One Man's Austerity is Another Man's Tax Increase

When it comes to "austerity," most people with common sense think "frugality," "reduced spending," and generally going on a diet of lower consumption. 

Louis Woodhill reminds us here that what people without economic common sense mean by it is tax increases. Which is why Obama, and some Republicans, want to raise yours.

Woodhill knows we're already in the toilet, and thinks raising taxes now is tantamount to flushing it.

He makes a good case for repatriating capital by lowering corporate income tax rates. In view of the fact that corporations contributed only about $300 billion to federal revenues in 2008, he might very well be right: most of their money is "over there," escaping taxation.

Did Weird Al Choose French To Slam Lady Gaga's Italian?!

"A different lover is not a sin
Believe capital H-I-M
I love my life, I love this record and
Mi amore vole fe yah"

-- LADY GAGA - BORN THIS WAY LYRICS


"I'll wear a porcupine on my head
On a W - H - I - M
And for no reason now I'll sing in French
Excusez-moi, Qui a pete?"


-- Weird Al Yankovic's parody of same

Weird Al Commenter Doesn't Understand "Who Cut The Cheese"

Not only do Americans not speak French, we no longer understand euphemism in our own language:

4000 plus comments and counting, here.

Michele Bachmann Blinked

On the 17th she's quoted here talking all tough about the Obama birth certificate, and then here today she's backed off it big time.

Wacky chick. Not my Tea Party.

"Most Americans can't name a GOP presidential candidate"

Here's that headline translated into English: "Most Americans can't find their ass with either hand."

Story here.

CBS News Shills For Obama, Hides Audio of President Calling Americans Slugs

Story here.

Areva To Build Water Decontamination Capability at Fukushima, Operable By June

Capable of processing 1200 tons of contaminated radioactive water per day, according to the story at NHK World here.

Long live the French!

I Can Even Go Mohawk Just By Thinking About It

Radiation in Iitate is Down to 3.88 Microsieverts Per Hour

As measured April 20th at 9:00 AM Japan time and reported here.

Vermont Wants to Shut Down Yankee Nuke Plant, Lawsuit Filed

The reactor is of the same design as at Fukushima and is already 40 years old. 

Read more about it, here.

Barry Ritholtz: Author of Redundancies

Here:

After Standard [and] Poor’s missed the greatest collapse in history – indeed, they helped create it by rating junk mortgage backed securities Triple AAA – they are now over-compensating. As I mentioned on The Big Picture, there is an old Wall Street joke about analysts: “You don’t need them in a Bull Market, and you don’t want them in a Bear Market.” That especially seems apt with regard to S [and] P.

The Middle Class Doesn't Have The Deep Pockets For The Taxes

The bottom half of the country, 70 million tax returns, in 2008 had adjusted gross income totaling $1.1 trillion out of a total of $8.4 trillion, just 13 percent of total AGI. These earners have AGIs less than $33,000 per year.

The top half of the country, 70 million tax returns, in 2008 had the rest: $7.3 trillion in adjusted gross income, 87 percent of the total.

The first 35 million tax returns in this top half more or less represent the middle class in this country, accounting for $1.7 trillion in adjusted gross income, just 20 percent of the total AGI. Middle class earners have AGIs between $33,000 and $67,000 per year.

The next 21 million tax returns more or less represent the upper middle and lower upper classes, accounting for $1.8 trillion in AGI, or 21 percent of total AGI. People in this group have AGIs between $67,000 and $114,000 per year.

The top 14 million tax returns represent the upper class, accounting for $3.8 trillion in AGI, or 45 percent of total AGI in 2008. People in this group have AGIs in excess of $114,000 per year. They are the top 10 percent of the country by income. That's where the deep pockets are for taxes, not in the middle class. Unfortunately for liberal spenders, even these are not deep enough.

So don't piss down our backs and tell us it's raining when you say the middle's got the money. WE DON'T. 

This IRS data is neatly summarized for anyone to look at, even Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and The Wall Street Journal, here.

But facts are stupid things, aren't they?

Tax Cheats: The Guy in the Middle is Footing the Bill For Unreported Income

Talking her book, or telling the truth?:

There's no doubt the issue of how much taxes millionaires should pay is important. But the IRS's Nina Olson says there's an even bigger source of un-tapped revenue that almost no one is talking about:

"Any income that is paid by check, cash, whatever that is not reported to the Internal Revenue Service, the person who mows your lawn that you write a check to, things like that, is the largest area of the tax gap, the largest area of unreporting that we have in our tax system," she said.

"People like folks cleaning a house or mowing a lawn or running a farm stand and not reporting?" Doane asked.

"Restaurants, whatever. That's a bigger dollar loss in our tax gap."

And whether it's people skimming from the bottom, or getting breaks at the top, the guy in the middle is footing the bill.

"If everybody reported their taxes properly, people would pay, per person, $2,200 less," Olson said.

Consider the source, but read the rest here.

Fukushima Main Gate Radiation is Down to 62 Microsieverts Per Hour

Per the Wall Street Journal link, here, today.

Compared to the 57 millisieverts per hour inside Reactor Building 3, that's a whole world away even though the distance is only one kilometer.

Radiation in Fukushima Reactor Buildings at 57 Millisieverts/Hour

That's like 57 years' worth in an hour.

Story here at KyodoNews.com, which is no longer available in full without subscribing!

Time to move on.

The Wall Street Journal's Deliberately Misleading Middle Class Tax Target Graph

The graph above is the subject of a deliberately misleading story in The Wall Street Journal, here.

The graph makes it look like there's a pretty healthy middle in America, and that the population falls more or less neatly into a bell curve.

The truth, however, is otherwise: 4/5ths of the households in America have total income below $100K per year. The whole right half of the graph, in other words everyone at $100K-$200K and up, represents only the top 20 percent of the households, otherwise known as the fifth income quintile.

The people in the middle of this graph are in the upper middle class and the lower upper class, not in the middle class as The Journal states. And the single biggest pile of money is in the hands of the lower upper class, which doth protest too much of its modest circumstances.

The true middle in America is the 20 percent of the population making roughly $38K to $62, and this article doesn't speak for them anymore than Obama does, who fancies that rich in America only starts at $250K. It doesn't. It starts at $100K. And that's a shame. We should have done better than that by now.

My Taxes! They're Finished! (If My Calculations Are Correct)

But I was hoping that in the future taxes would be a thing of the past!

Why Your Refund Was Smaller If You Received Unemployment in 2010

The share of people paying no federal income tax has dropped slightly the past two years. It was 47 percent for 2009. The main difference for 2010 was the expiration of a tax break that exempted the first $2,400 of unemployment benefits from taxation . . ..

More here.

Nolan Finley: The Bigger Government Gets, The More it Will Waste

Mr. Finley of The Detroit News wonders here why we recently wrung our hands and wrangled over cutting a mere $38 billion when the GAO had already issued a report, now mouldering on a shelf somewhere, detailing how elimination of reduplicative programs could easily have netted the taxpayers $200 billion in savings.

As our fathers used to say: Only government can screw up a two car funeral.

New Radiation Totals For Namie, Iitate and Minamisoma

Per the story here, for the three week period starting March 23 and ending April 15:

Namie: 17 millisieverts;

Iitate: almost 10 millisieverts;

Minamisoma: 0.5 millisievert.

Annual exposures in the range of 1 millisievert are considered normal.