Confused? The Fiscal Cliff Explained

Are you confused about what the fiscal cliff is? Okay, here’s how we got there. Obama caved to the Republicans. Now the deal is going through. Anyway, click on the link below for what the fiscal cliff is.

fiscal-cliff-explained-spending-cuts-tax-hikes

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Here’s How Iceland Engineered an Economic Recovery. A Lesson President Obama Can Learn

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The Robin Hood Tax

The time has come for a sales tax on Wall Street transactions. Such a thing will curb investment for short term profits and decrease the pressure CEO’s have to move jobs overseas. Stop the Trans Pacific Partnership, the biggest free income redistribution trade treaty ever for the USA. It’ll be a massive tax on the middle class, as more of their jobs and tax base are shipped to third world nations, like Vietnam.

New Balance shoes are still made in the United States. However, the Trans Pacific Pact may eliminate or lower tariffs on products exported to the USA. New Balance executives fear lowering those tariffs will compel them to ship their remaining US jobs overseas.

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Republican Senator Mitch McConnell Wages War Against the Aged and the Infrimed with lies, and all on behalf of the one percent

The poster says almost everything. There is one important thing it doesn’t mention. That $2.5 trillion in the Social Security Trust Fund is invested in US Treasury bills and earn roughly $118 billion a year in interest. That means when the corporate news media reported that the Social Security Trust Fund paid out $42 billion more in benefits than it took in via tax receipts during 2010, they didn’t tell you the truth. That’s because if you took into consideration the interest paid on the $2.5 trillion, you would need only take $118 billion, then subtract $42 billion, to discover that the Social Security Trust Fund had a $76 billion surplus that year. A lot of Democrats are in on this “short change the public on information regarding social security conspiracy,” such as Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden.

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A tax on Wall Street transactions makes sense

Here’s why a tax on Wall Street transactions makes sense. These transactions influence CEO’s to ship jobs overseas. CEO’s want to attract more investors into purchasing their stocks. That way, the stock price goes up and the CEO looks like a million or more dollars. But if more investors sell the stock, CEO’s look incompetent. It is mostly these loser CEO’s who are forced to ship jobs overseas. The difference between the old wages and the new lower wages goes into the pockets and shareholders as rising corporate profits, surging dividends and rocketing share prices.

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Stop the Corporate Media War Against the US Postal Service

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Warren Buffett Again Writes “Tax the UltraRich!”

Warren Buffett wrote on November 25, 2012 in the New York Times, “Between 1951 and 1954, when the capital gains rate was 25 percent and marginal rates on dividends reached 91 percent in extreme cases, I sold securities and did pretty well. In the years from 1956 to 1969, the top marginal rate fell modestly, but was still a lofty 70 percent — and the tax rate on capital gains inched up to 27.5 percent. I was managing funds for investors then. Never did anyone mention taxes as a reason to forgo an investment opportunity that I offered.

Under those burdensome rates, moreover, both employment and the gross domestic product (a measure of the nation’s economic output) increased at a rapid clip. The middle class and the rich alike gained ground.

So let’s forget about the rich and ultrarich going on strike and stuffing their ample funds under their mattresses if — gasp — capital gains rates and ordinary income rates are increased. The ultrarich, including me, will forever pursue investment opportunities.”

Buffett doesn’t suggest what is obvious. Tax cuts for the rich destroy jobs, which I’ve shown how in numerous articles in this blog and in my book, The Rigged Game.

Click below for the full op-ed by Warren Buffett.

Warren Buffett Writes "Tax the Ultra Rich." New York Times

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Republicans Against the Constitution and the US Postal Service

The US Post Office is heavily unionized. That’s why Republicans hate the postal service and its employees. In 2002, it was discovered that the Postal Service was wildly overpaying its retirement obligations to the tune of $71 billion. Not surprisingly, it soon began advocating for ways to use some of that excess. One bill passed that did almost nothing to solve the problem. Later bills that would have fixed the problem, however, all ran into the same stumbling block: they would have ostensibly added to the deficit. And the Bush administration was adamant that it would veto any bill that wasn’t deficit-neutral.

The US Postal service receives no government funding, but it has a large labor union, and it is a constitutionally mandated government agency, so in an attempt to kill the postal service, Republicans devised a new mandate in 2006 — for the prepayment of health benefits for future retirees, with the Postal Service being forced to pay between $5.5 billion and $5.8 billion annually. The money simply goes into an escrow account, where it is invested in special issue Treasury securities. Thus does it somehow magically help with the deficit. Also, of course, no sooner did the bill become law than first class mail began to fall off the cliff. The prefunding requirement became a noose around the Postal Service’s neck.

Incapable of simply letting the Postal Service go free — imagine what that would do to the deficit! — Congress continues to micromanage it, offering various ways for it to cut costs and raise revenue. The Postal Service, for instance, wants to cut Saturday delivery to save money; a Senate bill passed in April defers that decision for two years. But at least the Senate bill offers some relief from the absurd prefunding of health benefits. It would also return some of the excess retirement funding.

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The Wisdom of Mark Twain

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What’s this? Senator Lindsey Graham is latest Republican to disavow tax pledge

Has Senator Lindsey Graham gone insane? He is committing treason against the Grover Norquist Republican party by disavowing his pledge to cut taxes. In other words, he is putting his country ahead of his political party. “Graham said: “‘I will violate this pledge, long story short, for the good of the country, only if Democrats do entitlement reform.'” Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss disavowed the pledge of Grover Norquist a few days back, in favor of the pledge of allegiance to the flag and all that it stands, which has nothing to do with Norguist.

Entitlement reform is interesting if only because the Social Security Trust Fund has a $2.5 trillion surplus, which collects $118 billion a year in interest. Naturally, the senator, along with a ton of Democrats, want to reduce the standard of living of the aged by cutting their SS payment.

Check out the complete story below.

Senator Lindsey Graham is latest Republican to disavow tax pledge–Guardian-UK

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