Global Economy Bursting?

[Terrel L. Shields]

Housing, health care, and education cost the average family 75 percent of their discretionary income in the 2000s. The comparable figure in 1973: 50 percent," Olen writes.

says it all... 40% of my income is health care and insurance costs alone.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Deficits will fall to less than $1 trillion in 2013, CBO reports

"For the first time in five years, the federal budget deficit will come in under $1 trillion in 2013, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday, with the gap between taxes and spending falling to $845 billion in the fiscal year that ends in September.

Attributed in large part to tax hikes adopted on Jan. 1 and deep automatic spending cuts set to hit next month, new projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office show the deficit continuing to plummet in 2014 and 2015, and falling to less than 3 percent of the overall economy for much of this decade."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...964f76-6fbd-11e2-8b8d-e0b59a1b8e2a_story.html

Will spending cuts happen? No they won't.

Obama Urges Congress to Act to Stave Off Cuts

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/u...?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130206&_r=0

President Obama on Tuesday called on Congress to quickly pass a new package of limited spending cuts and tax increases to head off substantial across-the-board reductions to domestic and military spending set to begin on March 1, but his appeal for more revenue was dismissed by Republicans.

Trying to gain the upper hand in the latest fiscal clash, Mr. Obama said Congress should delay the reductions for at least a few months to give lawmakers a chance to negotiate a full deficit reduction package that permanently resolves the threat of a so-called sequester.

 

[Riick]

.... It's like mandating lead shoes to the best dancers, as a reward for their accomplishments to date.

.
Equality in all things!

 

[Cigar]

"But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom"

― Alexis de Tocqueville "Democracy in America"

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I never argue with a man who would reads de Tocqueville

 

[Big ole Boy]

What Tim Cook should do with Apples cash. - Einhorn ......

yikes .....

Einhorn is being targeted .... he should know this market is NOT about playing by the "rules of a market" ..

...there are no rules ... there is only who do we knock off next .... and now its Einhorns turn .....

... Einhorn priced himself out of this corrupted club .....

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Fed policy has encouraged spendthrift attitude and yield seeking behavior from Americans.

http://www.mybudget360.com/relentle...ican-saver-fed-policy-saving-rates-americans/

How bad have things gotten? High yield bonds (i.e., junk bonds) were yielding something like 20+ percent in 2008. Today they are pulling in 5 percent or what a standard CD was yielding in the early 2000s. Are we really in such a stable market? We are in a period of exuberance and Greenspan can tell us how that went in the early part of the 2000s.

 

[nm505]

I hope they at least take a hard look at it. We have been pitched several "investment schemes" of late to "maximize our retirement yields" given interest rates are so low. The pitches came from local reputable banks. Most are overly complex. We rejected one and bit on another...may be a canard. While we are relatively sophisticated (having lost money in prior times and LEARNED something), it is still very difficult to sort out options. Guidelines or strong disclosure in plain English like they are attempting to do with mortgage docs would be very helpful.

Second thoughts on posting.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

What do you think will happen to your investment when the Fed reverses policy? Interest rates will rise and all things will crash.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

With higher taxes, rich California residents consider move to cheaper pastures

http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/c...ch-california-residents-consider-move-cheaper

Are rich Californians ready to trade their sun-soaked beaches for cow pastures, or move their corporations from bustling, cosmopolitan cities to wide-open spaces -- all in the name of saving money?


In Nevada, Chris Plastiras, who owns Lakeshore Realty in the Lake Tahoe and Incline Village area, said wealthy clientele are flocking over the border to save on taxes. He said 14 of his 27 closings in Nevada since the election have involved people moving from California.

"They're buying fast and furious, absolutely. I've never seen anything quite like this," Plastiras said, citing the passage of Proposition 30 in November, which increased state income taxes by a maximum of 3 percentage points for seven years. Then, in early January, Congress let the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire, pushing up the maximum rate 4.6 points, to avert the "fiscal cliff."