Sunday, June 28, 2009

I've made this point before.........

Oil price manipulation is responsible. With a large dose of government thrown in.

I try to explain to people that a 5 cent Hershey bar  in 1970 has increased in price to $ 1 or so. Did our wages buying power go up?

Hardly.

$75 dollars a week in 1970 buys abject poverty today. People lived on it then.

But oil rules. we needed oil and the Arabs needed weapons. They sell oil, we sell weapons. Raise the price of weapons, raise the price of oil.

Everything revolves around the "black gold".

Everything!



The Great Depression of 2006: Government Inflation
For simplistic purposes (for which I deserved to be shot) assume that the cost of government has remained about the same (as has a pack of smokes)(try to keep a straight face). Back in 1964 a pack of cigarettes cost 25¢ and minimum wage was $2.00. If you do the math, one could buy 8 packs of cigarettes for one hours labor. Let’s progress forward to now. Cigarettes are $5.50 a pack. Extend out the 8 packs per hour and we arrive at $44 dollars for an inflation adjusted minimum wage. This calculated wage is more than most people today are making per hour, so it seems pretty absurd.

What we are looking at, is forced inflation by government legislation. Our wages are not increasing, and at the same time, more of what we ha


This is how the "Empire" is financed......

No one can take this power structure apart. It has to rot and fall under it's own weight.

What's interesting is that anyone really gives a shit. What with Jacko dying and all.

Of course he was important in the scheme of things.

He was???

Obama Sells Big Pharma-Corporate State Ripoff « LewRockwell.com Blog
Obama Sells Big Pharma-Corporate State Ripoff
Posted by Karen De Coster on June 23, 2009 07:52 AM | Post a civil, substantive, and intelligent comment

Is there something wrong with this headline on Bloomberg News today? “Obama Gets Drug-Industry Booster With Pledge That Keeps Elderly Medicated.” Here are a few snippets:

The pharmaceutical industry pledge includes $30 billion “that could be used” to provide discounts for medicines, said Reid H. Cherlin, a White House spokesman. That will help narrow a gap in Medicare drug coverage known as the doughnut hole. The allowances will encourage patients to remain on expensive brand- name medicines even when cheaper generic copies are available, Tim Anderson, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York, said in a note to clients yesterday.

“Filling the doughnut hole should help seniors stay on their branded therapies and lessen the tendency for seniors to switch from brands to generics once they hit the donut hole,” Anderson said. “This is critical because once patients convert to generics, they seldom revert back to the brand and are essentially lost to cheaper generics forever.”

This entire deal is nothing more than corporate state-special interest politicking on the part of Big Pharma, Big Government, and enriched special interests, with all players openly admitting their very specific goals. As the article clearly states, Big Pharma is willing to cut slightly into its profit margins in exchange for turning people - especially the elderly - into lifetime customers. Perpetual drug zombies buying their patent-protected, overpriced drugs. Another part of the deal is that government has promised it will “inoculate” Big Pharma from proposed regulations that would cost it some more dough.





Friday, June 26, 2009

Good.......

If the state can't borrow, you have to balance your budget! Raising taxes on broke dicks doesn't work. 

Just get Oba mama to do it. We will pay. One way or the other!

Duh!!!! Heh heh.

S&P warns California's credit rating is at risk of another cut | Money & Company | Los Angeles Times
California's credit rating, already the lowest among the 50 states, may be hacked again, Standard & Poor's warned today.

As the debate over budget cuts drags on in Sacramento, S&P put its "A" grade on the state's $59 billion in general obligation bonds on "negative credit watch," meaning the rating is at risk of a downgrade.

Using language that could further spook bond investors, S&P said, "Although we continue to believe the state retains a fundamental capacity to meet its debt service, insufficient or untimely adoption of budget reforms serve to increase the risk of missed payments in our view."

The Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are facing a $24-billion budget shortfall, and Controller John Chiang has warned that the state could run short of cash beginning July 28, just one month into fiscal 2010.

Noting that time is running out, S&P warned:

Both the timing and magnitude of the state's impending liquidity shortfall raise significant credit concerns, in our view, particularly if the state were to begin fiscal 2010 without having meaningful budget revisions in place. We believe that without budget revisions, the state may need to defer (or issue registered warrants in lieu of making) cash payments for certain lower-priority obligations (such as vendors, student aid, and tax refunds) in order to preserve cash for required payments for education and debt service.

