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Is A 6.5% VAT Coming?
Confirming once again that the clueless government would rather risk a populist backlash than actually cutting costs (recall that federal worker compensation has surged in the past 5 years), it appears that the long-stirring debate over a value added tax may be about to materialize into something tangible. Per Bloomberg, "Alice Rivlin, a member of President Barack Obama’s deficit-reduction commission (and former Fed vice chairwoman), is trying to stir a debate over imposing a national sales tax to reduce the deficit. Rivlin, as part of a separate 19-member group sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, offered a plan for a 6.5 percent national debt-reduction sales tax. Her recommendation comes as the president’s panel prepares a Dec. 1 report of options for Congress to trim the national debt." Coming from a former Fed member, this is not all that surprising - after all, there is nothing to stir inflation expectations like a sudden 6.5% hike in all prices.
More:
Rivlin, a former Federal Reserve vice chairwoman and Democrat, and the co-chairman of the policy center group, former New Mexico Republican Senator Pete Domenici, are offering a more aggressive approach to tax increases and cuts to Medicare.
“It’s very difficult, and they want to go further,” said Alan Simpson, a Republican former Wyoming senator who is co- chairman of the president’s commission.
Jim Horney, director of federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, said the Rivlin group may be “somewhat more realistic” about how much revenue is needed to close the deficit.
The more aggressive plan may help the presidential panel sell unpopular remedies by painting an even starker picture of the measures needed to tame the debt.
The presidential panel’s co-chairmen, Simpson and Erskine Bowles, former President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, drew criticism Nov. 10 when they proposed their $3.8 trillion report.
Luckily, there are at least some people in the administration who are not completely ignorant when it comes to economic issues:
Simpson suggested it isn’t likely his group will take up the sales tax recommendation.
“There’s no need to get into it about their plan versus our plan,” he said. “We’ve pissed enough people off in America to last forever. We don’t need any more people.”
On the other hand, this would be a perfect smokescreen to the tax cut extension smokescreen, and may be used as a trump card should Obama yield on this so critical to the republicans issue. Coming from an administration whose modus operandi is to create adverse shocks for the middle class that benefit the top 0.01% social strata, we will reserve judgment over how stupid this proposal is until it is actually not implemented.
Amusingly, confirming that even the Rivlin-Domenici alternative plan will do absolutely nothing to fix America's spiraling debt level is the following admission:
The nation also cannot grow its way out of the deficit, the
group’s report says. Just to stabilize the debt at 60 percent of
gross domestic product, the economy would have to grow at a
sustained rate of more than 6 percent a year for at least the
next 10 years, it says. The economy hasn’t grown by more than
4.4 percent in any decade since World War II.
In other words, the best America can do is fiddle as the debt fire gets ever bigger.
As for tax hikes, finally someone sees the light:
Finally, the problem also can’t be solved simply by raising
taxes on wealthy Americans, the report says. Reducing deficits
to manageable levels by the end of the decade would require
raising rates on the top two income brackets to 86 percent and
91 percent, the report says.
All this confirms that when an economy is experiencing a meltdown in shadow money to the tune of ~$10 trillion over a few years (and much more coming), there is absolutely nothing that can be done to fix it, and the best remedy is hoping for a delay of the inevitable. For what happens on the other side, see recent social celebrations of the failure of the "spending-austerity" dilemma in Greece, France, London and Ireland.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjr7NtntWeQ
That just nails groupthink. This is exactly the mentality that got municipalities into swaps and other derivatives. Then when the crisis hits, all you hear is "nobody knew . . . who could have known." Trans: you can't blame me for doing what everybody did.
By the way that massive turdbomb is still out there and downgrades light the fuse.
Kicking the can down the road, until we run out of road.
...then off the cliff?
Yep. In our car.
Lol Dan22, The robot voices creeped me out. I could only stand to watch the first minute or so of that video but that video is absolutely right.
I think our media has done a great job in putting a stigma on certain things so that people that believe in those things become alienated from those around them.
Media and school socialization, guru.
Krugman's touting it too-go figure
http://nation.foxnews.com/paul-krugman/2010/11/15/nyts-krugman-suggests-...
