Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has the story here, and tells you better than I can why you should care. What's old may become new again.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Obama Finally Cracks The 51% Barrier
It only took two months of diligent counting, but Obama has finally garnered 51.03% of the popular vote in Election 2012, entitling him to a tax increase on the 0.31% of Americans at the top of the income ladder, or so he says.
Mitt Romney got 47%, but not the now proverbial 47%, who are about to find out that tax increases on the rich amounting to $60 billion a year divided by 148 million Americans comes to a handout of just 405 bucks each. Don't spend it all in one place.
And the libertarians, fittingly, got the 0.99%, the actual support of Occupy Wall Street which, like all crackpots, claimed to represent nearly everybody in the 99% while crapping on your front stoop, which free expression libertarians are all for.
Data here.
Here We Go Again: The Wall Street Journal's Lies About The Middle Class
Like their opponents on the left, maybe because as libertarians they are genetically related to the left, The Wall Street Journal likes to assert false premises buried in subordinate clauses of paragraphs addressing a different topic, hoping to gain your assent through rhetorical slight of hand. It's an effective technique used by leftists everywhere to ideologize people, which is to create beliefs which are not supported by facts.
Here they are this morning, squealing like all the other rich libertarian pigs at RealClearMarkets about the raw deal they just got in the fiscal cliff compromise:
"Under the new law, some of the steepest tax increases may fall on upper-middle class earners with incomes just above $250,000."
As much as I get tired of challenging this assumption, the stupendous lie that it is awakens in me just enough disgust to get the old corpuscles going in the morning.
If you make $250,000/year, you are in the top 0.67742% of wage earners in this country, ok? You wouldn't know middle class if it hit you in the ass with a sack of potatoes. You can complain all you want about how hard it is to live in New York City on that income, but it still doesn't make you middle class. I'm not sure what it makes you, but out of 314 million Americans, there are only 1.025 million like you at the top of the income ladder. Like in the dictionary, you can look it up.
I'm not surprised to read lies in The Wall Street Journal. They actually advocate lying, here, or excuse it with the is is ought argument, here. In 2012 lying seemed to be a peculiar fascination of the editors.
That's the difference between the old America and the new one. The old America still believes lying is wrong, whether to ourselves or to others. The new one wants to be free to lie. In fact, it believes that unless you are free to lie you aren't free.
To hell with that.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Americans Have Been Hoarding Spending Money Since October 27th, 2008
That's the last time M1 was at the $1.4 trillion level.
Americans haven't looked back since.
Since that date in 2008, hoarding of spending money has increased at a rate north of 66% overall. Compare that to the previous four year period from October 2004 to October 2008 when money in consumers' spending accounts increased only 8.4%.
Theoretically, in excess of $1 trillion has been removed from consumer spending over the four year period since 2008, but it has been kept in such a way that it is ready to spend, suggesting Americans have been waiting to spend the money, preparing to spend the money, or just plain saving the money in the only accounts they own where they can keep it.
I'll go with the latter.
This is an enormous sum when compared with the actual dollar increase in GDP for the three years from 2009 through Q3 2012 annualized, which is a measly $1.84 trillion. Assuming non-crisis conditions, however, these monies might have been spent instead of saved and GDP would have increased to at least $2.84 trillion instead of $1.84 trillion, or as much as 35% higher than the reality.
I'll go with the latter.
This is an enormous sum when compared with the actual dollar increase in GDP for the three years from 2009 through Q3 2012 annualized, which is a measly $1.84 trillion. Assuming non-crisis conditions, however, these monies might have been spent instead of saved and GDP would have increased to at least $2.84 trillion instead of $1.84 trillion, or as much as 35% higher than the reality.
Parenthetically, notice the fear represented by the near verticality of allocation to this category during the debt ceiling crisis of Summer 2011, and then the resumption of the trend upward.
Another such episode will be upon us shortly.
Bush Tax Cuts Made Permanent, Obama Tax Cuts Expire, Payroll Tax Rockets 33%
And Rush Limbaugh says Obama won a "massive victory"?
It depends on your point of view, doesn't it? If you have a Republican bias, you think George Bush won, which he obviously did. The permanent adoption of Bush's tax cuts by the opposition is a vindication, which Rush somehow can't bring himself to crow about, let alone even acknowledge. If you have a Democratic bias, you think Obama won.
No wonder a caller just phoned in to tell Rush to stop campaigning for the Democrats. She rightly perceives Rush to be making a political mistake, to which Rush responds he's been the best campaigner against the Democrats for 25 years, but to no avail, by his own admission.
Has Rush Limbaugh been good for America? His own answer is No!
Maybe it's time for Rush to quit!
Rich Radio Talkers To Make Bazillions Off AMT Fix And Don't Know It!
The New York Times reported the cost to the federal government of the permanent AMT fix over the next decade at $1.8 trillion, here, based on the findings of the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Do you know what that means?
