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Dumb, Silly, Sad and Ridiculous
DUMB
Congress let FUTA die on June 30th. What’s a FUTA?, you might ask.
FUTA (Federal Unemployment Tax Act surtax ) was, get this, a
temporary tax on wages that was established thirty five years ago. It
was supposed to help replenish the unemployment benefit accounts after
the 1973-74 recession. It has already been extended 9 times.
The Republican let it die. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave
Camp, R-Mich., refused to extend the tax. Completely consistent with
current Republican thinking Camp had this to say:
“The
fact that it has taken 35 years for this ‘temporary’ tax to expire
clearly illustrates the dangers of higher taxes—once in place, they are
unlikely to ever go away.”
As far the dollar and cents go, FUTA is no big deal. It comes to about
$14 per person per year. The absence of this tax will only add a couple
of billion onto the annual deficit.
We are in a crisis with unemployment this 4th of July. We have been for
three years now. We are going to be in crisis next 4th of July too.
There is an enormous social cost to this. The "solution" is to borrow from the future to pay for it today.
That’s the American way. Democrats or Republicans the same. One day the lot of them will wake up to a capital market that says, “No mas!” I’m amazed that those bright folks in D.C. don’t see it coming. Maybe they’re not so bright after all.
SILLY
I love this story. I’m going to try to write a screenplay about it. This is sort of “Law and Order” combined with the “Sopranos”.
This is a very big legal case that might set some troubling precedents.
The Supreme Court has already been involved. Now it is back in the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. A quick summary:
One company (Ideal Steel) sued another (Natl Steel) for damages due to
competition by allegedly evading taxes and thereby giving customers a
discount and filing fraudulent sales and income tax returns to cover up
the scheme, and further allegedly damaged plaintiff by using proceeds of
the scheme to open a new store resulting in additional competition.
From the court filings:
Defendants' establishment of a competing commercial enterprise through the investment of income derived from a pattern
of racketeering activity—to wit, mail fraud and wire fraud in
violation, in the filing of fraudulent tax returns and related
information enabling the evasion of income taxes.
This is a fight between two “family” owned businesses. One in the
Bronx and one in Queens NYC. This is a RICO (racketeering) suit. Some
of the arguments put forward in the case:
When organized crime infiltrates
a legitimate business, its whole method of operation counters our
theories of free competition and acts as an illegal restraint of trade.
The syndicate-owned business,
financed by illegal revenues and operated outside the rules of fair
competition of the American marketplace, cannot be tolerated in a system
of free enterprise.
So you get the connection to the Sopranos. But on the other side is a
parade of very talented (and expensive) lawyers. A good chunk of the
judicial system has been involved as this case has proceeded. At this
point the costs must be staggering. There is a lot at stake.
I'm not sure how often companies can prove their competitors are doing
stuff like what is alleged, but people would definitely be motivated to
sue. So if Ideal Steel wins, a ton of additional lawsuits against other
major companies would soon follow. And that is why this case is so
important. None other than Supreme Court Justice Breyer has already
opined:
The
(prior court decision) has warped civil RICO into a tool that aggrieved
business interests will use to harass and undermine competitors engaged
in legitimate, competitive business activities. This in turn will put the courts in the nearly impossible position
of having to ascertain which otherwise legal marketplace activity can
be directly linked to ill-gotten investments and which cannot.
When I look at this I see a very busted system. One that can only be
laughed at. One that it is struggling to survive. We are a nation of
laws. Our effort to keep it that way is killing us. Everybody hates the
bankers these days. Actually it is the lawyers who are making a hash of
it.
There is a few thousand word legal brief on this story. I ran it through
that Wordle thing. Should be worth a screen play. A tragi-comedy.
SAD
This report (Link) concluded the following regarding young adults and personal debt:
Researchers found that the more credit card and college loan debt held by young adults aged 18 to 27, the higher their self-esteem and the more they felt like they were in control of their lives.
That’s the thinking of teenagers today? The same report found that those older than 27 had a very different perspective.
Those aged 28 to 34 – began showing signs of stress about the money they owed.
There’s something very wrong here.
RIDICULOUS
This is the cover page for the new CBO report on the cost of the military: (I love the pic of the dog jumping out of the plane)
Inside the report is this chart:
A few observations:
* That horribly big dark blue hump from 2002 to today is what is referred to as “OCO” (Overseas Contingency Operations). I really think they should call a spade a spade. OCO might confuse some folks. A more appropriate description could be WAR.