Starts at 6.5% but it will end up at 18% - 22% just like Euroland!!!!
Yep. They will raise it as they want to spend more and more.
Still, if they got RID of the Income Tax, I would take the 18% VAT. But, no, they want the control as well as the money from Yet Another Tax.
Hard to grow ponzi at predictable rates when your sole source of thievery (oh sorry, taxes) is a consumption based tax.
Yes. In the middle of the worst drop in consumption since the Great D, we should tax consumption...
Thanks Alice -- you vicious harridan
Actually not a bad idea IF and ONLY IF they would get rid of the income tax altogether.
We need to consume less, so we can rebuild our capital base.
Of course, I would rather just cut spending, but that ain't happening, obviously.
lol they will spin it that it will totally replace the income tax, they just need to have them both for a little while to try it out. "Honey I swear! I'll only stick the tip in". Think we all know what will happen, but people will fall for the sweet words.
Well said Shameful, better than my effort above.
"The check is in your mouth." I've always liked that one.
Or is it, "I won't cum in the mail."
I forget...
dupe
First, that is silly I think. In every economic contraction the barrier is consumption, not investment. Ask companies why they are not hiring; ask banks why they are not lending -- no demand.
Second, the problem is not the form of tax, it is government's insatiable hunger for ever greater resources. That means, you don't get to choose a tax on consumption versus a tax on income; you get both -- the one added to the other. The entire point of the Rivlin exercise is too distract you into a meaningless class warfare debate while they pick the pockets of rich and poor alike...
Who is they? The government or the banksters that run the government? I like your point of view, but you don't seem to understand who the bad guy is.
In reality, social security and medicare are never going to go away. As a society, we must figure out how to make it more efficient and pay for it. The federal worker wages are small potatoes, but I am for removing waste everywhere in the government.
What you call "government" is actually a parasitic governing clique of Finance Capital cum State that emerged from the Great Depression and World War II. This clique became indistinguishable from its fascistic roots in the pre-war executive branch and Wall Street as management of the economy was undertaken during the Great Depression and perfected during the war-time administration of the economy.
There is no Washington, there is no Wall Street -- it is a single entity, with individual actors moving back and forth between gigs.
You just can't psychologically accept a government, can you?
This is not psychology -- it is history. See below
"In reality, social security and medicare are never going to go away."
In France the government just made it more difficult to collect the benefits to which the citizens paid in their whole life. The same will happen here. The program will remain in tact for tax revenue purposes, but as the debt comission has said the retirement/collection age is going up, the benefits are going down, the tax on % of income is going up and the total taxable income is going up too.
As money becomes worth less and worth less and eventually worthless, the programs may be kept in tact, but if you are paid in dollars that are worth more as pleats of toilet paper then a debt intrument of exchange, these programs will be effectively gone away.
Think about what it took for Washington to directly manage the economy during World War II. Who were the experts at managing industry? Who were the experts at managing finance? When Washington was rationalized to accomplish the war effort, government essentially become the executive seat for corporate interests, or, what is the same thing, the centralized management of the economy became the chief task of the executive branch.
Wait.
Six months ago a return to the gold standard was unthinkable. Conditions are changing rapidly. The bubble built on a fiat reserve currency is fast coming to an end. All things that were implemented from the time of the last gold standard through today are suspect, and far from untouchable.
You confuse job growth with economic growth. Economic growth is caused by increasing efficiency. Increasing efficiency leads more profits, which allows those companies to hire new people. Without the profits lead by efficiency, new hires will only eat up their savings and then their credit line until said company goes out of business.
Demand for goods is infinite. Demand for future payments is not. That is to say that people will buy an unlimited number of goods as their price approaches zero. Demand is down in terms of purchases because A. prices are still too high, thus the need to increase efficiency, and B. consumers need to build their savings, and don't want to make even more future payments.
And I know all about governments insatiable growth. You will note my post used the logical term "if and only if". That is an absolute condition. I know that they will not meet it as a "practical" matter, but that condition applies all the same.
