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On Rick Santelli's "Meet The Press" Appearance, A $113 Trillion Future Rounding Error, And The Metamorphosis Of The American Dream To A Nightmare
Today, appearing on Meet The Press, in addition to Susan Rice, Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, Jennifer Granholm, Harold Ford, and Ed Gillespie was CNBC's uber contrarian voice, Rick Santelli. The topic: reigning in government spending, a topic which will be with America until its last bond issuance, sometime in the next 5 years. And while Rick was quite subdued this time around (it seems the CBOT voice only sees red when confronted with the likes of Steve Liesman), he did compare the crisis facing America now to the events from 9/11... "I think this is an issue that needs to be put out into the air and
see--many, many other states, ultimately, might have--not have the same
balance sheet as Wisconsin, but I think, ultimately, collective
bargaining, even from a federal level, these are big issues, and these
costs need to be put under control. If the country is ever attacked
like it was in 9/11, we all respond with a sense of urgency. What's
going on on balance sheets throughout the country is the same type of
attack." He also noted the critical Illinois muni situation whose alternative is a forced austerity plan (and considering that various Wisconsin politicans received death threats over what is finally being perceived a loss in some entitlement benefits, the outcome of inevitable austerity in America will not be pretty): "Senator Durbin is from my state: $3.7 billion muni issuance that they need to bring to the market. They
haven't paid vendors. You know, it has come to the crossroads where if
we don't start to make the changes that the governor and the congressman
know are going to take time, we will have austerity forced on us, and
that type of austerity is going to be much messier. There really isn't
much opportunity for debate here. We do need action." But most importantly is the realization that nobody has any idea what to do, and as an article just penned by the Global and Mail screams, "Wake up, Americans. Your economic dream is a nightmare." Luckily, with everyone's head in the sand, nobody really minds.
Clip from Meet the Press (and full transript here):
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
And now for some facts: On February 28, 2001 George Bush said this about his 2002 Budget: “It will retire nearly $1 trillion in debt over the next four years.” Instead, US debt, which at that point was $5.7 trillion, rose to $7.7 trillion. $3 trillion rounding error? Also in the same budget, Bush predicted a $5.6 trillion surplus over the next ten years, which would wipe out all of America's debt by 2011. The latest debt figure was $14.1 trillion. A $14.1 trillion rounding error, or a nearly five fold increase in "rounding errors" in a decade. At this point, the 2021 total debt (including insolvent Social Security) is expected to be $24 trillion. Applying the same rounding error variance to government "projections" means... $113 trillion in debt?
Most jarring, total US Debt to GDP will be over 100% in under 6 months. Paging Reinhart and Rogoff...
A little more on future rounding errors as per Bill Buckler's latest Privateer:
As did Mr Bush’s fiscal 2002 budget, Mr Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget delivered on February 14 includes projections ten years into the future. Unlike Mr Bush’s projections, Mr Obama’s projections for the period between now and 2021 do not contain a single budget surplus. Instead they add up to a cumulative deficit over the next ten years of $US 7.2 TRILLION. The biggest projected annual deficit - $US 1.65 TRILLION - is for the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2011. The smallest - $US 619 Billion - is for fiscal 2018. By 2021, the total annual outlay of the US government is predicted to be $US 5.697 TRILLION. That is an increase of 49 percent over the projected outlay for the current (2011) fiscal year. By 2021, the total annual revenue of the US government is predicted to be $US 4.923 TRILLION. That is an increase of 126.5 percent over the projected revenue for the current (2011) fiscal year. By 2021, government revenues are predicted to have risen 2.5 times as fast as government spending.
How is this to be done? GDP is “projected” to rise from $US 15.1TRILLION to $US 24.6 TRILLION.
The surreal nature of watching as this country dissolves into insolvency prompted the Globe and Mail to write the following must read article, "Wake up, Americans. Your economic dream is a nightmare":
Our southern friends are living the American dream these days, a dream that’s removing them from reality. Their federal legislators, including the President, are imagining a brilliant future that cannot be. None of them, it would appear, wants to awaken Americans from this dream.
The dream? Economic recovery followed by the return of prosperity, built on borrowed money. And not just some borrowed money, but trillions and trillions of borrowed money.
In this scenario, the rest of the world will keep lending to the United States, borrowing costs won’t rise, inflation will be banished, and the punishment that would befall almost any other country that ran such a lopsided budget will not strike the U.S.
Like all dreams, this one has lost touch with reality. In Washington, legislators seem to accept that amassing trillions of dollars of additional debt is a bad idea. Then they argue furiously about a mere 12 per cent of the budget that, even if half of it were to be eliminated, would still leave the government in a deficit position this year.
The discretionary part of the budget contains programs people count on, everything from education to the environment, food inspections to basic research, farm aid and student assistance. The other parts of the budget are debt, the military and the so-called entitlement social programs of health care for the poor and seniors and social security.
Two bipartisan non-governmental commissions have instructed the country in simple arithmetic: namely, that the budget can’t be restored to sanity without cuts to discretionary spending and entitlement programs, and tax increases. In the dreamland of U.S. discourse, however, no one wants to talk about cuts to entitlement programs or tax increases. Worse, just before Christmas, Congress and the President forged a deal that continued the fiscally ruinous tax cuts of George W. Bush, the ones so tilted toward the already wealthy, and pumped even more discretionary spending into the U.S. economy.
American friends who despair of dreamland discourse acknowledge that it will take a “crisis” to awaken enough people so serious action can occur, instead of the shadowboxing that passes for action.
What would constitute a “crisis”? The stock market is roaring; happy days have returned to Wall Street financiers. Interest rates are low. True, the unemployment rate is above 9 per cent, but that means 91 per cent of Americans are working.
