I just want to say that, given vado's brush with serious discourse on this thread, I would just like to mention that I find it hilarious whenever the Libertarian/Republican bunch of people go on and on about how they're having this great time teabagging each other and how whn they get together to teabag its a bonding experience.
Hilarious.
Not hilarious - I'm sick and tired of the one group of people who doesn't have their buddy in the treasury department keeps getting the shaft. The person who asked for a loan to which he couldn't pay back was DENIED. You know - the old "it doesn't hurt to ask." They asked for the money, not took it. These banks did not have to give them the loan, THEY CHOSE to loan THEIR money to people, and if they didn't check them out thoroughly enough, then according to the (All hail the great and powerful) market they should loose THEIR shirts, not OURS. If people then bought those loans without checking to see that the banks did their due diligence when handing out the loan they should lose THEIR shirts. And if they then proceeded to puree those loads up into pieces so small and dispersed that nobody can figure out what is what (thank you Phil Gramm, the one person with more individual responsibility for this whole mess than anyone else) then anyone who invested in that gordian knot desrves to lose their shirt. Had your money in a money market account and they invested with these byzantine ponzi schemes? Don't hire them again, and invest with the firms who didn't get caught with their financial pants down when you land a new job. If "the market" is not just a system to redistribute wealth to the already wealthy, then it needs to work both ways. You financial "geniuses" fu¢ked up, take your medicine, take a job moving boxes around for a living next time.
Santelli - you are a coward - go yell your heart out at the unemployment lines letting us average joes that WE are the losers who hate america and not the financial "professionals" who were the ones scheming ways to move money around. No, whats that? Getting a little laryngitis? Thought so. There are a lot more people in this country who were energized by the Obama election, who are worried about their job, their health care and their house. If you think you are betting on the gilded to come through this, you may not be able to count all that well. Which seems to give you a lot in common with the people on wall street.
But until we get rid of "Capitalize the profit, socialize the risk." system in place now, you will never hear me say that Capitalism works (because I haven't seen capitalism yet, least of all in america) and that what we have here is a free market, because its not. That given, I'd rather have the power tilted towards the working stiff instead of the hyper-wealthy because we have seen over this last 15 years that they can't run things for sh!t.
Oops, that quickly drifted into my usual diatribe.
Also - theirs no such thing as a "toxic asset". All assets have value. The value needs to be discovered. I think you should really try and understand what Santelli is saying instead of assuming He's a party hack.
All these bond traders sell products that use leverage from inflated assets to exist. Now with the valuers back down to earth, bond payers are going into default everywhere.
I have heard that some of Chicago's municipal bonds still count Lehman Bros as assets. (They are worthless.) Watch this as this is uncovered and the bond holders will not get a payment because the cupboard is bare.
One of the problems with Santelli's argument is that it leaves out some important facts. Citibank and Countrywide were writing mortgages in 2006 and 2007 to almost anyone who could fill out an application. They didn't care that someone could pay it or not. They set up the mortgages with huge fees and penalties late payment and for early payoff. Many people who were told they agreeing to pay for a fixed 30 year mortgage were instead getting one of the adjustable rate jobs that allowed Country and Citi to increase the rate to 8 or 95 or more. Citibank and Countrywide believed they would make more money by repossessing the house and accruing the 10% gains per year that were being racked up in the housing market. So if you couldn't pay, then Citi or Countrywide would take the house back and they'd sell it to someone else for a greater profit because house values were, according to many, supposed to go up and up.
That's why blaming Freddie and Fannie is an incomplete attribution of responsibility at best and, because they were successfully in business for 70 plus years, a smokescreen to cover the people at work behind this disaster. Scheming motherf&^^%%s are what got our country in this mess.
So the bank loaned a person money, they cant afford it, so let them keep it? No. The banks who messed up are in serious trouble, they have been reduced to worthless stocks or no longer exist. The asset however does exist and the other party in the transaction needs to be punished. The asset then sold to the highest bidder, as Mr. Santelli suggested. Its the only way to get true price discovery, get credit moving again, increase property value. When the auctions really heat up which I think is already happening given I cant get an REO manager to call me back for my life because they are hoarding HOARDING properties right now, the CDS market is going to turn on dime and like junk bonds in the old days, the paper will become the new gold - at least for a few years. The circle of life continues.
