How About A National Minimum Wage Of $4.34 As In Obama's American Samoa?

"The first attempt at establishing a national minimum wage came in 1933, when a $0.25 per hour standard was set as part of the National Industrial Recovery Act. However, in the 1935 court case Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (295 U.S. 495), the United States Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional, and the minimum wage was abolished."

So says the Wikipedia article on the minimum wage, here.

Adjusted for inflation according to the Consumer Price Index since 1933, the minimum wage in 2011 should have been just $4.34, not $7.25.

So if we should do anything, we should lower the minimum wage, not raise it to $9.00 as President Obama hypocritically calls for. I say hypocritically because President Obama already thinks the lower level around $4.00 is just fine for the residents of American Samoa, who by law make between just $2.68 and $4.69, which is where even now he aims to keep them:

On September 30, 2010, President Obama signed legislation that delays scheduled wage increases for 2010 and 2011. On July 26, 2012, President Obama signed S. 2009 into law, postponing the minimum wage increase for 2012, 2013, and 2014. Annual wage increases of $0.50 will recommence on September 30, 2015 and continue every three years until all rates have reached the federal minimum.

This is thought to be a favor to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former Democrat Speaker of the House, which keeps her business pals there (tuna canners) more profitable than they otherwise would be if they had to comply with the federal minimum wage legislation.

Claiming the mantle of the working poor is so much easier than actually vetoing a bill which keeps workers impoverished indefinitely. He didn't veto it but signed it, and the residents of American Samoa remain second class citizens as a result, under the first black president. There's a new massa in town, but it's the same old shit.

The Second Difference Between Pres. Obama and Dr. Ben Carson

President Obama supported infanticide while an Illinois state senator, voting not once, not twice, not three times, but four times against a law which would protect infants born alive after failed abortions. Dr. Carson operates on 300 children a year to save their lives.

What's The First Difference Between Pres. Obama And Dr. Ben Carson?

The smartest president ever needs one of these.

Sales Taxes Or Gasoline/Diesel Taxes, You Decide.

What you won't realize from this story, "What does an additional penny of gas tax buy in Michigan?" by Amy Lane for mlive.com, is how regressive are the fuel taxes which Michigan motorists pay compared to sales taxes.

From the story we are told:  

For each penny of gas or diesel tax, Michigan gets about $45 million for transportation funding needs that include roads. ...

A penny of Michigan sales tax brings in about $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion.

Well, just how many pennies are we really talking about in each case?

When you buy a gallon of gasoline, Michigan collects 38.7 pennies. But when you buy two fifty cent rolls of toilet paper, Michigan collects just 6 pennies. In the latter case, your tax rate is 6%, but in the former it works out to more like 12%, double the rate. Does that make any sense?

The driver of the $35,000 SUV can probably well afford it without thinking twice, but not the driver of the Ford Focus, whom the regressive fuel tax hurts more because he's probably making a lot less than the SUV driver.

If it's true Michigan collects $45 million per penny of current fuel taxes, that means that times the 38.7 pennies Michigan is already collecting, $1.74 billion is currently available from motor fuel taxes for roads and transportation. The sales tax, on the other hand, is bringing in over $7 billion at the much lower rate, and everyone is paying it. A simple 1.5 cent increase in the sales tax could eliminate the need for the fuel tax altogether. A 2 cent increase could provide an additional $660 million for roads. To get that from a gas tax increase, you would have to hike the gasoline tax per gallon by 15 cents, which is what Gov. Snyder wants to do, plus a little more, but which punishes the little guy even more.

Against those who say road users should bear the burden of road maintenance, I say everyone who buys goods is a road user. Well over 80 percent of everything we purchase moves by road. If you don't drive, you are being subsidized by those who do everytime you buy something which moves by road, which is just about everything.    

Jim Cramer's Stock Picking Secret

TNR Notices Obama's Recovery Benefitted Only Elites

Well, what else would you expect from a national socialist? (Obama silly, not TNR).

Tim Noah, here:

"The biggest gainers in 2011 were the bottom half of the top one percent, i.e., those making between $358,000 and $545,000. They saw their incomes increase, on average, by 1.70 percent (not much to write home about, but you've got to put a weak recovery somewhere)."

Fewer than 1 million Americans earned net compensation for Social Security purposes in that range in 2011.

Investors.com Agrees With Us: GDP Under Obama The Worst Since WWII

So Jeffrey Anderson for Investors.com, here:

"According to the BEA, average annual real GDP growth during Obama's first term was a woeful 0.8%. To put Obama's mind-bogglingly low number in perspective, consider this: It was less than half the tally achieved during Bush's second term. It was barely a quarter of the tally achieved under President Carter. It was the worst tally achieved during any presidential term in the past 60 years."

We told you so already last October, here, in "Obama Racks Up Worst GDP Record In Post-War Period":

"But Obama comes in with a pathetic, ridiculous average report of GDP over 16 quarters of just 0.86%, over twice as bad as Bush."

