It’s the End of the World As We Know It

[finehoe]

Not entirely correct, according to this AP story:

The figure I used is the maximum one can collect in Florida.

Just how many unemployment programs are there?  And what's the final bill?  Does anyone know?

This article has some good facts and figures:  http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/07/the-case-for-and-against-unemployment-insurance/60046/

[buckethead]

What many people collecting unemployment will do is earn money under the table. What percentage of people do this, I could not begin to speculate. I have seen it in action though.

[north miami]

Eventually, who care? The new world is going to be more massive and powerful then ever. Trust me, you'll find your way and your workload will be tireless.

Roofs made out of oil/shingles that need replacement way too often
The River advocates call for "personal responsibility" in the face of growth worship,"inevitable" population growth
Related:Marching to the drumbeat of "projections"
Water Conservation hypocrisy
Related: traffic congestion,trip time increases
Utility rate hike(s)
Sprawl
Alternative off grid cpability limited due to can't afford
Food supply  Lack of   increased cost
Water supply  Lack of  increased cost-by design (see 'Growth/ projections/hypocrisy)
Living the double speak-after decades of "reduced taxes" mantra state and local taxes overtake,strain
the Biigie hurricane
Declining neighborhoods,infrastructure
Population pressures
Shifting demographic towards uncomfortable,dangerous profile
Government services collapse
Public conservation lands surplused to private use & development
Living in the Third World
Haiti was metaphor for US future

...and a few select areas within the US "Ecotopia" region spared from most of the above,leading to the biggest sad surprise for many elsewhere who so badly desire to move there: Can not. Immigration strictly controlled,zero population growth policy embraced.

[gatorback]

Not on my 10 acres north. I'm working toward off the grid island-able organic. I want to fish and raise pigs and goats.

[Timkin]

If you want to work that is. Look at all the peeps on the unemp. list. Millions...for years.  You'd think they retrain, but why bother if you've got the backing of the dems and the repubs...can't go wrong.

Not entirely correct, according to this AP story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100721/ap_on_bi_ge/us_unemployment_benefits

The overall measure would reauthorize the extended benefits program through the end of November, providing payments to millions of people who've been out of work for six months or more. Maximum benefits in some states are far higher than the $309 a week nationwide average payment. In Massachusetts, the top benefit is $943 a week; in Mississippi, it is $235.

Probably due to different cost-of-living standards, but that's my uneducated supposition.

However, I would like to know what the 'national average' is for this one:

At issue are payments averaging $309 a week for almost 5 million people whose 26 weeks of state benefits have run out. Those people are enrolled in a federally financed program providing up to 73 additional weeks of unemployment benefits.

Just how many unemployment programs are there?  And what's the final bill?  Does anyone know?

  Disability income is not even this, after taxes . Trust me, I am past ready to return to work.

[finehoe]

Banker Bailout exceeds entire US Federal Budget, yet it's "entitlements" that are the problem?

Total US govt financial system support seen at $3.7 trllion

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - Increased housing commitments swelled U.S. taxpayers' total support for the financial system by $700 billion in the past year to around $3.7 trillion, a government watchdog said on Wednesday.

The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said the increase was due largely to the government's pledges to supply capital to Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) and to guarantee more mortgages to the support the housing market.

Increased guarantees for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, the Government National Mortgage Association and the Veterans administration increased the government's commitments by $512.4 billion alone in the year to June 30, according to the report.

"Indeed, the current outstanding balance of overall Federal support for the nation's financial system...has actually increased more than 23% over the past year, from approximately $3.0 trillion to $3.7 trillion -- the equivalent of a fully deployed TARP program -- largely without congressional action, even as the banking crisis has, by most measures, abated from its most acute phases," the TARP inspector general, Neil Barofsky, wrote in the report.

The total includes Federal Reserve programs and a myriad of asset guarantees, including Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. protection for bank deposits.

The increased government commitments more than offset about a $300 billion decline in the U.S. Treasury's TARP commitments in the past year as programs have closed and banks have repaid taxpayer funds.

[buckethead]

Austerity measures to follow.