The only thing that can mess this up is 1. Fannie and Freddie 2. The Treasurie Expanding the money supply too greatly or 3. Government "Plans" to interfere in the market for "Poor people who just didnt know what they were doing and were taken by greedy bankers"
The problem is that house was rolled into a product that was sold to someone or some organization. This was then used as leverage to buy more mortgages from Freddie or Fannie. Citibank and Countrywide made more dubious loans at inflated prices, those "appraisers" are more like abettors, and the cycle continued. These financial instruments are what could bring down the worl economy.
So do we just help the banks because they have a gun to out head? Or do we help some regular people as well. Or, do we like Santelli, just blame people and let the banks off the hook?
The only thing that can mess this up is more of the same. We need a transparent financial system that EVERYONE has faith in.
This requires a reworking of all of the regulation and an understanding of how big the mess is at the moment:
so, EP, since the tax payer is funding the bank bailout, and effectively is the shareholder with vested interest, should this bailout of homeowner mortgages be put to a vote? oh, wait, it already has.
Maybe we should wipe out the bond holders of Citibank? They are bankrupt after all. The bond holders deserve to be wiped out as well. This would put Santelli, a bond trader, out of business because the bondmarket would freeze up.
CDS contracts are like any other asset, they to will rise in value after wiping out the buyers at too high a price. The tax payer is not bailing out Citi, they own Citi and are the perfered stock holder. Rick Santelli and the bond traders will not be wiped out by citi's bonds getting trashed. They trade bond options. For every company that goes down, another arises to take it's place. You cant wipe out the bond market, as long as companies need long term financing, they need to issue bonds.
Beta - the name of what you call the bailout is called the "economic stabilisation act"
It is still entirely plausable that the government will end up making money in the long run on the stocks, the CDS contracts from AIG and auctioning of bank owned properties.
Seems a bit pixelated - also from front page of todays daily Koz. Whats your point? You find it necessary to find the most ludicrous image possible? Congrats.
only 10-15k in atlanta, and hannity HIMself was the chief speaker?!?
pretty pathetic numbers, compared to the millions that protested iraq, the 240,000 celebrating obama's victory in chicago, the pro-israel rally in nyc, the ginormous pro-choice rally in d.c. in '04...
yeah, the d-bag teabaggers are ragin mad! and they've got guns! and will do whatever their handlers/corporate shill mouthpieces tell them!
why dont you look at the signs a photographer took. I think you will find them to be not over the top. Im amazed at the insanity of the liberal bloggers and MSM over this. A group of mostly middle aged suburbanites painted as extremist right wing radicals? Are they even watching this?
Alright, I saw more photos. There's maybe 500 people standing out there. That's impressive. It's about the same number of folks in Chicago that voted for Ron Paul. ;-)
I agree with making government smaller. Start with the City and County.
first of all, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND why they are protesting tax increases when there havent been any...not for them at least.
beyond that though this is an issue of timing.
there were no mass rallys against tax increases or massive government when the republican party was in charge. Yes, ron paul hosted a few porkopulace (or something like that) rallys in 07, but that was almost strictly attended by libertarians. Id venture a guess 95% of those people attending tea bagging rally yesterday were republicans. thats just the fact of the matter. If this movement had any hopes of legitimacy, it needed to at least buck the support of established conservatives... especially those in government already...
this is so clearly and transparently a way to protest a liberal president... to say its not is foolish...
btw, thats totally fine, protest obama and his policies, thats fantastic... just stop pretending you have other motives... because for every person like Evil who might actually believe in the ideal, there are 100 people who just dont like Obama as president for one reason or another...
I frankly have to say Im impressed. Seriously kudos to the organizers. I mean when you start a protest called "the tea party" youre bound to drive some nuts out of the woodwork. On the whole the thing seemed pretty festive, and we get an opportunity hopefully to have a national discussion about some things. Like, hopefully, the fact that none of those people have had their taxes raised by the federal government, nor will they. Like just why its important to actually, like, do something about the mortgage crisis. Like why investements in healthcare and education matter.