Would a huge run on the dollar be a “crisis”? Would a serious surge in inflation? Or a nose-diving stock market? Or another housing plunge? Or all of the above? No one wants any of the above, but what will it take to awaken Americans from their dream?
It might have been thought that their President would try to alert them to the damage being done daily to their future, and to the serious shift in world power and influence away from a country so hobbling itself with debt.
Barack Obama has obviously calculated that the political risks are too great for candour, so he, too, operates within the dream by proposing some restraint on discretionary spending without touching the entitlement programs, the military or taxes. In this, he is complicit with Republicans in deforming the nature of the debate and ill-informing Americans.
He has obviously reckoned that, with the Republicans believing the problem can be solved by discretionary spending cuts alone, he isn’t going to do anything credible before the next election.
So health care for seniors and the poor continues to rise by 8 per cent annually. The bloated Pentagon budget will be a staggering $670-billion. Still, the Secretary of Defence says any cut of more than $9-billion would cripple the nation’s capacity to defend itself.
With a 5-per-cent national sales tax, of the kind every other industrial country has implemented, the U.S. would be halfway home to budgetary solvency. In dreamland, however, such a dose of reality is unthinkable.
Unfortunately, dreamland will soon be nightmareland. And nobody will have seen it coming. Nobody.
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Thanks for the appreciation Velo. :-)
ORI
ORI,
I think the dirty deed was done even earlier. The Federal Reserve Act and 16th Amendment allowing Congress to levy income taxes were both enacted in 1913 - coincidence?
FS, clearly not. It's FedMeddling that lead to the Depression and the war and pretty much geo-politics there-after.
WWI goes off in 1914-co-incidence?
;-)
ORI
ORI, don't get me wrong - I agree with your point, just think it started earlier. Since we both seem to like coincidences, 2011 "gulf of tonkin" false flag may have been selected:
North Korea may stage another attack “in months and not years,” said Navy Admiral Robert Willard, the top U.S. commander in the Pacific.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-17/north-korea-may-attack-again-in-months-u-s-says.html
Did nto mis-understand you at all FS. Was merely re-enforcing the point. See the other article today (Jeff Gaundlach sp!), war was the reason for the largest recovery last century for US GDP. 35% RECOVERY.
Also interesting how they like to broadcast their plan. Hidden in plain view.
Joe Biden's words also come to mind.
ORI
ORI, that's cool, just didn't want you to think i was taking a dig at you. I read Jeff's article earlier today.
I forgot to paste this one in my earlier post:
Obama did not exclude a pre-emptive nuclear attack against North Korea and Iran in a new Nuclear Posture Review announced last April.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2932437
Interesting FS. Not sure about the source (IHT though, so probably good enough).
More intention broadcasting, though it says nuclear or conventional.
ORI
WWII
Found this while researching your post:
"Frank F. checked the accuracy of this alleged Traficant statement and found it to be utterly false. Here is what he said in a recent e-mail:
The actual page from the Congressional Record is here. Please excuse the copy quality of this PDF file as it was obtained from microfiche. This page proves that those who allege that Traficant made this statement are not telling the truth.
Please also notice that the fake Traficant statement makes certain allegations:
1. "The United States Federal Government has been dissolved by the Emergency banking Act, March 9, 1933";
2. That HJR 192 was a part of the bankruptcy;
3. That the 1913 Federal Reserve Act was effective back to 1870, many years before that act was adopted.
These congressional acts have been posted on my site. The Emergency Banking Act and HJR 192 are posted, as is the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. Please read these acts to deteremine whether these allegations are true. Reading them discloses that the allegations are false. The password for the Emergency Banking Act and Federal Reserve Act is "Becraft" (with a capital "B"). "
http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/deadissues.htm
Jerome, thanks for the link. It is clearly a contentious topic, because I could provide 10 links that state the opposite. Some allude to the fact that congressional record was altered, CSPAN coverage was cut short when someone figured what he was saying etc.
Good question to ask though.
Because it is true.
ORI
"How is this to be done? GDP is “projected” to rise from $US 15.1TRILLION to $US 24.6 TRILLION."
The guys coming up with these budget projections are clueless. Don't they talk with the chairsatan? Revenues is 2021 will be in the QUADrillions. Of course, by then the cost of printing meaningless $20 bils will be prohibitive...
There's online games you can play with those types of numbers.
Now while I haven't play this game much since fall '08 (yes that reason), here's a nice stat 169,746,549,908,284,800. And it MEANT something all the way up. Even my turn income is over 100 trillion [down 50 percent in a couple of years of not playing] (and this game has a logarithmic cap on the top end slowing you down).
It's pretty funny, when you think about it, such games economics ARE monetary systems. Want to see what can go awry or maybe you already have? That's MONETARISM that allows for that to occur.
Then you also make the connection that just like THAT bs game, our rl monetary system is just as bullshit. Just as fake and arbitrary. Can be (and is) changed on a whim for the connected who bitch to have rules changed. It really is funny. The parallels are striking.
What Big Ben and the Queen are running is nothing more advanced then a bullshit browser game...except it's REAL! (only because we give it the power to be real ofc)
Enact Glass-Steagall and wipe this bs from the planet, and relegate it to just the web for fun, instead of the economy for REAL.
Or the numbers will get just as crazy as these monetary systems resides inside these games. (and just like in real life....people ALWAYS cheat to game the system...and sometimes....the destroy it...wow...just like rl)
We need a better standard than bullshit sophistry conducted through monetarism. We need the American Credit System (Hamiltonian), and a return to the Glass-Steagall separation of securities [which includes ALL securitized bs/derivatives] from deposits. No more 100x leverage for 99.9999 derivatives AND getting bailouts...and then claiming that we can't loan money out or we can't afford to take on this or that project. Bullshit.