* The good folks at the CBO make the (dangerous) assumption that
there will be no OCO/WAR over the next twenty years. That the mistakes
of the past won’t be repeated again. Here’s hoping on that one.
But look at the conclusions of this. On the assumption that there are no more OCOs/WARs, the military is still going to cost $650 billion a year. $13 trillion is the “plan” that we are on.
On paper, this “plan” will not work. We are not such a rich country any
longer. We can’t afford to be the cop on the beat. But the question is, “Can we afford to not be?” Time will tell.
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So, when the next collapse of the ponzi happens, the 500,000 a month being laid off will have less time (with federal extensions) to try to find another job in a 4 year old 'jobless recovery' before they are destitute and pawning their kids off for food.
What great leadership we have don't we? $1.5 trillion for bankers and MIC, citizenry... oh well ... who gives a fuck
My family can boast a long line serving in the military, but only one who made a career of it and reached the pinnacles as an officer. Anyone in that position can tell you that it's a business like any other business a human being can participate in - a for-profit entity. In this case, the "profit" goes to . . . the top level "executives".
I'm sure many a mail boy would shake his head at the excesses and seemingly counter-productive "waste" of resources authorized by the boys in the executive suite, but it only looks that way because the mail boy doesn't yet understand how to play the game and game the play.
In other words, it's only "waste" if it benefits someone other than you.
I dont know if I'd boast about a long line of murderers-for-hire being in my family tree. I dont think anyone here cares how many brown and yellow people your family has killed.
THe US has been 'world policeman' (an illusion in itself) for so many generations that Americans think its normal just like 'everyone smokes' of years gone by. Eventually, like smoking, people will wake up and kick the habit. Somebody tell me the value in shooting tomahawk missiles worth 1.5 million each to blow shit up whilst nobody can find jobs at home? One of the fighter planes costs 90grand an hour to run! Give me a fucking break!
Oh, and anyone arguing that there are less military personnel now need to have a good look at the weapons used now, those drones are a good example of this.
The sad thing is that you are all being suckered, again, this is the same playbook used in the 1930's and 1940's, recession, monetary debasement and finally war. Instead of arguing over Democrat v Republican (another illusion), you need to smash the banking system into the dirt. As Rothchild said, who cares who runs the country, the controller of the money runs the show.
The Military/Industrial/Banking crime syndicate never gets poor, they get richer from raping our planet and killing its people. 100 million people have been murdered in the last 100 years alone via this sick sick monster. They steal taxpayers money, build secret bases of death, withhold free energy technology and all we do is argue if gold is a good investment. Fuck the system, stop clinging to a sinking ship, stop fighting and arguing with your brothers and sisters. It takes effort to swim on your own but at least you are free.
I would rather die fighting these bankers/military scum than living in fear of them. Your enemy is not in the Middle East, your enemy is your own Government, regardless of who is in power.
Stop the Wars!
The neocons really believed they would be cheered into iraq and all over the middle east, bringing the goodness of democracy and apple pie.
Western lives lost for people not worthy.
and your last paragraph...
if rioting kicked off in nyc - would they march on wall str.... or walmart??
Have you ever hear of a country's military called department of offense? They say it is for defense, then they invade to colonize other country's natural resources with dictators managing internal affairs, then claim that they are protecting or defending.
Sad fact is, if America doesn't do it then someone else will play the mafia protection game going after oil and Africa. Russia, EU, China...
Not that I completely disagree with either your words or the sentiment behind them AH but I am sensitive to the implication that the USA and by extension myself, is actively imperialistic, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
Has it happened in the past? I think we all know that certain administrations walked a fine line on this matter and it is doubly harsh when it was done for political ideology rather than for global economic stability, Pinochet for example, but I for one am really tired of the childish game of blaming all ills on the USA while psycho fuckers run about half the nations in the world.
We were bad, we supported the Shah, maybe even were instrumental in installing him, ah yes, and look at the lovely choice the people in Persia have made for themselves. A belligerent theocratic dictatorship that is verging on threatening the rest of the world with nuclear weapons and is actively reaching for an imperial caliphate stretching from Rabat to Australia. Who did not see that coming?