But again, this isnt the real danger Im seeing. The real danger again is the bullshit thats coming out of some of the dipshits with microphones. The Napolitano report was fucking not about the tea parties. Its about actually, seriously, fucked up organizations. Like Stormfront. And neo-nazi groups. And again it seems not only politically suicidal, but profoundly irresponsible to create the impression that youre standing in solidarity with those people.
paranoid? no, not really, although i am afraid that i won't get my 4th amendment back. they're scary because, from the looks of them there "people", it looks as though they hit every branch on the inbred jed tree.
the same half-wits that were protesting, are the same dolts from the love it or leave crowd, america first crowd, and every other extremist org. the shame of the whole thing is that Ron Paul, a learned man, with good ideas, had his platform hijacked by the same group of idiots that drove the bus in the ditch.
Lletdown, I think thats the widespread under-estimation of whats happening. People were against the Tarp Plan with unbrideled power given to Paulson, they wrote congress 9:1 against it yet congreess approved it anyways. Thats what they are protesting, the majority of them. Fox news didnt jump on this until weeks after it was originated. In fact you could say it was originated from Santeli on CNBC - I doubt anyone would claim NBC a "right wing" stalwart. Look at the pictures I linked to from a photographer taking sign pictures. I dont think you will find the hate the blogosphere is trying to say it is.
I did look at the pictures, and i never claimed there was hate.
What i do see however, are a bunch of opportunists. I dont see genuine activists who are against federal government over reaching and over taxing. I see fed up conservatives looking for a place to vent.
I dont see hate, but i do see a lot of sarcasm and contempt.
I see a majority of the signs pointing to a displeasure with the president in particular, or their salvation coming in 2012. I see a lot of frankly ignorant signs about 'leave my money alone'. Which i still can not get over... theyre taxes are going down... hhhhhh
and again... great, protest the president thats totally fine... im just tired of the dishonesty... it has absolutely nothing to do with taxes or spending and everything to do with our "socialist" governemnt
The only taxes going down are the Federal income taxes, they will be temporary. The net taxes on everything from sales, death and payroll are going up.
because of the recession, because of the boomer generation, because of the tremendous strain facing all of our social services. so whats your point? if we want to avoid massive tax increases were going to have to kill off a few million boomers so they dont collect medicare and SS, then completely overhaul our health system so that 20% of our GDP doesnt get poured into a leaking pitcher every year.
But fucking dude. Again. Why all the obama hate then?? HE is not the one raising your taxes. Hes lowering your taxes. He does not control state tax rates. Stimulous spending to states only discourages them from raising them. Taxes may well be returning to the rates held in that terrible economic death spiral that was the 1990s, and that only for people pulling down a quarter mil a year.
Im guessing the vastest number of those people are not in that category. And if they havent the financial sense to figure out why it makes sense for the government to act during finantial crisis, they arent going to be any time soon.
The lowering of the Federal income taxe rates by 3% is a transfer to the states; thus the states can raise their taxes to grab that share.
I dont see Obama hate. Maybe here or there. I wouldnt classify it as "anti-obama" movement.
If you are a small business owner you are about to face a tidal wave of taxes. And once this spending bill works it way to the general economy you cant count on massive tax raises.
The answer is starve the beast. Cut government pensions just like the private sector has to do. Slash military spending. Stop building schools just to build more schools. We are tearing down buildings not 50 years old to replace them with new ones? Its insanity.
evil, when you get the chance, please direct me to some resources showing how small business are about to be hit with a tidal wave of new taxes?
as for starving the beast, when the unemployment rate is already 9%, starving the beast does what exactly? puts 15% out of work? 20%? what do you think happens then when 20% of the the country is out of work. meaning that 30% percent are likely under employed, or on reduced hours? "starving the beast" means unemployment. the market in its current state is short trillions of dollars which would normally come from consumers... so, to grow the economy, we need trillions of dollars back into the market from consumers, you believe we do that through shedding MORE jobs?
Where was all of the outcry when GW Bush wasted Clinton's surplus on a war in Iraq?