Were the state to do this, or if it were to adopt a budget package that relied on assumptions that we regard as too optimistic or that relied on mechanisms for bridging the projected shortfall through at least fiscal 2010 that we regard as unreliable, we may consider lower ratings.

Any downgrade could spur investors to force the state to pay even higher interest rates when it borrows. Market yields on California's general obligation bonds already have surged in recent weeks as the prices of the bonds have fallen, reflecting investor jitters.


Thursday, June 25, 2009

Broke dicks live pay check to pay check......

Raise taxes or gas prices and they collapse like a house of cards. These are the people who stand in line to get their checks so they can buy milk.

Or beer. Think they'll use government health care by the millions?

Spend and borrow, spend and borrow. Didn't work for them, won't work for Oba mama's plans either.

American Thinker: Recovery When? How About If?
1: Energy. While it is conventional wisdom that our economic woes stem from the bursting bubble in the housing market, few consider the needle that did the bursting.

When gas more than doubled in what was just a period of months, household budgets got devastated as trips to the grocery store and the pump took more and more of the limited dollars of the sub prime borrowers' budgets. This led to the next domino:

2: Housing Crisis: People needed to eat and get to work more than they needed to pay a mortgage they had not invested a down payment in, so they quit paying those mortgages in huge numbers.

So the gas domino nudged the sub prime mortgage domino -- which then toppled dominos in both the mortgage market in general and in housing prices. More and more mortgages were in trouble making more and more houses available making those houses worth less which in turn motivated more and more people to default on these mortgages.

It makes sense. If you have a 250 thousand dollar mortgage with no down payment, and that house is suddenly only worth 175 thousand dollars, why in the world would you worry about paying the mortgage since your gas and groceries are suddenly taking all your money to begin with? Well, many did not and still are not bothering to pay those mortgages. This led to another domino that very few saw coming:





Wednesday, June 24, 2009

One of the gret scams..........

Our prisons, "PUBLIC SCHOOLS."

On Not Locking Your Children Up in Public Schools « LewRockwell.com Blog
I just wanted to take a moment to praise your recent article, Pep Rallies and Public School. I am finishing up my 5th year of homeschooling my two children, and books like Dumbing Us Down, John Taylor Gatto’s searing commentary on being a teacher, were instrumental in our family’s decision to take our daughter out of school 6 years ago. My son has never had the humiliation of being locked up for even a day, a fact for which I am extremely grateful. My husband and I, unfortunately, received the “whole package,” that is, public education, and were sufficiently brainwashed to participate in such banal, nonsensical things as pep rallies, needing a note to pee, taking timed IQ tests, acting like caged animals on the last day of school, teasing our younger/or dumber classmates, etc. The list of degradations, ours and that of our peers, is a long one. Of course hindsight is 20-20, and it seems normal when you’re in it. Sad, no?

Anyway, kudos again for bringing up this taboo subject. The path to personal liberty is certainly a road less traveled, and I believe it will remain so unless compulsory public schooling is banished. However, the group-think, Prussian model is so entrenched in our culture, that merely mentioning the idea of dismantling public education will get you horrified looks of astonishment, if not ostracism from your social circle. Even in a community of faith this is true. When our family began this journey, we thought our church family would be some of our biggest supporters. What we found was, very few supported us. In fact, in our small town, a large portion of our church is employed by, or involved in some capacity, with the school. The grip on the community is almost total. No one could fathom the idea of their town without a school to “rally-round.”Add to that the fact of it being a fairly predictable “gravy-train,” and you have an institution that will be close to impossible to abolish. But a girl can dream, can’t she? Essays like yours will at least inspire some to think about the subject.


Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Kill off the rich.....

Sooner we raise taxes on them the sooner the Empire dies. That's where the money comes from to run this mess.

That's how we get rid of America. Run the guys out of business so we all work for the GOVERNMENT. Be in socialist paradise then.

Where else is wealth created? I guess we could  steal it from small oil producing countries, right?

Taxing the Hell Out of the Rich Isn’t the Answer | AllFinancialMatters
LOL comes across as almost hateful towards the rich, the vast majority of which worked their butts off and made great sacrifices to get where they are. I get the feeling that LOL thinks that most rich people woke up rich.

