Saturday, April 5, 2008

Quick Read

Part 1
In just one year . Remember the election in 2006?
Thought you might like to read the following:
A little over one year ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratically controlled Congress in 2006 we have seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for "change" in 2006, and we got it!

Remember it's Congress that makes the law, not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.
Quote of the Day......."My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it." -- Barack Obama
Part 2:
Taxes...Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.
www.taxfoundation.org/public ations/show/151.html
Taxes under Clinton 1999 Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $8,400 Single making 30K - tax $4,500

Single making 50K - tax $14,000 Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $23,250 Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K - tax $16,800 Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $21,000 Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $38,750 Married making 125K - tax $31,250
Both democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates
It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can't wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of some money and they don't even know what happened.
PART 3:
You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much?
Read this:
Boy am I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it
is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us.
I now find that to be RIDICULOUS.
I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again
until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I
have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens
each year by state governments. Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs
such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis....org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school
education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the
American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare &
social services by the American taxpayers. Verify at:
http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused
by the illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
10. The illegal aliens in the United State s have a crime rate
that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular,
their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens
that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens
from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin
and mariju ana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.
Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
12. The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total
cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average
cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period."
Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances
back to their countries of origin.
Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million
Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United State s ."
Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a Scorcher. Too bad Obama the liar will never win. HA HA, I love it! I did have a scary thought last night, the douche bag B.O. could run again in four years. If he plays his cards right. He could be a huge force to deal with and thats a fact.

Anonymous said...

I think you give way too much credit to both of the parties of the sheeple. There are also some statements in the passage you send that are flat-out false.

From my recent macro analysis I can give you the following remarks:

HOUSING
The problems that are roosting now are a culmination of more than 30 years of crazy nonsense in the credit and banking industries (i.e, changes made to capital and risk requirements in the Reagan administration; private mortgage securitization; as well as federal support for home ownership beyond historical "norms" during the Clinton administration).
The fact that Californians have been buying houses they cannot afford (only to sell them on to some one else for even more -- in just a few short years) for almost 25 years and building an economy on it is not attributable to either party in my estimation (although CA Republicans probably can take some claim/blame - in this example). It is also not sustainable. Many of us are surprised it lasted this long.

CREDIT
Credit default swaps (these can be thought of as PUTs on bonds - someone selling the risk that a bond goes down in value) are at an all time high right now. Granted in the past week we have seen some decline in pressure as bond traders seem to feel that Bernanke is now in front of the current issues we face (we'll see if that turns out to be true). Most people know little about this $60 Trillion (yes, that's a "T") market, but let me assure if this portion of the mkt were to fail the ENTIRE world banking infrastructure would go with it. Consider that there are few regulations (unlike, say options) for CDS traders and the liklihood that an entity has sold/bought obligations that cannot be kept are certainly present.

WAR
Finally, I'm not sure who makes claims about wars being profitable but there are no modern examples where the booty of a war (short of the political gains attributable) is greater than the monetary cost of the war (certainly to say nothing of the human cost). Some might claim that Isarel's "Seven Day War" or the genocide in various parts of Africa might be an exception. The only exceptions I believe are valid are bloodless coups (which really aren't wars) where the infrastructure remains intact and able to produce. Remember: economics are about guns and butter and you can't eat guns.

OIL (FROM WAR)
Our joint efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq are costing at present just less than a USD$1billion per week. where does that money come from? On that same subject -- perhaps you can help me understand:
"Iraq's average production for February was 2.4 million barrels per day. Exports averaged 1.93 million barrels per day during that month. The huge portion of oil output comes from Basra Rumaila South and North oil fields that produce around 1.3 million barrels perday."
Where is all the money from the sale of over 2 million bpd going (that's about USD$225 million per day at present)? Why are we not demanding this money as reparations?

CURRENCY & TAXES
A colleague told me that when he was in Manhattan he saw several shops now taking Euros and offering exchange for them. We've seen that for Pesos down here for a while. As our currency (USD) becomes weaker ALL commodities will become more expensive. Oil. Gold. Wheat. Rice.
Consider that we are seeing some strange behaviour worldwide right now as that rice prices have DOUBLED in about a year. Many are hoarding and several gvt's (Thailand, Malaysia, etc) are either directly limiting rice exports or talking about it.
Let me assure you that we are heading down the path of worldwide inflation with little to buffet or subside it so long as several emerging markets (China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brazil, etc) continue to demand more for the build-out of their infrastructures. The US will be challenged to improve its economic position until a few different issues (see above) are "unwound" and/or some "rules" change (i.e., do away with income tax and replace with VAT tax only) to allow the US to be more competitive on a worldwide stage.
I would agree with you, that excessive spending by the federal government will do nothing but make matters worse. The current Democrat candidates seem to have missed that day's lesson in economics. Taxing the folks that do the crux of investing (in jobs, plants and materials) means there will be less jobs for the workers.