We the people are just doing our duty . Is the Stimulus (banker bailout as you describe it) anything more than an entitlement program?

[north miami]

Not on my 10 acres north. I'm working toward off the grid island-able organic. I want to fish and raise pigs and goats.

Excellent gatorback. The Suwanee River region from the Gainesville on up to the north seems to be a real attractant for such leanings-many from south Florida.

Good thing you have some acreage nailed down-hopefully in an area slated for like future land use.Or perhaps you will have to defend against area 'development'.
(A previous proposed Beltway route throgh the Gainesville region was shot down decisively years ago in part by astute rural residents)

The acreage option can not to be acommodated by millions.Get established while you can.Even if the world goes to hell the lifestyle could prove beneficial, per Gainesville region "Hobby " farms.And if things really go to hell our acreage retreats likely to no avail anyway.

[finehoe]

It was asked, what would I find essential in Financial Reform legislation?  I will take one piece of that question today because today I am angry.  I was thinking about Civil versus Criminal consequences and the lack of prosecution that has gone on in regard to the financial crisis.    Today the European Union announced a bailout of immense proportion to try to stabilize the Eurozone and bring the immediate market turmoil to an end.  One reason that such is required is that there has been theft.  The usual bunch of suspects are implicated.

I am certain that the penalties for financial crimes are lax.    I am equally certain that financial crimes were committed and that these are egregious, premeditated, and extremely lucrative.  If somebody (the SEC for example) fines a company after the fact for crimes that were committed by individuals who were enriched by the crime, justice has not been served.  Individuals must be held responsible.

I looked at the FBI web site.   This tells me that the value of all property crime in America in 2007 was $17.6 Billion.   That’s just a Thursday’s work on Wall Street.   In 2008 approximately 2.4 million Americans served time, most for drug or property crime.  How many of these had worked on Wall Street?   I’m sure it’s not many.

The transactions that have contributed to the financial crisis are immensely complicated and the firms engaging in them can effectively obfuscate.    Identifying individuals, providing just punishment, and the removal of such individuals from society will take a long time.  It is certain that the vast majority will go unpunished.  The New York Statute of Limitations seems grossly insufficient given the magnitude of these crimes.  Further, the class of felony that such crimes fall into should be reviewed.

If Goldman or others had information on the financial status of Greece that was not public information, then traded on that information in the CDS or currency markets, they have traded on inside information.  This is in addition to the multitudes of other violations which are already alleged.  Where are the arrests?   I understand the investigations may take a long time.  Quite honestly, the effective prosecution of such crimes may take decades.

Who is our Simon Wiesenthal?  Who will track down these criminals in the coming months, years, decades?  Perhaps we need some old men to spend their last years in prison after thinking they effectively fleeced the world.  Perhaps the cycle of crises can be mitigated if the prosecution for these particular crimes continues for decades and every so often Wall Street is reminded that there is no sanctuary and that individuals will be hunted down at whatever time in whatever place.

Do not tell me these are small matters.  People starve when you manipulate markets to speculate the price of corn up 100%.   People die when you do not put proper safety equipment on a well to save a half million bucks and then destroy an ecosystem.   Some people jump onto subway tracks.  Some have heart attacks when their life savings are gone.  Some burn to death in street riots.  Do not tell me these are small things, errors in judgment, rogue actions.  If we have figured out anything, have we not figured out that these are systemic problems and that the institutions involved make decisions that the rewards justify the risks, not just financial risks, but also the risks of sanctions or prosecution of any sort?  Are we going to do anything to alter the balance of risk and reward so that the rational decision is to do the right thing?

http://thefourteenthbanker.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/financial-crime-the-statute-of-limitations-and-simon-wiesenthal/

[finehoe]

No To Oligarchy
Bernie Sanders | July 22, 2010

The American people are hurting. As a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, millions of Americans have lost their jobs, homes, life savings and their ability to get a higher education. Today, some 22 percent of our children live in poverty, and millions more have become dependent on food stamps for their food.