Personally, I think the middle class’ struggle has much more to do with their inability to prioritize. I would suggest that LOL read The Millionaire Next Door* by Thomas Stanley and William Danko. In that book he will find that most millionaires drive old cars. Take a look around at what most “middle class” people drive and you will probably see that they are driving cars and SUVs that they really can’t afford. Imagine how much money could be saved if we didn’t have to drive $50,000 SUVs.

For example, I was dropping my daughter off at daycare one day and this young woman pulled up in a BMW 740. For those of you not familiar with cars, the BMW 740 is around $80,000 brand new (I could have purchased THREE of my cars for the price of her BMW). No, I do not know this woman’s situation—she could be wealthy and can afford a BMW 740 without harming her finances. But, going on the averages, I would have to say that by driving that car she is forsaking some other important area of her finances.

I think the middle class suffers from the “I deserve it” syndrome.

Take a look at the houses being built these days. They are freaking huge (and freaking expensive)! I grew up in a 900 square foot house (plus a basement) and we were a family of five! We had one bathroom. Yes, times have changed but these bigger homes cost more money and they cost more to maintain. All of this means that they are requiring resources that could be allocated elsewhere (like savings, retirement planning, college funding,…).





Monday, June 22, 2009

Can they get any more stupid in California?........

Probably not. Pretty interesting that the nut jobs in government figure that unemployed broke dicks can make house payments. Or that people will make payments on houses that lose money in the process. All you have to do is buy a house across the street at much less than you owe.

If you have any sense you'll simply quit making payments  and move. After all these moratoriums on foreclosure, that is. Should be able to milk it for a year or so. Save the payments and buy a nice mobile for cash.

Just think, no house payment , little taxes, only a small lot rent, tax credit refund in California , of course.

Did I mention their getting more stupid in California?

California Foreclosure Prevention Act: Creating an Army of Lifetime Renters in California.
On June 15th California implemented another foreclosure moratorium. The California Foreclosure Prevention Act (CFPA) was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger which adds another 90 days to the foreclosure process. If you recall, a similar law was put into place in 2008 and turned out to be an utter failure. So what do we do? We virtually create another replica plan for a second go around. The plan will fail on so many levels and we will discuss the reasons why in this article. California has taken a major beating since it was part of the housing bubble mania and is now at the forefront of the bubble bursting.

The problem with dealing with the current foreclosure issue in California is how the issue is being framed. Take this perspective for example:

“(SF Chronicle) The goal is to compel banks to do systematic loan modifications across California to reduce our foreclosure rate, which is the highest in the nation,” said Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, who wrote the bill. “Until we slow that down, the California economy cannot recover.”


Sunday, June 21, 2009

Go to college, get really stupid.........

Makes me glad I didn't graduate.

P.S. Father's day and I'm going fishing.
Unexplained Mysteries :: Scientists debate "shading" the Earth

Radical new ways of combating global warming have been proposed by scientists at a recent National Academy of Sciences meeting including the concept of shading the Earth in order to cool it down.

"Engineering our climate to stop global warming may seem like science fiction, but at a recent National Academy of Sciences meeting, scientists discussed some potential geoengineering experiments in earnest. Climate researcher Ken Caldeira was skeptical when he first heard about the idea of shading the Earth a decade ago in a talk by nuclear weapons scientist Lowell Wood."





Saturday, June 20, 2009

Bring in the tanks.......

heh heh. These guys are a little premature on cutting back the Fed's power. Most get more fed money than their broke dick citizens pay in to Obamama's little socialist fantasy.

I have a feeling the courts will tell them to grow up.

Besides, you can't have a revolt when it means getting off your ass and doing something real: like stick a gun  somebodies face.

Or quit paying taxes period!
Western states want reins on federal power - Los Angeles Times

It is difficult to say how the Supreme Court might rule on Montana's gun law, which challenges the government's authority under the commerce clause of the Constitution, the legal basis for much federal regulation.

In the mid-1990s, the court struck down a federal law that sought to restrict guns near schools, using the rationale behind Montana's law: that the federal authority over interstate commerce did not extend to a product that was made and used within one state.

More recently, however, the justices rejected a direct challenge to the commerce clause, ruling in 2005 that the federal government had the authority to effectively override California's medical marijuana law, even though the cannabis was being grown and used within the state's borders.

"As an abstract legal matter, it's perfectly plausible," Eugene Volokh, a UCLA expert on constitutional law, said of Montana's case. "But it's very unlikely to succeed in today's legal climate."