Even the most left wing dirt eating tree hugging tambourine banging slacker knows that no matter what the USA does or fails to do we will get blamed for it causing a very long list of problems. Damned if we do and damned if we don't. If we do act for any reason at all it will be labeled colonial interference and cultural imperialism. Look at some of the places where we did not act, and how much shit we catch for it. And of course it is true that we will more likely act in a place where we have vital interests, such as nations we do a large amount of business with. But for every example of our interferences there are examples of non interference and they are not all Darfur or Rwanda. When was the last time we sent troops into Venezuela or bombed Caracas? Though if there is a slimy asshole that needs replacing it is Chavez. Cuba, Bay of Pigs, half hearted attempt to help mostly Cuban nationals replace Castro, failed and no further serious attempts made though it would have been the easiest of wars to win had we wanted to, at least till we drove them into the arms of Russia.
And look at places we used to control that we granted independence to, places that we did not set out to conquer but which we gained by default after we defeated a true colonial power, Spain. Cuba got immediate independence. And what a fine place that is today. Puerto Rico is still an American possession, but only after they have voted more than once to remain part of the USA, which has said that it may do as it pleases, go independent, stay a commonwealth, or become a state. They might not have as high a standard of living as continental USA but it was their choice to be what they are and even though they have a lower standard of living than say Montana they are a lot better off than most of the world.
Somalia, a brutal place you can't even call a nation, attacking shipping that comes within a thousand miles of it's coast, nobody has attacked them and cleaned up that mess, though we did clean out the Barbary Coast of pirates in the late 1700's, and we did not even manage to colonize north Africa in the process.
Philippians was granted independence in 1947 and was never subjected to harsh colonial terms with the US, except for the few years Japan inflicted mass death and conquest upon them in WWII. By the way, most of us learned that the Spanish American war was a Hearst manipulation and that the sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor was probably a false flag act used to get us into a war of imperialism we otherwise would not undertake, but the truth is that Cuban uprisings against Spain and harsh Spanish reprisals had been going on for years and greatly aggravated Americans. When McKinley demanded (reluctantly I might add) Spain give up Cuba it was not so that we could colonize it, even if Cuba would then be more receptive to American sugar and tobacco interests, so fucking what? But, when the US made that demand Spain declared war on us, bet most of you don't remember that part eh?
Most of our "imperialist" foreign policies have evolved as we have evolved, are still evolving and becoming more enlightened, they went from some elements of control for the benefit of private business, to containment of actual threats, to hands off in all but the most severe cases, and I know that BushCo was a throwback to the bad old days, but we found out in 2001 what we get for ignoring the internal politics of the rest of the world, not that we should interfere but we should be watching closely and when real threats develop we have a right and a duty to not allow ourselves to be attacked. I always said it was unfortunate that BushCo took us into Iraq, for many reasons, but key is because it undercuts the credibility of our country to counter real threats in the future.
One thing is for absolute certain, if we have an absolute hands off policy in all cases the only results can be isolationism and protectionism, a policy we tried and which failed. Not everyone will agree or be happy no matter what we decide or do. Clearly the world is changing, some of that is for the good, but I am afraid there are factors that that make the future risky and pragmatic level headed adult policy will have to prevail if we are going to survive, and like it or not survival of half the people on the planet depends of good business relations among the countries. Security for commerce is now as vital to life as who owns what plot of dirt, or who runs what nation into the ground.
is you is or is you ain't my baby ?
That depends on how many unemployed, trained killers you think is good for an economy.
We are in some kind of debt supercycle. The entire Western World is dead, flat broke and can't pay it's bills. Everyone wants to pretend otherwise but eventually something will break.
Power will shift back to the East for the next 100 years while the West gets its act together.
....IMHO, the dog did not jump....he was booted off the flight deck by the guy in the foreground....PETA should look into this....
Again, SPENDING is the fucking problem, not taxes people - why is that so fucking hard to understand?
Because those who complain loudest about spending and demand the most tax cuts are often also the ones doing a huge amount of spending.
@ snowball,
Spending IS the problem. Yes, we can get back on track by cutting .gov spending!
More spending either means higher taxes or greater debt. Cut spending!
This is absolutely true. The problem seems to be that cutting the *real* items in the budget is difficult politically and even carries its own set of fiscal costs.
What's it going to be? Military, SS, or Medicare?
Who takes the brunt of the pain?
We could fool ourselves a bit longer by cutting $20billion off of a $3 trillion budget. Like yeah, the NEA is a big part of the problem. That's the kind of thing drug addicts tell themselves when they drop $120 on a couple grams of coke--well I saved that $5 I would've wasted on a cheeseburger.