And while the Great Wall Street Recession has devastated the middle class, the truth is that working families have been experiencing a decline for decades. During the Bush years alone, from 2000-2008, median family income dropped by nearly $2,200 and millions lost their health insurance. Today, because of stagnating wages and higher costs for basic necessities, the average two-wage-earner family has less disposable income than a one-wage-earner family did a generation ago. The average American today is underpaid, overworked and stressed out as to what the future will bring for his or her children. For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.

But, not everybody is hurting. While the middle class disappears and poverty increases the wealthiest people in our country are not only doing extremely well, they are using their wealth and political power to protect and expand their very privileged status at the expense of everyone else. This upper-crust of extremely wealthy families are hell-bent on destroying the democratic vision of a strong middle-class which has made the United States the envy of the world. In its place they are determined to create an oligarchy in which a small number of families control the economic and political life of our country.

The 400 richest families in America, who saw their wealth increase by some $400 billion during the Bush years, have now accumulated $1.27 trillion in wealth. Four hundred families! During the last fifteen years, while these enormously rich people became much richer their effective tax rates were slashed almost in half. While the highest-paid 400 Americans had an average income of $345 million in 2007, as a result of Bush tax policy they now pay an effective tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest on record.

Last year, the top twenty-five hedge fund managers made a combined $25 billion but because of tax policy their lobbyists helped write, they pay a lower effective tax rate than many teachers, nurses and police officers. As a result of tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and elsewhere, the wealthy and large corporations are evading some $100 billion a year in U.S. taxes. Warren Buffett, one of the richest people on earth, has often commented that he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary.

But it's not just wealthy individuals who grotesquely manipulate the system for their benefit. It's the multinational corporations they own and control. In 2009, Exxon Mobil, the most profitable corporation in history made $19 billion in profits and not only paid no federal income taxâ€"they actually received a $156 million refund from the government. In 2005, one out of every four large corporations in the United States paid no federal income taxes while earning $1.1 trillion in revenue.

But, perhaps the most outrageous tax break given to multi-millionaires and billionaires happened this January when the estate tax, established in 1916, was repealed for one year as a result of President Bush's 2001 tax legislation. This tax applies only to the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent of our population. This is what Teddy Roosevelt, a leading proponent of the estate tax, said in 1910. "The absence of effective state, and, especially, national restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise.… Therefore, I believe in a…graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate." And that's what we've had for the last ninety-five yearsâ€"until 2010.

Today, not content with huge tax breaks on their income; not content with massive corporate tax loopholes; not content with trade laws enabling them to outsource the jobs of millions of American workers to low-wage countries and not content with tax havens around the world, the ruling elite and their lobbyists are working feverishly to either eliminate the estate tax or substantially lower it. If they are successful at wiping out the estate tax, as they came close to doing in 2006 with every Republican but two voting to do, it would increase the national debt by over $1 trillion during a ten-year period. At a time when we already have a $13 trillion debt, enormous unmet needs and the highest level of wealth inequality in the industrialized world, it is simply obscene to provide more tax breaks to multi-millionaires and billionaires.

That is why I have introduced the Responsible Estate Tax Act (S.3533). This legislation would raise $318 billion over the next decade by establishing a graduated inheritance tax on estates over $3.5 million retroactive to this year. This bill ensures that the wealthiest 0.3 percent of Americans pays their fair share of estate taxes, while making sure that 99.7 percent of Americans never have to pay a dime when they lose a loved one. It also makes certain that the overwhelming majority of family farmers and small businesses never have to pay an estate tax.

This legislation must be passed because, with a $13 trillion national debt and huge unmet needs, we cannot afford more tax breaks for millionaire and billionaire families. But even more importantly, it must be passed because the United States must not become an oligarchy in which a handful of wealthy and powerful families control the destiny of our nation. Too many people, from the inception of this country, have struggled and died to maintain our democratic vision. We owe it to them and to our children to maintain it.


Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/37889/no-oligarchy

[Jerry Moran]

I'm all for tax breaks for anyone who will spend money at my restaurant.  Maybe then I could hire some folks and make a decent living at the same time.  

I long for the days when Reagan was in office.  I had 35 plus employees, a half million dollar payroll, and paid for everyone's health insurance.  Most employees got a bonus at the end of the year.

