“There’s no more cuts to make…” is THE Biggest Lie regarding the #GovernmentShutdown:

Remember this?

—

Yes, my personal nomination for this year’s Most Ridiculous Statement by a Government Representative Award goes to (not surprisingly, I admit) Nancy Pelosi, with her insistence that “the cupboard is bare” and that there are “…no more cuts to make…” in our Federal expenditures.

No more cuts, Nancy?

None?

Out of an almost $3.5 TRILLION budget?

There’s nothing we could somehow do without, buried in there somewhere?

This inane proclamation gets to the heart of our current Government Shutdown. Pelosi, Obama and the Democrats want need every last shekel to fund their ever-expanding list of overpriced-crap-they-gotta-have-now-now-now. It’s POWER, you see, and it takes money to maintain/expand a State’s power.

Money Is NOT Safe In The Big Banks

How much of your money/savings do you have in the bank: 

• Most of it?
• All of it?

How confident are you that you can GET to your money, at any time? 

…Are you sure?

askmarion

Money Is Not Safe In The Big Banks (Frank-Dodd)

Document mentioned in the video:  FDIC BOE Joint Paper 

Bank of England and FDIC issue paper on the resolution | KPMG

For more information, visit the Public Banking Institute

Technorati Tags: money,banks,Frand-Dodd,economics,preparedness,survival,you be the judge

View original post

Obama and the #IRS: “Do as we Say, NOT as we Do…”

Gonna take you on a quick trip in the ‘Way-back Machine‘, so stick with me for a moment.

—-

Back in 2009, I was Sales Manager for a Fortune 500 insurance company. President Obama had just begun his Class Warfare antics when, after passing his ill-advised stimulus and bailouts, he made this statement:

“You can’t take a trip to Las Vegas, or down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime…”

Even though the statement was supposedly directed at recipients of the Government handouts (TARP, etc.,..), when taken in the context of the political climate it rightfully terrified every executive in corporate America.

Obviously, Sports Logos mean more to us Fans than to the Owners

It’s not that I’m against change, but I don’t like changing stuff just for the sake of changing it.

And it’s official: the Miami Dolphins have changed their logo, which for my money was one of the most enduring, and endearing, left in sports today. They went from this:

…to THIS:

When The Fed Has To Print Money, Just To Print Money

I’m not an economist, I don’t play one on TV, and staying at a Holiday Inn Express wouldn’t help me one iota. But these days, anytime I hear the words ‘Federal Reserve‘ and ‘print money‘ in the same sentence, I start paying reeeeaaal close attention.

I carved out as much of the economics minutiae in the article below as possible, to make it easier for everyone to follow, …including me.

—–

From ZeroHedge.com: 

“…we once again refer readers to the paper released yesterday by Morgan Stanley’s Greenlaw and Deutsche Bank’s Hooper, which discusses not only the parabolic chart that US debt yield will certainly follow over the next several decades, but the trickier concept known as the Fed’s technical insolvency, or that moment when the Fed’s tiny capital buffer goes negative [***which the ZeroHedge guys refer to as the “D-Rate” ]. 

In short what would happen is that the Fed will be then forced to print money, just so it can continue to print money.“

Hey, THAT doesn’t sound very good! And this sounds worse:

TAXMAGEDDON (Be afraid; be very afraid…)

I abhor repeating myself, but some things bear repeating.

Therefore, I’m once again linking a brief description from Heritage.com on the imminent threat of Taxmageddon, which is the half-trillion-dollar tax tsunami slated to hit our shores in January, 2013. Also included is a new, bold, easy-to-understand graphic.

If you like paying more of your income in taxes, you’re simply gonna love this.

There is only one way for us to avoid this, boys & girls….and giving Obama 4 more years ain’t it.

Please share.

