Aug 02 2011
Business As Usual From Congress-Critters
This week’s display of massive heat with no real results in the debt limit debate is just another indication that the sickness in DC will not be exorcised any time soon.
The Tea Party and Libertarian members sent by voters in 2010 to fix DC were bedazzled and befuddled by the halls of power, they were overwhelmed by the old guard and their siren song of ‘get along’. Being a life long member of the DC area, having family and friends with political connections and positions, I know how DC pollutes the best intentioned newbies. The protectors of the Political Industrial Complex spun a tale about risk and hyped ramifications if the default came about, when in reality nothing more than hard decisions – long delayed – would have to be faced. DC would have had to prioritize its spending and show self control in order to fix the problem – that was worst we faced in we did not raise the debt ceiling.
Instead the DC elites kicked this problem down the road again. They pretended they did something when, in actuality, they did NOTHING!
Next year we will run a deficit of $1.5 trillion dollars. The Debt Ceiling comprise required to cover this additional debt contained only $22 billion in cuts. That represents a 1.46% cut in the deficit – which is nothing. It is round off error in the estimate of next year’s deficit. We added another $1.5 trillion debt for nothing in return.
And that stupid 12 person commission is another example of nothing wrapped up in a big, fat, pretend bow. All it does is gag the 2010 messengers voted in last year to stop this madness. We still face tax increases, massive additional debt and runaway spending. Nothing changed within DC – just another round of fantasy PR spouted out the back end of this dysfunctional city.
While DC elites may think they were able to bound and gag the Tea Party movement with this facade, they actually probably just made the movement that much larger, that much more determined and that much more capable of throwing more bums out in 2012. The frustration that comes from another round of epic fail in DC is just going to create more backlash against DC out in the rest of the country. Those crazy Tea Party terrorist on Main Street learned a bitter lesson this week. They need to completely overrun DC before they will have the power to fix it, before it consumes America as we know it.
Epic failures like we saw this week have consequences. DC’s credibility is completely gone now. No one will ever believe anyone in DC – because we now have proof positive words mean nothing. Tangible results are all that matter.
Good morning fellow “Terrorists” and “Hobbits”. Looks like the stock market is crashing again today. Business and investors know! So much for the great compromise “Debt Deal”
It’s not just the debt deal, in fact the debt deal is an inconsequential bit of farce in the big picture.
Europe is dying. Every bank in Europe is on the brink of collapse – that’s what is fueling the parabolic rise in gold. And there’s not enough money in the world left to bail them out.
I can see food riots in every European capital within 6 months.
Closing Bell – DJIA down 512 points for the day. Catastrophe.
Every time I start to wonder if I’m too pessimistic about the future, the world demonstrates that I’ve been quite the optimist.
As they say about the Middle East – if you think the situation can’t possibly get worse, just hang around for a little while.
Now that the stock market plummeted, how will the mainstream media treat Obama; given how they attacked Bush years ago.
I see that the gas price and gold dropped. Weird.
Not weird; it tells you what we’re looking at. This is not a normal drop – this is a 1929 / 2008 full blown market crash.
When *Everything* drops in price simultaneously, that is called a Deflationary Depression. You only see one once every 70 – 80 years. Lucky us, here it is.
And tonight the Italian bond market is collapsing, and there is a massive run on Italy’s banking system. Unless Merkel and Sarkozy pull a miraculous rabbit out of their hats in the next 12 hours or so, every bank in Europe could collapse over the next few days.
This whole thing – our post WW2 western financial construct – could all fall apart much much faster than any of us had thought possible. I’m not quite to the point of stocking up on ammo, food, and power generators, but I’m gettig closer every day.
What I want to see is the elimination of “progressive” income tax brackets.
Everyone pays 15% income tax on W2 or 1099 income that is withheld by the person paying the money, sent to the govt, reported on the form and no filing requirement. I don’t care if you work at McDonalds for minimum wage or are a CEO making a multimillion dollar salary, everyone pays 15%
The real purpose behind “progressive” income tax rates is class warfare. It is easy to pass a tax increase in less than 50% of the people because more than 50% who aren’t paying the tax are likely to vote for it. If you have a flat rate that everyone pays, any tax increase impacts everyone. A 1% tax increase is a 1% tax increase for 100% of the working population. They all must vote for it.
Dividends should be taxed at some flat rate with no exception, maybe 5%.
No tax on capital gains or on corporate profits which also means no tax break for capital loss or corporate loss. The reasons for that is that taxes on business are simply paid by the buyer of the business’ product. That cost is simply passed along. Taxing business is simply a hidden extra tax on the consumer. Capital gains taxes penalize successful investment. Carrying capital losses forward to offset future gains effectively subsidizes failure. Simply take those activities completely outside the tax structure. Removing these taxes unleashes investment and economic expansion.
The main difference between the current economic situation and that in 1929 is that government was looked upon as a savior for a giant economic bubble brought on by irresponsible business speculation. In the current situation we see government as the cause of a giant economic bubble through their mortgage regulations. Government being the cause of this collapse means people aren’t likely to have much confidence in the government making it right. People are now more inclined to want reduced government influence to allow business to work and not more government influence in the public sector.
Democrats remind me of “cat ladies”. You know, those women (why is it always women?) who take in hundreds of cats to “take care of them”. While they sincerely mean well and believe they are helping the poor cats, they are actually making the cat’s life worse. They often end up “helping” the cats right to death.
Democrats do that with people. And what it boils down to isn’t so much that they care about the cat, they care about mollifying their own feelings. They feel sorry for the cat, they want to do something to help. They wouldn’t be able to live with themselves if they didn’t take control of the situation so in order to make themselves feel better, they take complete control of the cat in order to “protect” it from the cold, cruel world.
Democrats do exactly the same thing with people for exactly the same reason. It is to make themselves feel better even if the subject of their control isn’t really any better off. A known bad situation to them is much better than any sort of unknown situation.
So rather than risk the unknown, they choose the controlled situation, even if they run completely out of money and every single one starves to death. To them, that is better than letting them all out to fend for themselves.
Watch Ronald Reagan’s speech to the 1964 Republican national convention:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt1fYSAChxs&playnext=1&list=PLDD11A1863200F18F
And be shocked at how things have *not* changed.
[…] surprise here. The Congress and White House kicked the can down the road as I noted last week. There are no real cuts until 2013 since the only near term cuts reflect about 1.5% of the annual […]