| The term red pill and its opposite, blue pill, are pop culture terms that have become a common symbol for the choice between the blissful ignorance of illusion (blue) and embracing the sometimes painful truth of reality (red). |
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- Uncle Sam’s Fire Sale. Minimum Investment: $1 Billion
- Opposing Trends in Debt and GDP Growth
- Yen Weakens to 80!
- Robotics and Health Care: A New Growth Market
- Economic Recovery Without the Pain of De-Leveraging
- Greece Gets Next Round of Bailouts
- Borrowing Your Way Out of Debt and Other Normal Abnormalities
- “Supranational” Investing
- The Role of Youth Unemployment in Staving Off Default
David Stockman’s Viewpoint on the Obama Budget Disaster
Passing a Federal Budget is a rarity, especially under the administration of a committed Marxist. The Democratic Senate’s strangle hold on bringing up legislation, particularly a budget, goes without saying. What makes this new budget for 2013 any different? This time the day of reckoning hits hard the first of the next year. The recent interview with David Stockman on the Fox Business channelwith Neil Cavuto is an extraordinary analysis why the economy will absorb a frightful tax increase all at one time. The fallout to commerce could become the real end of the world scenario. Take the time and watch the insightful observations from a courageous number cruncher who served this nation with distinction during the Reagan Presidency.
Bob Jennings in a written article from the same Fox News presents a written list that coincides with the risks that Stockman outlines.
Major Individual Income Tax Benefits Expiring 12/31/2011:
- Personal tax credits applied against income tax no longer apply
- Higher alternative minimum tax exemptions revert back to extraordinarily-low thresholds
- $250 school teacher expense deduction ends
- Mortgage insurance premium deduction expires
- State and local sales tax deductions expire
- Tuition and related fees deduction end
- IRA to charity tax-free transfers stop
- 2% Social Security tax reduction ends
We Have A Problem” – Obama Predicts He Will Breach Debt Ceiling Two Months Before Election
In light of the epic fiasco from last August, when the US debt ceiling hike became a 2 month televized affair, culminating with the GOP caving, but not before the S&P downgraded the US (and in the process breaking the US stock market), Zero Hedge has long been analyzing the chronology of future debt breaches, as with the presidential election in November, what happens in the months and weeks ahead of it as pertains to the number one problem facing America – its lethal debt addiction – will be by far the biggest weakness of Obama’s campaign. This is something we believe the GOP has finally understood, and they want a full replay of last August’s insanity, to remind America just how broke (and broken) this country is. Yet it turns out all of our analyses have been for naught (if 100% correct). Because it is none other than President Barack Obama who has been kind enough to point out, that on September 30, 2012, or in just over 7 months, total US debt subject to the limit will be, wait for it, $16,333,900,000,000. Why is this an issue: because the final debt ceiling that Obama has been afforded with automatic Senatorial roll overs (even as Congress theatrically votes these down), is $16,394,000,000. In other words, with two months ahead of the election, the US will have a de minimis $60 billion in debt capacity. And since the implied burn rate is $133 billion/month this means that the United States will be in full blown debt ceiling hike chaos just as the final electoral debates take place. And one wonders why the GOP rushed to green light Obama an additional $160 billion in debt issuance. If indeed the $160 billion in new debt is added, the US may not even last to September before Tim Geithner is forced to start plundering G-fund and other retirement accounts. It also means that two months of America in a debt ceiling breach situation will deal a dramatic blow to Obama’s reelection chances as the last thing the US population will want is a replay of last summer.
Goldman Answers Why People Log On To Social Networking Sites
Today, instead of some arcane chart showing in some complex fashion the simple fact that only excess liquidity drives excess returns, we present something more in tune with the latest bubble du jour: social networking. As part of its social media survey Goldman Sachs asked respondents what is the main reason for people to “log on” to various social networking venues. The answer, by a wide margin, is the expected one: namely to spy, and to compare whether our lives are more boring, less glitzy and exciting, with fewer gadgets, gizmos, smaller houses or cars, and generally more in debt, than our “friends.” Of course, the politically correct way of saying this is “to see what my friends are doing.” In other words, there is nothing new about social media but a millennia-old regurgitated phenomenon- it is merely a new locus of exhibiting and observing social status, to see and be seen. One which can be enjoyed 24/7. At least, until something better comes along.
DHS Stonewalls Congress On Social Media Spying
Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security speaking today at a Congressional hearing regarding the federal agency’s monitoring of social media networks and news websites, including the Drudge Report, were evasive about who ordered them to look for reports or comments that “reflect adversely on the U.S. government and the DHS.”
The hearing was prompted as a result of the Electronic Privacy Information Center obtaining 300 documents through a Freedom of Information Act request which detailed how DHS had hired an outside contractor, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, to monitor social media outlets along with a list of websites, on a “24/7/365 basis,” in order to uncover “any media reports that reflect adversely on the U.S. Government and the Department of Homeland Security.”
The list of websites the DHS requested be monitored for such content included the Drudge Report, Facebook, Twitter, Huffington Post, and GoogleBlogSearch, a service that allows millions of individual blogs to be searched for keywords.
EPIC submitted a statement to today’s Subcommittee Hearing in which the privacy group demanded the Committee suspend the DHS program, arguing that “The DHS monitoring of social networks and media organizations is entirely without legal basis and threatens important free speech and expression rights.”
In his opening comments before the Subcommittee Hearing, titled DHS Monitoring of Social Networking and Media: Enhancing Intelligence Gathering and Ensuring Privacy, Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Patrick Meehan spoke of his concerns that “Collecting, analyzing, disseminating private citizens’ comments could have a chilling effect on individuals’ privacy rights and people’s freedom of speech and dissent against their government.”
Representative Jackie Speier said she was “deeply troubled” by the program, stating DHS “is not a political operation….It should not be a political operation.”
How to Ruin Your Economy and Influence People
We can learn a lot from the Argentines. When it comes to messing up an economy, they’re Numero Uno. They’re Olympians of financial legerdemain and masters of the old false shuffle.
In 2001, the country was deeply in debt. The government was out of money. And the currency was losing value fast. What did the Argentines do?
First, they broke their promise to investors and savers, cutting the peso loose from the dollar. Then, they seized control of banks and bank accounts. People had been saving money in US dollar accounts in order to avoid problems with the peso. But the Argentine feds forcibly converted their accounts to pesos, just as the peso was losing 2/3rds of its value.
The next thing was to take the reserves in the central bank and use them to pay current expenses — which caused the head of the bank to resign in protest.
And finally, a few years later, they took over private pension funds — to protect them for the pensioners, of course. What are they used for? To fund the country’s deficits!
But the Argentine feds are not just scalawags, they’re the pacesetters for the rest of the developed world.