Glass-Steagall
I totally respect your passion about Glass-Steagall. But I believe the difficulties are much larger - fractional reserve banking/money creation as debt by private corporations. None of that would be solved by GS.
Not worth a shit if not enforced (and it wouldn't be). What's your next good idea?
the empire is so naked its not even funny. the pentagon says "there is nothing to cut". the whores in congress are afraid to confront the "War Department". this is appalling.
http://nakedempire.wordpress.com/
Afraid?!?!
The bribes come in and ALL pockets get lined with government pork. Brazen is more like it.
"cutting more than $60B will cripple the US' ability to defend itself."
what a joke. Our war department and unthinking pro zionism is what got us in this predicament in the first place.
That is the first place that needs to be cut.
WTF would all the laid off military personel do if there were a serious reduction in the size of the military? Could thery get 99 weeks UI? Or they could just be abandoned on the countries soil where they are stationed.
If every soldier was brought home, WTF would they do for a living?
They'd be makin revolution. Which is why the army gets cut last.
+1
Anecdotal: my brother (in Atlanta) ran into a guy working in parts supply or such....yak/yak....turns out he's on furlough from US Army [between Iraq tours] & has to work; most of his buddies can't find jobs... The kicker: bro sez "oh, so you're in reserves?" NOT. Regular Army. WTF?? x2
to topcallingtroll's original about cutting DOD.....hell yes. Just start with the pigs in that 5-sided building in DC....talk about "cutting the fat". Problem is, if you retire 50% of those stars & birds, then you gotta pay their fuckin' pensions, med care & etc. We so fucked, no matter what
"nothing to cut", eh. I'd like to fix the Pentagon with a crew and four or five D-11 Dozers; after a week, then there would be nothing to cut.
give me a CAT425 excavator and i'll pluck those MFs 1 by 1 into a demo box
So you save some money / energy - who gets the surplus ?
The mechanism to create capital is broken - you can save all you want baby - but this energy will just be transferred somewhere else.
A waste of fucking time - Human turds such as Santelli are not only full of shit but their shit is not even high quality bullshit - give me a fucking break.
I think the world I am struggling for amongst this profanity is stooge.
"Lets have a conversation about austerity".................. ......... .... .. . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can bet that UK style austerity is coming to the US after the 2012 presidential elections. Why do you think that banks were recently asked to stress test for a possible 11% unemployment situation?
Everything is going according to plan. The people will never wake up and realize that there are only two forms of wealth: gold and silver. Their sense of value has become so distorted, they believe statements to the effect: there is only 300 billion dollars worth of gold. They allow something of real value to be denominated in something of no value.
All the while, the gold and silver stores are being bought up and sealed in safes away from the common person. The worker will have all their wealth tied up in assets with relative values (land, homes, cars, etc) and denominated in paper.
The wealthy will have all their wealth tied up in precious metals.
After the transition to the SDR, the last global ponzi scheme can begin. Unless we find a galactic central bank (doubtful), this last paper run will collapse and resources will be bought with metals or taken with guns. Most of the people holding the guns, will be working for the people with the metals.
It is really this simple. No timeframe attached. Predictions are prone to inaccuracy.
Your implication that he who has the gold will be king is a bit simplistic. Its more along the line that he who is king will have the gold.
Collapse will revert to the law of the jungle. Those who rise in the this environment have the characteristics of intelligence, charisma and raw cunning. Think Stalin, Mao, Sadam. These individuals could sense loyalty and smell an assassination conspiracy.
Thinking you can lead because you have gold is just plain silly.
No, it is not my implication. My implication is that he whom has gold and silver will have money- not currency. Society will not collapse, why people make that assumption is beyond me. Why would people give up all that is around them?
The lines to control will change, property will re-evaluate and adjustments will be made. Standards of living will fall or rise commensurate with your personal wealth. Wealth will not be measured in dollars or euros or sdr's- it will be measured in assets under control- especially gold and silver- as they will be the only basis for currency value.
All of these assumptions depend on fiat repudiation and hyperinflation. In any kind of recession or depression fiat becomes more valuable. No one seems willing to bet on the deflationary risk.
There are at least a billion or two Russians, Brazilians, Mexicans, Peruvians, Argentinians, Icelanders, Ecuadorians, Indonesians, Africans of too many nationalities to list here, etc. etc. who would dispute your supremely weak grasp of living monetary history.
You've been swallowing too much Establishment disinformation again --- spit it out!
You are assuming TCT actually knows, cares, or understands history.
Rick does not yell at Leisman. He is merely speaking in his "open outcry" voice. He knows that on Meet The Press, that is frowned upon.
I was just wondering how many U. S. citizens know there is a program called Meet The Press, who the host is, who the last one was (sad), let alone who was on it -- and an even grander stretch, what they said.
Even we don't want to make painful decisions now, 5 years later the current system will go down by its own weight. Looks like controlled fire shall spread to Iran some how go to wrong direction into Wisconsin. You can not have two classes of workers inside same company, either all belong to union or none of them belong to union. The idea of paying $15 a month of union fee to safeguard $1500 (100x levelraged) of monthly benefit is non-sense. Who gona pay the rest of $1485?: non-union workers and the rest of economy.
Because it's of no value to have public education?
Check out: "Some Lessons from the Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto, found in "Everything You Know is Wrong",
ISBN 978-1-56731-637-7, pgs 274-287
It's time that people took on the responsibility for educating their own children WITHOUT Govt interference!
Only the american idol and the american troll along with Ben Bernanke know how it's done. Houdini is back with a vengeance.
