Democrats criticize a Republican plan to cut the U.S. deficit by overhauling the tax code as a sop to the wealthy, after the proposal had appeared to signal a new willingness to at least consider revenue increases. "They’ve got to put real revenue on the table," says Sen. John Kerry, who wants more than $1T. It's looking like the super-committee may be the real turkey this Thanksgiving. [View news story]
I thought it was only 1 decade of tax cuts that didn't work since GWB is at fault for everything. You also sweep in Clinton and Carter into that statement and they were not low tax guys but don't let history get in the way.
And we don't tax wealth. We tax income and that is a big difference. But if you want to tax wealth I would love to see the Kennedy/Shriver/Rocker... fortunes absconded and wasted by our governnment. It would be a sobering lesson for the limo liberals.
The Jefferson County, Alabama County Commission votes 4-1 to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Coming at the end of a back and forth process that's been going on as long as Greece, it would be the largest municipal filing in history, stemming from billions in debt taken on for the Taj Mahal of sewer treatment plants. [View news story]
Another great example of government making well informed decisions for the taxpayer. Our best and brightest certainly are not in government.
Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) reports a $5.1B Q3 loss and says it will seek $7.8B in additional federal aid to stay afloat. The loss was attributed to continued weakness in the housing market and credit-related expenses on home loans made prior to 2008. Fannie Mae has drawn $112.6B in Treasury bailout funds and has paid $17.2B to the government in dividends.[View news story]
Yeah bring on the French Revolution. As a capital markets attorney you will be one of the first on the guillotine.
People only understand their own narrow experience and then try to tie their experience to some kind of root cause which often is blaming someone else and in this case WS. Where is WS anymore? It is gone.
Maybe they should spend some time in Midtown or Connecticut. Or PIMCO. Or outside the Treasury Building in WDC right down the street from the WH. Or the Fed? Or government agencies that are driving all the borrowing and taking the wealth of the country and purusing all kinds of objectives. Maybe they should also articulate exactly what they want before they run out of energy and winter sets in hard. All this would take more than general frustration and a collage of complaints.
A 20%-30% whack in Wall Street bankers' compensation isn't enough to satisfy Nassim Taleb, who says bonuses should disappear altogether, at least for firms that could be bailed out by the government. But that might actually increase risk-taking; at least under the current system, bankers get some of their bonus in stock, which goes down in value if the bank does poorly. [View news story]
I agree with this concept. Make running a bank like running any other business which is if you perform poorly or need a bailout then you get nothing.
Those bashing Ben Bernanke over his inflation record should look at the stats, says Jon Hilsenrath in the WSJ. CPI on Bernanke's 67-month watch has averaged 2.3%, giving him one of the best records of all Fed chairmen. It's lower than Alan Greenspan's 3.1% and Paul Volcker's 6.2%, although the latter did inherit double-digit rates. [View news story]
There are two sides to this story:
1. We have a large share of the population that wants checks in the mail and free stuff and the government is issuing debt (AKA charging up the credit card) to send them free stuff. So the problem is not really government but it is the people insisting on all this free stuff. 2. Our government is really not different in some respects than the Chinese government and every other government which is trying to create employment for its citizens so they don't have 1 billion people rioting and tearing up the country. In our case our government is buying favors in the form of a vote plantation. It really is not freedom and it is not capitalism when the government is acting the way it is in this scenario.
This is more than a financial revolution. The finances are only a symptom of the underlying political and social subversion and problems that have been created in the last 100 years by promising people government is the answer to everything. Government needs to change and go back to a more neutral role. People need to change and be ashamed to accept free stuff from the government. Working needs to be glorified and laziness abhorred. Those are big changes.
Data is about to redefine the Internet in the same way social media did, according to LinkedIn (LNKD) co-founder, venture capitalist, and Silicon Valley uber-guru Reid Hoffman. For this reason, Groupon's (GRPN) retail focus may be of less interest than its aggregation of massive volumes of consumer spending habits. “He’s like an early warning system for something great in Silicon Valley," says entrepreneur Gina Bianchini. [View news story]
If Groupon is about data then that is a direct collision course with Google. And likely Apple over time.