The core of this movement is the Libertarians and the movement was really co-opted by the Southern Republican conservatives like Dick Armey. The Libertarians are seen a fringe group by many and they were pretty much (unfairly) ignored. Look at the lack of coverage of Ron Paul in the primary. He was completely ignored.
If the stimulus package didn't happen, we'd really be screwed. I think many should get their heads around some basic economics and realize how dire the situation was and still is. Government pensions are a disaster and are the next "Detroit."
I dunno but I think an opportunity was lost yesterday. Government spending is too high. Do we still need farm subsidies? Defense spending is ridiculous yet very few want to cut it. Fox News has started the meme that Obama is cutting defense yet he is only cutting bloated programs and things are otherwise about the same. There are many Republicans who want to raise defense spending more. I don't get it.
Yes, i mentioned above that the this tea bagging thing is a libertarian movement (at least in origin), and i agree that its absolutely been sucked up by a conservative party in search of direction.
to be fair on defense spending however... absolutely it needs to be looked at, and we need to have a more defined direction, but cutting defense spending while the economy is in the tank and jobs are already being lost by the hundreds of thousands every month might be counter productive. There are huge swaths of this country that are as dependent on military spending as detroit was on automobile spending.
i support obama and gates' notion that spending must be redirected, but im skeptical that this is the time to do it...
Corporate rates are 20-40% and states are about 10%. Payroll tax, a redundant tax, is 15%, Sales taxes can be as high as 10.25%. Our corporate tax rate is already the 2nd highest on Earth.
As for planned tax increses its a little murky because we havent seen his proposal and all we have is His promise to CUT corporate tax rates 5%. However that will come with the closing of many of the tax loopholes and incentives businesses currently enjoy. According to Forbes it will result in a lower tax rate but more taxes collected. One thing we do know he will do is hike the dividend tax on stock dividends. It was rolled back under Bush but going to go back to 30-35% soon.
Then there is just plain common sense. How do you pay for an additional $trillion without raising taxes? It will come from somewhere. Maybe the future? Maybe thats the point of all this tea party stuff.
and corporate taxes make up only 14% of taxes collected in the US.
personal income tax makes up 45%.
its been discussed many times before, but the same argument applies to business as it does to individuals... the more money you make, the more ways of shielding yourself from potential tax burden exist...
I find the idea of large areas of the country being dependant on military spending to sustain their economies to be a very bad thing. I don’t think military spending should serve as it is own justification. I find that to be circuitous logic. If the US brought its military/defense spending and practices in line with other countries of the world, we could likely have a surplus in our budget in almost no time. If nothing else, even if the money wasn’t directly returned to the tax payers, it could still be pumped into other areas of the country, stimulating the economy in ways that benefit our citizens in their daily lives, not just building up a need to go and start conflicts throughout the world.
As far as I know, every major empire throughout history has collapsed due to over stretching its reach, excessive colonization/imperialism and overwhelming military costs that overstress the tax base, why should we continue on this path? Of course the transition should be gradual and progressive, not instantaneous. The point is simply that, when looking at our budget, it isn’t social program funding that is out of whack. Our defense and “homeland security” budgets have gone off the deep end.
Chicago Tea Party
I just want to say that, given vado's brush with serious discourse on this thread, I would just like to mention that I find it hilarious whenever the Libertarian/Republican bunch of people go on and on about how they're having this great time teabagging each other and how whn they get together to teabag its a bonding experience.
Hilarious.
Not hilarious - I'm sick and tired of the one group of people who doesn't have their buddy in the treasury department keeps getting the shaft. The person who asked for a loan to which he couldn't pay back was DENIED. You know - the old "it doesn't hurt to ask." They asked for the money, not took it. These banks did not have to give them the loan, THEY CHOSE to loan THEIR money to people, and if they didn't check them out thoroughly enough, then according to the (All hail the great and powerful) market they should loose THEIR shirts, not OURS. If people then bought those loans without checking to see that the banks did their due diligence when handing out the loan they should lose THEIR shirts. And if they then proceeded to puree those loads up into pieces so small and dispersed that nobody can figure out what is what (thank you Phil Gramm, the one person with more individual responsibility for this whole mess than anyone else) then anyone who invested in that gordian knot desrves to lose their shirt. Had your money in a money market account and they invested with these byzantine ponzi schemes? Don't hire them again, and invest with the firms who didn't get caught with their financial pants down when you land a new job. If "the market" is not just a system to redistribute wealth to the already wealthy, then it needs to work both ways. You financial "geniuses" fu¢ked up, take your medicine, take a job moving boxes around for a living next time.