It wasn't a good weekend for cnbc on the teevee. Michelle CSquared was on Realtime with Bill Maher and was totally intimidated by the brainpower of Tavis Smiley and John Heilman. She was further piled on with Matt Taibbi during the Overtime segment, and managed to get the audience to turn on her as well.
http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher/index.html
Csquare, bigboobsrepresentive.com
christ, MT couldn't take his eyes off her cleavage, he was smiling so big, not listening to her. she had to look down and see what he was smiling about, instead of meeting her eyes. i suppose that is what a muslim would have to do, on an, on air event. i don't think they are suppose to look a woman in her eyes, if not veiled. matt just smirked away, knew he could just crush this woman in two. bimbo.com
Maher's just another disinfo troll in a "hip" wrapper. Same with Taibbi. Might as well watch the NBC segment above. Useless.
http://profilesinevil.blogspot.com/
Bill Maher values intelligence, but like so many other Socialist/Progressive thinkers, he never follows the principles he espouses to their logical conclusions. I only listen to him for the comedy -- anyone that thought Obamatron was gonna right the ship of State is seriously delusional!
Does any one really seriously think that if the robber barons in Washington got their hands on a 5% national sales tax that (a) they would use it to lower the deficit and not raise spending; or (b) that it will stay at 5% until the ink dried before they started to raise it?
They only way to cut the deficit is to cut spending. Raising taxes is just giving more drugs to the already addicted addicts.
No of course it would not go to lower the deficit.
There is always a sympathetic group out there that needs some money, just a little bit more.
"For the children!"
"To protect us from terrorists."
"To make us safer."
"As an investment in our future."
"It's the compassionate thing to do."
Before ZeroHedge, I was a completely isolated, neurotic mess. I thought I was living in some alternate universe where I was the only one. The guy who said shit like how do you write 115 trillion?? 115,000,000,000,000.00?? When do we get to start sharpening guillotines??
Thank gawd for my on line fight club. I love you guys.
"Before ZeroHedge, I was a completely isolated, neurotic mess"
Hmm, complete opposite for me...
Same here. I wrote so many blogs and talked so much to anyone who would listen about this stuff my mom thought I was turning into one of the crazies shouting on the street corner. I haven't gotten to that point... yet... but at least I know I am not alone in seeing the world go to hell in a handbasket... I was/am just a little ahead of the masses. :)
Yeah, without us, you might have had to do something useful to fight the power. Instead we just come on here and have our five minutes' hate and then go back to whatever the hell it is we do every day.
Outside of blogs no one seemed to read, trying to convince my friends and family to get their heads outta the sand, and keeping a supply of emergency food and such.... I didn't know what else to do. Or how to even begin to make myself self sustainable. This summer I am growing a small garden and learning to can. I don't have the resources to arm myself yet but it is in the plan. I am still figuring out what my next steps should be. ZH is w good place to come to expand ones knowledge. What people choose to do with the knowledge is up to them.
Does any one really seriously think that if the robber barons in Washington got their hands on a 5% national sales tax that (a) they would use it to lower the deficit and not raise spending; or (b) that it will stay at 5% until the ink dried before they started to raise it?
They only way to cut the deficit is to cut spending. Raising taxes is just giving more drugs to the already addicted addicts.
Exactly ZERO people believe the predators-that-be have any intentions other than total enslavement, and total impoverishment of everyone.
And everyone who pretends otherwise is either already feeding at the trough, or thinks they'll soon be able to.
Pshaw! Now that corporations have the rights of individual citizens, they should also be taxed on worldwide earnings like american citizens. Problem solved.
I think most of them would emigrate if such an action were to occur.
they are
replies crossed - US corporations are taxable on their worldwide earnings (subject to foreign tax credit). Earnings of foreign subsidiaries of US parent corporations are not currently subject to US income tax until repatriated in the form of a dividend, unless the FCo is a controlled foreign corporation with subpart F income (no tax deferral).
and get a tax break to do so.
Sharpening the guillotine has one disadvantage...it has two edges...and a propensity to keep going once it gets started...sooo, I hope you have your revolutionary bonnets well in place!
Dude, all you got to do is just whack a couple of these pricks. Everyone will sit up and take notice. In fact, history has shown us- that's the way it always goes. les feat complet
the trouble is, those people you call pricks, they tend to whack back.
Here's a nice little article on well placed bullets.
http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-assassinations-where-accounting-meets-human-resources/
I have never gotten over the fact that Ken Lay walked and drove the streets of Texas, where everybody and their dog is armed, without getting whacked.
What a bunch of big talkin', hat wearin' pussies.
Given the lives he destroyed, he shouldn't have lasted more than a few days.
And I believe he was NOT "heart attacked". I think the guy died of a honest coronary...while on vacation awaiting sentencing.
What a shame he wasn't made an "example".
What makes you think he is dead?
Armed citizens are not vigilantes.
"Unless we find a galactic central bank (doubtful), this last paper run will collapse and resources will be bought with metals or taken with guns. Most of the people holding the guns, will be working for the people with the metals.
It is really this simple. No timeframe attached. Predictions are prone to inaccuracy."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At some point yes, but don't underestimate the capabilities of the extend and pretend central banking cartel. They have been at this for over a hundred years. One other point. If it gets really bad (as it will when supply routes go down). Precious metals won't mean dick. The man with all the food and clean water will be collecting all the gold and silver.
I never underestimate the bankers. As for your pm predictions- you obviously have no idea what money is.
In that event, the only really precious metal will be lead.
I have to agree, FOOD will rule.
[...FOOD will rule.]---Rusty Shorts
Agree.
Water, food, faith(if you are so inclined), family & friends, integrity, skills/information, shelter, heat, controllable light source, means for fight and flight.
PMs will carry value thereafter.
"Precious metals won't mean dick. The man with all the food and clean water will be collecting all the gold and silver."
I missed why the smart man with all the food and clean water will be accepting all the PMs that won't mean dick.