Matt Taibbi rails at Mike Bloomberg's attempt to pin the prime-lending implosion on Congress: "Far from being dragged into poor neighborhoods and forced to give out home loans... companies like Countrywide and New Century charged into suburbs and exurbs from coast to coast with the enthusiasm of Rwandan machete mobs, looking to create as many loans as they could." [View news story]
Got it.
I say Fannie and Freddie went poof because their equity holders were wiped out. However our federal government then took them over and we have been writing out checks ever since.
“I am impressed that the people have not yet stormed into Parliament and burned the politicians alive - like a souvlaki,” says a retired truck driver in Greece who just sent his life savings of €50K to Sweden. With eyes often focused on the latest from Berlin or Brussels, forgotten is the economic devastation on the ground in Greece, the tinderbox it has created, and the accelerating bank run that may ultimately end this. [View news story]
Maybe the Greeks have finally realized that the money the government is spending really comes from them which means that if the government is out of money that means they are out of money.
This movie will also play in the US one day when we can no longer fund spending on debt. Unlike the Greeks we can drive inflation though so that the debt becomes smaller by debasing the currency.
Mounting evidence that sugary drinks and fatty foods lead to addiction could spark the most important consumer safety battle since cigarettes. One-third of U.S. adults and 17% of children are obese - adding about $150B to healthcare costs and shaving anywhere from 2-10 years off people's lives. [View news story]
Stephen
You are looking at the big picture. We have built acturarial tables and forecasts off of normal life styles consuming current food stocks so if we keep reaching for another couple of years we will only go deeper in the hole. Combine that with the massively expensive last 6 months of a person's life and you have a very large amount of wealth going towards the last 1% of peoples' lives.
Those bashing Ben Bernanke over his inflation record should look at the stats, says Jon Hilsenrath in the WSJ. CPI on Bernanke's 67-month watch has averaged 2.3%, giving him one of the best records of all Fed chairmen. It's lower than Alan Greenspan's 3.1% and Paul Volcker's 6.2%, although the latter did inherit double-digit rates. [View news story]
This is like saying a football team has the best defense in the past 10 years but unfortunately they lose all their games because their offense cannot score.
And nobody believes the inflation rate is material because it does not incorporate food and energy which is an absolute critical need. Standards of living are falling and our government is trying to convince everyone things are fine.
Mounting evidence that sugary drinks and fatty foods lead to addiction could spark the most important consumer safety battle since cigarettes. One-third of U.S. adults and 17% of children are obese - adding about $150B to healthcare costs and shaving anywhere from 2-10 years off people's lives. [View news story]
Oxygen is addicting. Sex is addicting.
If we get rid of those two things we can just wipe out the human race but we will be safe.
Matt Taibbi rails at Mike Bloomberg's attempt to pin the prime-lending implosion on Congress: "Far from being dragged into poor neighborhoods and forced to give out home loans... companies like Countrywide and New Century charged into suburbs and exurbs from coast to coast with the enthusiasm of Rwandan machete mobs, looking to create as many loans as they could." [View news story]
Taibbi only has a career in journalism if he is sensational and populist. His Rwanda comment is desperate at best.
Matt Taibbi rails at Mike Bloomberg's attempt to pin the prime-lending implosion on Congress: "Far from being dragged into poor neighborhoods and forced to give out home loans... companies like Countrywide and New Century charged into suburbs and exurbs from coast to coast with the enthusiasm of Rwandan machete mobs, looking to create as many loans as they could." [View news story]
David:
Some of these firms did go poof..............CW, IndyMac, Bear Stearns, Lehman, Downey Saving, etc and you can say that Fannie and Freddie went poof also. So it seems the biggest sinners were executed.
Where do you get trillions of debt in your last sentence to the "group of crooks." Technically the people who took out the debt are the home owners.
Agree that government is a ridiculous part of the problem. They should have been the referee at worse not a player cheating on the playing field.
Jon Corzine has resigned from all posts at MF Global (MF) and will not take any severance pay. Earlier, it had been reported Corzine was in line for a $12.1M check upon his exit from the firm. [View news story]
He should have asked for severance. He might need it for bail money.