That is really silly. If what you said were true, WalMart would not be in China -- a country of such low efficiency in the utitlization of labor that it takes more than half the population just to feed itself. The only economic growth that matters for business is job growth.
And the only demand is money demand -- if people don't have money, they do not exist as far as the economy is concerned. Things do not just have to be produced; after they are produced the company must sell them to recover its capital and realize a profit.
Food is only one product out of a wide range of things into which one can specialize. China's population is too large for it to produce all of its own food, as would be the case in America if our population were to surge to say, 2.5 billion. That doesn't matter. They produce goods that everyone else wants, including those nations that produce far more food than they need, like the US, and like many nations in Southern Africa.
If the only demand were money demand, then we should just send out checks for a trillion dollars to every man woman and child in the US. That should solve EVERYTHING! But of course that wouldn't work, because consumption isn't growth. It is destruction of capital.
To understand how this works, read this comic book: http://freedom-school.com/money/how-...nomy-grows.pdf
"Second, the problem is not the form of tax"
Yes, it is the form of the tax. Income tax is invasive to privacy, and unfairly
applied. A consumption tax will hit those that want their 24" rims and bling bullshit.
Kill the income tax. It's about power, not revenue.
Actually not a bad idea IF and ONLY IF they would get rid of the income tax altogether.
It's always a bad idea to try to bargain with a mugger. Why give the criminals the legitimacy of a successful negotiation? It's time to fight back. No more begging to keep a little bit of our own hard earned wealth.
Tread on me. Make my day.
Look, if we're going to have predatory capitalism, let's do it properly. Option A: bring back slavery, but for all poor people, as befits a modern equal rights mindset. Option B: force people to sell all redundant body parts (lungs, kidneys) before they can apply for Govt benefits.
Imagine the kind of derivative markets that would appear. Wild! One day, out of desperation, you sell OTM calls on your organs, so your children can eat, but somehow those scallywags on Wall St pin the market on OpEx and you getting exercised. Exciting!
And we can have ETFs and ETNs and ...
Think of the whole Repo Men businesses that could get started...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl9Nvg4yuus
FICA-7.65%
State Income Tax-5.5%
Federal Income Tax-20%
______________________
State/County Sales Tax-6%
Federal VAT Sales Tax-6.5%
State/Federal Gas Tax-$.55/Gallon
Monthly Utilities Federal/State/County/City Tax Fees-$75
Oppertunity to keep politicians, banksters, and brokers hip deep in hookers and blow: PRICELESS!
There are some thing money can't buy.
For everything else their is debt peonage.
Self employed pay twice as much FICA and Medicare. More than 15% right off the top.
It will fix nothing, they will just spend more.
Sad, but true.
Sad, but true.
So freaking True, The problem is they will still keep all the taxes just add the VAT tax. Put another nail in the Job Market.
Cut the budgets of the following government 'organizations' and you won't need a VAT or higher taxes: US Army, US Navy/Marines, US Air Force, Homeland Security and the domestic intelligence agencies. None of this makes you safer and you'd save 500 billion a year to boot.
Why should I stop spending on things I need like shoes and clothes? You just need to make more money!
http://influencebyedropoff.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/woman_shopping_1350462c1.jpg?w=460
If they put the 6.5% on gold coins, would you still buy them?
Buy them somewhere else.
<Martin Lawrence> Awww, hell no! </Martin Lawrence>
Let us please tolerate no more BS about how letting "The Bush Tax Cuts" expire will simply restore tax levels to where they were during the utopian Clinton years.
The current total combined tax burden that working, middle and upper-middle (remember half of American's with income pay zero Fed income taxes) shoulder -Fed, state, sales, Obamacare, local/property etc. - is staggering. How could it possibly have ever been lower?
Step 1- Take Rivlin behind barn.
Step 2- Shoot Rivlin.
That would only be a good start.
Better step 1 is to stand her on a bunch of sawdust under some sturdy rafters.
She's just the messenger. This has been in the works for a while now. We saw the changes in the 1099 reporting rules in the Healthcare Bill. The Dems tried to repeal it, and the GOP voted against it. It's all just a game...a rigged game.