If something costs the federal government something, it means it saves someone something, namely, the (mostly) rich taxpayers who pay the damn thing, who now get to bear the blame in the liberal media for increasing the deficit over the next decade because of it. That's a good thing to a conservative, last time I checked (keeping the money, not getting the blame), unless you are a conservative radio talk show host whose stupidity is exceeded only by the size of his paycheck. (Sean Hannity is so stupid he's actually criticizing the fiscal cliff deal because it does just that, increase the deficit. Someone should tell him he's just adopted the liberal argument that tax cuts increase the deficit, not that it would do any good). Teams Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingraham and Beck really ought to call their CPAs before they continue shooting their mouths off about what a massive victory Obama just achieved on the backs of the rich. The irony here is that while Obama thinks he just won a free Cadillac, it turned out to be a Pontiac from Rent-A-Heap, delivered by Rush, Sean and Glenn. They made Laura drive.
When are you stupid people out there in radio land going to get it? Like this guy does:
"The AMT fix, like the Medicare 'doc fix' was an end of year ritual that couldn’t be resolved permanently. Why you may ask? Because any permanent fix would reflect in the CBO’s deficit and debt estimates for the years going forward. Fixing the AMT for any one year was considered a cost for that particular year, but the CBO would base their estimates by current law, which would have the AMT not being fixed for the next year and every year afterwards. Fixing the AMT for one year is a cost of 92 billion dollars. A permanent fix it for the next ten years costs almost a trillion dollars. From a purely crass, political position, having the costs of a permanent fix to the AMT and Bush income tax cuts accrued under the Obama administration ( two items that Republicans wanted to do but could never find the money for):
Priceless.
However all is not well in conservative talk radio land. I made it a point to listen to what I think was a fair cross section of conservative radio for their take on all things fiscal cliffdom, and I must say, it was a muddled mess of incoherence."
Nov. Unemployment Revised UP To 7.8%, Dec. At 7.8%
One revision to reported unemployment for 2012 went down, from 8.3% to 8.2% (July), and one went up, from 7.7% to 7.8% (November), a wash.
December unemployment comes in at 7.8%.
Read the pdf from the BLS for yourself, here.
The number of people whose primary and secondary jobs are both part-time jobs has increased in the last year, December on December, by 6.4%, from 1.99 million to 2.118 million (Table A-16).
The total not in the labor force has increased 2.56% in the last year, adding 2.233 million for a total of 89.445 million Americans not in the labor force.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Why Isn't There A Single Conservative Radio Talker Happy About The Fiscal Deal?
Why isn't there a single conservative radio talker happy about the fiscal deal? Not a one is glad that Bush's lower tax rates have been made permanent for the vast majority of the American people. I thought the Bush tax rates were every Republican's sine qua non, since at least 2003.
I see that the reported salary of Glenn Beck is $20 million/year. Sean Hannity reportedly makes north of $10 million/year on television at Fox, and $20 million/year on the radio. Rush Limbaugh makes way north of $38 million/year if you add in his signing bonus. And Laura Ingraham? Not very credible sources say she makes $15 million/year, but that was before the very recent relaunch of her radio show in 2013 under new, and presumably more attractive financial, circumstances. HuffPo here thinks her TV contract with Fox, filling-in for O'Reilly, is in the neighborhood of $1 million annually.
These four people dominate the talk radio airwaves from 9AM-6PM everyday, and they're all severely critical of the fiscal cliff deal. But there hasn't been a single word of gratitude to today's Republicans for getting the Bush tax rates made permanent for 99.7% of the American people.
The reason, of course, is that the radio talkers haven't the slightest feeling for the American people, the slightest understanding of their day to day experience, having left them long ago for the airy regions of the richest Americans in the top 0.3% income club where they now reside, the lowly victims of a paltry 13% tax increase agreed to by Obama and the Republicans, and they are livid.
Ungrateful wretches.
Chief Takeaway From The Fiscal Cliff Deal
The chief takeaway from the fiscal cliff deal is that, despite his many shortcomings, especially as a communicator, Vice President Joe Biden, who brokered the deal through Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, would actually make a much better president than his boss, Barack Obama.
I think I've been wrong about old Joe . . .
Rush Limbaugh Is Back And He's As Big An Idiot As Ever
Rush Limbaugh is back and he's still a big fat idiot.
He actually says Obama won a "massive victory" in the fiscal cliff deal, for raising taxes on the top 0.3%. You know, on people just like Rush. Rush's salary? $38 million/year.