The difference is some will have things of value, and other's will buy it with Gold/Silver. This is how it has been through the majority of time, and it looks like history is about to repeat.
What is Tom Izzo doing on Meet the Press?
What are you doing watching it?
my sentiment exactly as much as I would like to watch the clip I can't stomach Gregory and his henchmen, those scumsucking self-aggrandising propagandists feed the sheeple whatever their corporate masters wish to serve (and it's always toxic)
Starting a fiscal revolution in the USA on corporate privileges and applying them world wide would be a great novelty for the US economy and its current elites.
Example : Most corporations use off shore companies to regulate their world wide operations using transfer pricing from these trading intermediates to arbitrate fiscal optimisation amongst its national affiliates. It is estimated that 50% of international industrial, commercial, financial, service sector business is done on this basis...awesome!! As international trade grows with EM, new markets, this proportion will increase further. National entities will have to regulate this fiscal arbitrage or suffer like the members of EU who don't have fiscal solidarity and discipline, one of the reasons of their current sovereign debt problems, which will compound in the years as long as 'laissez faire' stays the rule and continues to play havoc with national economies.
OBAMA is nothing but a front man for JPMORGAN CHASE & a former C.I.A. agent. He's an agent of the banking system ....... the lies coming out of his mouth ........... don't believe anything, he DOES NOT CARE & ONLY WANTS TO SAVE HIS BANK.........
THE VERY PEOPLE WE HAVE ELECTED AS OUR REPRESENTATIVES IN GOVERNMENT ARE THE SAME PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT TO DESTROY THE AMERICAN CITIZENS. UNLESS WE GO INTO REVOLUTION AGAINST THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK (ROTHSCHILDS) WE ARE ALL TOAST.
As Bob Brinker is so fond of saying, "We have the best government money can buy"
Bob BRinker is an idiot. He is a Federal Reserve boot licker.
He sure is, wonder if he will ever come around? Chris Whalen really gave him a wupping, several weeks back, on the fed and the damage it is causing. But he is absolutely correct on our government being the best that money can buy...
First, tax the rich in a variety of ways, capital gains, hedge fund managers tax, personal property taxes, income taxes, luxury taxes, you name it. Time for them to pick up the tab for a change - they've gotten off easy for far too long.
Once you do that, then I'll agree with a national sales tax or similar regressive forms of taxation that punish the poor and middle class and leave the rich unscathed.
Eat the rich and take their money, it's faster. Why mess around?
Guess we know how you're life is going.
Greed is sitting on a couch getting a check to be nonproductive.
A mere 50 years ago marginal income taxes on wealthy earners was ~90% or a bit higher. Little was heard in public about the confiscatory taxes for the wealthy still lived far more comfy lives than the workers.
It will work again. Tax the bejesus out of the azz hats on Wall St. Sure, they will squeal like stuck pigs... until they realize the alternative is to get a real job...and/or be faced with a mob like that in Madison Wisconsin.
LOL! Yeah that will work. Faced with mobs in Wesconsin who have millionaire pensions, millionaire health plans, get exempted from Obama care and are doing it off the backs of taxpayers. You are so delusional.
Get a fucking clue. Teachers' pensions in WI are about $25k a year... that's not exactly big money these days.
What's a pension?
@ Snidley.
Here is an excerpt from Bill Bryson's recent book "At Home" about this particular period:
"The Eiffel Tower was the most striking and imaginative large structure in the world in the nineteenth cetury, and perhaps the greatest structural achievement too, but it wasn't the most expensive building of its century or even of its year. At the very moment that the Eiffel Tower was rising in Paris, two thousand miles away in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina an even more expensive structure was going up - a private residence on rather a grand scale. It would take more than twice as long to complete as the Eiffel Tower, employ four times as many workers, cost three times as much to build, and was intended to be lived in for just a few months a year by one man and his mother. Called Biltmore, it was (and remains) the largest private house ever built in North America. Nothing can say more about the shifting economics of the late nineteenth century than that the residents of the New World were now building houses greater than the greatest monuments of the Old. America in 1889 was in the sumptuous midst of the period of hyper-self-indulgence known as the Gilded Age. There would never be another time to equal it. Between 1850 and 1900 every measure of wealth, productivity and well-being skyrocketed in America. the country's population in the period tripled, but its wealth increased by a factor of thirteen. Steel production went from 13,000 tons a year to 11.3 million. Exports of metal products of all kinds - guns, rails, pipes, boilers, machinery of every description - went from $6 million to $120 million. The number of millionaires, fewer than twenty in 1850, rose to forty thousand by century's end. Europeans viewed America's industrial ambitions with amusement, then consternation and finally alarm. In Britain, a National Efficiency Movement arose with the idea of recapturing the bulldog spirit that had formerly made Britain pre-eminent. Books with titles like The American Invaders and The 'American Commercial Invasion' of Europe sold briskly. But actually what Europeans were seeing was only the beginning. By the early twentieth century America was producing more steel than Germany and Britain combined - a circumstance that would have seemed inconceivable half a century before. What particularly galled the Europeans was that nearly all the technological advances in steel production were made in Europe, but it was America that made the steel. In 1901, J.P. Morgan absorbed and amalgamated a host of smaller companies into the mighty US Steel Corporation, the largest business enterprise in the world had ever seen. With a value of $1.4 billion it was worth more than all the land in the United States west of the Mississippi and twice the size of the US federal government if measured by annual revenue. America's industrial success produced a rollcall of financial magnificence: Rockefellers, Morgans, Astors, Mellons, Morgans, Fricks, Carnegies, Goulds, du Ponts, Belmonts, Harrimans, Huntingtons, Vanderbilts and many more basked in the dynastic wealth of essentially in exhaustible proportions. John D. Rockefeller made $1 billion a year, measured in today's money, and paid no income tax. No one did, for income tax did not yet exist in America. Congress tried to introduce an income tax of 2 per cent on earnings over $4,000 in 1894, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. Income tax wouldn't become a regular part of American life until 1914, and in the meantime any money that was made was kept. People would never be this rich again.