Both parties made half-hearted attempts at repealing it, leaving them both the posturing point of:
We tried to help you, but those <choose one: mean old republicans OR socialist democrats> stood in our way. Vote for me, and please spare a dime or two to help re-elect your humble public servant.
We saw the changes in the 1099 reporting rules in the Healthcare Bill. The Dems tried to repeal it, and the GOP voted against it.
In the spirit of John Kerry, the Democrats voted for it before they voted against it.
And I am sure that 6.5% won't ever grow as time goes on.
C'mon, go for it, make it 6.66%.
+++ now that would be funny :)
A VAT tax is coming as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow.
Look at Canada. High debt to GDP ratios in the 90s. Along came the GST.
They will let the deficit get so bad that their excuse will be "we had no other choice".
Partially agree. Taxes are higher than the States, but this varies province to province. QC has one of the highest taxes yet they are in the shitter and have the 3rd highest provincial debt (blame the french!).
However, you can't really compare to the US our health care and unemployment benefits are much better.
Do you honestly believe it was the GST which solved the debt/GDP ratio? Really?
It didn't solve it entirely, no. But if you think it didn't add to government revenue you're dreaming.
This is insane....lets concentrate on the spending and re-configuration of the programs we have now to reduce the going forward ramp rate. What in the hell do you think would happen to what little growth we have if they instituted a 6.5% VAT? There needs to be some mechanism to limit the growth rate and total amount of government debt. They are still missing the point.....a great deal of the debt currently outstanding is basically worthless and needs to be written down/off period. There will be NO growth acceleration until that happens except the typical short-term FED mystical growth.
Europe and Japan have a VAT. It starts out low and then boy does it grow! First 1 or 2%. Then 10 years later its 8 or 16%. From govt by think tank and white paper. It has brought you NAFTA, WTO, UN, and many other un-American chains of misery. Do these scum wanto expand the TEA Party to 50 million members? This trial balloon will make the Hindenburg look like a birthday candle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
try 20%
The only thing this will fund is the black market.
You say that as if it were a bad thing.
tmosley, the VAT is very high (19%) in Peru as well.
LOTS of businesses and individuals try to evade the tax, by asking NOT to be invoiced, etc. Lots of games. Peru now has special undercover tax cops who go in and try to set up businesses to bust 'em.
We can tell who those guys are because they know nothing about bearings... "Uh, dame uno de, uh, ese aca y ... uno de ese alla..."
Nice.
Whoops. I'll try again.
The only thing this will fund is the black market! :)!!!!!
Agorism, Bitchez.
Screw it, if this thing passes, Im taking a nice comfy gov job.
Yep, camel nose under the tent. Too stupid for words.
Let's make a bargain... you get the VAT tax as long as you kill the income tax.
Sounds good to me.
If ever a term or phrase was pulled directly from Orwell's 1984 Newspeak dictionary, it's the "Value Added Tax".
Yes, yes, I understand the concept behind the actual words. There's always a rationalization and justification for the words and phrases used to move the public meme. Just think about "The Patriot Act" if you need to understand how a work or phrase can so distort what's hidden inside.
So every time I plunk down the 6.5% on my purchase, think of all that added value I'm getting or that I've added. You think no one would possibly think that way, even subconsciously? Then you don't understand mind control and subliminal messaging.
Huh, to be honest when I first heard of it years ago my first mental image was the blood of the citizens being poured into a giant VAT for government vampire consumption...but then I have an active imagination I guess. It's smart the way they do it in the EU, and have it built into the listed price. I had a freak out moment when I bought tires and I got hit by the $ amount I was paying in sales taxes, had to ask the salesman if he got the price wrong...
What you think or perceive on the surface and the message your subconscious is receiving are often very different. This divergence is the very basis for mind control and subliminal messaging because it's plays upon the self induced illusion that you are the master of all you perceive, including your mind and it's inner workings.
So many people think that subliminal messages only have to do with TV. This alone is equivalent to the devil convincing you he doesn't exist and it was a deliberate effort by the mind control experts to deflect attention from the actual day to day use of subliminal messaging.
