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Putting America's Tax Hike In Perspective
One of those occasions when one picture really does speak a thousands words.
Houston, we may have a spending problem.
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It's only a problem if you don't own stocks, gold, a house, etc.
So just buy those things (or save for them) instead of consumer goods/junk that Americans waste money on. I mean Bernanke isn't hiding the script from anyone.
I don't have stocks, gold or a house. I've liquidated everything and use my cash to do private lending at excellent returns. Can do this all from home with a computer and phone. Gonna keep doing this, and amassing cash, until I need to go into tangibles because the USD is truly going away (velocity picks up and the final and last debasement occurs). I still have a while before that happens.
Then I guess I'll go into farmland and multi-family income properties.
How do you protect yourself as a private lender? Do you ask for equal collateral?
I protect myself by requiring high quality real estate as my collateral (although never a person's primary home... has to be a rental, vacation home or other type... I don't want to take someone's primary home from them if they default). Never go above 65% LTV. These are short term loans to real estate investors (rehabbers who remodel and resell).
Yeah that is a pretty good idea. What type of interest rate do you charge, and how do you deal with all the legal paperwork?
I have ~80k in cash and something like that sounds interesting since I have no interest in owning any more stocks or PMs right now. How much capital did you start with?
Sorry Devo, I can't get into this on public communication lines. Violates SEC rules. Go onto Amazon and order the books on private lending and trust deeds and educate yourself. Then you'll know if this is for you. Just tap into real estate investors in your area that are using hard money (most all of them do) and find out what rates and loan structures that they are working with. Contact hard money lenders and do the same. If it looks good, get organized and go for it.
Will look into it, thanks
Too lazy to run drugs and guns?
That is against the law, ya know? ;-)
So is loan-sharking, but what isn't these days?
Full execution of Fiscal Cliff still the best for US. Let it roll and and lay off 50% of all in Washington, they are not needed.
Everyone agrees that it is a spending problem.The real issue is the type and the methods of taxation.All the Washington politicians want to stick to payroll taxes which is a very primitive method.It dates back to the first world war.IMO,they need to build it in to the whole economic system if they want to pay for their military and health care.Payroll taxes need to be transformed into consumption taxation.There was never any income tax until WW1 so get rid of it and become more efficient,the way the U.S.A.was before it became the worlds' policeman.There's not a lot of brain power in Washington.
Haha raising taxes is futile.
The line for projected revenues obviously goes strait to the top right corner. Well, parabolic depending on how you format the x-axis.
XCLUSIVE: Senator’s husband’s firm cashes in on crisis
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/21/senate-husbands-firm-cas...
That story is from 2009. Hows about something a littler more current. Everyone knows the bitch's husband, and herself, take advantage of every crisis they can. That is what Denninger is ranting about on his latest post today.
Not only that, the damn link stalled my computer. I had to shut it off at the power source and restart the thing. Pisses me off.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=215544
Let's call a spade a spade or in this case a WHORE a WHORE!
smells like hope and change to me...
Million Dollar Booger .... roll it up and save it under the flap on your pocket protector !
Captain Boehner orders all screen doors on the submarine to be secured, then DIVE, DIVE, DIVE!!!!
Even the simplest chart can't wake up the people, like running right through detour signs and driving straight off a cliff...now back to the Mad Max marathon on AMC...
Congress is arguing over who pays the tip after they already skipped out on the bill.
The Rebublicrats have voted. King Obama wins.
Obama Deal Adds $3.97 Trillion to Deficit Over 10 Years; Only 5 Republicans Voted Against; White-Flag Surrender
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/01/600-billion-in-spendi...
Pain is lingering for many . Just a matter of time.
so this is the 'real' fiscal clif....
jb
"Is that the Budget Deficit in your pocket... or are you just happy to see me?" - Mae West (updated)
You can visit me between the holidays - Mae West?
Better to be looked over than overlooked - MW
Q. Whats the difference between A Fox In The Henhouse and a Debate in Congress?
A. A Fox In The Henhouse makes for Flustered Clucks....
Q: What's the difference between a politician and a rapist?
A: The rapist usually fucks his victim only once, and never tries to claim that the rape is to the victim's own benefit while then demanding payment for his "services".