—-

Taxmageddon Is Huge – 

• Unprecedented Tax Hike For 2013: Starting January 1, 2013, Americans will face a $494 billion tax increase, the highest ever in one year. Obamacare’s tax increase over 10 years barely edges ahead of Taxmageddon at $502 billion. The average American household would see its taxes rise by $3,800 in 2013 alone. And this is just for one year. Taxpayers would see even higher tax hikes in succeeding years.
• Expiring Tax Cuts and Obamacare’s New Taxes: Almost 34% of the tax increases from Taxmageddon come from the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. Another 25% comes from the expiration of the payroll tax cut. Most of the remaining increases come from Obamacare, notably from the start of the hospital insurance 3.8% surtax on all forms of income over $250,000.
• Taxmageddon Hits the Middle Class: Taxmageddon falls primarily on middle- and low-income Americans. That’s because 60 percent of the Bush tax cuts went to middle and low-income taxpayers. The expiration of the patch on the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will cause these taxpayers to pay a tax they were never supposed to be hit with, and the expiration of the payroll tax cut is a tax hike almost exclusively on middle- and low-income families. That’s just the direct impact. Americans at all income levels will feel the pain of Taxmageddon because it will slow job creation and wage growth.

—–

 

 

—–

UPDATE: Please see a friend of ours’ post on this, as well.

BLACK METTLE:  100 DAYS UNTIL TAXMAGEDDON

 

Up In Smoke

From the Sacramento Bee online:

With California voters poised to vote next week on a tobacco tax hike, a new federal study concludes that the state has used relatively little of the billions of dollars in tobacco money it already takes in to prevent kids from smoking or to help smokers quit.

Between 1998 and 2010, just 6 percent of the money collected from a massive lawsuit settlement and from cigarette taxes went to tobacco interdiction and education programs, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week, far below federal spending guidelines for effectively curbing tobacco use.

And before anyone dismisses this as small potatoes, let’s look at the actual money that was squandered, shall we?

From 1998 through 2010, California collected nearly $22 billion from a lawsuit settlement with tobacco companies and from cigarette taxes, according to the federal report.

It appropriated $1.3 billion, including state funding and federal grants, for tobacco prevention and cessation programs during that period.

In 2010, California spent about $79 million on anti-tobacco efforts, about 18 percent of what federal guidelines recommend spending to have a significant impact on public behavior.

California’s experience reflects a national trend that shows states and local governments have used tobacco-related revenues for just about everything but curbing tobacco use.

You mean that most of the shakedown money that Big Tobacco has been paying for years, plus most of the tax revenue from the sales of tobacco, doesn’t actually go to programs to reduce tobacco use? Who’Da thunk that?

Now, contrary to some folks, I do not think that this is just an indictment of  government greed or inefficiency, although those are both undoubtedly true. No, I think this has more to do with the fact that the State of California is not in the best financial shape. The angle that I see missing in all of these reports is the same issue that we first looked at in ‘Soda is NOT the Enemy‘.

The issue is addiction: addiction to spending.

Think about it: an addict, a TRUE addict, will do or say ANYthing to get their next fix, their next drink, their next bet. When things are in control, there’s no problem. But when times are tough, they will make any promise, any claim, for more. What then is the difference between that addiction and this one?

With ‘Soda is NOT the Enemy‘, the addicted parties were the schools and their over-bloated budgets. This time it’s California’s State government, and they’re in the same bind: they actively campaign against the product which is funding a tremendous amount of their very own bottom line.  It’s almost the textbook definition of ‘Conflict of Interest’. It also shows that they’re addicted to the money just like a junkie is to heroin.

The ultimate lesson that I can see is that giving them more money (“…just this time, we promise. Swearsies!“) won’t make it all better, no matter how desperately the addict pleads for it. They can’t be trusted.

The addict needs what ALL addicts need.

So how, exactly, does one enroll an entire government in Spenders Anonymous?

Problem? Inconvenience? (Or Just Dog Puke?)

Problem?  Or inconvenience?  My husband growled that the dog had puked on the rug (again).  I mildly pointed out that this was not a “problem” in the grand scheme of things…only an inconvenience.  He didn’t take that very well.  But he and the baby went for a walk.

And I started thinking: the “problem vs. inconvenience” dichotomy is not my original idea.  Some of you will recognize it as belonging to a wise little story from Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten).

And there is truth in it.

But today it seems as if the inconveniences proliferate to the point where we are overwhelmed, and we have no time and energy left to think about–much less deal with–the big PROBLEMS out there, like the escalating national debt and the taming of the welfare state.