Sadly Prop P Passed

“Every penny taken from you in taxes is a penny someone else decides how to spend. It’s a penny you earned but forfeited to someone else’s arbitrary discretion,” said Bill Hennessy co-founder of the St Louis Tea Pary Coallition. Today is a sad day for the residents of St Louis…

Video: Slight Problem with the Cypriot Banking System Explained

The Australian humorists Clarke & Dawe offer a brief summary of the “slight” problem in the Cypriot banking system. The European Union’s response has not yet fixed the problem, though it has resulted in a massive exodus of deposits held by foreigners. (Note to kleptocrats everywhere: if you put an entire nation’s banking system on a bank holiday, it’s best to make sure that bank holiday applies to the nation’s foreign bank branches, too!) As of today, Cypriots are allowed to withdraw up to €300 a day of their own money.

Bankers and Politicians Are Robbing People Everywhere

Original Post: Bankers and Politicians Are Robbing People Everywhere.

Before you shed tears for the plight of elite bankers, let this statement sink in: Cyprus’ banking sector must shrink. As did Ireland’s, the hard way. What is essential, as every Irishman and woman will tell you, is that the politicians do not load up the weaker citizen’s/taxpayers’ shoulders with enormous debts on behalf of bankers that refuse to wither. Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/yanis-varoufakis-while-waiting-for-cyprus-godot.html#dCKwchxGzzT2ljPx.99 That’s from Yanis Varoufakis, professor of economics at Athens University. It

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The post Bankers and Politicians Are Robbing People Everywhere appeared first on Hennessy’s View.

Political Brinksmanship: Sequester Edition

Sequestration is coming. It arrives March 1st.

Heritage Action’s Dan Holler reports that the sequester cuts amount to only a 2.4% cut, so instead of spending $9.863 billion per day, we’ll only spend $9.622 billion per day. But even that is a little misleading because of baseline budgeting. As Paul Roderick Gregory at Forbes explains in an op-ed titled: The $995 billion Sequester Cut is Actually a $110 billion Spending Increase:

The sequester “cuts” are subtracted after increasing appropriations subject to the sequester at the rate of inflation and adding back in more than a trillion dollars (over ten years) of spending exempted from the sequester.

Each year federal spending is increased based on population growth and inflation. That increase becomes the new baseline budget. That annual bump is about 6% this year, so a 2.4% sequester half-way through the fiscal year means that this year’s budget will be more than 4.5% larger than last year’s.

But, according to the President, this trivial cut is the end of the world. The White House has launched the classic FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) campaign against the coming sequester. Politico reports that the administration is: “releasing state by state details of the pain and suffering the sequester will cause…” TrimTabs president and CEO Charles Biderman doesn’t think that they can be serious:

Biderman goes on to make the point that the government does not want to cut anything.

Nonetheless, as Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) made clear earlier this month (video): “Spending cuts will occur on March 1st. Sequestration will happen.”

It’s a classic game of brinksmanship. The Democrat view of the economy is that economic success is driven by government spending so cutting government spending will harm the economy. Republicans see a world where smaller government gets out of the way of business unleashing economic growth.

This is only the opening act. The real fight will occur after the sequester goes into effect on March 1st and both sides try to get the press to report their economic outlook.

Government Planning Is Killing the Economy

Friedrich Hayek warned more than half a century ago that central planning doesn’t work. Here’s why: Central Planners (government) makes a plan The plan includes specific expectations The expectations are never, ever, [...]

Billionaires who avoid paying taxes call for higher taxes on everyone else

Figures.

In a joint statement today, Buffett, Soros and more than 20 other wealthy individuals asked Congress to lower the estate tax’s per-person exemption to $2 million from $5.12 million and raise the top rate to more than 45 percent from 35 percent.

An estate tax structured this way will “raise significant revenue to reduce the deficit and fund vital services, will only be paid by the top one percent of estates, will raise more from the wealthiest estates” and will simplify compliance, said the statement. It also was signed by John Bogle,founder of mutual fund company Vanguard Group Inc., and former President Jimmy Carter.

Of course they want higher taxes on people who are too stupid to shelter their own money. I don’t know why Buffett and his ilk don’t just pay the tax they owe.

Obamas current fiscal cliff proposal an embarrassment to reality.

As suspected all along, the President not only asked for twice the tax increase he campaigned on, but now it would seem the broken promise goes even farther down the rabbit hole.  Obama is pushing for twice as much in new tax revenues, to the tune…

Unemplyment fell because everyone has given up-welcome to the new normal

The unemployment rate fell to 7.7% this month on a higher than expected jobs report. Of course the drop has nothing to do with actual jobs being created as some would like you to believe. The unemployment rate continues to drop the last few months beca…

Those below the poverty level receive benefits worth MORE than middle class EARNS working.

From the Congressional Research Service:According to the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee, welfare spending per day per household in poverty is $168, which is higher than the $137 median income per day. When broken down per hour, …

Unemploymnet Down to 7.7% on 540k Fewer People in the Labor Force

ZeroHedge nails it on today’s job numbers:

Confused why the unemployment rate dropped? The same, favorite BLS adjustment – a drop in the labor force participation rate which declined by 0.2% to 63.6% once again, as the number of people out of the l…