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.

Fukushima Prefecture Monitoring Post 32 Registering 22.5 Microsieverts Per Hour

Readings north and northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi plant continue higher than elsewhere in the prefecture, but continue to decline with the passing of time.

Monitoring post 32 on this map is the highest this date at 22.5 microsieverts per hour.

Iitate Radiation is 5.26 Microsieverts Per Hour, Fukushima Main Gate is 70.0

Per the latest information available right now.

Obama is Running for his Life

"If you don't get re-elected, I'm gonna kick your ass."

Radiation Monitoring Posts Inside the Fukushima Daiichi Complex Show Declines

Through 4/13, available at fleep.com/earthquake.

Radiation in Iitate Japan is 5.38 Microsieverts Per Hour

At 9:00 AM on the 15th, Japan time.

Fukushima Daiichi Main Gate Radiation at 71 Microsieverts Per Hour

At about 3PM on the 14th, Japan time.

Ears, at Twelve O'Clock

What's the Difference Between the $14 Trillion Debt and the US Congress?

The $14 trillion has only 12 zeroes.

EEOC Compliant Obama Complaint

The New Cornhole

Fukushima Accident Summary From World-Nuclear.org

When the data differ, the on-going summary defers provisionally to the Japanese regulator.

Here is an excerpt dealing with the apparent rupture of the suppression chamber of reactor 2 on March 15 after its cooling power failed on the 14th and its water in the torus boiled.

From the "Fukushima Accident 2011" at World-Nuclear.org, last updated today (here):

After the hydrogen explosion in unit 1, some radioactive caesium and iodine were detected in the vicinity of the plant, indicating fuel damage. This material had been released via the venting.  Further I-131 and Cs-137 and Cs-134 were apparently released during the following two weeks, particularly following the apparent rupture of suppression chamber of unit 2 on 15th. The caesium was at low levels (about two orders of magnitude less than the iodine). The hydrogen explosion in unit 4 involving the spent fuel pond on 15th apparently added to the airborne radionuclide releases.

Reactor 2 Suppression Pool Abnormalities Blamed For Bulk of Radiation Release

Over a two day period beginning the morning of March 15.

This according to the Nuclear Safety Commission in Japan, as reported here.

The leak is ongoing, "rising" in fact, even though volume is down, according to the story.

Radiation in Namie Town at 34 Millisieverts in Just 25 Days

From March 11 to April 5.

As reported here:

34 millisieverts of radiation had accumulated over that period at one location in Namie Town, about 24 kilometers northwest of the plant. This equates to about 314 millisieverts per year, more than 3 times the permissible level of 100 millisieverts.

The figure of 314 must factor in some estimate of radiation degradation over a year. 34 millisieverts in 25 days is a rate of 1.36 mSv/day, or 496 in a year, not 314. 

The 100 mSv level may be permissible under extreme circumstances, perhaps, but the evacuation standard being used is 20 millisieverts or higher.

Normal average radiation exposure from all sources in the US is 6.2 millisieverts annually. A person living to age 78 would get almost 484 millisieverts in an entire lifetime at that rate. In Namie Town one could conceivably get that same whole lifetime's exposure in a single year.

Nuclear power is safe . . . until it isn't. And then it's unsafe it a big, dirty, relentless and inuring kind of way.

Another Voice for a Sensible Idea: Tax-Free Retirement Withdrawals for Real Estate

The only thing preventing many mortgages from being paid off free and clear for many people is the tax hit and withdrawal penalty they'd take to withdraw the funds from their retirement savings.

John Crudele for The New York Post looks at those funds and sees a kind of housing bailout in the waiting, where consumers might even actually use the dough to buy new or existing homes. Call it a housing stimulus spending bill:


Well, maybe it's time to listen to John (that would be me). Change the rules on retirement plans so the American people can rescue the ailing real estate industry, which, by the way, will take a decade to fix if left on its own.

Let people withdraw a relatively small percentage of the $15 trillion in retirement funds to purchase real estate. Give them a tax break -- maybe even a big one.


More at the link.

Namie, Japan, Expected to Radiate 300 Millisieverts Within Next Year

According to Kyodo News, here:

For a part of the town of Namie, the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has estimated that the dose for one year since the quake would exceed 300 millisieverts.

6 millisieverts per year is average in America from all sources.

The story details the announcement of the evacuation of Namie and other similar hot spots beyond the original 20km evacuation ring.

Japan Expands Evacuation Zone Due To Expected Annual Radiation of 20 Millisieverts

A month after the accident at Fukushima, the future is clear: there will be radiation problems 20 to 30 km around the nuclear plant for the foreseeable future.

So NHK World, here:

[A]nnual exposure in the zone is expected to be above 20 millisieverts. The worldwide average exposure from the natural environment is 2.4 millisieverts.