Thanks for that interesting read Rusty.
ORI
What he means is this, the pension money and benefits add up to a payment of say 40k and you would need to have a million in the bank to receive an income stream of that amount.
You could take every penny and it would make no difference to the deficit disaster.
People shrieking punitive taxation as the solution to anything are merely envious.
[You could take every penny and it would make no difference to the deficit disaster.]---janchup
Thanks for posting.
Government confiscation of individual private property (e.g. personal income legally earned) is never the solution.
If illegally earned, the accused has the right to due process in a court of law.
It may not be the solution, but it's the reality, and not just via taxes.
Due process rights are neatly sidestepped by "asset forfeiture" laws. The action is against the asset, not its owner, and assets have no right of due process!
Hello everyone. Well the interbank fx market is pretty flat right now. usd/chf (down) and eur/usd (up) slightly. Also usd/jpy is trading currently @ 83.0650. The markets still have about an hour and a half to get moving. When Sydney opens.
Hey Yen.
I am busy this weekend but I like your plan. I will check around next weekend and maybe we can find a way to communicate and do a little arbitrage. I like your style.
I'm always open to comment and ideas TCT. Thanks.
Editor’s Note: The following report includes adapted excerpts from David DeGraw’s book, “The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III.”
http://ampedstatus.org/analysis-of-the-global-insurrection-against-neo-liberal-economic-domination-and-the-coming-american-rebellion-we-are-egypt-revolution-roundup-3/
..
"In an article and video entitled, “The Wall Street Economic Death Squad,” as I reported back in October, 2009:
Ralph J. Dolan, writing on Dissident Voice, declares, “Bring the Tyrants Down!”
If Egyptians can seize the assets of a dictator like Mubarak, why can’t we seize the assets of Jamie Dimon and Llyod Blankfein?
A new report from Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone harshly sums up Banana Republic USA:
Once again, veteran financial journalist Paul B. Farrell hits the nail on the head. Writing for Market Watch, Farrell doesn’t pull any punches in summing up what needs to be done, and it can’t be said enough:
You can’t sentence the overwhelming majority of the population to slow death through economic policy and expect to get away with it.
While one-tenth of one percent of the population rolls around in obscene wealth, they may want to take a look outside of their groupthink short-sighted delusional perspective and notice the outside world. You cannot ignore the suffering of the masses. They will show up at your doorstep next.
I hear footsteps… "
you were really number #5†
how did you remove the double entry?
do you have magical powers? i feel i should find you some
new music.
Gham Hai Ya Khushi Tuu- Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DtipqwiI3g&feature=related
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusrat_Fateh_Ali_Khan
.
comment: see how the audience forgot how to perform / dance.
double sad. pakistan
he has the magical powers, cupcakes† wow, i have never seen a performer with such facial expressions. his face is so unusual, cross between feminine and masculine. like the music, thanks. how did you know i had a double entry, you charmer!
double entry, i saw it! how did you remove it?
YOu say 1/10 of one percent, but in reality you will go after the top 30 percent.
Have no doubt that they will be coming for you. Make plans.
Deek Jackson: Happy Revolution Baby! – FKN Newz 02/18/2011
http://maxkeiser.com/2011/02/20/deek-jackson-happy-revolution-baby-fkn-newz-02182011/
.
well, you (and Bob) might be right....but I ain't holdin' my breath..... meantine, thanks for link to Egypt's possible claim on Mu-baby's graft; that's awesome, in my book at least. One wonders how long it takes & how much they get....
Cutting spending is the answer --- not more taxes and not a 5 cent sales tax, which will lead to more spending and then a 10 cent sales tax; and more spending, and then a 20 cent sales tax; and more spending..... Socialists never learn.
A gold standard would rein in government debt and spending by limiting deficit spending -- that's why banks and their socialist handmaidens don't like it.
Then, End the Fed and not pay interest anymore to save money. We can print our own money and screw up all on our own. The private central banks are tyrannical mooches.
I hope the US does not return to the gold standard. Why should the people who buy PM's suffer, because everyone else holds 100% fiat? If the US goes back to the gold standard, I think it is quite likely they would confiscate PM's. Why give the thieves the only assets of real value? I say no to the gold standard for that reason.
The amount of dollars printed over the past 11 years has been so great, going back to the gold standard may not do a lot for people holding the greenback anyway...
Global and Mail. Good one.
30 years ago (1978) at the young age of 28, my husband went into the public employee work force . his starting pay was $9,500 / year ; not much, but, we knew that if he worked hard, stayed for 35 years & made a career out of it, our little family would have a decent life & a pension waiting for us at the end of the 35 year rainbow. Now, we are being villified for being public employees & I can't help it if private sector jobs have been destroyed through WALL ST. outsourcing ......... they are coming after the few remaining people who have a decent paycheck .........
If I didn't know better, I'd actually think that WALL ST. & THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK WANT ALL OF US TO BE POORER ! .......... you think ! ? .........
all they have to do is institute policy to encourage private jobs growth & raise living standards again ......... INSTEAD THEY ARE DESTROYING ALL OF US.
What were you thinking? That it would last forever? How could it last forever? It is simple mathematics. You simply cannot guarantee 8 percent return and play in the stock market. Especially these days. That much is obvious. So they got burned in 2008. What do you want us to do? Be good little tax payers and cover your losses. You should have been hedging your bets and buying gold and silver all of those years instead of dreaming about your government taxpayer funded retirements.