Within 2 years of opening a little hole of a restaurant on Kingsley Avenue in Orange Park, I built a 7000 square foot building on Wells Road and paid cash for it.  I (illegally) hired underage black kids from Floyd Circle in Orange Park to work the dish pit at well above minimum wage and kept them off the street and out of jail.  They learned good work habits and most went on to be successful adults.  The joke among us was, if we ever got caught, Reggie would tell the judge "If I had not been working for Jerry, I would probably be holding up Jiffy Stores." Ever hear of Bistro Aix?  Tom Grey got his start at my place, and by his own admission, learned to make fresh egg pasta. David Meyer, who had David's in OP too.  He's now an executive with an elder care company. Multiple careers were launched, all because the frigging government cut tax rates and let the people decide how to spend their own money.  What was unfortunate at the time, and currently,  is that Congress continued to spend money like there was no tomorrow, and worst of all, on non productive projects.

Now, I can't offer anyone a job, or the opportunity to learn a trade.  The Government is sucking up all the money, and threatening the most productive segments of society with confiscation of their assets.  Citizens and business are paralyzed, because they do not know what the Federal Government is going to do next.  People are afraid, and  consumer spending has declined. Small business can make jobs, if only the government would get off every ones' back.  We are headed for a replay of the Great Depression, driven by misguided and corrupt Keynesians, hungry for ever increasing power over our lives.  Keynesian Theory is wrong, dead wrong, and lead to protract the Great Depression.  Hoover illogically increased government spending, and FDR followed suit in spades.

I have been disgusted with what I have read on this thread.  The majority of posters are either brainwashed, or idiots.  I'm leaning towards brainwashing, that started years ago in this country.

I can remember as an 8th. grader in the late '60's, being told in class by my black arm band wearing social studies teacher that corporate America was corrupt and businessmen were crooks.  My father was a finance executive in NYC at the time.  When he got home, I asked him if it was true that "businessmen were crooks".   He turned red as a beet, and within in a few days, sat in on my class and presented the other side of the story, much to the teacher's chagrin.  

Fast forward to Macro Economics 101 at UNC-CH.  Before a class of 500, some pinko monkey of a professor who looked like he just stepped out of the Anvil at Bleeker and 9th.,  had us all believing that for economic success,  "pump priming" by the Federal Government was required.  If you wanted an A in the class, all one had to do was memorize the prof's flow chart, and inject government spending where indicated.  Hell, most of the students didn't know a debit from a credit at the time, and we all believed him.

With experience comes knowledge, and knowledge precipitates wisdom.  I say to you, just about everything revealed in this thread is nonsense.  Finehoe is wrong on history and all issues.  To be a successful American, all one has to do is follow a few simple rules:

Spend Less Than You Earn
Delay Gratification
Save for a Rainy Day

If our government at all levels would follow these rules, we would all be better for it.

[finehoe]

Finehoe is wrong on history and all issues.  

Talk about brainwashed....

[BridgeTroll]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Reform_Act_of_1986

The U.S. Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA) (Pub.L. 99-514, 100 Stat. 2085, enacted October 22, 1986) to simplify the income tax code, broaden the tax base and eliminate many tax shelters and other preferences. Referred to as the second of the two "Reagan tax cuts" (the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut of 1981 being the first), the bill was also officially sponsored by Democrats, Richard Gephardt of Missouri in the House of Representatives and Bill Bradley of New Jersey in the Senate.

The tax reform was designed to be revenue neutral, but because individual taxes were decreased while corporate taxes were increased, Congressional Budget Office estimates (which ignore corporate taxes) suggested every tax payer saw a decrease in their tax bill. As of 2009, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 was the most recent major simplification of the tax code, drastically reducing the number of deductions and the number of tax brackets.

[Jaxson]

I would like to know what were the marginal tax rates in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.  That would shed some light on this discussion, too!

[BridgeTroll]

My point is this was a VERY popular and bipartisan effort.  NOT a Reagan/republican scheme to line the pockets of the rich or corporations.  My guess is based on your previous relationship with the republican party at the time... even you were supportive of this measure...