The expanded zone includes Katsurao Village, Namie Town, Iitate Village and some parts of Kawamata Town and Minami Soma City.

Was it worth it, Tokyo?

Namie, Japan, Radiation 14 Millisieverts in 17 Days, In Iitate 8 Millisieverts

The source is believed to be cesium, with a very long half-life (a generation) compared to radioactive iodine (a week).

An American gets on average 6.2 millisieverts in a year from all sources. Japanese set the threshold for natural sources at 1 millisievert.

NHK World has the story here:

Since March 23rd, the ministry has been measuring radiation levels in 15 locations more than 20 kilometers away from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

At one location, in Namie Town about 30 kilometers northwest of the plant, 14,480 microsieverts of radiation had accumulated over the 17-day period to Sunday.

8,440 microsieverts of radiation were observed in Iitate Village.

In another location in Namie, the amount reached 6,430 microsieverts.

People would be exposed to this accumulated amount of radiation if they had stayed outdoors throughout the entire period.

Obama Says Mum Didn't Have Documents To Prove His Dad Was Barack Sr.

From Barack Obama's DREAMS FROM MY FATHER, page 345:

We Miss You Being Anonymous, Too

"I miss being anonymous."

The Date Your Home Became Just Another Commodity: August 5, 1997

When you could begin to sell every two years and avoid the capital gain.

The chart here shows the first stirrings late in the year of what was to become the housing bubble.

August 5, 1997 marked the date when the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 was signed into law by President Clinton.

"When the bill passed in the summer of 1997, it stipulated that married couples would pay no taxes on the first $500,000 in profits from the sale of a house. At the time, this wasn’t seen as an incentive for people to start trading up or flipping houses—although, according to the National Association of Realtors, single-family-home sales jumped 13 percent the year after it passed, and some economists have said it instantly added value to homes, and fueled their rise in prices. But if you drove over that bridge, into the 21st century, and combined this windfall with record-low interest rates and lower down-payment mortgage requirements, the synergy changed the way people bought homes: Instead of looking at how much house they could afford, people started looking at how much mortgage they could carry. (In other words, you could roll the profits into a pricier house, put less down, and still wind up with a lower monthly mortgage payment.) Taken by itself, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 didn’t cause the economic meltdown. But it was one more piece of kindling on the cord that would eventually become the bonfire of all our vanities."

-- Bruce Feirstein, here

The mortgages behind those houses had started to become mere commodities, too, at about the same time:

Securitization accelerated in the mid-1990s. The total amount of mortgage-backed securities issued almost tripled between 1996 and 2007, to $7.3 trillion.


Hurting us where we live.

Boston Globe Slams Obama's Nuke Waste Irresponsibility

For supporting more nuclear power, which means more unsecured waste, and closing a never-opened $10 billion Yucca Mountain depository at the same time:

The administration’s decision to cancel the depository was a profile in craven political calculation: candidate Obama promised to cancel Yucca Mountain to curry favor in the 2008 Nevada caucuses, and he followed through on the urging of a key political ally, Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada.

Read the whole opinion here.

The New Green Energy!

Spray paint the coal green!

h/t ICM

New Video: Fukushima Daiichi Swamped by 15m Tsunami, Designed for 5.7m

Story and video here:

[T]he tsunami reached up to 15 meters on the ocean side of the reactor and turbine buildings. The figure is far beyond the company's originally estimated height of 5.7 meters.

TEPCO confirmed that the 6 reactors at Fukushima Daiichi power plant had been under as much as 5 meters of water.

Coal Was King Recourse In Last Decade, Followed by Oil and Gas

"Almost half of the increase in primary energy use in the past decade has come from coal. Almost all the rest has come from oil and gas."

-- Peter Foster, here

Pay For Your Own Goddamn Abortion

“What we can’t be doing is using last year’s budget process to have arguments about abortion . . .."

-- President Obama, quoted here, who used the Obamacare process under budget reconciliation to slaughter the Hyde Amendment prohibiting federal funding of abortion.

BankRobberiesRUs

From Jeff Randall for The UK Telegraph:

When asked by a judge why he persisted in robbing banks, the serial offender replied: “Because that’s where the money is.”

For us taxpayers, this observation is now doubly true. The banks have captured our money twice over: as cash in their vaults and investments in their shares. ... We rescued them – and in so doing became their prisoners. ...

The global economy cannot function without big banks, they say: gigantism provides synergies, efficiencies and benefits of scale. What a hoot. Tell that to the shareholders of Citigroup, a banking behemoth, which all but disappeared up its own balance sheet in 2008, having had a wild (losing) punt on sub-prime mortgages. ...

There is a general perception that we don’t want banks to fail, not even bad ones. This is a mistake. We should be perfectly happy to see poorly run businesses disappear.

Read the rest here.