+1
I have to finally agree with the paranoid lunatic.
Now you know what QEinfinity is all about. The financial crisis destroyed all built-in assumptions on returns... at the worst possible time, just as baby boomers approach retirement age. QE, aside for financing wreckless Keynesian spending, is about restoring that 8% guarantee. Bernank only needs about two more years of 30% gains to get back on path.
Waddams,
You are correct. As the Boomers are one of the largest retiring population ever. Bernanke wants to take all the the Trillions upon Trillions that they have paid into the Social Security and Medicare system over 45 or so years and dole it out to the Bankers for their Crimes against society. It is in my opinion because of the Banks and Wall Streets Fraud, Deception and causing the Financial Meltdown that the Debt has gotten to where it is.
Why should the Government wipe out 45 years of Americans saving thru Social Security because of the Banks and Wall Streets misdeeds over 2 years?
The Bankers should be the ones that are paying to reduce the Debt as they are the ones that created the huge Debt in the first place. Put a tax on trading (like the HFT Traders), put a tax on Bonuses or Stock Options. That would go a long way to fix the problem.
If he is able to wring that out via Qe, it won't be worth the numbers on Bloomberg. Two more years then what? Hyperinflation but all those pensions are in the black..
You can't guarantee 8% in the stock market, but you can guarantee giant banks and brokerages not to fail. Teachers, not so much.
The people ragging about teachers (who represent a tiny minority of public employees) need to get a clue and direct their anger towards the criminals on Wall Street. Teaching school is not one of your more wasteful government jobs.
I have never heard anyone characterize teaching as especially wasteful or unnecessary. I have heard that giving public unions the ability to help elect the very people they negotiate their pay and benefits with is a really stupid idea.. Perhaps you should be arguing with FDR he also thought public employee unions were a bad idea.. Kennedy was a tool..
deleted
The private sector gets destroyed, jobs get outsourced due liberalism, liberal regulations, lawsuits and union thuggery? The left and their Keyna hero destroyed the economy starting with the Dem 2006 Congress letting Fannie & Freddie with CRAs run wild. See who filed CRA lawsuits in Chicago to make sure mortgages were available to anyone.
Sorry - the private sector can no long afford the public sector union leeches. Thank Hope and Change.
"......... they are coming after the few remaining people who have a decent paycheck ........."
No it is taxpayers saying they are fed up with high taxes to provide Cadillac benefits to govt union workers who get to opt out of ObamaCare.
You make a good point lynnebee.... they are destroying all of us.... its just that we in the private sector felt it first. I was a part time firefighter for 10 years. (No pension involved) Damn right what is happening to all those men and women is not in anyway fair or just but it is what it is.
That's why instead of fighting a you vs. us war, we should be coming together to make our world a little more just but instead we are falling for their trap once again. Fighting amongst ourselves. Its the same old fight as dem vs. repub.
Sad to see that we still haven't learned our lesson.
Welcome to the United States of the 21st century. Support your local rich person...The fools waiting for trickle down economics to carry us out of this depression really should hold their breath (and do not breath until it takes effect please).
Ron Paul is a vicious anti semite.
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/02/17/ron-paul-is-a-vicious-anti-semite...
Oh man, this is too much. Ha ha ha
Anytime the crybaby jews don't get their way, here come the attacks.
Great post. That is the funniest piece of propa- no, it isn't even good propaganda. David Horowitz? HAHAHAHAHAHA!
If that is what the zionist's have stooped to, they are desperate indeed.
Yeah, and Mother Theresa tortured kittens and puppies for kicks.
David (Israel)Whoreawitz can kiss my fat Aryan ass.
Damn - I used to like Horowitz too but apparently he's drunk the cool-aid also. CPAC was also advocating defunding the defense of our European allies and let them pay for their own defense - does that make them rabid anti-Aryans?
zionists are anti-semites. there the trick no one would suspect.
well, good for RON PAUL ! most people don't realize that we're secretly being run by jewish banking families out of EUROPE ! ......... & I still do not understand why there are so many jewish people working in our government ! I just found out that RAHM EMMANUEL holds dual citizenship, ISRAEL & U.S.A. & that his parents worked for ISRAELI intelligence !!!! Something is fishy about this / something just doesn't sit well with me regarding people of dual citizenship whose parents were in the intelligence department of Israel being associated with OBAMA ! .......... Not to mention AXELROD, BLANKFEIN, ROBERT RUBIN, ALAN GREENSPAN, SHEILA BAIR, KISSINGER, ALBRIGHT, SUMMERS, WOLFOWITZ, MICHAEL CHERTOFF, BERNANKE, blah ! the list seems endless........ I've asked many times on ZEROHEDGE, can someone just explain to me why so many jewish people want to be in the U.S. GOVERNMENT ? Seems odd to me ! ....... I don't see lots of DUTCH people . I'm a DUTCH housewife .. ..... I'd love to see my government filled with DUTCH housewives who could sway things my way ! ........ NOW, JUNK ME.
ok I'll junk you, since your comment pretty much shows you're an ignorant racist.
You do have to admit the zionists are able to punch above their weight classification in international politics, not to mention USA politics where we vetoed a resolution that merely restates international law that an occupier cannot settle its population in an occupied land.
How does such a small group of people have such big influence in the United States?
Hehehe!
someone is trying to start a junk war!
Mark Twain:
Concerning The Jews, Harper's Magazine, March, 1898
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1898twain-jews.html
.."What is the secret of his immortality?"
.
.."If I may make a suggestion without seeming to be trying to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs, I will offer it. In our days we have learned the value of combination. We apply it everywhere - in railway systems, in trusts, in trade unions, in Salvation Armies, in minor politics, in major politics, in European Concerts. Whatever our strength may be, big or little, we organize it. We have found out that that is the only way to get the most out of it that is in it. We know the weakness of individual sticks, and the strength of the concentrated fagot. " ....