Orwell would also like- "Homeland Security"
since there is a tendency to gender nationstates as "she" - Homeland Security just lends to the notion that "men" must "protect & defend her". . . same with the military working hard *cough* to control Mother Nature. . .
what really makes me laugh is when you occasionally see guys here giving the Fed a "she" label. . . quite telling. . .
Devil is just another word for sub conscience. To give an idea how big the sub conscious is: The frontal cortex has 2000 neural connections per second. The sub conscience has 400,000,000 neural connections per second. You access your sub conscience when you sleep.
You access your subconscious all the time. During sleep, the conscious portion of your mind is simply switched off, or more accurately no longer consciously dominates. Nearly everything you do is actually happening or being processed in the sub conscious. As the word "sub" implies, it's below your level of day to day perception. But that doesn't mean it doesn't control.
Personally I suspect the conscious portion of the mind is simply there to translate the subconscious process into an understandable form recognizable within and applicable to this currently shared mass illusion we call "reality".
"There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks".
William S. Burroughs
everyone should study the work of Frank Luntz and NLP.
Entire discussions are framed in terms of emotion-inducing words.
Look at abortion. There is no pro abortion and anti abortion. There is PRO "choice" and PRO "life." Why? Because PRO is good, anti is negative. Choice is good and life is good. Abortion is negative.
When someone who is opposed to abortion cannot bring themselves to say I am anti abortion, and someone in favor of abortion cannot bring themselves to say I am pro abortion, then you should immediately identify cognitive dissonance where their poorly-reined emotions are fighting with their poorly-trained logical faculties.
The problem is that this language smithing works...Edward Bernays was the father of it and it has turned into a science. You can manipulate emotions by your particular word usage patterns as well as other intentional visual and body cues. And there are 50% of the population out there who simply are NOT cut out for resisting this, as a matter of basic biology.
Not only are there vast numbers who are unable to resist this type of manipulation, but also many who are aware of it to some degree or another but insist that because they are aware, that's all they need to be immune.
Thus they are just as easily manipulated and often much more effectively, because they have deluded themselves into thinking all their thoughts, beliefs and ideas are their own and thus "safe" to act upon.
Something similar happened to the word "liberal".
50% are already women. so i bet its > 50%
i just forwarded this discussion thread to my gf and she didnt even read the entire post (hence my rant about women)
im a big fan of the zh community :)
Pro-life and anti-abortion are two different things, though. Pro-life encompasses all life and usually means that the speaker is against abortion, death penalty, and euthanasia. Anti-abortion is a narrower term. There are plenty who are anti-abortion but pro-death penalty.
I had the same mental image, but mine had warewolves and witches
Trust and believe, if instituted 6.5% is the teaser rate. Within 6 months it would settle at 14.25%.
It's simpler than that. If you tax added value, less value will be added. Or even bigger picture: a tax on consumption will result in less consumption. Not the best plan for reviving a consumer based economy.
Consumer based economy =/= debt based economy
What we have now, is a completly debt based economy. Savings is no longer part of the equation. The way to revive a debt based economy, is to get people, and businesses, to borrow more. A consumption tax is a perfect way to accomplish this.
If ever a term or phrase was pulled directly from Orwell's 1984 Newspeak dictionary, it's the "Value Added Tax".
And then there's the Alternative Minimum Tax which is actually a mandatory maximum tax.
Sweet!. With that and state/local sales tax will do wonders for product sales. Sure the CPI will be fiddled with to mask it. And since it will naturally go up in no time with the state/local sales taxes with the VAT we should be in EU range in short order. And naturally there will be other tax increases, but no spending cuts because they will be worried about "stimulating the economy".
TALK IS CHEAP PEOPLE, WE HAVE TO STAND UP,
OTHERWISE WE WILL BE SENT INTO OBLIVION,
THESE CRIMINALS NEED A "SPECIAL HAIR CUT"!!!
Repeal the 16th Amendment and we'll talk, until then she can stick it up her VAT
I foresee many items "falling off the truck" and jobs! yes!!! JOBS! this will create more Loss Prevention jobs than ever before.. THOUSANDS.. maybe MILLIONS! pretty soon, that's all we'll be doing and making sure people don't swipe inventory to make an extra buck because the black market would be huge.