Thursday, June 18, 2009

Retirement is for the lazy........

 I can't wait.

Florida in the winter and Idaho in the summer. RV for me. Plus running a hot dog cart for spending money. Fishing with Al, Jake and with my son Jeremy.

They already get one check so I'll have to catch with my piddly Social Security check. Won't be much when Obamama gets done, but what the Hell!
For Boomers, recession is redefining retirement - USATODAY.com

The reality is sinking in: Baby Boomers, born from 1946 to 1964, are planning to work longer, save more money and spend less, to reach any semblance of the retirement they once envisioned. According to AARP:

•35% of those ages 45 to 54 have stopped putting money into their 401(k), IRA or other retirement accounts.

•25% said they have prematurely withdrawn funds from their retirement accounts.

•56% have postponed a major purchase.

•24% have postponed plans to retire.

"Today, I see myself working until I drop," says Kyril Wickenberg, 59, of Savannah, Ga.

The pain of unemployment

It may not be so easy.

When 1,097 Americans 45 and older were surveyed last December, 9% of them said they had lost their jobs in the past 12 months, and 31% of workers that age said that it is very likely that jobs will be eliminated this year, according to AARP's 2009 report.

Baby Boomers also are out of work longer than younger Americans. Last year, they were out of work 22 weeks on average, compared with 15 weeks for the 20- to 24-year-old age group, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

They may find it hard to get a new job because they've had higher salaries. And that means they may have a higher threshold before they're willing to take another job, says Maria Heidkamp, a senior project manager at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.





Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Market is a Ponzi scheme.......

Running out of suckers all over the world. I'm waiting for interest rate to explode and wrecking Obamama"s plan. Can't borrow at 10%, let alone 15%, and not throw the whole budget at interest payments. Interest rates are creeping up because no one can lend money for free for ever.

No one.

Not good for elections in 2010, let alone OB's in 2012.

May we live in interesting times.
oftwominds: 8800/950 or Bust; The Dollar Set To Rise

In other words, the gargantuan pillaging of public funds in the EU, an economy larger than the U.S., is not even half the amount looted from the U.S. taxpayers. The central banks of the major trading nations have thrown well over $20 trillion (don't forget Chinese and Japanese "quantitative easing"/stimulus) of public funds into their deleveraging, insolvent banking sectors, all in the vain hopes that the unwary public will see spray-painted weeds as "green shoots" of organic economic recovery.

Have you noticed that every day the market threatens to close lower, a sudden "rally" in the last 20 minutes gooses it higher so that it once again closes within an unprecedented narrow band, day after day?

If that isn't manipulation, then why can you set your watch to the daily "rally"? That is hardly a "random walk down Wall Street," is it?





Sunday, June 14, 2009

Told you so........

Really piss off the "green shoots" crowd. Better unlimber a new plan. Every increase in rates takes out thousands of potential buyers. No one works, or lends money for free.

Except the Obamama crew. Of course,  they'll just steal the money from the working stiff.
Mortgage Rates Hit Seven Month High

So much for the low rates; the popular 30-year fixed averaged 5.59 percent this week, up from 5.29 percent a week ago, but still better than the 6.32 percent seen a year ago, Freddie Mac reported today.

The last time it was higher was the week of Thanksgiving, when it averaged 5.97 percent; it will likely surpass that level by next week the way things are looking.

The 15-year fixed fared no better, rising to 5.06 percent from 4.79 percent, though still below its year-ago average of 5.93 percent.

“Mortgage rates followed the increase in bond yields this week as the May employment report showed that the economy lost fewer jobs than the market consensus had expected,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist.

“Revisions to the jobs report for earlier months also showed the job loss was not as large as early estimates had indicated: March and April figures were revised to add an additional 82,000 jobs to the work force. As a result, federal funds futures rose after the report, signaling that the market expects the Federal Reserve may raise its benchmark rate sooner rather than later.

Good news often lifts interest rates, so the Fed is having even more trouble reining them in, which could lead to subsidized mortgage rates if they still believe low rates is the solution here.





Friday, June 12, 2009

Faschism is not particular....

Hate is hate. Smokers have become the "Jews" of modern times. Who;s next? Talk show hosts? Walmart associates?  Big shot Wall street executives?