The U.S. is not just heading towards default, says Ben Stein, we're racing towards it. Our country has simply taken on far too many obligations than we can afford, Stein asserts. We've got to raise taxes and cut expenditures, particularly on unemployment and disability, where there's so much fraud "it's just insane." (video) [View news story]
If $1 Trillion in financial fraud was the scope of our problems we could celebrate and work that off in short order. The biggest problem is that the federal and state entities have made promises they cannot keep unless they use inflation to relieve the obligation. But in using inflation they are they are going to destroy the middle class and a good part of our economy. This is a soft form of default but it is default all the same.
Hope you are not shocked but someone actually took these loans out. Went to the bank and asked for the loan.
Democrats criticize a Republican plan to cut the U.S. deficit by overhauling the tax code as a sop to the wealthy, after the proposal had appeared to signal a new willingness to at least consider revenue increases. "They’ve got to put real revenue on the table," says Sen. John Kerry, who wants more than $1T. It's looking like the super-committee may be the real turkey this Thanksgiving. [View news story]
And we don't tax wealth. We tax income and that is a big difference. But if you want to tax wealth I would love to see the Kennedy/Shriver/Rocker... fortunes absconded and wasted by our governnment. It would be a sobering lesson for the limo liberals.
The Jefferson County, Alabama County Commission votes 4-1 to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Coming at the end of a back and forth process that's been going on as long as Greece, it would be the largest municipal filing in history, stemming from billions in debt taken on for the Taj Mahal of sewer treatment plants. [View news story]
Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) reports a $5.1B Q3 loss and says it will seek $7.8B in additional federal aid to stay afloat. The loss was attributed to continued weakness in the housing market and credit-related expenses on home loans made prior to 2008. Fannie Mae has drawn $112.6B in Treasury bailout funds and has paid $17.2B to the government in dividends. [View news story]
People only understand their own narrow experience and then try to tie their experience to some kind of root cause which often is blaming someone else and in this case WS. Where is WS anymore? It is gone.
Maybe they should spend some time in Midtown or Connecticut. Or PIMCO. Or outside the Treasury Building in WDC right down the street from the WH. Or the Fed? Or government agencies that are driving all the borrowing and taking the wealth of the country and purusing all kinds of objectives. Maybe they should also articulate exactly what they want before they run out of energy and winter sets in hard. All this would take more than general frustration and a collage of complaints.
A 20%-30% whack in Wall Street bankers' compensation isn't enough to satisfy Nassim Taleb, who says bonuses should disappear altogether, at least for firms that could be bailed out by the government. But that might actually increase risk-taking; at least under the current system, bankers get some of their bonus in stock, which goes down in value if the bank does poorly. [View news story]
Those bashing Ben Bernanke over his inflation record should look at the stats, says Jon Hilsenrath in the WSJ. CPI on Bernanke's 67-month watch has averaged 2.3%, giving him one of the best records of all Fed chairmen. It's lower than Alan Greenspan's 3.1% and Paul Volcker's 6.2%, although the latter did inherit double-digit rates. [View news story]
1. We have a large share of the population that wants checks in the mail and free stuff and the government is issuing debt (AKA charging up the credit card) to send them free stuff. So the problem is not really government but it is the people insisting on all this free stuff.
2. Our government is really not different in some respects than the Chinese government and every other government which is trying to create employment for its citizens so they don't have 1 billion people rioting and tearing up the country. In our case our government is buying favors in the form of a vote plantation. It really is not freedom and it is not capitalism when the government is acting the way it is in this scenario.
This is more than a financial revolution. The finances are only a symptom of the underlying political and social subversion and problems that have been created in the last 100 years by promising people government is the answer to everything. Government needs to change and go back to a more neutral role. People need to change and be ashamed to accept free stuff from the government. Working needs to be glorified and laziness abhorred. Those are big changes.