If ever anyone needed any proof that Rush couldn't care less about the principled nature of the lower Bush tax rates for all Americans, this is it, because those rates just became permanent for everyone, except for Rush and about 600,000 other rich Americans who make $400,000 a year or more. Their taxes go up about 13%, but only on paper. You would think a so-called conservative would at least acknowledge that victory and give George Bush some credit, but no, not even after a caller reminds him about that at the end of the first hour. The entire opening monologue was completely self-referential, and suggests that Rush is talking his book here. He doesn't even understand the math in the deal, which now lets the income rich keep $1.8 trillion over ten years from the permanent AMT fix. Their cost under the deal? $600 billion over ten years, as I said, on paper. Even the income rich can still shift income out of the "ordinary" category to the now 33% higher, but still low dividend and capital gains rate category to escape the 39.6% top income tax rate. They will, and the somewhat rosier federal revenue scenario used to sell this deal won't even materialize. The rich will stay that way. They will not pay much more. And the Democrats will be stuck with another failed scheme.
Obama didn't win a victory here, the American people and George Bush did, and I still haven't heard a single so-called conservative radio talker even acknowledge it, let alone be grateful for it. That doesn't buy ears. Only what bleeds does, or what might bleed, which is why all Rush can talk about is some hypothetical threat in the future, when an actual threat, increased tax rates on everyone, has been completely neutralized in the present by good Republican leadership.
I say, "thank you". All Rush can say? "@#$% you".
NYT: Fiscal Cliff Deal Gave Obama Only "Small Victories"
The New York Times, here at CNBC.com, admits it: Obama's victories in the fiscal cliff deal were small.
"For President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress, the fiscal deal reached this week is full of small victories that further their largest policy aims. ... White House officials took the path they did because they feared that a hardened stance on the debt ceiling would result in no deal at all: taxes would have risen on nearly everyone; automatic spending cuts would have begun; jobless benefits would have ended for many; and markets may have reacted badly.
"In the chaos that could have followed, the officials believed, a grand bargain would have been unlikely. If anything, Democrats -- worried they would be blamed for the economy's troubles, as the party holding the White House -- might have struggled to get a deal as good as this week's. Having won this round, Democrats still have compromises to offer Republicans in the next one, like changes to Social Security."
In other words, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts was a gun pointed at Obama's already terrible economy. There was no way the Democrats were going to let that gun go off and ruin the second term of the most overrated president in history. The stock markets knew it for months, which is why they never tanked even as the expiration date passed.
Here's a newsflash for the readers of the NYT: this deal is as good as it's going to get, and Democrats lost big even on the tax hike on the rich because, despite raising taxes on estates and on high incomes, dividends and capital gains, the AMT fix is going to cost the Feds (read: offset the taxes paid by the rich) $1.8 trillion over ten years. The price of that to the rich was barely $600 billion over ten years for those other things, about which so-called conservatives doth protest too much. The rich aren't going to be getting any less rich at all.
And the Times boasts that the deal reduces economic inequality. In their dreams. What a joke.
If Democrats won anything, it's that the economy isn't going to tank immediately under their mismanagement, and that they have more time to take the credit for the successes the Republicans achieve.
Liberal Henry Blodget Agrees: Pres. Bush/Republicans Won Battle Of Fiscal Cliff
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Liberal Henry Blodget of BusinessInsider fame writes for YahooFinance, reproduced here:
"Ever since the Bush Tax Cuts were first enacted in 2001, one goal of the Republican party has been to 'make the Bush Tax Cuts permanent.' ...
"The Republicans may not have gotten everything they wanted out of the Fiscal Cliff deal, but they got almost everything.
"And when it comes to the broader fiscal battle, the Republicans are winning: The federal government's tax revenues are at the lowest level as a percent of GDP in the past several decades.
"The Republicans, in other words, are well on their way to starving the beast."
Moody's Warns Lack Of Deficit Reduction Could Affect AAA Rating Negatively
As reported by Reuters, here:
"On the other hand, lack of further deficit reduction measures could affect the rating negatively," Moody's said.
Moody's placed the U.S. credit rating on a negative outlook August 3, 2011 when the Congress and the White House wrestled over a relatively routine measure of raising the debt ceiling to the point where the United States was on the brink of default before hammering out a deal.
That political impasse and near financial calamity prompted rival rating agency Standard & Poor's to take the unprecedented move of cutting the U.S. credit rating to AA-plus from AAA.
George Will Gives But One Cheer For George W. Bush, Fiscal Cliff Winner
Here:
"Third, one December winner was George W. Bush because a large majority of Democrats favored making permanent a large majority of his tax cuts. December’s rancor disguised bipartisan agreement: Both parties flinch from cliff-related tax increases and spending decreases. But neither the increases nor decreases would have tamed the current $1 trillion-plus budget deficit nor made a discernible dent in the 87-times-larger unfunded liabilities of the entitlement state."
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
The Youth Vote: Suckers Overpaying For HealthCare
So says Mish, here:
The fact of the matter is youth overpay for health-care as the benefits primarily go to the elderly. Obama needed a pool of fresh suckers to overpay for health-care costs to keep the system solvent for a bit longer.
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