Generally speaking we need to grow up as a people. There's not that much different here vs. Greece. The same showdown is coming, and it would be wise to start the conversation before folks start setting government buildings on fire.
What do YOU want to cut, Bearing?
You missed the point. Gov't now spends $1.50 for every $1 it takes in. It's the extra 50 cents that buys the votes. Welcome to Democracy.
We can’t afford to be the cop on the beat. But the question is, “Can we afford to not be?” - BK
The problem lies in the fact that our government has loved to play arsonist, fireman & cop. The residuals from those trades are what is going to cause the most grief in determining the proper modeling of future capital expenditure. Reminds me of the mortgage market and its derivatives writ large. Same pie, same hogs at the trough.
Yep, them firesetters/bedwetters/animal-mutilators sure love getting official jahbs. What an amazing thing.
Happy 4th, most solemnly. Merci.
"Federal Unemployment Tax Act surtax"
Surtax on a tax you say, perhaps sticking with the original 26 weeks of UEI was the solution to this "surtax". Mobs of pissed off unemployed would have pushed this jalopy over the debt cliff long ago but of course extend and pretend is the solution. Of couse it's only "14 bucks a year per person" and shooting someone ONLY puts a small hole in their body. "ONLY" the wonder word that works wonders.
Only 14 here, only twenty there, only fifty over here, only two hundred under here. Death by "only" a thousand taxes.
Well now, you start usin that only word and all of a sudden I just feel like I can shoot skittles outa my ass, dancin on sunshine and pissin gum drops
+++ something about the straw that breaks the camel's back.
So, sounds like according to this writer, no taxes should be allowed to expire to go away. Or, let's 'pick and choose' which tax is "o.k." Central planning at its best.
Gas for the American effort in Afghanistan is costing the military (the taxpayer) $400 a gallon.
... but isn't Overseas Contingency Operations a boon to the economy?
... aren't the young adults 18-27 just following the prescribed plan? When we didn't need jobs to grow the economy!
Dick was right! "DEFICITS don't matter!" Tell the republicans to stop their nonsense and put the music back on!! let's get up and dance some more!!
Nothing matters when your young. You will live forever. The perfect people for indoctrination into the military, full of testosterone and ready to fight no matter. The overspending military industrial complex relies on these poor kids to sacrafice their lives for its own sustainability. By 27 years of age, people are thinking more rationally about their future, family and survival. This nation is like a thirty year old that hasn't grown-up yet. Party like your 18 when you are 18, and your a lot of fun and care free. Party like your 18 when your thirty, and your a bum.
Military and war is today's fast track to human evolution. If you are too dumb to figure out that you are the one who risk everything, then maybe you deserve to be culled from the gene pool.
Most of the leaders in government today are here because they dodged the draft. Because those who didn't died off. But don't reveal too much otherwise we will have to pay premium to have lemmings fight the war.
Military and war are exactly what are inhibiting our species' evolution. They artificially induce scarcity and division, which induce fear, keeping the citizenry in a repressed state.
And please, don't blame the victim, the naive seventeen-year-old who does not have the tools to counteract some of the most well-funded marketing in the world. Anyone who is informed would dodge the draft. That doesn't make the uninformed stupid, just unfortunate.
more like a 235 year old man kept alive in cryostasis by red cross donations ...just sayin..
Borrowed Red Cross "donations" that can never, and will never, be paid off.
This is the ultimate scam, one of the Big Lies. Those in the know most definitely know that there really is never, and never was, any intention of paying down and/or off these loans. our so-called national debt. The game is to roll over Beethoven, roll over.....while also taking out even more.
Grow your way out of the problem, even if the 'growth' is just disguised inflation.
In the old days, one could go join the army to get away from divorce problems and credit problems. you go overseas and nobody knows where you are. not anymore. the banks come and talk to your CO and the next thing you know, you are stuck like a bug on flypaper until you get squared away on the money you owe.
thanks BK...it seems that a majority of what we are patrolling was caused by the patrolling itself. 132 countries...that's a very big precinct.
The kid going to college (even 'on margin') can see where they are headed...not so much the debt-free but also employment-free contrapositive. This does not seem all that irrational to me on the whole. UE for grads: 4.5% non-grads: 9.5%.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XxAZCfHnDs
"That’s the American way. Democrats or Republicans the same. One day the lot of them will wake up to a capital market that says, “No mas!” I’m amazed that those bright folks in D.C. don’t see it coming. Maybe they’re not so bright after all."