Data is about to redefine the Internet in the same way social media did, according to LinkedIn (LNKD) co-founder, venture capitalist, and Silicon Valley uber-guru Reid Hoffman. For this reason, Groupon's (GRPN) retail focus may be of less interest than its aggregation of massive volumes of consumer spending habits. “He’s like an early warning system for something great in Silicon Valley," says entrepreneur Gina Bianchini. [View news story]
Matt Taibbi rails at Mike Bloomberg's attempt to pin the prime-lending implosion on Congress: "Far from being dragged into poor neighborhoods and forced to give out home loans... companies like Countrywide and New Century charged into suburbs and exurbs from coast to coast with the enthusiasm of Rwandan machete mobs, looking to create as many loans as they could." [View news story]
I say Fannie and Freddie went poof because their equity holders were wiped out. However our federal government then took them over and we have been writing out checks ever since.
“I am impressed that the people have not yet stormed into Parliament and burned the politicians alive - like a souvlaki,” says a retired truck driver in Greece who just sent his life savings of €50K to Sweden. With eyes often focused on the latest from Berlin or Brussels, forgotten is the economic devastation on the ground in Greece, the tinderbox it has created, and the accelerating bank run that may ultimately end this. [View news story]
This movie will also play in the US one day when we can no longer fund spending on debt. Unlike the Greeks we can drive inflation though so that the debt becomes smaller by debasing the currency.
Mounting evidence that sugary drinks and fatty foods lead to addiction could spark the most important consumer safety battle since cigarettes. One-third of U.S. adults and 17% of children are obese - adding about $150B to healthcare costs and shaving anywhere from 2-10 years off people's lives. [View news story]
You are looking at the big picture. We have built acturarial tables and forecasts off of normal life styles consuming current food stocks so if we keep reaching for another couple of years we will only go deeper in the hole. Combine that with the massively expensive last 6 months of a person's life and you have a very large amount of wealth going towards the last 1% of peoples' lives.
And is that Ben Hogan in your BIO picture?
Those bashing Ben Bernanke over his inflation record should look at the stats, says Jon Hilsenrath in the WSJ. CPI on Bernanke's 67-month watch has averaged 2.3%, giving him one of the best records of all Fed chairmen. It's lower than Alan Greenspan's 3.1% and Paul Volcker's 6.2%, although the latter did inherit double-digit rates. [View news story]
And nobody believes the inflation rate is material because it does not incorporate food and energy which is an absolute critical need. Standards of living are falling and our government is trying to convince everyone things are fine.
Mounting evidence that sugary drinks and fatty foods lead to addiction could spark the most important consumer safety battle since cigarettes. One-third of U.S. adults and 17% of children are obese - adding about $150B to healthcare costs and shaving anywhere from 2-10 years off people's lives. [View news story]
If we get rid of those two things we can just wipe out the human race but we will be safe.
All of this is ridiculous.
Matt Taibbi rails at Mike Bloomberg's attempt to pin the prime-lending implosion on Congress: "Far from being dragged into poor neighborhoods and forced to give out home loans... companies like Countrywide and New Century charged into suburbs and exurbs from coast to coast with the enthusiasm of Rwandan machete mobs, looking to create as many loans as they could." [View news story]
Matt Taibbi rails at Mike Bloomberg's attempt to pin the prime-lending implosion on Congress: "Far from being dragged into poor neighborhoods and forced to give out home loans... companies like Countrywide and New Century charged into suburbs and exurbs from coast to coast with the enthusiasm of Rwandan machete mobs, looking to create as many loans as they could." [View news story]
Some of these firms did go poof..............CW, IndyMac, Bear Stearns, Lehman, Downey Saving, etc and you can say that Fannie and Freddie went poof also. So it seems the biggest sinners were executed.
Where do you get trillions of debt in your last sentence to the "group of crooks." Technically the people who took out the debt are the home owners.
Agree that government is a ridiculous part of the problem. They should have been the referee at worse not a player cheating on the playing field.
Jon Corzine has resigned from all posts at MF Global (MF) and will not take any severance pay. Earlier, it had been reported Corzine was in line for a $12.1M check upon his exit from the firm. [View news story]
The U.S. is not just heading towards default, says Ben Stein, we're racing towards it. Our country has simply taken on far too many obligations than we can afford, Stein asserts. We've got to raise taxes and cut expenditures, particularly on unemployment and disability, where there's so much fraud "it's just insane." (video) [View news story]
Hope you are not shocked but someone actually took these loans out. Went to the bank and asked for the loan.