Santelli - you are a coward - go yell your heart out at the unemployment lines letting us average joes that WE are the losers who hate america and not the financial "professionals" who were the ones scheming ways to move money around. No, whats that? Getting a little laryngitis? Thought so. There are a lot more people in this country who were energized by the Obama election, who are worried about their job, their health care and their house. If you think you are betting on the gilded to come through this, you may not be able to count all that well. Which seems to give you a lot in common with the people on wall street.
But until we get rid of "Capitalize the profit, socialize the risk." system in place now, you will never hear me say that Capitalism works (because I haven't seen capitalism yet, least of all in america) and that what we have here is a free market, because its not. That given, I'd rather have the power tilted towards the working stiff instead of the hyper-wealthy because we have seen over this last 15 years that they can't run things for sh!t.
Oops, that quickly drifted into my usual diatribe.
Teabagging. Heh heh.
If your really against ""Capitalize the profit, socialize the risk."" then I'll be seeing you at the next tea party
Also - theirs no such thing as a "toxic asset". All assets have value. The value needs to be discovered. I think you should really try and understand what Santelli is saying instead of assuming He's a party hack.
All these bond traders sell products that use leverage from inflated assets to exist. Now with the valuers back down to earth, bond payers are going into default everywhere.
I have heard that some of Chicago's municipal bonds still count Lehman Bros as assets. (They are worthless.) Watch this as this is uncovered and the bond holders will not get a payment because the cupboard is bare.
And, yes, there are toxic assets.
One of the problems with Santelli's argument is that it leaves out some important facts. Citibank and Countrywide were writing mortgages in 2006 and 2007 to almost anyone who could fill out an application. They didn't care that someone could pay it or not. They set up the mortgages with huge fees and penalties late payment and for early payoff. Many people who were told they agreeing to pay for a fixed 30 year mortgage were instead getting one of the adjustable rate jobs that allowed Country and Citi to increase the rate to 8 or 95 or more. Citibank and Countrywide believed they would make more money by repossessing the house and accruing the 10% gains per year that were being racked up in the housing market. So if you couldn't pay, then Citi or Countrywide would take the house back and they'd sell it to someone else for a greater profit because house values were, according to many, supposed to go up and up.
That's why blaming Freddie and Fannie is an incomplete attribution of responsibility at best and, because they were successfully in business for 70 plus years, a smokescreen to cover the people at work behind this disaster. Scheming motherf&^^%%s are what got our country in this mess.
nice rant crowbert
Letdown. I agree!
Good rant, Crowbert!!!
So the bank loaned a person money, they cant afford it, so let them keep it? No. The banks who messed up are in serious trouble, they have been reduced to worthless stocks or no longer exist. The asset however does exist and the other party in the transaction needs to be punished. The asset then sold to the highest bidder, as Mr. Santelli suggested. Its the only way to get true price discovery, get credit moving again, increase property value. When the auctions really heat up which I think is already happening given I cant get an REO manager to call me back for my life because they are hoarding HOARDING properties right now, the CDS market is going to turn on dime and like junk bonds in the old days, the paper will become the new gold - at least for a few years. The circle of life continues.
The only thing that can mess this up is 1. Fannie and Freddie 2. The Treasurie Expanding the money supply too greatly or 3. Government "Plans" to interfere in the market for "Poor people who just didnt know what they were doing and were taken by greedy bankers"
The problem is that house was rolled into a product that was sold to someone or some organization. This was then used as leverage to buy more mortgages from Freddie or Fannie. Citibank and Countrywide made more dubious loans at inflated prices, those "appraisers" are more like abettors, and the cycle continued. These financial instruments are what could bring down the worl economy.