Soon the entire "real" economy is going to be loss prevention and criminal justice.
Question: Why would anyone propose a 6.5% VAT?
Answer: Because they really want a 3% VAT.
Get ready folks, it's coming.
"Question: Why would anyone propose a 6.5% VAT?
Answer: Because they really want a 20% VAT."
Fixed that for you.
Not in year one, but I agree it will move up over time.
You mean they only want to put the head of it in, as outlined above.
I thought that `Health Care Reform` was the VAT? What am I missing?
I would welcome a VAT tax if you completely eliminate the income tax, medicare tax, state income tax and ss tax.
Most states already have an income tax plus a sales tax so I guess the Fed's want their share as well.
I am paying NC income tax now along with 8.5% state sales tax.
Plus $.3355 per gallon NC State gasoline tax and $.185 Federal tax on gasoline
Not to mention a host of other taxes!!
When will it all end?
Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids.
Taxes once imposed are NEVER eliminated. They might be jiggered, modified and combined but they are never eliminated. The VAT if enacted will be in addition to, not a substitute of, the current tax structure.
I realize that CD I guess I was just thinking outloud! I have just recenlty come to the realization of the dire truth of what is going on and it is majorly depressing for me! Learning more and more every day.
try to keep a sense of humor, we're just particles on a ride remember
Reality is a bitch. The good news is that as you continue to unplug, the illusion becomes easier to see. You are moving to a higher frequency as the world's population in general moves lower. This is a good thing despite how it may appear at the moment.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. ~Philip K. Dick
"Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids."
But, But CD...
Our economy runs on Lucky Charms...
"Magically delicious!"
Touch my Lucky Charms and your ass is grass.
I would welcome a VAT tax if you completely eliminate the income tax, medicare tax, state income tax and ss tax.
I would welcome being knocked unconscious and having money stolen from my right pocket if they stopped knocking me unconscious and stealing the money from my left pocket.
Is anyone else having BIG lag times loading ZH ?? It just took me 2 minutes to load this article, and been noticing a lot of lag yesterday too, Anyone?
Same as yesterday. Watch for all the double-posts, as the browser keeps trying to send it.
It was really lagging when they were buggering the strumpets.
8)
Orly,
If you find the server hanging and your comment not posting, try this. Quickly open a new additional browser window (don't close the one you're waiting on) and pull up ZH. Then go further and click on the story you are posting to in the other browser window. I find that unless the server is actually down (a different problem than what you're discussing) this often makes the comment post in the other window.
I have no idea why, but it nearly always works for me unless the server is in the process of going down rather than simply slow.
It is just the NSA monitoring those dissident, homegrown terrorist ZH commenters...
Ohhhh thats right I forgot!
I was completely unable to access ZH from one network Thurs-Monday due to timing-out errors. FWIW.
This might help explain
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/zerohedge.com#
That makes sense, just a lot of traffic.
They will push until we push back. Who knows when that will be. So does this mean we will abolish te income tax or now we just have an additional theft of our labors?
Heh what do you know America..Joe McCarthy was right. Lawrenece O"Donnell actually admitted last week on MSM that he was a socialist and proud of it. I suppose being a communist is great so long as you and your pals get to decide how the pie is divided.
Still cannot believe in this day and age that people cannot understand that taxing (stealing) from a producer eventually leads to less production until you are eventually forced to make them your slave under threat. Regardless history tells us that this as well comes to an end. So they know what is going on full well.The elites just want to see if they can do what the evil have strived to do since civilization existed which is take over the world.
The plan this time is to do it with financial weapons and collectively and keep the mortals unaware literally until the moment the shackles click.
If they tax us 100% and seize all our assets they are still fuckin broke. They lie about it because they get away with it.
VAT on services? We don't make much anymore and a VAT will ensure that manufacturing NEVER gets re-vamped in the good ol' US of A. They will start building cruise missiles and stealth bombers in Shenyang China, before heavy industry pays more tax. Just another way to pump "inflation" into the commodity market. Consider all the waivers on Obamacare handed out to the biggest or cryptic Corporations. Will GM/Delphi be paying a VAT, or will that Redbox video kiosk, nail salons and dental hygienists be sending their 6.5% to Club Bernake/Geithner/Axlrod/Reid? We are living in a G_ddamn rape room!