Only a matter of time to these people. What will they find to hate about you?
New York Times: Prohibition is “Perfect” « LewRockwell.com Blog

This is a great day in America, according to the New York Times, because the FDA now is “regulating” cigarettes, but its editorial demonstrates the fascism that now governs the “Newspaper of Record.”

After more than a decade of struggle — and countless smoking-related deaths — the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill on Thursday that gives the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products. The House approved a similar bill in April, also by an overwhelming margin. The days when this rogue industry could inflict its harmful products on Americans with impunity are drawing to a close.

Me? I had no idea that the tobacco industry had this much power. How does someone “inflict” something on others when it does not have the power to “inflict” anything? But it gets even better:


Thursday, June 11, 2009

Hold on for Obamamanomics.....

Need to get our shit together because the Gov will be looking for working stiffs to rob to pay for all these bailouts and loss of pension money. Signs of desperation are starting to appear with the fixing of unemployment data.

Now we start hear about the end of the recession. Yea we all can borrow 50 grand on our houses that lost all of their equity. And don't forget stocks are off by  a third or so. This is after 2 trillion in stimulus created out of thin air, not counting  the 2 trillion they already steal from us.

Expect a lot of hot air on health care to fix our problem. Or lending money for house with no money down FHA loans. Though how broke dicks can afford these programs is beyond me.

Maybe we can bum some more from foreigners. Not!
Can We Have a Recovery When People Have So Much Debt? | AllFinancialMatters

I don’t know about you but I get nervous when I hear all the talk about hopes for a consumer-led recovery. Why? Because consumers are already maxed out:

By the end of 2008, households were on the hook for $13.8 trillion in debt — nearly matching the $14.3 trillion output of the entire U.S. economy, not adjusted for inflation, that year.

Households are shedding debt; they’re just not doing it very quickly. They owed roughly 130% of disposable income at the end of 2008, down only slightly from a record 133% in the first quarter of 2008.

An old saw about U.S. consumers is never to underestimate their willingness to spend beyond their means. The debt-to-income ratio first crossed 100% during the 2001 recession, when debt-fueled consumer spending helped spark a recovery. It kept rising post-recession as super-low interest rates encouraged still more borrowing. And it rose even after the Fed raised rates, as consumers piled into mortgages to chase rising home prices.





Tuesday, June 09, 2009

The government has to get control......

With the economy sliding off the cliff, Obamama has to shore up and plug the biggest looming deficit: health care. (Education is politically, for the Dems, untouchable.)

Trillions are on the line with desperate bureaucrats scrambling to stanch the losses. The Medicare system goes into the red in 2011 and no one knows where the money is going to come from. On the other hand, the private system takes trillions out of our pockets and can't be taxed by the Government.

This leaves the  government basically stealing from the "rich". Assuming they will sit still for it. Though to me, it seems reasonable to think that even the government  will run out of rich people  to rob.

 And don't forget the richest class among us, the old geezers,  will be retiring after losing most of their wealth tied up in houses and stocks.

WE are broke and don't have enough years to regain our losses..

As for  the Chinese and other foreign suckers, they'll have their own problems. Like unloading all those inflated dollars. And keeping their citizens in check.

The key, of course, is cheap energy that drives our economy. After all, oil is the ultimate "money". Unfortunately for the Fascist in Washington, no one will give it away any more for paper dollars. And adding to the mix, the government won't allow drilling for American oil.

Personally I think Washington will have to take over another small oil producing country to pull it off.

Not politically feasible? Wait a few years, heh heh.

In the meantime watch your taxes explode!
The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Stimulus Math and Health Care

Public perception of the stimulus will play a crucial role in the upcoming health care battle. Many Americans following the debate won't be wading into the policy details. Instead, they'll be exposed to claims and counterclaims -- Obama and Democrats saying their health care legislation will make things better, and Republicans (if they get their message together) most likely arguing that it would have disastrous implications. With both sides throwing statistics back and forth a lot of it will come down to a credibility issue, and whoever the American people trust more will win the debate. Will Americans trust Obama that he can insure everybody, control costs, allow everybody to keep the insurance they have, improve the quality of health care, avert a government takeover of medicine, avoid rationing, and avoid raising taxes on 95 percent of the population? Or will Republicans be able to convince Americans that he's misleading them, that insuring everybody will require higher taxes, that expanding health care will raise costs unless the government imposes rationing, and that Obama's plans will inevitably lead to a government takeover? So, if people start to get skeptical about the results of the stimulus package, then it will make it harder for Obama and Democrats to sell the public on their health care claims, and it will be easier for Republicans to attack any legislation.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Obamama getting desperate.....