With the sound of water splashing, a toilet is now the temporary owner of compacted fecal matter and tainted urine water. With the sound of a flushing drain, the toilet refills with "fresh" water again and awaits the following assholes to continue the cycle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM-169xrYpQ guillotine footage or should I say headage
Evo Morales, Bolivian president, confiscates electric utility assets of spanish utility Iberdrola. 9 months ago, Bolivia confiscated electric utility assets of Red Electricidad, anothe Spanish utility and has never mentioned paying for them.
the future of multinationals?
I can't stand when people can't even understand the proper use of door knobs and drawer pulls. In many new top end kitchens, idiots are using door knobs on drawers and drawer pulls on doors...it's insane. Why, I ask? A door knob is a frigging door knob. A drawer pull is a drawer pull. It's just wrong. And nobody notices...like life just goes on...and your kitchen is all fucked up....and you dont even know it.
Houston, we also have a taxing problem. You need to add an extra bar for the estimated $205 billion in extensions of corporate tax breaks - for such life necessities as casinos, sports areans and offshore tax havens for banks and insurance companies.
so lets get this straight..the whole shouting match has been about just one side of the equation with zero work done on the side with the problem...spending.
this beggars belief - this is the time when the politicians should be moved aside and a referendum held with two questions
"we are broke -
1. do you wish to reduce spending or increase taxes to balance this years books?
2. do you wish to reduce spending or increase taxes to pay off the national debt?"
the voters can then decide how they want to pay for the shitheads they voted for. if 60% vote (in either case) for tax increases, then that is the amount of deficit or debt reduction that is met by tax increases; the rest is made up from spending cuts.
A "thousand words"? You mean a thousand-billion words.
My understanding is that never in history have tax revenues ever exceeded 17-20% of GDP, no matter how high tax rate margins have been raised (even when FDR and others raised taxes up the ying yang). Corps and the people just always figure out how to not pay, or avoid or diminsh their payments.
You've got to be kidding me... the Dem dominant Senate passes a bill that taxes but doesn't do anything about spending, which IS our problem and everyone with a brain cell knows that. There is so much more to all of this than meets the eye... yet the lumpen masses just accept this as the rational work of our representatives and leaders... the best that they can do.
The voters always get what they deserve. The people always elect their executioner. Sad.
Nothing can be this ridiculous unless it is intended.
The cost of freedom is constant vigilance and the willingness to fight back. We the sheeple lost that a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time ago.
While it's true that corps and rich find loopholes etc (created by govt I might add) in added taxation, in the bigger picture taxes take money out of more efficient private sector and this reduce gdp...which is why revenues as a percentage stay roughly the same no matter the tax rate.
Let the Lemmings follow the the Pied Piper "O'le The Great ChairSatan" off the Fiscal Cliff as lemmings shall always do. As for the rest of us prepare with Food, Guns, Bullets, and friends. But above all Love Thy Neighbor, especially if shes hot.
Is Trav banned again?
One can always hope.
I feel guilty to admit I've enjoyed your Trav battles akak. True artistry really. But I take no joy in your mental anguish. A good fight in fight club is great to behold. Being raised in a debating family has made me a sucker for a good debate. However there is certainly a difference between debating and just being an asshole.
Miffed:-)
Thanks Miffed, and I appreciate your posts as well.
But if you like MY fights with Trav, you really should have been around here a couple of years ago when he mainly did battle with tmosely (who is still a member, but who rarely posts here anymore) --- now THOSE were some heated exchanges!
Yes, I actually lurked here a full year before I joined. I witnessed a few of tmosley and travs exchanges. Frankly it did scare me off ,not that I lack the cajones.... welI I guess in reality i do lack them:-)...but I felt I didn't have the financial background to adequately defend myself if attacked. Then I started to notice these attacks weren't facts being volleyed back and forth but just vicious name calling and wild generalizations. Kind of like playing speed chess with someone... wild unpredictable moves to disturb your opponent is the only strategy, no love of the game or the beauty that unfolds as you play it. When I joined I made a pledge to myself never to take an attack from anyone here personally, I've come to the conclusion assholes are one of the constants of life. Good people too I should add...I've found both here.
Miffed:-)
NHL players should ask for a larger cap tonight.
This market goes much higher...Printing money and kicking world debt down the road will prop up world markets for several more years. I love ZH but one must read this blog by remembering that one cant fight the tape. Eventually, the world financial markets will crash and it will start through massive social unrest and the incompetance to recapitalize banks in Europe. ZH will be righ but it could cost the shorts a lot of money in the meantime...
