CRAZY! The Fes is going to purchase 85 Billion in bonds PER MONTH until unemployment dips below 6.5%. That is just criminal. The bubble that will,produce will dwarf all the others. Look for another big runup in gold.
Money Matters - Part 14
Another dispatch from that parallel universe known as CA.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-12/california-psychiatrists-paid-400-000-shows-bidding-war.html
Another new tax that will hit in '13 thanks to the healthcare law is a devastating one for middle class families. The limit for medical spending accounts gets chopped in half, from 5K to 2.5K. This is particularly hard on families with disabled kids who have to spend a lot out of pocket. One more example of the 'no middle class tax hike' lie.
Geez
And let the reducing entitlements begin.
CA psych- insanity
how come we had to keep paying certain professions more to get better people, yet now the so many great people are laid off we cannot now benefit from this pool of highly skilled workers who one would think are willing to work for a little less?
Entitlements ARE the problem so they must be cut. Even Kristof from the Times admitted that the welfare state has perverse consequences. He was reporting from Appalachia how parents keep their kids illiterate to keep receiving checks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/kristof-profiting-from-a-childs-illiteracy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&ref=opinion&
And talk about plain idiotic and uncaring - the admin wants to cut back on charitable donations.
This is what really pisses people off about DC. The request from the WH for Sandy relief ($60B) includes:
"The request, which still needs the approval of Congress, includes billions in urgently needed aide. But it also features some surprising items: $23 million for tree plantings to “help reduce flood effects, protect water sources, decrease soil erosion and improve wildlife habitat” in forested areas touched by Sandy; $2 million to repair roof damage at Smithsonian buildings in Washington that pre-dates the storm; $4 million to repair sand berms and dunes at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; and $41 million for clean-up and repairs at eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The FBI is seeking $4 million to replace “vehicles, laboratory and office equipment and furniture,” while Customs and Border Protection wants $2.4 million to replace “destroyed or damaged vehicles, including mobile X-Ray machines.”
The Small Business Administration is seeking a $50 million slice of the pie for its post-storm response efforts, including “Small Business Development Centers and Women’s Business Development Centers.”
The relief package also includes a whopping $13 billion request for “mitigation projects” to prepare for future storms."
Doesn't the government by insurance on its properties?
That would be too sensible and responsible.
That's something that drives me crazy when they put all the add ons on the bills, then it gets thrown out because of all the extras and then people are mad at congress because they wouldn't approve the help for Sandy victims bill
Yes - they always exploit the situation to add stuff from their wish list. Happened with 9/11, with Katrina, with the stimulus...
More insanity from the Sandy bill request:
"As we go through the bill, there’s a lot in here that isn’t emergency. For instance, 25 percent of the $10.8 billion in Federal Transit Administration funding won’t be spent until after fiscal year 2019! The Senate took the President’s request for $32 million for Amtrak and added a zero plus some more to come up with $336 million. Much of this is for a long-term project that has been in the works for year and has nothing to do with Sandy. There’s also policy provision that could have long consequences like the blanket, unlimited project authorization authority given to the Corps. This is an agency with a $60-70 billion backlog."
UGH I need to stop coming on this thread
Well, I have to reply to the awful reports of abuses in government pensions in California.
Here in Massachusetts the average state worker's pension is about $25,000 per year. The cost of living adjustment is much less than inflation. For many, that is after working many years for less money than private industry would pay.
When I started my government job, people looked down on government workers because they earned so little. Now they look down on government jobs because of the relatively stable employment which they think is unfair. It would be nice to get a little respect for the hard work it is to keep the public safe and functioning, and educated...
How is everyone's Christmas spending compared to last year? I guess ours is slightly higher.
Most of my family decided they don't want to exchange gifts as of this year. We're still spending plenty on the kids anyway just to keep them clothed. I have NOT given in to getting them all smartphones.
Funny Smartphone story - My girlfriend is 60 and bought her first cell phone 3 years ago and never used it. She lives in the world of the 1930's as she is a Labor Historian and hangs out with other historians all the time (well - except for me). I was shocked when I saw her at Thanksgiving pull out her smartphone and actually look at it for information! She doesn't know how to use the camera on it and I truly doubt that she can text - but something about it was enough to get her into the 21st Century. Wait - she didn't give me her cell number - what does that mean? LOL!
Funny! I have had similar moment with older people taking out phones that they don't know how to use!
Shocked tonight that my 83 yr old pulled out phone , took a picture , and then showed me the pics in gallery!