Pope Resigns In Latin, UK Tabloid Can't Spell In English.

Story here.

The word is "incredulity".

How fitting an English tabloid can't spell it, since the English word is derived directly from the Latin "incredulus" for "not believing".

The cardinals in assembly, many of whom understood no Latin themselves, didn't understand what was happening:

"He announced his resignation in Latin to a meeting of Vatican cardinals this morning, saying he did not have the 'strength of mind and body' to continue leading more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide. ... Several cardinals did not even understand what Benedict had said during the consistory, said the Reverend Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman.

"Others who did were stunned.

"A cardinal who was at the meeting said: ‘We listened with a sense of incredulity as His Holiness told us of his decision to step down from the church that he so loves.’"

Well, there you go. A Pope "steps down from the church".

Dare we say, "Welcome, sir"?

Thanks for nothing, Jim Cramer

Flashback to Jim Cramer, Monday, 10/06/2008 ("Take Your Money Out Right Now"):

“Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market right now, this week. I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market right now.”

-- Jim Cramer, Monday morning, October 6, 2008 (before the market open)

The Friday before that outrageous, irresponsible advice was nationally televised on NBC's Today Show, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX) had slumped to 26.62 from 30.90 two weeks before, not quite 14%. After his Monday call, however, the fund, a proxy for the whole market, dropped nearly 18% in that one week alone, to 21.85, on its way to its 16.60 low in March 2009. TARP, by the way, was signed into law also on that Friday before Jim opened his BIG mouth the next Monday morning.

Four years and four months since that fateful day in October 2008, VTSMX has bounced back to reach a new all time high of 38.13 as of Friday, February 8, 2013.

Your $36,700 in early October 2008 would be worth $57,300 today, a gain of 56%, if you had ignored Jim's advice.

THANKS FOR NOTHING, JIM. Not only did I need the $36,700, I needed the $20,600 gain.

Of course, Jim technically has until October of this year to be vindicated, but that presupposes a market crash from here of at least 36% to start cutting into that original pile of money I needed. But hey, I needed it, so it's not there, so no worries, right?

And what's Jim saying last week?

“We have a genuine, honest to goodness, bona fide bull market here,” Cramer said Tuesday.   

Look out below.

Gov. Snyder Is Nuts: Gas Taxes In Michigan Are Already 6th Highest In America

Michigan in January 2013 had the SIXTH highest overall gasoline taxes in the nation, and Gov. Snyder is talking about raising them higher still to fix the roads. He is quite clearly nuts.

The excise tax on gasoline is already double the rate you would pay in sales tax on a box of Kleenex or a roll of toilet paper and is one of the most regressive taxes in the state and in the country. The excise tax on gasoline penalizes the working poor the most who depend on their cars to get to their crummy jobs, if they are lucky enough to have one. And Governor Snyder only wants to make it worse.

Here are the top six states for combined federal, state, and local gasoline taxes as of January 2013:

New York:   69.0 cents per gallon

California:   67.1 cents

Hawaii:        65.5 cents

Connecticut: 63.4 cents

Illinois:         57.5 cents

Michigan:     57.1 cents.

The federal portion EVERYWHERE is fixed at 18.4 cents per gallon, so that means Michigan already takes 38.7 cents out of your pocket every time you put a gallon of gas in your car.

Today's average price for gasoline in Michigan is $3.743, meaning the base price at the pump is $3.172, including all profits and costs before the taxes are applied. That means the federal tax of 18.4 cents represents a federal excise tax on gas of 5.8%, and that your Michigan excise tax on gasoline is a whopping 12.2%, more than twice the sales tax rate of 6%. The average sales tax nationwide is just 5.04%.

Michigan is one state which bears the full brunt of the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, resulting in road workers getting top dollar. Funny how we have some of the worst roads in the country in exchange for that. Maybe the governor should spend more time trying to figure that out before picking the taxpayers pockets again.

If the country needs anything, it is a tax cut on gasoline. The national average tax is 48.8 cents a gallon. Backing out the federal portion, that means the states on average are taking 9.3% on gasoline, a tax rate 85% higher than the average state sales tax rate.

Poverty Guidelines 2013

As shown here.

Poverty Thresholds 2012

As shown here.

In Bond Debacles Of 1994/1999, Net Asset Values Fell About 10%

In the bond debacle of 1993-1994, the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index fund saw a decline in the net asset value of 11.6%, falling from 10.35 to 9.15.

In a similar episode between 1998 and 2000, the net asset value plunged from 10.43 to 9.46, a decline of 9.3%.

The Model For All American Authoritarians Is Pres. Lincoln

So Ralph Peters, here:

"But no president should murder American citizens. Tell it to Abe Lincoln, Hollywood’s celebrity-president of the season, who invaded the South (which had not even threatened acts of terror). The result? Perhaps 750,000 dead Americans. I believe Lincoln was our greatest president after Washington, but he wasn’t just about emancipation."

Funny how emancipation for 4 million black people required the deaths of 750,000 and the repression of liberties of millions ever after.