Obama/Bush crossed the Rubicon. The Federal Government are now the Redcoats. The Republic is now Occupied. Think of all of this while you get herded by TSA through Kabuki security this Thanksgiving. Do you even recognize this country anymore? When some Federal rent-a-cop stuffs their hands down your daughter's pants, maybe you'll think twice about where and why this country is going.
The Federal Government are now the Redcoats. The Republic is now Occupied.
Liberty or Death.
I'm turning you into the TSA, where you will be trundled off to the Fondle Room. I will then greedily accept my $93.50 dollar reward.
Alice Rivlin. Apparently Roger Altman will replace Larry Summers.
Because I have zero choice as to how much I consume? Please let them do this I need the entertainment.
Since all goods are made in China, does this not effectively mean a new stealth 6.5% import tax is being implemented?!
I've got a better idea. Let's pull out of both wars, cut federal employee salaries by 30% across the board, and include social security and other transfer payments in taxable income.
Or we could just default. It's coming sooner or later, might as well get it over with.
Let's not count them as taxes, for that gives two new positons for government unionised employees.
Instead, we should means test for Social Security and demand something in return for other "social services."
How do you get to means test for benefits already promised? That's what no one wants to talk about with reform... YOU CANNOT REFORM. You don't just get to reneg on your promises because they're convenient, especially when you took money from people under the auspices of a retirement program, not based on need and not to be converted into a tax in the event you actually put back something extra.
Ok, so you give me this pamphlet every year describing what I'm entitled to and what I'll be getting and then one day I get a notice in the mail saying it's no longer available? Huh? They're locked in to this one and there aren't enough tax revenues to keep up with the hole.
This is the problem with the nanny state, it ends up forcing everyone to be pansies in need of nannies.
. . . which is where the abusive daddy steps in.
double.
Mad Max don't get me started!!! Let's not just pull out of both wars how about we bring all our troops home from Germany and all over Europe as well. South Korea can fend for themselves lets bring them home from South Korea and Japan also! Where else did I miss?! Stop giving money away to every freekin country crying for help!
never gonna happen because once they have subjugated the US, they will use the military to squeeze control over the rest of the world.
Hey, TBTB have to find alternate ways of grinding us all up to keep up their hedonic pleasures in this new era of falling income tax receipts.
Bailouts and bonuses for the chosen ones don't come cheap, folks.
Oh, and those government workers making more than 160k a year, whose ranks increased by 2000% under the Obama Admin - they thank you, also.
Buck up, plebes!
Karl? Welcome back to ZeroHedge.
:)
I am not Denninger, but lately, he's been pretty much spot on.
1 Trillion in personal taxes collected and 1 trillion in military/war/security spent (per year)
That tells you the financial picture and the priorities.
need to by my iPad before they do that...
You can buy a cheap clone iShit made in a Chinese factory next to the one making iPads very soon.
Patience.
I bought an Android tablet for $200, works just fine.
I just spent about $200 on Silver Eagles. It's a better deal.
"We’ve pissed enough people off in America to last forever. We don’t need any more people.”
...i beg to differ mr. simpson...we need more...and you shouldn't be so naive to think that you can actually control the thoughts and feelings of an entire population via mandates, programs, rebates, bailouts, false flags, scandals, war, and propaganda...many have already come to the conclusion that those in D.C. with authority at the highest levels have destroyed what many once believed was a great nation...we know it will be a difficult task to correct the errors made by generations of self-serving government parasites...but, as history serves us all, it is clear what sacrifices must be made and people will decide that for themselves as they always have...not from a foolish committee of cowardly traitors...and i won't be naive in believing that you will not try to sway an agenda against the population again for it is all you know...and it represents utter failure...nothing but the truth will set you and everyone else free from this bondage of tyranny...i will stand with those that have the courage to be honorable human beings...and i will decide for myself what honor is...taxes? ...cowardly taxes...double them all...it changes nothing but your mathematical conscience.