Hee hee!
The funniest thing I ever saw on Facebook was a post by the teenage son of a neighbor saying that he saw his five year old brother showing his great grandpa how to use the fart app on hsd iPhone.
My Dad who is 86 regularly breaks every new Mac he buys - and he buys them all. The Tech who comes out to the house to unfix his Macs finally talked him into getting iMacs - less to break!
Funny!
More on Sandy bill.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/little_help_here_1kW6aQ8fElj4CKwbheEV0N
Truth no one wants to hear.
"Presidents have been talking about the federal government’s spending appetite for decades.
“We can’t spend ourselves rich,” Ronald Reagan once said.
Even President Obama said that “every day, families sacrifice to live within their means – they deserve a government that does the same.”
In the most recent talks to avoid the looming fiscal crisis, though, House Speaker John Boehner insists the president has been singing a different tune, and is “just not serious about cutting spending.”
But how much spending are we actually talking about? It may be difficult to wrap one’s head around how much the federal government doles out every day, but here is a snapshot.
Each day during the month of November, the government brought in a little more than $5 billion of revenue. That’s a lot of money – but the U.S. government spent in that time more than $11 billion a day. The difference is roughly $6 billion.
Of that $11 billion, the top items were as follows: The Department of Health and Human Services, which goes through roughly $3 billion a day; Social Security, which shells out roughly $2.5 billion a day; the Department of Defense, which runs a $1.8 billion daily tab; and interest on the debt, which eats up $854 million every day.
Economists say the latter number is the most concerning of all – since the country gets practically nothing in exchange for that. It’s just paying the bills on the debt, and the number is subject to wild fluctuation.
“We've got a $16 trillion debt, and servicing the debt is hard now,” former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana said. “This is with interest rates at record lows. God forbid something should happen to cause interest rates to go up even a little, back to where they ordinarily would be, the burden of this debt would become immensely greater.”
Alice Rivlin, Bill Clinton’s budget director, attributed the bulk of the spending problem to the promises made under Medicare, Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security.
"They'll drive federal spending up faster than our economy can grow,” she said. “And revenues won’t keep up, so we have a problem. If you don't have enough revenues to pay for the spending, you have to borrow. And on the track that we are on, if we go on doing what is in the law over the next several decades, our public debt will rise faster than our economy can grow.
“When that happens you got a real problem, because you’ve got to pay interest on that debt, and your creditors see that your debt’s rising faster than your economy is growing, so they charge more and more and it's a very bad situation,” she said.
Arthur Brooks, with the American Enterprise Institute, finds current debates about higher taxes misguided, with federal spending on overdrive.
“It's as simple as a family that does that. And the problem is right now you have a situation in which the government in its overspending ways tries to rationalize it by saying that actually the problem is we're under-taxing the American public,” he said. “It's like your irresponsible brother-in-law runs up his credit cards and goes bust and says the real problem is because you've stopped sending me checks.
“The truth of the matter is our country spends too much,” he said."
Difficult indeed if anything throws us into higher interest rates. I think Victor is nailing the real worry in our economy.
I've been thinking about why I am skeptical about the argument that we have to concentrate on fixing unemployment. Then I remembered what was happening in Germany especially before WWI. The Book Road To Serfdom written at that time and then the later commentary by William F Buckley is on my reading list. I think we have to be careful about what we ask for from government.
We should have known. At the time, we were thinking about making a modest investment in AIG, but we aren't able to afford speculation. Then see what happened.
Who says there is no inflation?! Quote to plow my driveway is $45 per plow. 15 years ago it was $175 for first 10, and $20 each one after that. Yikes! Prices have not more than doubled in 15 years. Ripoff. Guess I better shop around. Was paying $35 two years ago.
Send your boys out there to do it!
4200 sq ft c
gas went up again today. was $2.89 this am. by afternoon it was $3.25!
send your boys out to do it - would shovel all day when I was a kid just to make some $$
Last year 100 gal home heating oil $286.00.
This year 100 gal home heating oil $383.00.
Wonder if we can make it through this winter on 100 gals like last winter? Turning on furnace for the holidays...average use is 2 gals per day, so we have 50 heating days, not quite enough, but that's all she wrote for now. Fuel and food insecurity here but we are still coping.
Wow - big increase.
Markets to crater today.
Victor, 4200 sq. ft. isn't even 1/10 of an acre... and your boys won't clear the drive and walkways?
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