Well, I for one am sick of accepting false premises.
If we are so deeply in debt...WTF!
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270888/national-wasteful-spending-andrew-stiles?page=1
Furthermore...
"From the White House, National Journal’s Marc Ambinder reports that Obama believes he can get the Republicans to cave on taxes if he first lets the bond markets panic in late-July. Obama then hopes that Wall Street and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will force Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to compromise, like he did on the FY 2011 budget deal earlier this year."
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/06/morning-examiner-obama-s-debt-deal-desperation
Games, brinkmanship & horseshit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-missing-facts-in-president-obamas-news-conference/2011/06/29/AGpQMPrH_blog.html?hpid=z2
Spending is the problem.
Someone come and provide me proof that the State Department will no longer provide funds (6M from stimulus, yes, its true) to remodel friggin mosques around the world and that they have cut out every other spendthrift program and they have gotten all the graft out (10% I believe is the "working" number) and then we can discuss government revenue.
Not a damn minute sooner, piss on em.
...to remodel friggin mosques around the world..
I guess you're referring to such remodelings as this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO7xwnZA124&NR=1
Funny, hysterical.
Why not address the abuse of whack-a-demic Keynesian economic theorem string pushing onto the taxpayer via a trillion dollar debt bomb?
No, lets divert attention to a sniper hiding behind religion in a mosques minaret and getting his just reward.
I take it you were there and can vouch for the title of the vid to be true?
With you 100%.
We must be rich to piss money away like the politicians continue to do.
Not just kissing arab butt, what about the never to be paid back 'loans' to israel.
i've always seen the isrealis as a valve in the middle east to bomb any iranian nuclear ambition. And thats why the nutters are given F16's.
Uncle Sugar learned a lot from Wall Street....namely, the continuous use of terms none of the commoners can understand. OCO is nothing but war in a bullshit package.
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
- Henry Ford
The same man that funded and secretly supported Adolph Hitler in his early years, who was an open and unapologetic anti semite. The same man that said you can buy a Ford in any color you like as long as it is black.
As far as painting all his cars black that was only true of the Model T and only for part of the production. The first few years, colors were offered but he found painting to be a bottleneck. In those days cars were laboriously painted by hand.
The quickest drying paint on the market was a tough black enamel used for chassis and fenders. It could be sprayed on from a hose and dried in minutes. He ordered all cars painted with it.
In the mid 2Os new types of paint were invented like Duco lacquer. Now cars could be spray painted in quick drying colors. For the last 2 years of production you could buy a Model T in different colors again.
Open but not unapologetic. In 1927 he repudiated his former views, shut down the Dearborn Independent and burned a large and exensive collection of anti semitic literature. In 1929 he signed a statemen apologizing for the anti semitic articles in the Independent.
Actually, the statement was signed by one of his errand boys, after a Jewish boycott. Ford himself continued to detest the Tribe.
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
- Henry Ford
I think it was a helicopter the dog jumped out of, cool none the less.
It wasn't in the MSM, but the cost of Iraq/Afghanistan is now approaching the cost of WWII (including the Manhattan project) when adjusted for inflation. The waste is staggering.
Vietnam ($2T adjusted for inflation) brought us the '70s inflation (3X increase in prices) and the need to go off the gold standard. At least in the '70s wages kept up, sort of.
The GWOT will probably result in 4-6x inflation (we've already had prices double since 2001) WITHOUT wages keeping up.
Ah! I looked at it and saw the spray as clouds.
This 'job' is killing my vision....
Bruce,
Let's put this in perspective.
The dog's got more balls than most of us here.
That may be true...but from the angle of the dog's head and body that is not a voluntary "jump", he was hauled outta there by the neck.
Don't feel bad, Bruce; a Helicopter is a "rotating wing airplane". One of my favorite crazy technical definitions.
That's exactly what the blades are: rotating wings. And set at an angle to drive the 'copter forward. The little prop in back counteracts torque.
BK,
IMO, your vision is at least 20/15 - both eyes. And the topic is well considered, relevant and clearly stated. I have to apologise for Camp. He is from the middle of the state but in the districe that includes Dow Chemical. As far as I can tell, he is very energetic in service of his constitustancy. He may be influenced in his decision processes by corruption scandals in the City of Detroit which the rest of the state cannot be too happy about right now.
Thanks for your work and your post.
Yes sir, helo jump. You can see the rotor wash on the water...