Spend more.  Spend faster. Borrow. Tax. Tax. Quite a formula. Expect this to come to a head when California, then several other states, beg for bigger relief. Unemployed people can't pay taxes or vote for fiscal discipline. Soon the Dem's will pull out all stops.

Watch the price of oil. Pushing $70. Gas prices up and up. All this stimulus money will find a home. In stocks or in commodities. Speculation fever is kicking in.

But this is not the "big crash." it's coming over the next decade. We have time to prepare. I still plan on  getting my Social security check. Even if I have to vote for a Democrat.

And so will you.

There's nothing to be done to save the "empire" from spiraling out of control and become a one time great power. There's no one who can lead us any other way.

Expect a lot of war. And running from the world scene.

Prepare for several new countries to emerge in the former U.S.A.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Does anyone trust the government about anything?......

I never believed Specter's "magic bullet" about Kennedy's assassination so why should I  discount 270 eyewitnesses testimony to the TWA 800 being shot  down?

Only real question is "why?" No one has taken credit.

Or blame. Your guess is as good as mine

       American Thinker: Reopen the TWA Flight 800 Case

These are just three of the 270 eyewitnesses by the FBI's own count that saw a flaming, smoke-trailing, zigzagging object appear to destroy TWA Flight 800. All three followed the object off the horizon. Delgado and the surfer tracked TWA 800 separately from the object and witnessed the moment of impact. Wire and the surfer saw the object "arch over" before the strike. The New York Times interviewed none of these three, none of the 270 for that matter.

A no-nonsense, 6'-7" millwright and U.S. Army vet, Mike Wire watched events unfold from the Beach Lane Bridge in Westhampton on Long Island. He came to play a key role because the CIA based its notorious video animation on Wire's perspective. Why the CIA was involved in a domestic airplane "accident" is anyone's guess. The media never bothered to ask.

The FBI showed the CIA video just once. That was in November 1997 when it officially bowed out of the case. The FBI needed it to negate the stubborn testimony of the eyewitnesses.

A key animation sequence in the CIA video showed not a missile but an internal fuel tank explosion blowing the nose off the aircraft. According to the video's narration, TWA 800 then "pitched up abruptly and climbed several thousand feet from its last recorded altitude of about 13,800 feet to a maximum altitude of about 17,000 feet." This rocketing aircraft was alleged to look like a missile and to have confused the eyewitnesses. (The animation begins at the 8:30 mark of Part 2 of "Silenced").

This animation was essential to close the investigation. Without it, there was no way to explain what these hundreds of official FBI eyewitnesses, many of them highly credible, had actually seen.

Friday, June 05, 2009

39 years tomorrow......

Married that is. Planning a dinner and putter in the garden. Work sucks. Can't wait for vacation.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

How's those gas prices working out........

No one's buying, prices going up. Make sense? Where are all those Obamama's printing press dollars going? Not to me.

Again, interest rate are going up. No one wants to lend money for free. Even to the government. Subtract taxes and inflation from the yield means buying Treasuries at a loss. Not going to happen even if you are the Chinese government.

And what are the state governments going to do? Talk about fucked.

California goes so goes the nation. Right?
oftwominds: What's Wrong with California

California's pending bankruptcy has deep roots in tax policy, public employee costs, regulatory dysfunction and a declining real-world economy.

Standard-Issue Financial Pundits (SIFPs) like Paul Krugman ( State of Paralysis) are claiming the state's problems all stem from miserly California voters refusing to pay higher taxes. Uh, Paul, do you pay $10,000 in property taxes for a property you bought in 1992? I do, and I don't think that's a low tax.

In case Paul hasn't visited the Golden State recently, allow me the honor of introducing a funny little concept called fact to his pro-tax rant. We pay 9.5% sales tax (9.75% if you voted for various transit projects like BART) which is among the highest in the nation.

If you make a decent wage (I don't, but many do) then the state income tax is about 10% as well. That rate is also among the highest in the nation.