FINALLY-ILLEGALS
The stats in the piece you sent about "30% of incarcirated folks being illegals" sounds like right wing fear-mongering rather than anything accurate.
I, for one, need these people to do my laundry, mow my yard, clean up my town, etc. there are certainly "outliers" - bad apples with bad intents - but I would submit that all the illegals I know (I know several -- likely more than anyone living north of Texas) keep to themselves, don't cause trouble and work 10-12 hours -6 days a week. Can you please point me to their American-born replacements? You know, the ones that work for the $5/hr... I can't seem to find them.
Let me know when you have a few of them for me that are over 18 and haven't already served time in prison.

The point is: (1) I need the illegals to do the things I can't find lazy Americans willing to do.
(2) I work in skilled industries where these people are not competition to my livelihood - NOR COULD THEY BE FOR AT LEAST A GENERATION.

When I see these people try hard it makes me think of how it must have been for my family and others when they first came here. Our family has climbed the ladder from blue-collar working immigrants to white-collar intellectual citizens in less than 3 generations. Certainly a credit to those who came before us - their strength and perseverance is impressive. Immigration into the US has changed radically since our people came. None of our people would have been eligible to immigrate to the US these days based on the rules that are now used. All lacked education, money (of any real amount), a valued skill (the records I've seen show "Laborer" as occupation of most), or any real political persecution to be eligible for immigration into the US now.
Don't believe me? Go check. I just had to go through a bunch of junk to keep one of my H1B programmers here (from India).

Big L

Anonymous said...

Whoa.. Serious content here. I must comment you TAP on a great piece. The data in here is powerful and particularly relevant to the liberal argument regarding the cost of the war. They are continually battling conservatives and many independents on this topic to help rationalize the expense to implement nationalized health care.

These are great statistics we should all weave into our discussions with libs.

KneeDeepInAwesome said...

Big L,

In regard to your comments on illegal immigration, the difference between the immigration of today and the immigration of 100 plus years ago is that then we NEEDED more people. Our more stringent requirements for legal immigration today don't stem from the fact that we're just a bunch of mean old sonsofbitches who don't want anyone to come and play.

I appreciate the fact that you have a lawn to be mowed and laundry to be done, but if you are saying that the only way you can afford to have these things done for you is if the going rate is at $5/hour, then I have a feeling that you're not in the position financially to be hiring out your chores.

You say "I need illegals to do the things I can't find lazy Americans to do" but what you really mean is "I need illegals to do the things I'm not willing to pay legal workers to do."

Why not spend an extra 2 bucks an hour and hire a legal citizen to do the job? Is it out of compassion? I promise you that the legal person you do hire, outside of some high school student, is probably poor and can use some of your compassion as well. And the good thing? They pay taxes! So yes, it's costing you an extra 2 bucks, but down the road, it's saving us all a bit of money, reducing the stress on our emergency services and schools, and best of all, helping you become a law-abiding citizen!

And I promise you that it's not hard to find legal citizens willing to do housekeeping and yardwork. Sure, they'll cost more because of that pesky "law" thing again, but they are out there and they are very appreciative of the work because if you're a legal laborer in this country, you're in serious trouble because everyone (eg, You) are choosing to skirt that darn "law" thing again and hire people at rates that legals either can't afford or can't legally comply with.

If you want to find out more about this, go find a legal guy who works as a drywaller in SoCal or Texas. See if the illegals are "doing the jobs no one else want to do."

Sorry to tell you this, Big L, as you seem to be a compassionate guy with the best intentions, but you're part of the problem.

Anonymous said...

Comment on Part 2

The quoted link, www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html does not confirm that the "tax statistics" are correct. The link only provides information for tax calculations. Using this information incorrectly, produces "enlightening and amazing statistics". After a flood of those "enlightening and amazing statistics" referring to their website, www.taxfoundation.org was compelled to publish a rebuttal containing correct numbers.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23003.html

Here are the numbers

Single, income of 30,000 before cuts-$3,157.50 after cuts-$2,756.25
Single, income of 50,000 before cuts-$7,262.50 after cuts $6,606.25
Married, income of $50,000 before cuts $5,085.00 after cuts $4,012.50
Married, income of $60,000 before cuts $6,585.00 after cuts$5,512.50
Single, income of $75,000 before cuts $14,262.50 after cuts $12,856.25
Married, income of $75,000 before cuts $9,426.50 after cuts $7,762.50
Single, income of $125,000 before cuts $29,378.50 after cuts $26,472.25
Married, income of $125,000 before cuts $23,426.50 after cuts $19,462.5

The difference "before" and "after" is nowhere near as high as you suggest.

By the way, did you know that tax information can be obtained at www.irs.gov. This includes tax withholding tables.