So do we just help the banks because they have a gun to out head? Or do we help some regular people as well. Or, do we like Santelli, just blame people and let the banks off the hook?
The only thing that can mess this up is more of the same. We need a transparent financial system that EVERYONE has faith in.
This requires a reworking of all of the regulation and an understanding of how big the mess is at the moment:
http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/08/banking-rescue-plans-mckinsey-blinder/#more-2820
so, EP, since the tax payer is funding the bank bailout, and effectively is the shareholder with vested interest, should this bailout of homeowner mortgages be put to a vote? oh, wait, it already has.
Maybe we should wipe out the bond holders of Citibank? They are bankrupt after all. The bond holders deserve to be wiped out as well. This would put Santelli, a bond trader, out of business because the bondmarket would freeze up.
Let's see who wants a bailout then!
CDS contracts are like any other asset, they to will rise in value after wiping out the buyers at too high a price. The tax payer is not bailing out Citi, they own Citi and are the perfered stock holder. Rick Santelli and the bond traders will not be wiped out by citi's bonds getting trashed. They trade bond options. For every company that goes down, another arises to take it's place. You cant wipe out the bond market, as long as companies need long term financing, they need to issue bonds.
Beta - the name of what you call the bailout is called the "economic stabilisation act"
It is still entirely plausable that the government will end up making money in the long run on the stocks, the CDS contracts from AIG and auctioning of bank owned properties.
Thankfully I bought up Trump-loads of real estate long before any of this mess started... ;-)
dint i see you on celebrity apprentice?
15,000 in Atlanta
7250 in Columbus Ohio
10,000 in Nashville
8,000 gathered in Madison
5,000 Chicago
numbers still coming in
Seems a bit pixelated - also from front page of todays daily Koz. Whats your point? You find it necessary to find the most ludicrous image possible? Congrats.
Look closely at the text. It sure looks pasted.
That sign is about as real as the Playboy story LIG posted.
Do you have any more photos?
It's the only one I saw.
only 10-15k in atlanta, and hannity HIMself was the chief speaker?!?
pretty pathetic numbers, compared to the millions that protested iraq, the 240,000 celebrating obama's victory in chicago, the pro-israel rally in nyc, the ginormous pro-choice rally in d.c. in '04...
yeah, the d-bag teabaggers are ragin mad! and they've got guns! and will do whatever their handlers/corporate shill mouthpieces tell them!
why dont you look at the signs a photographer took. I think you will find them to be not over the top. Im amazed at the insanity of the liberal bloggers and MSM over this. A group of mostly middle aged suburbanites painted as extremist right wing radicals? Are they even watching this?
link
the signs aren't over the top, they just show how hollow the average republican has become.
we're mad! and we're not going to take it anymore! that's why we voted for palin! yeah!
There's not 5000 people in those photos...
It's a motley bunch. Not as motley as a gathering of architects though. ;-)
The anti-war rally in Chicago was much bigger. The end of the month bike event is much bigger than what was pictured in the photos.
these absent minded echo chambers wouldn't know socialism or fascism if it massacred them in a killing field.
Alright, I saw more photos. There's maybe 500 people standing out there. That's impressive. It's about the same number of folks in Chicago that voted for Ron Paul. ;-)
I agree with making government smaller. Start with the City and County.
look, this 'bagger thinks the military is full of liberal pinko-commies who sacrifice sh*tloads for three squares and a bunk!!
all of those people looked like shut-ins that decided to come out into the light. a scary bunch of nit-wits.
why do they scare you? Are you paranoid?
first of all, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND why they are protesting tax increases when there havent been any...not for them at least.
beyond that though this is an issue of timing.
there were no mass rallys against tax increases or massive government when the republican party was in charge. Yes, ron paul hosted a few porkopulace (or something like that) rallys in 07, but that was almost strictly attended by libertarians. Id venture a guess 95% of those people attending tea bagging rally yesterday were republicans. thats just the fact of the matter. If this movement had any hopes of legitimacy, it needed to at least buck the support of established conservatives... especially those in government already...
this is so clearly and transparently a way to protest a liberal president... to say its not is foolish...
btw, thats totally fine, protest obama and his policies, thats fantastic... just stop pretending you have other motives... because for every person like Evil who might actually believe in the ideal, there are 100 people who just dont like Obama as president for one reason or another...