Well, at least he's honest about The War of Northern Aggression. And Lincoln was a murderer. I'm glad we cleared that up.

One key to surviving in the future will be making sure we don't all move to the same geographic location. Another is refusing to wear the Star of David. You know a third.

Bush Paved The Way For Obama's Insane Imperial Claim He Can Kill You

If you still harbor the slightest loyalty to either George Bush or Barack Obama after reading this withering, eviscerating critique of what's happened to our liberties under these two ne'er-do-wells by noted American lefty Glenn Greenwald for The UK Guardian here, then the future truly is hopeless.

From the concluding paragraph:

"[W]e have the current president asserting the power not merely to imprison or eavesdrop on US citizens without charges or trial, but to order them executed - and to do so in total secrecy, with no checks or oversight. If you believe the president has the power to order US citizens executed far from any battlefield with no charges or trial, then it's truly hard to conceive of any asserted power you would find objectionable."

He must know that when the purge starts under a future American Caesar, his ilk will be among the first to go.

Good Grief, Bulgaria Grew Better Than The US Last Quarter

h/t TradingEconomics.com

Liberals Everywhere (and libertarian elites) Sneer With Doyle McManus: How Dare You Live In A Bigger House?

 

 

 

 

 

Today's liberal sneer comes from Doyle McManus for, you guessed it, The LA Times, here:

But don't take it from me. Take it from the economists at the Mercatus Center, a mostly conservative think tank at Virginia's George Mason University. ... "Recent empirical research suggests that the mortgage interest deduction increases the size of homes purchased but not the overall rate of homeownership," they wrote. ... You can be sure that home builders and Realtors, whose businesses thrive on big houses and high prices, will push back hard against any proposal for change. ... The mortgage interest deduction subsidizes big houses and bigger mortgages, but that's not a good use of tax dollars. Its benefits flow disproportionately to the wealthy and do nothing for the working poor.

In other words, God forbid that modestly incomed people with big families should live in the same comfortable digs as the elites. No, the only thing suitable for them is something small and cramped in keeping with their station in life. The "Realtors" is a nice touch, with a capital "R", the evil purveyors of this excess and offense against the crabbed liberal view of life. We have met the enemy, and he works for Remax. Puritanism still lives, my friends, in the indignant hearts of the America's liberals.

George Mason University, for its part, is a libertarian bastion, not a conservative one, and being socially liberal, libertarians are ever helpful to one side and one side only: liberalism. Make no mistake about it, the societal decision long ago to subsidize home ownership is a by-product of the conservative consensus of yesterday. That consensus recognized that the basic social unit was the family, defined as a husband, wife and children, the incubator for the transmission of the values of our civilization, and that shaping tax policy to support it materially was not only in the best interests of the present, but of the future.

The people who attack that now are either dimwits, or enemies. 

Theoretical Oil Investing Years Since 1980 According To The Gold/Oil Ratio

Theoretically according to the gold/oil ratio, oil investing years might include any year when the gold/oil ratio rose above 15, that is, when the price of an ounce of gold was "more expensive" than 15 barrels of oil, say about 25 barrels as in 1998, indicating that the price of oil was a bargain relative to gold:

1980  16.37

1986  25.10

1987  25.51

1988  29.39 ($14.87/barrel)

1989  20.81

1990  16.54

1991  17.94

1992  17.86

1993  21.49

1994  24.52

1995  22.91

1996  18.95

1997  17.45

1998  24.71 ($11.91/barrel)

1999  16.86

2009  18.17

2010  17.20

2011  18.06

2012  19.76
2013  15.71

You'll notice very few ads on the radio, on the internet, or generally, for oil. You don't have to sell something that's on sale. Gold ads proliferate for a reason: Gold is too expensive, but the mother of idiots is always pregnant, providing another customer.  

Theoretical Gold Investing Years Since 1980 Using Gold/Oil Ratio

Theoretically according to the gold/oil ratio, gold investing years might include any year when the gold/oil ratio dipped below 15, that is, when the price of oil was more expensive, making an ounce of gold "cheaper" than 15 barrels of oil, say 9 barrels instead of 15 as in 2005 and 2008:

1981  13.13

1982  11.91

1983  14.63

1984  13.11

1985  11.97

2000  10.19

2001  11.78 (gold $271.04/ounce, lowest average annual price for gold since 1980 to date)

2002  13.58

2003  13.12

2004  10.95

2005    8.91 (gold $444.74/ounce)

2006  10.35

2007  10.83

2008    9.53.

Not coincidentally, Vanguard launched both its energy fund, VGENX, and its precious metals fund, VGPMX, on May 23, 1984 when it was time to invest in gold and avoid oil. But if you had invested $10,000 in the energy fund that year, by May 31, 2008 you'd have in excess of $352,000. The precious metals fund did much less well, almost reaching $107,000 over the same period.

Charting The Dollar And The Gold/Oil Price Ratio

Create a graph

Is it just me or is there no real correlation going on between any of these?