no PMI. 13K of our own money (plus we pay closing costs).
Money is cheap. WTF. It’s surreal, to be sure.
In the neighborhoods we are looking (in San Francisco proper) rents and PITI are equivalent. Prices are at about 2002/03 levels. It may drop further down, but they really aren’t building many more SFH here in our 7X7 square mile city and we need a place to live.
Wherever we land we stay at least 10-15 years.
We are in our mid 40’s and I have spent the last 10 years playing armchair economist and waiting for this bubble to play itself out, raising my kids in a rental that’s really too small anymore with a crazy landlady and no rent control.
Time to get on with my life. If we don’t get this house (which we probably won’t because there are a ton of Chinese investors in SF and in this neighborhood esp., and many have all cash, contractor family. etc.) we can stay in our rental and wait until the right house comes along.
Inflation? Bring it.
You’re awfully free with other people paychecks.
Inflation? It’s killing me.
You’re awfully free with other people paychecks.
Inflation? It’s killing me.
Mea culpa. I’m one of those highly paid inner-city public school teachers that is destroying our economy.
4 bedroom, 3 bath, huge yard.
Must be out in the avenues?
Southeast - my new fav nabe: Portola (pronounced por-du-luh). If you’re local and never been to MacClaren park, you’re missing out.
4 bedroom, 3 bath, huge yard.
Must be out in the avenues?
I can’t do the Sunset or the Richmond: too much fog. Although prices are coming down there, too.
“If you’re local and never been to MacClaren park, you’re missing out.”
Never did hang in the Excelsior district as I was in party mode way back then…North Beach, Upper Haight, etc., but I know Bayview and Hunter’s Point pretty well as friends lived there.
“I can’t do the Sunset or the Richmond: too much fog.”
I used to room in a nice flat in the upper Haight on Waller street, and it was often foggy there too, but nice fresh air unlike this windy dusty desert I’m doing.
What are property taxes?
In the neighborhoods we are looking (in San Francisco proper) rents and PITI are equivalent
In California property tax is limited to 1% of assessed value, inless you live in a Mello-Roos development.
What are property taxes?
In the neighborhoods we are looking (in San Francisco proper) rents and PITI are equivalent
$5900 year. I know, ouch.
We put an offer on a house yesterday.
I did too 20% down with a 30 year loan no assistance
short sale the preveious owner bought for 600K , got a loan mod and balence forgivness a couple years ago but is walking anyway, they bought a new house.
I’ve pulled alot of my old papers from the 2000-2006 runup. it’s a crackup to read the newspaper articles from back then and the progressively more and more manic realtor fliers.
good luck to you sfrenter
good luck to you cactus! where are you located?
Advice please from HBBers. My mother was just admitted to a nursing home and has fallen behind on her mortgage. We would like to assume the mortgage, but are unable to catch up her payments. Wells Fargo wants her to quit claim the deed to us and write a hardship letter along with provide our financials. Is this proper procedure? My concern is that a quitclaim will possibly interfere with her medicaid as a property transfer and they will foreclose easier if we have the property. HELP!!!
Consult a lawyer immediately. Preferably one that specializes in law related to the elderly. Sounds like the bank is pushing for Medicaid fraud and to make you permanently responsible for the entire amount of the mortgage, but I am NOT an expert.
And if your mother is still legally competent, she is the one who has to consult with the attorney, though she can have you come with her if she chooses.
Get a lawyer that is skilled in Elder Law.
My good friend just went through this - although her mother had a stroke and was not at all able to advocate for herself. Her mother had a reverse mortgage, crazy bills (she was on vacation in Europe when she had the stroke), and is now in a nursing home.
My pal got a good lawyer, was able to get the house in her name, pay off the mortgage, get her mom on medicare, etc.
The mom is not getting better, unfortunately, and the cost of the nursing home is astronomical, but the rest of her finances are now in order. No way she could have done this without legal help.
Eddiamond,
I wish you and your mother the best of luck with this situation and hope it works out ok for you.
To my fellow hbbers: You really do have to wonder if the banks are ready for the wave of seniors that are in this very same sitation. When my parents were my age, most seniors in their own homes were sitting in paid off homes. I wonder how many seniors today still have sizable mortgages to cover that run into this particular situation before they can possibly be paid off. I can’t help but think the numbers will be increasing.
Florida Attorney General bashes states that rejected nationwide foreclosure settlement
By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 5:09 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012
23 COMMENTS
What Floridians need is mortgage relief. Our homes are underwater and it does not matter if you are current in your mortgage or not. You can afford the payments now but a salary cut, an illness or a layoff and you are in trouble. Principal reduction should be part of the package. Banks have delayed modifications and when they have done this, it has affected thousands of homeowners.