Quite possibly you are right. Look at Japan...debt 240% of gdp and their markets are posied to surge due to more stimulus. The problem is with global debt at 300% of global gdp there are going to be more and black swans...any of which are capable of collapsing the system. With S&P futures up 36 pts it looks like a it's ramp up city. History, however, has been pretty consistent in when people go from being hopeful to euphoric...espeially with little basis that things turn very quickly. We'll see.
those are fridays numbers on futures. Wouldn't be surprised if they were that high when they open in the morning -but remember when TARP passed - everyone expected a huge ramp, but after 10 minutes the Dow fell about 700 points
Yes, stlouistrader and mybrotherskeeper I agree. And, I think to extrapolate from that... there is still plenty of time to work within the USD and make as much of it as one can before it eventually slides as the reserve currency, as well as starts to seriously lose its purchasing power. But TPTB will keep propping the system up and keep it going for a long time (a la Japan). This is the biggest economy in the world with a lot of assets, momentum and powerful people in the corporate, financial and political worlds that don't want to face the music or lose. It will be a demise in slow motion.
The bond vigilantes won't come soon and push interest rates up. If they did it would be game over... the government couldn't pay the debt... the wealthy and the financial sector won't allow it.
The more debt, the more volatile the economy and the markets and people will just get used to it. I believe it will take a lot more volatility, uncertainty and black swans before the majority of population become aware, become concerned and then the BIG influence/catalyst hits and unravels things almost overnight (that big influence being CONFIDENCE). When CONFIDENCE goes and the pendulum swings from faith in the government to faith in the private sector... then the markets go down, the value of the USD goes down, all hell breaks loose with a combination of (or alternating sequence of) deflations and inflations.
I say make lots of cash and be prepared to transfer it into hard tangible assets down the road when it is actually required.
Do you agree with this?
I do.
you never know just how far "down the road" you may be.
that seems to be a reliable truism.
I do agree with your investment thesis. Most of the larger maoney management firms are looking at hard assets. I know TIAAF CREF, Harvard Endowmwnt Fund, BOA Asset Mngmt, Passport Capital, Rogers Holdings, Soros are all investing in land but much of it in Latin America. Brazil seems to be the country of choice, especially in the Cerrado region. Investing there is very complicated and absolutely MUST be done through Brazilian firms that have been doing it for years as the regulatory and poliical environment is extremely difficult to navigate. Hoever, most of the aforementioned firms have been successful in land conversion to agricultural use by partnering with the right Brazilian firms. Land in the region goes for roughly $1500/usd/hectare and yields have been phenomenal. Land here in the U.S. has become way too expensive. IMHO Eveyrones portfolio should be heavily weighted to hard assets.
BACKASSWARD!
All this political puke has caused me to quit drinking. It has forced me to take up opiates instead. Yeah, a little peyote and morphine will do the trick to dull your senses to all this madness!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CUT9m3fGqM Morphine - Cure for Pain
In spite of me - Mark Sandman - (I know you did it all inspite of me)
Yee Haw! NASCAR got a fuckin tax break in the cliff deal! I cant take much more.
The markets are going crazy over the posted chart. Ferbus does not read ZH
"The House worked its will." So says the Republican Asst Whip who voted Aye on this "legislation". I can't wait to see "The Market" work its will.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
Off Death's cliff
Ambled sheeples by the hundred.
I've been writing letters, both of support and resistance, to congress and the president for over 40 years. However, as of tonight, I shall NEVER again vote or spend one second of my time concerning the politicians or this country.... I am finished! From this point forward, ALL I'm going to do is make as much money as I can, period!!! Therefore, how can we make money on the demise of the United States of America? It's the ONLY thing I am absolutely sure of, so lets have some fun and make a LOT of cash!
I'm guessing shorts of size are not the answer.....
lol
stop being a spartacus and go galt!!! viva zapata!!!
These bastards have ZERO credibility. The reality is that these political hacks don't know whether to shit or go blind when it comes to helping the economy. Deal me out!
2013 is going to be a great year. Ignore these clowns and evil doers. Live your life the way you want to. Make your own economy. Figure out how to profit off of the actions of The Fed, Congress and the Supreme Court. It's one big movie, a tragi-comedy, and you don't have to be a part of it.
Forget all these fuuny 1s and 0s
Any idea when basel iii is coming out recommending au as tier 1 asset?
Mastercard, Visa or AMEX ? .....CHAAAA - CHINGGGGG...... lol - "Priceless"
Beauty is only skin-deep. tubal reversals