5 Radiation Monitoring Posts 20-30 Km From Fukushima Daiichi Over 10 MicroSv/Hr

One radiation post, #83 near the 20 km ring northwest of the reactors, continues to register the highest reading of all the monitoring posts: 58.5 microsieverts/hour.

A little farther out, four others, #s 33, 32, 31 and 79 near the 30 km ring, register 19.5, 27.8, 11.4 and 14.8 microsieverts per hour respectively.

The main gate to the reactor complex is about 108 microsieverts per hour, while Iitate is just over 6 microsieverts per hour.

These values would all need to come down to 0.11425 microsievert per hour just to mirror normal, natural conditions under which a person gets 1.0 millisievert per year. Just a handful of locations even come close.

For the following map and values, go here:

Federal Reserve Discount Window Aided Many Banks Which Failed Anyway

So says another in a long line of incriminating stories in The New York Times, highlighting the pervasive involvement of the US government in bailing out failing institutions and implicating it in the spread of moral hazard to the highest levels of American banking:

More than one thousand banks have taken advantage [of the discount window during the financial crisis]. A review of federal data, including records the Fed released last week [by court order], shows that at least 111 of those banks subsequently failed. Eight owed the Fed money on the day they failed, including Washington Mutual, the largest failed bank in American history.

Here's the graphic from the article showcasing some of the worst offenders:

"You Might Want To Think About A Trade-In"

Trade-in value of this clunker = zero

The Tyrant is the Flatterer of the Vilest of Mankind

In "Obama's Close Friend Arrested In Prostitution Sting," here, we learn that Bobby Titcomb is a former classmate who holidays, golfs and picnics with the president, and has hosted him at his home in Hawaii for a barbecue.

Birds of a feather, perhaps?

How To Plan

                                        Think ahea

d.

Everything's a Conspiracy at Washington's Blog: Now He's a Melter, Too

So the meltdown denial from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a cover-up:

Did Markey misunderstand what the NRC was telling him? Or is the NRC covering up the situation by publicly denying what it told Markey in a private briefing?

If We Want More Home Sales, Subsidize Home Ownership, Don't Tax It

It's an old principle too often forgotten in discussions of economic policy:

"If you want less of something, tax it; if you want more of something, subsidize it."

We've learned in America that when you don't limit welfare in some way, you'll get lots more people on it. And tax people too much like we did in the 1970s, and you'll proliferate money in tax shelters.

What we need more of right now in America is home sales. 18.4 million dwellings sit vacant in the US, and homeowners all across the country who want to sell and scale down or sell and move up can't, because of the housing slump. Properties go unsold season after season, and people are stuck.

Jonathan Swift put it this way a long time ago:

"Money, the lifeblood of the nation,

Corrupts and stagnates in the veins,

Unless a proper circulation

Its motion and its heat maintains."

Logic tells us that we should subsidize housing through tax policy even more than it already is, but the Obama regime, and a bunch of misguided libertarians, want to do the opposite: recover the "tax loss expenditure" created by the mortgage interest deduction.

In other words, they want to tax home ownership, in the name of tax neutrality, handing the advantage to landlords who can still deduct their mortgage interest, along with the maintenance and depreciation which homeowners cannot deduct. It almost sounds like planned crony capitalism.

If Obama and company succeed, we'll have even less home ownership than we have now, and even lower values, but lots of new politically favored slumlords.

The following is an excerpt from John C. Weicher's "Repealing the Mortgage Interest Deduction? Hold the Applause!,"  found here, which touches on some of these issues:

The President’s budget for 2012 proposes to take a small but significant step in the same direction.  The value of the deduction would be reduced for families with incomes above $250,000.  These are the same taxpayers for whom Mr. Obama wanted to raise taxes back in December - “the rich.”   

But the deduction isn’t a particular benefit for rich people. ... they only account for about 20% of all mortgage interest reported on tax returns, according to the IRS.

Most of the benefit of the mortgage interest deduction goes to households who are not “rich,” households with incomes between $75,000 and $200,000.  These are middle-class families, reasonably well off, but working, and working hard. ...

Repealing the mortgage interest deduction will make it harder for young families to become homeowners.  Repealing the capital gains exclusion, another Commission recommendation, will make it harder for older families, when they want to move to a retirement home or move to be near their children and grandchildren. 

Puritanism Lives!

What the Richest 5 Percent Pay

Taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 pay:

over 50 percent of all income taxes;

over 50 percent of state and local income taxes;

almost 50 percent of charitable contributions;

but only 20 percent of mortgage interest.

More here.

Zen and the Art of Economic Cycle Maintenance

In which Louis Woodhill asks the disciples of John Mauldin:

“In a time of famine, would you plant less rice?”

Read it all at Forbes.

Dems Pick Hardcore Pro-Abortionist to Head DNC

Story here.