Tell Us, Governor, Why Don't You Care For 47% Of The Country?

Last question of the second presidential debate, picked by Candy Crowley, a hanging curve ball for the president:

CROWLEY: Governor Romney, I want to introduce you to Barry Green, because he's going to have the last question to you first.

ROMNEY: Barry? Where is Barry?

QUESTION: Hi, Governor. I think this is a tough question. To each of you. What do you believe is the biggest misperception that the American people have about you as a man and a candidate? Using specific examples, can you take this opportunity to debunk that misperception and set us straight? ...


CROWLEY: Mr. President, last two minutes belong to you.



OBAMA: ... 

I believe Governor Romney is a good man. Loves his family, cares about his faith. But I also believe that when he said behind closed doors that 47 percent of the country considered themselves victims who refuse personal responsibility, think about who he was talking about.

Folks on Social Security who've worked all their lives. Veterans who've sacrificed for this country. Students who are out there trying to hopefully advance their own dreams, but also this country's dreams. Soldiers who are overseas fighting for us right now. People who are working hard every day, paying payroll tax, gas taxes, but don't make enough income. ...

Kulaks For Romney

The Fix Was In On The Second Presidential Debate

Candy Crowley (pronounced, helpfully, like Crow) of CNN skillfully gave President Obama more time throughout the second presidential debate, and picked decidedly left-leaning questions submitted by lefties, and then sucker punched Governor Romney at the end by picking the important question to President Obama which allowed the president to attack Romney's remark in the spring about the 47%, but without fear of a response from Romney, so sorry. Getting the last word in these matters is paramount.

At least the nomenklatura will have that to console themselves with when they lose in November.

The choice is between more of such Democrat Stalinism, and Romney's Republican liberalism: more failed crony partnership with industry and suppression of the middle class by impoverishing them down to working class and continued aggravation of the class struggle through hatred of the rich on the one hand, or some vague status quo ante on the other. Since the last four year plan has been such a disaster, the next one can't be much better, so I'm guessing Americans will opt for the liberal instead.

Who wouldn't? When the choice is between the worst president in the post-war era and what passed for success under the second worst, only a masochist would choose the former.

The good bad old days may yet make another appearance. 

The Depression In Real GDP Per Capita: Still At 2004-2005 Level

Chart and data here. Last update was a year ago.

Peak observation was 1/1/07, from which we are roughly 3.5% down after having been down as much as 5.5%.

Capital Gains Income Averaged $497 Billion Annually 2000-2009

From a story in June by the Tax Foundation, here, on volatility in the sources of personal income.

Taxed at 15%, average capital gains income of $497 billion produces almost $75 billion in revenue annually, just shy of what the mortgage interest deduction "costs" the government. You could almost say the current capital gains tax pays for the mortgage interest deduction for everybody. Taxed at 20%, the same amount produces $99 billion annually. At 28% $139 billion annually. At 35% $174 billion annually.

Tax Foundation Finds Romney's $17K Deduction Cap Revenue Neutral

And says the plan maintains progressivity in the tax code. In other words, it keeps the rich paying far more than their fair share.

Read about it, here.

Milliman Study Ups Ante On Unfunded Public Pensions By $443 Billion

The Pew Center on the States study discussed by The Associated Press here in June put unfunded public pension liabilities for 2010 at $757 billion.

Now in October Reuters reports here that the sum is more like $1.2 trillion according to a different study by Milliman actuaries.

Both stories refer to unrealistic earnings expectations for public pension funds, which sometimes are in the vicinity of 8 percent when actual experience in the past five years has been more like 3 percent.

With long-term interest rates continuing to fall well below 2 percent and the Fed explicitly suppressing interest rates as a matter of long-term policy, such expectations seem more outrageously optimistic than ever. If taxpayers don't wake up they'll be left holding the bag for the shortfall.

Not mentioned in the Reuters story is the other problem, almost as big, mentioned by AP:

"Pensions aren't the only retirement problem. States also faced a $627 billion shortfall in health care services for retirees. Essentially, for every $1 they'll eventually have to pay out in health care, states had set aside only 5 cents."

Promises to public sector workers at all levels far exceed what private sector workers can expect for themselves, and promise only to bankrupt municipalities and states. 

It is high time we change the promises.

The Depression In Real Disposable Income: We're Stuck At 2006 Level

The most recent observation of inflation-adjusted disposable personal income per capita shows that we're still at the level reached nearly six years ago.

The Depression In Charitable Giving Continued In 2011

As reported here:

For the second year in a row, charitable giving barely grew, rising just 0.9 percent after inflation in 2011, according to Tuesday's release of "Giving USA," the annual yearbook of American philanthropy, which found that donations to educational institutions also edged up by 0.9 percent.

The report estimated that the total donated was $298.4-billion. ...

"If we continue to grow at this rate, it will take more than a decade to get back to where we were in total giving in 2007," said Patrick Rooney, executive director of the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, which compiles "Giving USA." ...

Total charitable giving last year was still 11 percent below what it was in 2007, before the effects of the recession were felt. Donations to charities dropped by a total of 13.4 percent in 2008 and 2009, "Giving USA" said as it released new estimates for contributions in those years.