Is a 6.5% VAT coming? No.
A 13% VAT? Probably.
Sadly, I'm afraid we're going to look back fondly on the Halcion Days of 2008-9.
These are the good old days. The hell that is being prepared for us is quite impressive.
These WILL be remembered as 'the good ol days' rather shortly...terrifying.
Reducing deficits to manageable levels by the end of the decade would require raising rates on the top two income brackets to 86 percent and 91 percent, the report says.
Yes! Tax the rich like it's 1959.
Of course the "rich" have to live here, don't they? Here is an interesting statistic, if the wealthiest 100,000 Americans left the country and refused to pay taxes, tax rates on their fellow citizens left behind would have to double to compensate for the loss in revenue.
So go ahead and malign, trash, and piss off the wealthy, see where it gets us.
You are correct.
I don't know if that's directed at me, but my statement above refers to the fact that government bailouts of atrocious companies and banks, supporting a system where many in the bailed out industries will receive amazingly rich bonuses this year, and policies set into place by the Federal Reserve in the form of access to their discount window as well as 'Quantitative Easing,' are all forms of stealing from all taxpaying Americans, whether wealthy or middle class, to support and enrichen those who are connected to legislators or who de facto command legislators.
This thing we have...it's not democracy.
And this has nothing to do with rich versus not rich.
We are going to use those 100,000 guts to grease the treads of our tanks.
Think of the richest 100,000 residents of the seven counties surrounding the Capital suddenly disappeared - all their political influence peddling, all their lobbyists, all their fundraiser parties to write the very "laws" that infect this Great Land suddenly gone - think of each of them swinging from the street lights.
So many of us are fat and happy with our hard earned wealth, but after a while money is no longer attractive - its power. And those types of selfish people have driven this country into the ground. That is the difference between living in a Representative Democracy and your Corporate Oligarchy.
I just hope something (anything) gets better before the Reset Button has to be pressed.
This self interest is inevitable. What we have to do is design and implement a system whereby the self interest is properly corralled into its most productive capacities while minimizing detrimental effects. However, humans have failed miserably at completing this mission... and I suspect it may very well be a hard limitation on our intellect.
What we have to do is design and implement a system whereby the self interest is properly corralled into its most productive capacities while minimizing detrimental effects.
Why would "we" need to reinvent something that already occurs as a recognized element of Natural Law: the sovereignty of the individual. Next you'll want to reinvent the wheel.
Natural law has a basic premise, might makes right. Unfortunately, for the meager and deficient, the natural law seeks to weed them out and/or ensure they are born into slavery. Ultimately, to be consistent with our feelings, the sovereignty of the individual must give way when it conflicts with other individuals. However, this interchange is naturally self preserving/beneficial. We err on the side of benefiting ourselves. You can dance around academically all you want, but this is how the world works. Any inconsistencies in our actions are only inconsistencies with objectivist principles and not with natural law.
Further, stoking this sovereignty can increase the incidents of externalities. These externalities may eventually pose a threat so significant all of humanity faces peril. While it's easy to devise a system that solely focuses on each individual micro transaction, it's hard to contemplate the macro result from the basic transactions... this ultimately leads to a collapse as the "real" cost becomes apparent. In short, giving greater autonomy is not necessarily synonymous with more productivity nor net gain for humanity.
Obviously, any system devised should seek to maximize individual autonomy. The problem, however, is that humans have not yet devised a system capable of perfectly handling the interchange between these sovereign individuals. The process is too dynamic to perfectly control. In an academic vacuum, we can devise a plan, but in the real world, it's vastly more complicated.
It gets us even. When the top 1% skims off the top 24% of the cream the "rich" can kiss my fuzzy butt.
They forgot to tell them that only productive people make a lot of money. Rich people already have a lot of money. Taxing incomes is already a value added tax because you use labor to add value to capital.
This is not taxing the rich. This is making a permanent caste where rich people are bailed put constantly and productive people are taxed at a salvary rate.
If you can't create inflation by printing, try creating it by taxing...