Silvia Hall
1:49 PM, 1/27/2012
———————————————————————————
Mrs. saturday got laid off just before Christmas. She is 50 and a high school graduate who has worked all of her adult life. She applied for somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 jobs after she was laid off. She got 3 of them and took 2. The one she turned down was working at an assisted living facility part time for $8 an hour. She took a job as a waitress at a pizza place in Jupiter (what she did when we met and yes she was pretty hot) and then got a call from a dry cleaner she had applied to and also took that job part time at $10 an hour. They both know she has 2 jobs and the owner of the pizza place adjusted her schedule so she would stay. She is pretty cool and a hard worker who is great with customers. So she has ended up with full time work between 2 places, 1 at $10 an hour and 1 at $4 an hour plus tips. I told her to quit one but besides being pretty cool on some things she is pretty stubborn.
On to the dry cleaners and 2 of the women who work there. 1 is from Trinidad and another is from somewhere south of Brownsville Texas. The day after the State of the Union address the 2 women were buzzing with talk of how they were going to be helped with their underwater houses. Although the woman from Trinidad was concerned that she would not recieve the same help with her underwater homes because she owned 2.
Anyway, Mrs. saturday got 2 jobs and it`s almost time to pay the rent again.
Mrs. saturday did stay home for a couple of years when the kids were young, although that is still work I didn`t want to be accused of being a Realtor.
and another is from somewhere south of Brownsville Texas
LOL! I guess that sounds more mysterious than “South of the Rio Grande”. BTW, I’ve been to Brownsville, TX.
The day after the State of the Union address the 2 women were buzzing with talk of how they were going to be helped with their underwater houses.
Amazing how people still believe that’s going to happen. Combo is right, it’s just false hope to keep FB’s paying the mortgage.
Is she still hot?
She held up pretty well, especially considering she has been married to me.
“I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape,” said President Obama last night.
Hand raised in the back of the room by Lynn Szymoniak….
Could you make that $3,000 a month?
And put it ALL on the backs on the taxpayer.
Hope and change!
Yes we can.
I was expecting you to bring back the subject of Lynn Szymoniak.
She is doing quite well.
I know she is doing well in the Steeplechase house at 8268 MAN O WAR RD where she has not made a mortgage payment in over 3 years and got her $500k+ in equity out that she says she shouldn`t have to pay back and be allowed to keep the house for free, but how in she doing with the condo she bought for $480k in 2006?
403 S SAPODILLA AVE 805
METROPOLITAN CONDOMINIUM
SZYMONIAK LYNN
403 S SAPODILLA AVE # PH 2 5
WEST PALM BEACH FL 33401 5772
Oct-2006 21094/0001 $480,320 WARRANTY DEED SZYMONIAK LYNN
Oh that`s right, you said she had caught some kind of a fever that took people over in the price run up. Well anyway I`m glad she is quite well. Although I see there is an amended LP filed. She had better get busy that little rascal.
Type: LP A
Date/Time: 5/3/2011 13:21:30
CFN: 20110159188
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 24502/1411
Pages: 2
Consideration: $0.00
Party 1: DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY TRUSTEE
SOUNDVIEW HOME LOAN TRUST
Party 2: SZYMONIAK LYNN E
DOE JOHN
CULLEN MARK
STEEPLECHASE PROPERTY OWNERS ASSN INC
Legal: HORSHOE AC W. RPL B5 L12 BL
Uh Oh, the condo Lynn bought in 2006 seems to have had a LP placed on it. I wish you could see me because you would see my shocked face.
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 11/17/2006 09:14:37
CFN: 20060644206
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 21094/3
Pages: 24
Consideration: $376,000.00
Party 1: SZYMONIAK LYNN
Party 2: MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC
SOUTHTRUST MORTGAGE CORP
EQUIBANC MORTGAGE
Legal: METROPOLITAN CONDO U8-E U
Type: LP
Date/Time: 6/11/2011 13:04:14
CFN: 20110213796
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 24572/791
Pages: 1
Consideration: $0.00
Party 1: METROPOLITAN WEST PALM BEACH CONDOMINIUM INC
Party 2: SZYMONIAK LYNN
SZYMONIAK SPOUSE
DOE JOHN
DOE JANE
Legal: METROPOLITAN CONDO U8-E U
But wait, there’s more! A dismissal, does this mean Lynn got a free condo? Well whatever, as long as she is doing well and her fever went down.
Type: CP
Date/Time: 11/22/2011 16:17:20
CFN: 20110435683
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 24866/1332
Pages: 1
Consideration: $0.00
Party 1: METROPOLITAN WEST PALM BEACH CONDOMINIUM INC
Party 2: SZYMONIAK LYNN
Legal:
(By transferring the risk of potential loss from the current sucker that holds the mortgage, to the US Government (taxpayer)).
“This is where Darrell in PHX has it right. The people and businesses who are sitting on all the money are not spending it on salaries, because it has “no return”. So nobody gets any raises, and the penny pinching continues. Everybody with cash is privately hoping for a financial collapse/depression, because they want to buy assets for pennies on the dollar. And if they can get a little deflation going, it works out even better, from their perspective.”