I frankly have to say Im impressed. Seriously kudos to the organizers. I mean when you start a protest called "the tea party" youre bound to drive some nuts out of the woodwork. On the whole the thing seemed pretty festive, and we get an opportunity hopefully to have a national discussion about some things. Like, hopefully, the fact that none of those people have had their taxes raised by the federal government, nor will they. Like just why its important to actually, like, do something about the mortgage crisis. Like why investements in healthcare and education matter.
But again, this isnt the real danger Im seeing. The real danger again is the bullshit thats coming out of some of the dipshits with microphones. The Napolitano report was fucking not about the tea parties. Its about actually, seriously, fucked up organizations. Like Stormfront. And neo-nazi groups. And again it seems not only politically suicidal, but profoundly irresponsible to create the impression that youre standing in solidarity with those people.
paranoid? no, not really, although i am afraid that i won't get my 4th amendment back. they're scary because, from the looks of them there "people", it looks as though they hit every branch on the inbred jed tree.
the same half-wits that were protesting, are the same dolts from the love it or leave crowd, america first crowd, and every other extremist org. the shame of the whole thing is that Ron Paul, a learned man, with good ideas, had his platform hijacked by the same group of idiots that drove the bus in the ditch.
Lletdown, I think thats the widespread under-estimation of whats happening. People were against the Tarp Plan with unbrideled power given to Paulson, they wrote congress 9:1 against it yet congreess approved it anyways. Thats what they are protesting, the majority of them. Fox news didnt jump on this until weeks after it was originated. In fact you could say it was originated from Santeli on CNBC - I doubt anyone would claim NBC a "right wing" stalwart. Look at the pictures I linked to from a photographer taking sign pictures. I dont think you will find the hate the blogosphere is trying to say it is.
I did look at the pictures, and i never claimed there was hate.
What i do see however, are a bunch of opportunists. I dont see genuine activists who are against federal government over reaching and over taxing. I see fed up conservatives looking for a place to vent.
I dont see hate, but i do see a lot of sarcasm and contempt.
I see a majority of the signs pointing to a displeasure with the president in particular, or their salvation coming in 2012. I see a lot of frankly ignorant signs about 'leave my money alone'. Which i still can not get over... theyre taxes are going down... hhhhhh
and again... great, protest the president thats totally fine... im just tired of the dishonesty... it has absolutely nothing to do with taxes or spending and everything to do with our "socialist" governemnt
The only taxes going down are the Federal income taxes, they will be temporary. The net taxes on everything from sales, death and payroll are going up.
yes, eventually they will have to.
because of the recession, because of the boomer generation, because of the tremendous strain facing all of our social services. so whats your point? if we want to avoid massive tax increases were going to have to kill off a few million boomers so they dont collect medicare and SS, then completely overhaul our health system so that 20% of our GDP doesnt get poured into a leaking pitcher every year.
But fucking dude. Again. Why all the obama hate then?? HE is not the one raising your taxes. Hes lowering your taxes. He does not control state tax rates. Stimulous spending to states only discourages them from raising them. Taxes may well be returning to the rates held in that terrible economic death spiral that was the 1990s, and that only for people pulling down a quarter mil a year.
Im guessing the vastest number of those people are not in that category. And if they havent the financial sense to figure out why it makes sense for the government to act during finantial crisis, they arent going to be any time soon.
The lowering of the Federal income taxe rates by 3% is a transfer to the states; thus the states can raise their taxes to grab that share.
I dont see Obama hate. Maybe here or there. I wouldnt classify it as "anti-obama" movement.
If you are a small business owner you are about to face a tidal wave of taxes. And once this spending bill works it way to the general economy you cant count on massive tax raises.