Obama's Electoral College Map Gets Less Blue With Each Passing Day

realclearpolitics.com

VP Joe Biden Grossly Underestimated The Drop In Housing Equity

My jaw almost hit the floor when I heard Vice President Biden in debate with Paul Ryan say this:

BIDEN: I don't know how long it will take. We can and we will get it [unemployment] under 6 percent. Let's look at -- let's take a look at the facts. Let's look at where we were when we came to office. The economy was in free fall. We had -- the great recession hit; 9 million people lost their job; $1.7 -- $1.6 trillion in wealth lost in equity in your homes, in retirement accounts for the middle class. We knew we had to act for the middle class. We immediately went out and rescued General Motors. We went ahead and made sure that we cut taxes for the middle class. And in addition to that, when that -- when that occurred, what did Romney do? Romney said, "No, let Detroit go bankrupt." We moved in and helped people refinance their homes. Governor Romney said, "No, let foreclosures hit the bottom."

The vice president isn't even close to appreciating the devastation endured by home owners in this country.

Here's a chart I posted previously taken from the most up-to-date figures from the Federal Reserve showing peak to trough owners' equity dropping a whopping $6.9 trillion, not $1.7 trillion.

The vice president not only doesn't grasp the scope of the losses experienced by the middle class, the Obama administration hasn't done one thing to put housing on a proper footing going "forward", the slogan of their campaign.

Instead, Obama & Co. spent the first two years ramming health care reform which we didn't want down our throats at the same time we were losing our homes.

If ever anyone should be FIRED! for incompetence and malfeasance, it's these guys. Otherwise get ready to spend your retirement years living in the back seat of your rescued Government Motors automobile.

VP Joe Biden Voted For Both Wars He Accused Ryan Of Putting On The Credit Card

lying sack of shit

As seen here:

Sen. Biden voted for the Afghanistan resolution on Sept. 14, 2001 which authorized “the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.”

And on Oct. 11, 2002, Biden voted for a resolution authorizing unilateral military action in Iraq, according to the Washington Post.

Rep. Paul Ryan Drank Way Too Much Water In Debate With Biden

Joe Biden: Old Yeller

How Do You Spell Incompetence?

O.B.A.M.A.

RCP Now Has So Many States In Toss-Up, Obama Is Down To 201 EC Votes

Rasmussen Now Shows PA And CT Only Leaning Obama, Not Solid For Him

Uncertainty In NH, PA And WI Whittles Away At Obama At Real Clear Politics

See this map, here, where Obama's electoral college advantage now shrinks dramatically to 217 with New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all becoming toss-ups instead of Obama wins.

As recently as October 2 this map showed Obama with 269 electoral college votes.

That means that in about one week Obama has lost 20 percent of his support.

Jim Cramer Is So Full Of It: Panic! No, Don't Panic!

Four years ago on a fateful Monday morning in early October Jim Cramer was telling us if we needed our money in five years we'd better get out NOW. The market tanked that day, even though TARP had been signed the Friday before. The market kept tanking for 3 more weeks, in part because of Cramer's own televised statement on October 6, 2008. The market stabilized after that for a while, and then the market tanked some more in March 2009, and then came roaring back because of Federal Reserve interventions to the present day. Long term investors who stayed all-in through all that until now aren't quite fully redeemed from five years ago, but from four years ago they are, and then some. I'd rather still own the same stocks at this level in excess of 1400 today than have listened to Jim Cramer after S&P 500 at 1100 on Friday October 3, 2008 when George W. Bush signed TARP into law and sold into a sea of frickin' fallin' knives! The market has rebounded 27 percent nominal since that time, and if you missed that Jim Cramer owns some of the blame. 

And now Jim's telling us to be patient in October, the month of "the willies", and start buying in earnest in January? Fear motivated Jim Cramer four years ago. Today? Not so much.

OK Jim. Whatever.

Steve Malanga Thinks Romney Flips To Tax Deduction Caps To Avoid A Bloody Fight

Here, for Real Clear Markets:

Pressed to explain last week how he would lower tax rates without sacrificing revenues, Mitt Romney suggested that he might cap tax deductions at $17,000 per return. This was entirely different from his earlier suggestion that he'd eliminate some of our dizzying array of tax deductions in pursuit of a simpler and more economically efficient tax system with lower rates but fewer write-offs.

In his latest proposal for reform that started out as a way to simplify our tax system, Romney would make it more complex. The political virtue of this new approach is that it lets him preach lower rates without identifying specific deductions he'd eliminate, and therefore without incurring political opposition from interest groups that fight to protect those deductions. But it's a stretch to call this tax reform as it's generally understood.

You will read the rest of the article in vain looking for any discussion of the fact that when the much vaunted lower tax rates which came in the 1986 tax reform disappeared under Clinton, the deductions which went away in 1986 were no longer present to protect taxpayers from the full force of the those rate increases.

The presence of many deductions in the tax code represents the political success of the American hatred for taxes. They constitute rear guard actions, reactionary impulses if you will, against an otherwise intractable imposition of unconstitutional coercion and immoral inequality before the law. It is unjust to charge some taxpayers more than others.

Tax reform as we know it is a fool's errand for conservatives. Reagan, Kemp, Bushes I and II and now Romney are all to one degree or another really liberals with respect to the tax code, dancing around the fact that the income tax itself was the innovation in American history. They play with the details, protraying their proposals as conservative now and again, without ever coming to the root of the matter that the introduction of the income tax was a revolutionary impulse and was itself just one in a series of many radical changes foisted on the American people during the Progressive era.

When conservatives in our time begin to roll back those assaults, then we may legitimately speak of "reform". Until then, Romney's waffling between eliminating deductions or capping them is significant only to people without a long view of the matter.