...
he answers his own question, actually before he asks it. ( i changed the order
for clarity.)
He wasn't asking the question limberdick, he was responding to correspondence.
And the world actually, is not George Soros of Jewish ancestry for one example.
All this is sounding a little too racist and pre-ww2 Germany to me here though. "Jews" are not the enemy here - the bankster raping the country for their own financial benefit seems more like who we should be focusing on.
liar, liar , pants on fire.
http://blip.tv/file/3828718/#
I thought a lot of you people were morons, now I realize you are racist morons.
No, it shows you're a tribe member or one of their puppets and have your head up their ass. The truth is, jooz are the most evil group to ever exist!
I could care less about race or religion, but the facts are the facts. Jews, representing less than 2% of the population [1.2 to 1.7%] have a huge influence on the USA. They own or control ALL the major media outlets. Period. Fox News? Rupert Murdock - mother is or was a Jew. A majority of the actors, producers, directors, all Jews. Financial? You already know the score. Propaganda? How many Jews killed in the Nazi death camps? You know the number, right? Beat into your brain, right? Only Jews in those camps, right? Oh, wrong. Why don't you know how many Polish Catholics died in those camps? How many Gypsy? French? Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians? Why do you think only Jews died there? Hmmmm.
I was told in 1988 that I could never get a top secret security clearance in the Army because I spent several years outside the USA in various 'troubled' parts of the world; the government could not investigate my activities there due to cost if nothing else. I did have to sign a paper stating I never served in any other Army. Yet dual national Israelis who have served in the IDF [and may still be in the IDF] are in the top echelons of the US Government. The very President of the United States could not obtain a Secret security clearance. Do you think Rahm Emmanuel could?
If you think the 'conservative' movement will help - think again. Most of the web pages are actually funded or run by Jews. Go mention Ron or Rand Paul at one. See what's what. If you don't support Israel above the USA, then you are insane and your followers are CRAZY. Wolf Blizer [Jew] questions Rand Paul about foreign aid. Does he care about Egypt or any of a hundred countries getting aid from the taxpayer? Nope. ISRAEL! You want to cut aid to ISRAEL? Rand Paul says 'I want to cut aid to all countries. 70% of the American taxpayers think it is insane to borrow money from China to give to another country. Wolf responds 'Just to be clear, you want to cut aid to ISRAEL??????" Get it folks? That's all the media cares about.
Folks, there was a coup. We have not controlled this country for decades. On a positive note, the parasites always kill the host. Once the government collapses they will leave. Then we can pick up the pieces.
This is not the first time in the history. Jews have robed the country where ever they got refuge. And this happened 79 times before. Same thing is happening in this country. When German economy collapsed after ww, he simple ask them to help out the country and they said fuckyou this is our hard earned money and their ASS was kicked real hard. My father saw this happening and I will see it with my own eyes. If this has happened 79 times before in history, trust me this will happen one more time. And will happen here in America. you believe me or not.
Lady you're cracking me up ! Listen, I'm on your side, ok? Just get the Dutch Housewives on the ballot and I promise to vote for them ! Bwaa-haa-ha.
true dat
91% of americans are working, eh?
91% of those in the workforce, yep.
I hear there's a bridge for sale over in one of NYC's boroughs...can be had cheap. WTF is the "workforce"? They re-jigger the size of that at every opportunity, from bogus to more bogus, to make the other bogus numbers look less bad. Party on dudes.... all's well
This is the information age. A company like google can index an enormous volume of information and almost instantly provide what you are looking for based on a few keywords.
As such, until I can go online and trace every last fucking penny that the government takes from me and redistributes elsewhere I shall consider it grand larceny.
Honestly I think that is the problem; and the "rich" probably would not mind stepping up and paying a greater share if they thought the money would find it's way to where it is needed most.
But they more than most, as many, via their corporate proxies are on the receiving end of the big dollar welfare, know it is not efficiently or fairly distributed. They respond by avoiding taxes as much as possible while using other philanthropic channels to do some good with their spoils.
Seriously, you need some cash to keep society functioning. NO PROBLEM. But fuck off when it comes to the waste, fraud, corruption, and big business welfare that has come to dominate politics.
Sure, that's what holds them back. That hidden Heart of Gold probably explains why all productivity gains over the last twenty years have ended up in their pockets--they didn't want the workers wasting it.
I believe.
This article puts the employment rate at 91%, but that's not even close. When you consider the underemployed who want full-time jobs and discouraged workers who have given up looking, you have an employment rate nearer 80%. But as has been discussed in other articels, only 47% of all eligible workers are employed full-time. Most people are clueless of the real employment numbers and the propaganda team likes it this way, since the Global and Mail bought the unemployment line as well.
True that. The G and M lost me at that point.
here what the kids hear. today and yesterday
Jonathan Coulton - Re: Your Brains - ASL Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQYjZc7gKXc
.
Joe Ely "Musta Notta Gotta"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Miszhec_tk
We put the Country into Massive Debt to cover up the Fraud and Crimes on Wall Street and the Banks and everyone wants to pay for it on the backs of the Seniors Social Security and Medicare benifits that they paid their entire life for.
Bankers walk away with Billions and the take away the safety net for Seniors making pennies on what they paid into the system.
Such a shame.
the speculation will be, right before the impending insurrection,
"did ben bernanke, the fed and wall street save the constitution
and america by raping it" and thereby causing the revolution.
shame is not a strong enough word. perhaps abomination?
the one that will and does demand insurrection. 99.9% against
.1%. hmm.
Waterfall, you are not supposed to notice. Everything is fine and O's re-election will get everything permanently nailed down just fine.