I have it right on everything…..
One person’s money is someone else’s debt.
One person’s spending is someone else’s income.
You can only persist a trade imbalance for as long as you can increase debt at an unsustainable pace.
Over the last 30 years, we’ve increased each household’s share of total debt from 2.8x median income to 6.5x medain income. This is how we have been funding our international balance of treade deficit and widening wealth disparity.
The people with debt can’t possibly pay it back, unless the people with money first spend their money.
Now, on this topic,
What the people with money need to realize is that there is no where safe to hide their money during the crash to be able to buy after.
We’re going to keep spending as much as it takes to hold collapse away, until a credit event in US Treasuries. Then everything is at risk. We’ll Greece on our debt, payng pennies on the dollar for US Treasury holders. FDIC will be unable to pay full amounts. Commodity prices will be swinging wildly. Stocks will crash. Even foreign countries will not be safe as the global economy is built on the US economy. When we go down, every country in the world is going with us.
Not exactly.
Greece does NOT control their money supply. They can’t just print more of it to inflate their debts away. Like they used to do ALL the time before the euro. They would add a few zeros onto the drachma as all would be good.
As of today - we still have that option.
All US debt will be repaid in FULL and in dollars. However - those dollars may not buy what they could today.
We’ll Greece on our debt, payng pennies on the dollar for US Treasury holders.
Everybody with cash is privately hoping for a financial collapse/depression, because they want to buy assets for pennies on the dollar.
The folks here on HBB who rent are hoping for this. The rest of y’all who are homeowners???
I’d just be happy with a pre-bubble era-priced house.
When we go down, every country in the world is going with us
And you can bet your a$$ that the 1% have their bunkers ready.
So, looks like Facebook is going to file for IPO next week.
Are we approaching the high-water for the current rebound?
1 billion users, and they make $.01 per user every month (hyperbole).
I would not touch that IPO with a 30 foot pole.
I am selling my farm to get me some fb shares.
Can’t wait!
Farmville farm?
When should I sell my GM, Linkin and Groupon shares I bought at their IPO price?
Since LinkedIn’s IPO, I’ve been getting all sorts of e-mails from them. Most relate to joining up (for money) because of some fabulous benefit or the other.
And is mean ole Slim going to pay to join LinkedIn? Nope. It’s not even worthwhile for free, so why should I pay money to join?
I would not touch that IPO with a 30 foot pole.
Hey, watch it, Darrell! You just insulted 30-foot poles?
IMHO, Facebook is facing a major comeuppance called an improving economy. Because when all those out of work people go back to work, guess what. No more time for passing days, weeks, and months on Facebook.
Hey, watch it, Darrell! You just insulted 30-foot poles?
Oops. Strike the question mark at the end of the second sentence.
So, looks like Facebook is going to file for IPO next week.
Tack another 2-3 hundred onto monthly rents here in the Bay Area.
More would qualify for mortgage relief under new federal plan
By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 3:18 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27, 2012
The Obama administration announced radical changes to its struggling loan modification program this afternoon aimed at increasing the number of homeowners who can benefit from the plan.
Under a revamped Home Affordable Modification Program, investors will be able get reduced monthly mortgage payments on rental properties, while lenders will get triple the monetary incentives they currently receive to cut homeowner mortgage debt.
The money to pay for the plan will come out of the $29 billion Home Affordable Modification Program budget, of which about $10 billion has already been encumbered.
Administration officals said the plan amendments are part of President Obama’s “We can’t wait campaign,” in which he is making changes to programs he controls without the need for congressional approval.
The changes include the following:
Lenders that agree to write down the principal amounts on underwater mortgages will receive triple the current monetary incentives, up to 63 cents on the dollar.
Incentives will be offered to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to encourage principal reductions. The two entities currently do not allow loan debt reductions. Loan modifications will be available for homes that are occupied by tenants or that the owner intends to rent.
The current plan only allowed modifications on homes the owner lived in. Homeowners who are ineligible for a modification because their home payments are less than 31 percent of their income, but have other debt such as medical bills or a second mortgage, will be considered for an alternative modification plan.
The plan is extended through Dec. 31, 2013, from its original end date of Dec. 31 this year.
I see due to defense cuts base closures are going to continue. The military for decades has been trying to get out of Miramar, even offering to sell it to San Diego for $1 to use as an airport site but they refused.
Maybe now San Diego will actually buy the property and build a real airport.
The Navy was smart, they moved one of their aircraft carriers out of San Diego to dock in Washington because the cost of living stipends they had to pay their servicemen was out of control.
oh wait I forgot, even though this airport would benefit 99% of San Diegans, the 1% in La Jolla don’t want planes flying over their houses. So, no airport for San Diego.
The EA-6B is very noisy, and their flock is numerous, so when they’re not on the boat you can count on noise. Those Gulfstream jets are really quiet though, perfect for La Jolla!