What we have here is not just cognitive dissonance but pathological disassociation from reality: California is a very high-tax state, with among the highest rates in the nation in virtually every category of taxation.Voters rejected the bogus tax-and-borrow-more propositions for two reasons:

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

How many houses are you going to buy this yeaqr?

The low end in the market can be rented out if financed low enough for cash flow. After tax savings, (Obamama is going after the middle class next) a guy can make a few bucks.


Maybe!

Buy older mobile homes for cash and then resell them on time will work better, I think. Easy to do. My landlord has been doing it for years.

He's 84.
Calculated Risk: The Dearth of Move Up Buyers

From David Streitfeld at the NY Times: Home Prices Decline Again in March

In many urban areas, including those tracked by Case-Shiller, the residential real estate market is essentially cleaved in two. The top half of the market is largely stagnant, with owners unwilling to sell and buyers unable to buy. “Move-up” families seeking another bedroom or a better kitchen are an endangered species.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Bend over.........

Heh heh. Take no prisoners. We going to take your money, sonny.
Give me my check. I need to start mooching.

By the way how did he get to keep so  many teeth at his age? (heh heh)
Degringolade: Costco Trauma

(Or, why one should never, ever, be polite to boomer scum)

Mom's eightieth birthday is coming up rapidly, and as we are going to have an everybody is there, serious family reunion with all the bells and whistles, I decided to renew my lapsed Costco membership so that we could go and buy all the vegetable, lunch meat, and fruit trays that the pack of ravenous jackals that I call a family can eat.

So, into Costco I went, fairly crowded, but I've seen worse. Got my card and went a shopping. It seems that the prices aren't really super exceptional, but they sell good quality stuff at a good price. Soups, lunch-meat, pizza fixins', and dental stuff went into the cart (won't need dental floss or Listerine for a while). The goods I bought we worthwhile.

What pisses me off is the people my age who are there. Boomers have now seemed to be more self-absorbed than usual in that store. They will stop dead in the middle of the aisle and stare intently at labels, oblivious to people behind them who are trying to get by. My favorite experience yesterday was a long-in-the-tooth trophy wife who had parked her cart across the aisle, blocking traffic in both directions. When I asked her "excuse me", her response was "I'll be done in a minute you can wait". Needless to say, I moved her cart myself.

But it got me to thinking about that ongoing embarrassment that is my generation. In a sense, a lot of the problems that we are experiencing is that this group of prima donna's has been promised far too much.

Social security is going bankrupt because there are too damn many of them getting ready to retire. Oh yeah, they paid in their money, but they were at the wheel spending the money in DC the last twenty years.

The financial mess is the baby boomers idea and problem. 4% steady growth by a well-managed firm wasn't enough for the boomers, they had to go out and invent the dot-bomb and the sub-prime mess.

Now just wait until this self-righteous, self-absorbed band of creeps queue up to the retirement line. They will start demanding tucks and cosmetic surgery from Medicare. They will demand that they be given special rights as senior citizens.

So, never, ever be nice to a boomer, because they fully intend to screw the rest of us to get what they want.


Monday, June 01, 2009

Remember only the working stiff pays....

Imagine if everyone packed up and left. What would the politicians, welfare queens and various low life blood suckers do?

Work? (Heh heh.)
Niagara Falls Reporter Opinion

This problem did not begin with the current recession. New York faced a $6 billion shortfall before the economic downturn. However, in the face of economic turmoil Gov. Paterson, Speaker Silver and Majority Leader Smith looked to the unions and special interests, who answered with one voice: Raise taxes.

Among other taxes and fees, they raised the marginal tax rate on the most successful (and most mobile) New Yorkers to 8.97 percent, the second highest rate in the nation.

It was irresponsible and it may just prove to be counterproductive, since the top 1 percent of earners account for about 50 percent of state revenue. We're the ones who can -- and will -- leave.

It's not an easy decision, but I'm being forced away from my family and friends, a pain shared by too many parents and grandparents in this state.

I'm leaving. And by domiciling in Florida, I will personally save $13,800 every single day. That's a pretty strong incentive.

Like I said, I love New York, but I'm not going to pay New York more for the waste, corruption and inefficiency that is New York state government.

Tom Golisano is the Chairman of the Board of Paychex, Inc. and the founder of the B. Thomas Golisano Foundation. He created Responsible New York so the voices of ordinary New Yorkers can be heard over the special interests, to hold elected officials accountable and to advocate for government reform.