The answer is starve the beast. Cut government pensions just like the private sector has to do. Slash military spending. Stop building schools just to build more schools. We are tearing down buildings not 50 years old to replace them with new ones? Its insanity.
evil, when you get the chance, please direct me to some resources showing how small business are about to be hit with a tidal wave of new taxes?
as for starving the beast, when the unemployment rate is already 9%, starving the beast does what exactly? puts 15% out of work? 20%? what do you think happens then when 20% of the the country is out of work. meaning that 30% percent are likely under employed, or on reduced hours? "starving the beast" means unemployment. the market in its current state is short trillions of dollars which would normally come from consumers... so, to grow the economy, we need trillions of dollars back into the market from consumers, you believe we do that through shedding MORE jobs?
Where was all of the outcry when GW Bush wasted Clinton's surplus on a war in Iraq?
The core of this movement is the Libertarians and the movement was really co-opted by the Southern Republican conservatives like Dick Armey. The Libertarians are seen a fringe group by many and they were pretty much (unfairly) ignored. Look at the lack of coverage of Ron Paul in the primary. He was completely ignored.
If the stimulus package didn't happen, we'd really be screwed. I think many should get their heads around some basic economics and realize how dire the situation was and still is. Government pensions are a disaster and are the next "Detroit."
I dunno but I think an opportunity was lost yesterday. Government spending is too high. Do we still need farm subsidies? Defense spending is ridiculous yet very few want to cut it. Fox News has started the meme that Obama is cutting defense yet he is only cutting bloated programs and things are otherwise about the same. There are many Republicans who want to raise defense spending more. I don't get it.
Yes, i mentioned above that the this tea bagging thing is a libertarian movement (at least in origin), and i agree that its absolutely been sucked up by a conservative party in search of direction.
to be fair on defense spending however... absolutely it needs to be looked at, and we need to have a more defined direction, but cutting defense spending while the economy is in the tank and jobs are already being lost by the hundreds of thousands every month might be counter productive. There are huge swaths of this country that are as dependent on military spending as detroit was on automobile spending.
i support obama and gates' notion that spending must be redirected, but im skeptical that this is the time to do it...
and i must admit... it hurts me to say that
Corporate rates are 20-40% and states are about 10%. Payroll tax, a redundant tax, is 15%, Sales taxes can be as high as 10.25%. Our corporate tax rate is already the 2nd highest on Earth.
As for planned tax increses its a little murky because we havent seen his proposal and all we have is His promise to CUT corporate tax rates 5%. However that will come with the closing of many of the tax loopholes and incentives businesses currently enjoy. According to Forbes it will result in a lower tax rate but more taxes collected. One thing we do know he will do is hike the dividend tax on stock dividends. It was rolled back under Bush but going to go back to 30-35% soon.
Then there is just plain common sense. How do you pay for an additional $trillion without raising taxes? It will come from somewhere. Maybe the future? Maybe thats the point of all this tea party stuff.
corporate tax rates go from 15-35%
and corporate taxes make up only 14% of taxes collected in the US.
personal income tax makes up 45%.
its been discussed many times before, but the same argument applies to business as it does to individuals... the more money you make, the more ways of shielding yourself from potential tax burden exist...
LD,
I find the idea of large areas of the country being dependant on military spending to sustain their economies to be a very bad thing. I don’t think military spending should serve as it is own justification. I find that to be circuitous logic. If the US brought its military/defense spending and practices in line with other countries of the world, we could likely have a surplus in our budget in almost no time. If nothing else, even if the money wasn’t directly returned to the tax payers, it could still be pumped into other areas of the country, stimulating the economy in ways that benefit our citizens in their daily lives, not just building up a need to go and start conflicts throughout the world.
As far as I know, every major empire throughout history has collapsed due to over stretching its reach, excessive colonization/imperialism and overwhelming military costs that overstress the tax base, why should we continue on this path? Of course the transition should be gradual and progressive, not instantaneous. The point is simply that, when looking at our budget, it isn’t social program funding that is out of whack. Our defense and “homeland security” budgets have gone off the deep end.
Second highest? Why don’t facts matter to you guys?
Saudia Arabia – 85%
Syria – 45%
India – 40%
Barbados – 40%
holz.box, what are the numbers you posted?
corporate tax rates in other countries
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