Global Economy Bursting?

[Randolph Kinney]

Fed-led chaos deepens

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/MJ04Dj01.html

"My thesis in a snapshot: a unique period of unfettered global credit has spawned myriad historic bubble dynamics. The unprecedented policy response, fiscal and monetary, at home and abroad, to the bursting of the 2008 mortgage/Wall Street finance bubble unleashed the global government finance bubble. This bubble was fueled by unprecedented growth in global sovereign borrowings and the unprecedented expansion of global central bank balance sheets, along with associated market pricing and risk-taking distortions. Importantly, this "global reflation" stoked already overheated "developing" country credit systems and economies to the point of dangerous bubble fragilities."

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Greece to miss deficit targets despite austerity

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/02/us-greece-idUSTRE7900SU20111002

The 2012 draft budget approved by cabinet on Sunday predicts a deficit of 8.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2011, well short of the 7.6 percent target.

The 2012 deficit is set to meet a nominal target of 14.6 billion euros, but at 6.8 percent of GDP it falls short of a target of 6.5 percent, because the economy will shrink further.

To persuade the troika to release the next tranche of loans, Greece has promised to raise taxes, cut state wages and speed up plans to reduce the number of public sector workers by a fifth by 2015.

The cabinet approved a particularly contentious part of the plan on Sunday, creating a measure to reduce the number of state workers, a legal and political minefield in a country where government jobs are explicitly protected by the constitution.

The measure adopted by the cabinet on Sunday creates a "labor reserve" allowing 30,000 state workers to be placed on 60 percent pay and be dismissed after a year.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Patriotic Millionaires: Tax us more

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/03/MN0R1LB1EG.DTL

Polls say most respondents agree that rich folks should pony up, as the effective tax rates for the wealthiest Americans - what people actually pay after deductions and exemptions - are at their lowest levels since 1960. And the income gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans is at its widest mark since the Great Depression.

 

[Austin]

Patriotic Millionaires: Tax us more

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/03/MN0R1LB1EG.DTL

Polls say most respondents agree that rich folks should pony up, as the effective tax rates for the wealthiest Americans - what people actually pay after deductions and exemptions - are at their lowest levels since 1960. And the income gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans is at its widest mark since the Great Depression.

This completely ignores the scope of the problem. I read recently that if you took ever penny of income of those making $500,000 and up you could not pay the deficit for this year. It is a leverage issue not a lack of income issue. The problem is just plain spending to much and nothing but cutting government can solve the problem. If you can comprehend the magnitude of this problem you can see that arguing over tax increases on the rich is like arguing about the arrangement of the furniture on the Titanic after she hit the iceberg or peeing on a forest fire to put it out.
Sorry folks but there is no way out of this. Central planning and total system control has already been tried twice in Russia and China. Look at what happened. Most brudal and bloody regimes in the history of the world with both return to capitalism to survive.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

This completely ignores the scope of the problem. I read recently that if you took ever penny of income of those making $500,000 and up you could not pay the deficit for this year. It is a leverage issue not a lack of income issue. The problem is just plain spending to much and nothing but cutting government can solve the problem. If you can comprehend the magnitude of this problem you can see that arguing over tax increases on the rich is like arguing about the arrangement of the furniture on the Titanic after she hit the iceberg or peeing on a forest fire to put it out.
Sorry folks but there is no way out of this. Central planning and total system control has already been tried twice in Russia and China. Look at what happened. Most brudal and bloody regimes in the history of the world with both return to capitalism to survive.

The argument is changed from taxation to solve a spending problem to an argument of fairness of taxation. It becomes an argument of capitalism versus socialism. It just isn't fair that anyone can earn so much money when there are people who need that money more than they do. So how about using the tax code, not to redistribute wealth, but to equalize wealth in the name of fairness. We take from you but we don't give it to me. We make sure you can't earn more than me. Isn't that the Warren Buffett argument?

 

[Caterina Platt]

Euro Bank Run Shifts To Insurance Companies As Lloyd's Of London Pulls Cash From European Banks

I realize that this is over a week old, but had you guys seen this?

Lloyd's of London pulling all their cash from Euro banks? Not just Greece, all of them.

http://articles.economictimes.india...an-banks-short-term-deposits-insurance-market

 

[Caterina Platt]

The argument is changed from taxation to solve a spending problem to an argument of fairness of taxation. It becomes an argument of capitalism versus socialism. It just isn't fair that anyone can earn so much money when there are people who need that money more than they do. So how about using the tax code, not to redistribute wealth, but to equalize wealth in the name of fairness. We take from you but we don't give it to me. We make sure you can't earn more than me. Isn't that the Warren Buffett argument?

Karl Marx lives on.....

Buffett was lying. We know he was lying and twisting realities. He earned his fortune under the beauty of capitalism, but since he got his already, it's a good time (in his eyes) to sell your soul and country over 100% to the marxist plan.

My tin foil hat...I can no longer fight it. Must...put....it....on.....

It's no longer a conpsiracy theory. It's now becoming a conspiracy fact, I'm afraid.

 

[Couch Potato]

The argument is changed from taxation to solve a spending problem to an argument of fairness of taxation. It becomes an argument of capitalism versus socialism. It just isn't fair that anyone can earn so much money when there are people who need that money more than they do. So how about using the tax code, not to redistribute wealth, but to equalize wealth in the name of fairness. We take from you but we don't give it to me. We make sure you can't earn more than me. Isn't that the Warren Buffett argument?

Let's just tax everyone at 100% so that we all have the same net income.

 

[Austin]

The argument is changed from taxation to solve a spending problem to an argument of fairness of taxation. It becomes an argument of capitalism versus socialism. It just isn't fair that anyone can earn so much money when there are people who need that money more than they do. So how about using the tax code, not to redistribute wealth, but to equalize wealth in the name of fairness. We take from you but we don't give it to me. We make sure you can't earn more than me. Isn't that the Warren Buffett argument?[/quote]

This argument sounds like a couple of 5 year old kids fighting over whose turn it is. I know it well, I have two grand kids. "It is not fair papa bubba just watched his program now I want to watch Sally Long Stockings......"
Warren Buffett, Zuckerman and other billionairs are total arses when it comes to politics. My sister majored in elementary education. She had a professor that had a saying about any kind of unsocial behavior in children: "It all goes back to toilet training." The problem with most progessives is they still crap in their pants and wet the bed.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Taxation is so distorted it is impossible to make a blanket statement that the "rich are taxed less." In fact, the accidental rich are frequently taxed more. Inherit $10,000,000 and see how much of it you can keep. Win the lottery and see how much you get...or gamble at the Casino and win a big jackpot. you don't get out of the place with all your money.

Those single once-in-a-lifetime "hits" are taxed heavily. And everyone gets a tax break somewhere. A lot of people want to end the oil company tax break (which is errantly called a "subsidy") for intangible drilling costs. What is that? Well, it is the ability to depreciate the expense of drilling to total depth (whether the hole is dry or not, it's called the "dry hole cost"). IDC is nothing more than accellerated depreciation that any manufacturing company gets for buying a big new machine, or a farmer gets for buying a tractor. If you deny a farmer the tax break for buying a $90,000 tractor, guess what would happen to 50% of the John Deere dealers in America? They would become parts houses and rarely sell a new machine.